About the book: year / Pro Chulaki and the "Funeral Festival"Posted by: listva, http://www.listva.net/archives/92About two decades ago Neva magazine published a new story by Mikhail Chulaka, “The Funeral Festival.” Before that, I had already tasted Chulakin’s eternal bread, listened to the tenor, visited the Five Corners and the green Pryazhka. “Neva” revealed wonderful writers to the readers of that time, although I did not consider Mikhail Mikhailovich a master of words at all. And even a real writer. Average things, written in imperfect language, but somehow... honest. Because he wrote about what he knew; It seems to me that only talents and geniuses can put non-personal experience into polished, harmonious phrases. Chulaki is not a genius or talent. But something in his lyrics always caught me. However, I know this: sincerity and his own personality, shining through the lines. Plus life experience: a psychiatrist by training once trained lions:) Then everything was much worse: when he took up journalism and opportunistic literature in the spirit of the times (example: the disgusting “Borisogleb” and a couple more scribbles). Along the way, I was looking for God, as usual... I can still understand journalism - Chulaki was a man of civic position and tried to participate in the ups and downs of the troubled times of the damned 90s as best he could. And about the Borisoglebs, I think that this was not written by the author of “The Feast of Funerals” and “Eternal Bread,” but by some other person whom I don’t know and don’t want to know. There are many of them, and no one knows about them. Now, at a time of complete burning and total graphomania, Chulaki could shine in all sorts of tops and ratings, and I would sincerely feel sorry for him. So, “Funeral Holiday”. A story written by an imperfect pen about imperfect people. Ordinary. But why is it so catchy? I gave the magazine to many people: from teenagers to retirees. And no one remained indifferent. Nobody. When the magazine was worn out and lost, and I never bought the book, so I began to look for the text on the Internet, but it was not there and was not there, but suddenly I found Chulaka’s personal website, where there was no “Holiday...” either, only an obsessive Borisogleb and some other sloppy confusion, but the author’s email was revealed. That's what I wrote. So, they say, and so, Mikhail Mikhailovich, how to get the “Festival of Funerals”? He answered me a day later, a good letter from an intelligent person to the core, and said that he would definitely post on the website what I was asking for. And so it happened. We exchanged a few more letters, some kind of good connection developed between us, I was lucky, he was so smart, unpretentious and well-mannered. He answered my questions, asked his own, and I couldn’t believe that it was his pen that scribbled the notorious Borisoglebs and other Kremlin cupids. And then he died. Got hit by a car... I still have his letters in my old mailbox. And on his abandoned, almost inaccessible and half-empty former homepage (I spent an hour looking for it, although the search engine is a great one, he has such talent) still lies half-covered with dust time "Festival of Funerals". I am proud that without me he would not have been there. Because you won’t find Chulaka’s books—the very early ones from the 80s—by daylight. But they are still looking for them, I saw them myself. I’m also looking, so far without success... An imperfect text about imperfect people. It turned me - and absolutely everyone to whom I recommended "Holiday..." - inside out. I don’t know how it will act on hearts, minds and souls now, in a time of extreme egocentrism, Ksyushsobchak, childfree, total consumption and the desire for any success at any cost, tartines with caviar and tastier spectacles. But I don’t want to say at all that time is bad, no, it’s just different.