Nick Perumov: ‘Kazan has been restored. The Kremlin looks like a bauble now’

America still has more good roads simply because there is better climate

Nick, now you're on tour around the Russian cities with the presentations. What do you think about modern Russian cities?

I really like Russian airports! Over the past year, I've been in the airports of Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Samara, Voronezh, — it is very clean everywhere, neat, delicious food, modern design. I've seen the airports of Europe and America. The Russian are not inferior. There is no such horror that I remember as a child. When I flew as a kid in the 1970-1980s, it was a nightmare. Though there were more planes. Everything was dirty, shabby, no matter where you were flying. I don't know what went wrong, why it was so. Perhaps, because the Soviet Union was feeding half of the world? Perhaps, if it hadn't fed the countries that chose the socialist path of development, we would have such airports in my childhood, not 50 years later.

And what about the cities?

I had an opportunity to see Kazan. It has been made spotless, restored. The Kremlin look like a bauble now. The Mosque look like a Christmas tree.

Moscow is changing for the better, I think. And St. Petersburg, too. I lived all my life in the center of St. Petersburg. I remember it gray, dusty, trampled. The Mikhailovsky Garden near the Russian Museum was almost a wasteland with few trees. I remember the Rossi Pavilion on the Moika embankment in the Mikhailovsky Garden: tightly boarded up, stripped, with chipped plaster, painted with a swear word. Now everything has been restored, put in order.

Yes, in my time it was possible to buy a bread quarter for four kopeks. Now these stores are closed, but from courtyards, under my window, there is no a stinking cesspool anymore, which was there all my childhood, all my school and university years. I used to look the window of my nine-meter room and saw crumpled cans and splashed dregs around. I saw them every day, coming home from school. So, yes, I see positive changes.

'If they have managed to recover, to restore now, under the current regime, whose flaws are more than enough, why this could not be done in the most fair in the world Soviet system?! Why the pearl of the Russian baroque was crumbling, falling apart for many decades?' Photo: allpeterburg.ru

All my childhood, my mother and I walked past tightly boarded up dusty Church of the Savior on Blood and wondered: would they restore it by the Olympic Games 1980 or not. They did not. It was closed by eternal fence, gray due to the rain forests. They did nothing. Now this Church is beautiful, now it really looks as it should look like. The acts of the sovereign are all listed in full compliance with the history, even the prints of a German shell at one of the plates have been preserved as a memory. I like it. If they have managed to recover, to restore now, under the current regime, whose flaws are more than enough, why this could not be done in the most fair in the world Soviet system?! Why the pearl of the Russian baroque was crumbling, falling apart for many decades? Mosaics, frescoes were took away by boys who climbed there… Why it was impossible to do with all huge resources that the country had?!

What is better in Russia than in America now, and vice versa?

The following things are better in Russia than in America: public transport, trains, civil aviation pilots. The pilots of US do not care about the passengers: turbulence is turbulence, it doesn't matter. The Russian pilots try to fly carefully, hold softer. I fly a lot in America, I can compare. Here, the air shakes are so terrible that you bid farewell to life every second. If you ask a stewardess: 'Excuse me, why was it shaking so strong?' 'What do you want, there are mountains, it always shakes like this, we are all accustomed to. The plane will not fall apart, be calm.' Here in Russia, though I flew even from so-called provincial airports, the pilots have always been very careful, and if there is turbulence, they immediately changed the horizon, went above or below, although I know that they need to save fuel.

America still has more good roads, simply because there is better climate and 90% of the country has no problems with snow, cold, frost, and other things. Any ice destroys a road equally — either capitalist or Soviet.

'Verizon gathered blacklegs from across the country, they were sent to the striking north-east of the country'

In the United States the wages are higher, but the workers in Russia are protected much better. Because in America they destroy the last remnants of the labour unions. Recently there has been a strike of employees of American telecom giant Verizon. From across the country Verizon gathered blacklegs, who were sent to the striking north-east of the country. It's not like that these people were blacklegs by their belief, no. They just said that if you didn't come to work, we would fire you. But they have children, mortgages, loans… People shrug and said: sorry, John, I'm sorry, Fred, I'm sorry, Mary, but I can't lose my job. However, the strike has ended successfully, and the owners of the company have made concessions. They failed to disband the labour union. They sought that new employees did not join the union, gave a pledge not to join the labour union. It was recognised illegal.

'In America, they destroy the last remnants of the labour unions. Recently there has been a strike of employees of American telecom giant Verizon. From across the country Verizon gathered blacklegs, who were sent to the striking north-east of the country.' Photo: gazeta.ru

How did people react to the strike? Who did people support — the labor unions or employers?

People were divided. Those who did not have labour unions, were jealous and believed that if they did not have them, then others should not show off. In fact, the workers, who belong to unions, have a huge advantage in America. For example, pilots, flight attendants, aviation mechanics… They have a strong union, they attain themselves large salaries, and the owners of the airlines, when they increase ticket prices, usually say: it is all because of the union, it's because they again threatened to strike, and you, our dear customers, may not to fly away, and sit down for a week at the airport. There's nothing we can do, we have to make these grabbers concessions.

So, they are killing the image of labour unions?

Yes. They really misrepresent them as self-seekers who think only about themselves. But the owners of the company, they say, share their shares with everyone, give the employees a pension plan, take care of the common goodness of customers. As they say, 'we try to be a socially responsible business'.

'In America, middle class is rapidly shrinking, wealth is falling, it is becoming more and more poor people'

What are the salaries in the US?

I can say this: in New York, one person without family can live with great difficulty for 6 thousand dollars a month. Because, first, you pay 2 thousand dollars of tax, it is one third. Second, you pay two and a half thousand for rental housing — this is a small room with a total area of 20 square meters, a studio. Only millionaires buy apartments in New York. After payment of all obligatory payments you'll have about $ 700-800.

At the same time, a salary of 6 thousand dollars a month is considered to be very high in New York. I am telling about my eldest son, who has got his first job in New York.

'Only millionaires buy apartments in New York. After payment of all obligatory payments you'll have about $ 700-800.' Photo: forumdaily.com

What about the minimum wage?

The minimum hourly wage is 7 dollars and 15 cents. It's a lot below the poverty level, below the level of physiological survival. These people are in the perpetual loop of poverty.

From the editor: the staff of American fast food chains have been conducting a protest campaign under the slogan 'Fight for $15' for the third year. Basic requirements of the campaign: to raise the minimum wage of employees of fast food chains up to fifteen dollars an hour, to improve working conditions and to remove all obstacles to unionizing.

What is an average salary?

$21-22 thousand a year ($1,8 thousand dollars per month). In America, middle class is rapidly shrinking, wealth is falling, it is becoming more and more poor people. America is a USSR of 1975 now. But only instead of the privileged class of workers and peasants there is the privileged class of national and sexual minorities. They are drugged by the ears in the schools, in the same way they are given quotas for admission to universities and it doesn't work likewise. Because what comes for free or with minimal effort is not appreciated. As we did not appreciate free education, and in America those people, who gets it for free, they do not value it. A huge number of people coming through the social quota leave the institutions.

'I don't live in America, I rent a house here'

You live in America, but in the books about Molly you show the Anglo-Saxon civilization negatively. There is a contradiction, isn't it?

I don't live in America, I rent a house here. Turgenev lived in Paris. Did he become a French writer? Is he under obligation to France? I am quite loyal to my North Carolina. Local taxes that I pay go to schools, where my children attend, for the police, who greets me. It's a very different America. This is an America that we all can understand, with whom we have no special disputes, where people do not care about Crimea, the main thing is that we put missile not in Cuba. With them, we would have found a common language. But the elite — Imperial, Anglo-Saxon, — it has taken over the heritage and the rules of the 'big game'.

Do you have the right to vote in the US?

No, I have a residence permit in the US, I am a citizen of Russia. I could vote in Russian elections, but for this I have to go to New York. In North Carolina, alas, they do not open a polling station.

By Yulia Ryzhenkova (solidarnost.org)