My First Book in Russian: The Chicks - Two Years Later

My first visit to Kazakhstan coincided with the first book I ever read in Russian. Even though I studied Russian for nearly 12 years, the only things I ever read were textbooks and autobiographies.

Now I decided to give it a go and actually try to read a novel in Russian. Of course, as ambitious as I am, I started from the top, and by the top I mean the only book by Dostoyevsky I haven't read - Idiot. Very soon (by very soon I mean the first 5 pages) I realized that Dostoevsky is a challenge I am not ready to face without a dictionary, so I passed on to something lighter - Sergey Minaev's Videoty - the sequel of his famous novel The Chicks. I read The Chicks several months ago in Bulgarian and I was quite impressed by Minaev's style. Of course, he is vulgar, brutal, and sometimes insensitive, but hey, he is talking about the "values" and "morals" of contemporary society. He ought to be vulgar, brutal, and insensitive, as this is the world we are currently living in.

In Videoty we meet Andrei Mirkin two years after the unfortunate AIDS incident. Mirkin has spent the last two years in Holland, living a trivial existence with a girl named Helen. However, when his friends Anton and Vanya call him with an offer to lead his own TV Show on Moscow's most popular TV channel, Mirkin instantly catches the plane and returns to his ordinary life - drugs, alcohol, forgettable nights, expiration dating, and shallow girls. Soon, however, Andrei realizes he is not the guy he used to be 2 years ago. Mirkin despises the TV show he leads; he condemns the public media and the tools it uses to control the masses. Andrei indulges in his former lifestyle only to discover he feels lonelier than ever. Being a TV star and having many followers and imitators doesn't translate into happiness. When meeting Natasha Andrei feels it is time for him to change. However, is he capable of leaving behind his old habits and entering into an honest and loyal relationship?

Minaev cleverly compares contemporary society to video idiots (hence the title Videoty). We are controlled and possessed by the mass media sometimes without even realizing it. All the endless TV shows work towards identity and conformity (in the negative way). We are told what to listen to, how to dress, how to act, how to look like. If you are different - you are weird. If you are different - you are an outcast. We've become video idiots - slaves of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. We have more than 500 friends, yet no one to go out and have a cup of coffee. We can talk endlessly on Skype, yet somehow when we go out we have nothing to tell each other. We have replaced real hugs with virtual teddy bears; real kisses with virtual ones. The test of a real relationship is whether your significant other has admitted to the whole world (IN FACEBOOK) that you are together. Of course, you realized you are dumped also thanks to Mark's genius invention.

In this abyss of digital information it becomes harder and harder to find this one "special" person out there for you. When a girl dies in his studio, Andrei is devastated. He realizes his life (and the life of the people around him) is pointless. Fame and adoration are temporary, youth is fleeting and Mirkin doesn't have anything permanent to stick up to. Anything but Natasha.

If you liked Minaev's style in the first part, you will be even more enthusiastic about this second part. We meet Andrei struggling between his old self and his new self; between the shallowness of his life and the opportunity to enter into a brand new unexplored territory. Sounds familiar? At least to me it definitely is.

Is True, Honest, and Loyal Love Credible Today?

When I mentioned I intend to dedicate many reviews to the Russian literature, I was being very serious. However, I will jump almost two centuries ahead to present you with a contemporary Russian novel - Sergey Minaev's The Chicks.

Sergey Minaev is one of the most promising Russian authors. Every book he writes is a bestseller, every word is a precise criticism of the flaws in the modern world. Before The Chicks he has published two other novels - Dukhless denounces the defects of the satisfied society, whereas Media Sapiens shows the mechanisms used by popular media to manipulate people. Given I enjoyed The Chicks a lot, I will definitely spend some money on these two books as well.

The novel discusses some of the most pressing problems of contemporary Russian society through the portrait of a gossip writer. Andrey Mirkin is indomitable, ruthless, and manipulative and runs his own rap group. He dates two girls at one time - the ambitious businesswoman Lena and the model and PR manager Rita. His life is marked by endless partying - cocktails, clubs, reckless sex, alcohol, and drugs; until Mirkin meets the innocent Katya and falls in love for the first time. However, this encounter changes his life perceptions through a brutal face-to-face with reality. Andrey is confronted with the consequences of his carelessness, only to realize the vanity, falseness, and immorality of his way of life.

Similarly to Paulo Coelho, Minaev condemns society in the beginning of the 21st century. People have abandoned moral and ethical rules and worship only one God - the God of attractiveness. Everything has to be beautiful - botox has replaced wrinkles; how you look is more important than what you think; who you wear says more about you than what you say. Minaev proves people are getting stupider by the minute: they are fascinated by the glamourous life of the Superclass, failing to realize its shallowness, senselessness, and vanity. I love you has become an introduction just like How are you; the word has lost its value just as feelings have devalued. Thus, through the encounter between Mirkin and Katya Minaev questions: Is true, honest, and loyal love possible in this immoral and cynical world?

Do not be shocked by the vulgarity of the language in the novel. In The Chicks Minaev uses the jargon we hear on the street corner, in the cafe, and sometimes in the media to give a true, still sad portrait of the values (or lack of those) of contemporary society. People are aggressive and ruthless; they like ugliness and scandal; they do not care about friendship, compassion, and love, but about money, power, and sex. The worlds of Minaev in The Chicks and Coelho in The Winner Stands Alone are similar - worlds dominated by hedonists and consumers; worlds where everything is available, yet nothing is real and valuable.

I strongly recommend this book as a complementary reading to the Portuguese author's works. I enjoyed it even more than Coelho because it is a more faithful representation of our world. Paulo Coelho keeps up the good tone, whereas Mirkin describes reality the way it is - ruthless, vulgar, cynical, and unfair.