- When you got a job on television, were your political views the same as they are now, or were they formed due to what you saw there?
- I have always treated the ruling regime very carefully, I understood that they were pursuing their own interests, deceiving the population, trying to imagine that they were adopting laws for the common good. But there I became more interested in politics, because I sat and watched the news all day and discussed them with TV presenters. In a relaxed atmosphere, we sometimes drank and talked over a glass of brandy after the broadcast. They told me not at all what they said in front of the camera. This gave me the opportunity to understand how everything works in Russia. In the first years of my work at Rossiya-24, I was shocked by the cynicism with which the employees treated their work. Everyone, of course, perfectly understood that they were engaged in misinformation of viewers. So, on the technical channel, discussions were constantly taking place on the subject of how best to present this or that news,the most incredible mutually exclusive versions were often offered. The favorite joke of directors and TV presenters was the words "now it's your turn to lie." This is how the reporters were addressed before they were broadcast.
- So you weren't a black sheep, a dissident? Are there many people with such views?
- Yes. I think that the majority understand everything perfectly. People who hold pro-government views are rather an exception. Some are trying to pretend to be Putin's patriots. I don’t know: maybe they are playing for the audience, maybe in fact they are. But the majority are normal people, just by the will of circumstances they fell into this orbit, are forced to somehow spin and earn their living in this way.
- I often heard from TV people that it is worth changing the government, and the same people who praise Putin today will throw mud at him with the same enthusiasm.
- I think the same. If the government changes, they will say something completely different the next day. Many people are addicted, forced to say what they are ordered to say. After all, the salaries at VGTRK are simply ridiculous. If a person for some reason begins to behave incorrectly, they simply begin to pay him the salary that is written in the contract, and that's it. He will either leave or ask for forgiveness. Management has leverage over employees. Many have loans, many have come from other regions, bought apartments in Moscow, they need to pay for the mortgage, so they hold on to their places and are forced to behave as required of them.
- Some have funny salaries, while others have huge ones. Sergei Brilev bought an apartment in London for hundreds of thousands …
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- Property stratification is, of course, colossal. Some TV presenters arrive in luxury vehicles with a personal driver. They also have additional sources of income: for example, they are often invited to corporate events as hosts. And the cameraman had a salary of about 45 thousand, on hand 42. The work is quite intense, it took a lot of effort. There are employees who received even less. At the same time, official salaries at the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company are absolutely insignificant, even by Russian standards. So, in 2015, the official salary of a television operator was 6860 rubles. Not a day, but a month! It is clear that no one will work for that kind of money, so the VGTRK has a cunning system of allowances that may or may not be paid if an employee starts to behave “incorrectly”. Several times I was paid exactly this amount - 6860 rubles. On this occasion, I went to court. The court considered that everything was legal.
- Surely you know the background of many curiosities that happened on television …
- The most famous is 146% in the 2011 State Duma elections. For several years I worked in the same studio with TV presenters Ivan Kudryavtsev and Anna Schneider, who announced a total of 146% of the vote in those elections throughout the country. I discussed this topic with Anna, Ivan, and Natalia Shchedrinskaya, editor-in-chief of Rossiya-24. Of course, there was no employee who received, according to the chairman of the Central Election Commission, Churov, "a warm place overseas" for this. Everything was much simpler: a distribution order came from the Kremlin to Rossiya-24 - what percentage for United Russia to show in the news. The editor-in-chief asked: "But what about other parties?", To which she received the answer: "And show the other parties the percentage they actually gained." The editor-in-chief did not argue, because the Kremlin knows better, and did everything as she was ordered. And that's how it turned out 146%.
- As a rule, a talk show is a performance in which all the roles are roughly scheduled. But after all, unforeseen failures occur there too …
- Yes, there were such guests of the program who at the initial interview agreed to behave "as it should", but then on the air they began to speak as it really is. There was a major scandal in connection with the story of one of the guests of the program about the use of chemical weapons by the troops of Bashar al-Assad. The guest began to tell the truth about the production and use of toxic substances by the Syrian government forces. In a breaking voice, Chief Editor Aleksey Kazakov shouted to the TV presenter into the microphone of a technical channel: “Don't you hear what he is saying! Shut his mouth immediately. " The TV presenter immediately interrupted the expert: “Unfortunately, our airtime is limited. Thank you for the interesting interview. "Subsequently, they called from the Kremlin and made a splash. Since then, this expert has not been invited to us.
- How often do they call from the Putin administration or other departments and arrange scoffs or just explain what needs to be said?
- The chief editors were constantly called by some people from the Kremlin who corrected the content of the news. The content of the conversations could be easily guessed, since the microphone in the control room is usually turned on and all employees who have access to the technical communication channel hear the answers of the editor-in-chief. After such calls, the editor-in-chief demanded from the TV presenter to present the news in a completely different way, sometimes even completely opposite to what the same TV presenter said an hour ago.
- The plots can be adjusted due to different time zones, while they move in orbits into the European part of Russia. Does this happen often?
-Yes, the materials that did not suit the management were then wiped off. There were interviews on the air that were pretty much corrected during reruns. I remember how I recorded the debate between Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov. At first they talked very friendly, then, when they turned on the cameras, they began to swear at each other, it almost came to a fight. As soon as they turned off the camera, announced a commercial break, they immediately began to talk peacefully about their grandchildren, turned into completely different people. This is all theater, and they are actors, you cannot be offended by an actor for having such a role. I also remember an interesting case with Mikhalkov. Early in the morning, it was necessary to urgently record his answers by phone to questions on some matter. They called Mikhalkov, but it turned out that he was on a scheduled plane,which is already on the runway, waiting in line for takeoff. The editor-in-chief promptly phoned the Kremlin, and the flight was delayed by half an hour. Of course, I was shocked that just so that Russia-24 could interview someone by phone, they took and delayed the departure of a civilian plane.
- Much depends on the operator. Who can be shown advantageously and who cannot. Does Russia-24 have rules on how to show some presenters or guests?
- The operator does everything at the director's command to meet the parameters approved by the management. In the seventh studio of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) on the wall hung two or three dozen photographs taken from the TV screen and approved by the management. The image broadcast by the cameraman had to strictly correspond to one of these photographs. The director told the operator, for example, "the second camera is an eight". It was necessary to make the plan, which we called the G8, in order to correspond precisely to this approved model. At first, I didn't really understand why all this was needed, because sometimes there were plans that did not look very beautiful. Once, one of the employees slightly moved one of the decoration elements. Soon, the main director came running, gave us a break and gave a whole lecture on why nothing in the studio should be touched:"What do you think, all these squares, rays of light are here for beauty?" (And we naively thought so.) It turned out that everything is not so simple: according to the chief director, the design of the studio was developed by leading psychologists in order to influence the viewers at the subconscious level. Even regardless of what a person says, if you just sit and watch TV with the sound turned off, it still somehow affects the person.if you just sit and watch TV with the sound turned off, it still somehow affects the person.if you just sit and watch TV with the sound turned off, it still somehow affects the person.
- But as? After this clarification, you probably tried to understand how and what affects?
- I discussed this topic with a psychologist friend, he told me that visual images can affect this way. The picture somehow evokes trust in what the person on the screen says.
- Is it just about the design of the studio or about the angles, how to show a person?
- This is both: the design of the studio, and a certain angle.
- Is the loyalty of employees monitored? Didn't you have any problems?
- I was summoned by the assistant of the chief operator, asked to remove the materials from Facebook, from my page. I expressed my opinion on relations with Ukraine there. It was not in line with the official point of view. I had to delete, and the conflict ended there.
- You wrote in the statement of claim that you were not granted leave. How can it be?
- In VGTRK everything is very cleverly arranged: in order not to give employees a vacation, and also to constantly extort money from them, I and other employees were fired every year, and the next day they were hired again (not for free, of course). I have all the work book and the insert to it are covered with stamps from the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. I haven't been on vacation for seven years in a row. I applied to the court on this matter, but the courts of all instances (including the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation) recognized the failure to grant leave for seven years in a row legal. My case is not an isolated one, and seven years is far from a record. I know an employee of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company who has not been on vacation for ten years in a row.
- And how did they extort money from you?
- When I tried to get a job on the channel "Russia-24", I immediately heard from one of the employees: "You got to the planet of Russian Television, and on this planet it is customary to pay for everything, including for a job." I was told that the issue of my employment could be resolved, but that it would cost money to resolve the issue. I had to give the management my salary for the first month of work, about 23 thousand rubles. I had to agree. An employment contract was signed with me for one month. A month later, I received my first salary and gave it all, after which the employment contract with me was renewed. I worked at Vesti for many years, until the new chief operator doubled the amount of “kickback” for the extension of employment contracts for some employees, in particular for me, due to my pre-retirement age. “If you don’t pay, we will fire you,and you won't find any job at your age. " Of course, this is not such a big amount. I could find her and continue to work at the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, but by that time I was just tired of looking at Putin's lackeys and listening to their lies for days. Employees often made fun of the TV presenters: “How so, after all, you told the viewers something completely different an hour ago?”, To which they received the answer: “And now we say this. What can you do - we have such a job! "“And now we say this. What can you do - we have such a job! "“And now we say this. What can you do - we have such a job!"
- Recently, Ekaterina Andreeva admitted that she does not watch TV at all, because she spares her nerves. Are you still a TV viewer after retirement?
- Honestly, I have two TVs, I gave them both. Now I don't have a TV at all, I only watch news on Internet channels. I have absolutely no confidence in Russian television. I advise you not to turn on the TV.
