Screen adaptation of the work by Sergei Minaev. An excellent opportunity to get acquainted with the bestseller, if you have not read and are not going to.
The movie turned out to be glamorous and glossy with a claim to philosophy. In fact, these thoughts are already old today. Is there anyone else who is unfamiliar with the idea that many people do not know how to manage the big money that comes easily? Especially if you are young. Immediately a good apartment, an expensive car, clubs and restaurants, women changing every night, etc. Life is burned in a booze, which is comparable to earnings. And as a result, no matter how much you earn, there is almost no money.
As I understand it, the main idea of the picture is to show that the main character in the end understands that his life is such a delusion. And what does the viewer see in the end? The main character is interested in a girl who is either a bandit or an extremist. If one is replaced by another, morality is questionable. At a certain time, I am surprised at the screenwriters, maybe it’s different in the book.
It was interesting to see. Another youth entertainment movie and filmed at the level of the west.
Jeanne
Newbie | Comments: 1
Hero of our time. In every club, party, there are more than half of these party-goers, mindlessly spending their free time. They have fun, cool, at night they feel their superiority over the world, women, interlocutors, but during the day they don’t, and even during the day they don’t)). I often wondered what good can be found in this, what is the secret, what drives them, where they aspire. Everything is clear in the book, they are dependent, unable to live normally, aimless. Mummies, moral freaks
The generation born in 1970-1976, so promising and so promising. Whose start was so bright and whose life was so mediocrely wasted. May our dreams of a happy future rest in peace, where everything should have been different ... R.I.P. ... I can’t afford to have a book with the title “Combat Attacks” or “Special Forces Getting in Touch” lying in my car in the back seat. I don’t watch Brigada, I don’t like Russian rock, I don’t have Seryoga’s CD with Black Boomer. I read Houellebecq, Ellis, I watch old movies with Marlene Dietrich. And I spent my first money not on a four-year-old “beha”, like the boys, but on a trip to Paris. And I am bursting with tenderness and romance of the situation, and I feel good, like in childhood, when my mother covered me, sleeping, with a blanket. And it seems to me that the scales have swung. And that bowl of them, filled with pieces of good, fragments, resting somewhere in the depths of me, went down, outweighing all my nasty things that seemed to be dominant until tonight. Or is it all just me?
The main character is a top manager in the Russian branch of a large Russian-French company engaged in the production of canned food under the Tanduel brand. He heads the Moscow marketing department. He gets a lot of money for his work, drives an expensive car, lives in a chic apartment, and is constantly surrounded by beautiful girls. It would seem that life is good. But every day he gets more and more tired of such a life, he is constantly looking for new entertainment. He burns time and money in pretentious nightclubs and restaurants, along with the entire secular party, being intoxicated with alcohol or drugs. Over time, all this begins to seem disgusting to him, he begins to look for an opportunity to escape from all this. And only communication with the girl Yulia helps him to feel calmer at least for a while.
At one of the regular parties in a trendy nightclub, the hero meets his old friend Mikhail. He was a promoter in the USA, and now he has returned to Moscow. They start a conversation where they find a common language. It turns out that both of them do not like all these secular parties, where people are fake with fake feelings, talk about brands, spread gossip, secretly jealous of each other. Mikhail says that such people are also needed, they need to earn money. He tells the main character that he is going to open a new club. Almost everything is ready, you just need to invest another hundred thousand dollars. The hero decides that this is his opportunity to change something in his life. He trusts Mikhail, as everyone knows him. He finally decides to invest in this business after Mikhail helps him out in a difficult situation, when the drug enforcement officers catch the hero by slipping a bag of cocaine into his pocket.
The hero does not have a hundred thousand, so he encourages his friend Vadim to do this. He, without hesitation, agrees to contribute his share in the amount of fifty thousand dollars. Mikhail brings them to the place where the future club will be, shows the documents, inscribing them as co-founders. As a result, Vadim contributes an even larger amount, namely 75 thousand dollars. The main character stops at the amount of 25 thousand dollars, not wanting to borrow from Vadim and arguing that he is investing not for the sake of a larger share and more money, but in order to change his life.
After that, the hero goes on a business trip to St. Petersburg in order to financially audit the activities of the St. Petersburg branch of the company. The head of the branch in St. Petersburg, Gulyakin, offers him a bribe, but the hero refuses, saying that now Gulyakin owes him. Upon returning from St. Petersburg, the hero, along with Vadim, on the opening day of the new club, of which they are co-founders, go to the club, but they do not find there a new sign, no sounds of music, or even traces of construction work. The hero cannot get through to Mikhail, realizing that he is a fraudster and must have already left for America along with their money. Vadim throws a tantrum. The hero does not understand why he is so worried. Later, Vadim admits that he took all his 100 thousand from the company. Vadim begins to blame the hero for all this, that he dragged him into this scam. The hero begins to feel disgust for him, realizing that he has lost his only friend.
The hero, meeting with Yulia, increasingly spoils relations with her with his behavior and rudeness, breaking loose and gradually losing her, not realizing that only with her will he be fine. Being in a club in a drunken stupor, he talks to a homosexual who sticks to him, who is trying to win him over by talking about the spiritual. The hero only after a while realizes that he is just one of those who shoot guys in clubs. The hero starts beating him. After a while, readers realize that there is no homosexual, and he exists only in the imagination of the hero, whom the guard takes out of the club.
The next morning, the hero, waking up in his apartment, realizes that the TV shows just a white screen, in magazines all the pages are also white. He does not know where and with whom he should go to have breakfast. At this moment, Julia calls him, he is very happy with her and invites her to have breakfast, but she cannot, because she is not in the city. The hero apologizes to her for those rude words that he said to her last time. To which she replies that everything is fine and offers to talk about it at a meeting. Julia asks to meet her at the station when she arrives, and the hero says that he will definitely meet her. After he hangs up, he realizes that he never said anything serious to her.
After breakfast, the hero gets on the train, not even knowing where he is going. On the train, he falls asleep and wakes up only nine hours later, gets off at an unknown station. He finds a clearing, where he sits on a fallen tree and begins to look at the surrounding landscape. Meanwhile, it's getting dark outside. He wanders along the canvas and goes to the river with a huge railway bridge across it. He steps into the middle of this bridge, feeling small in comparison to its huge arches. At this moment, various thoughts flash through his head: about death, about childhood, about a magical flower that fulfills wishes, from which he would probably ask to return to childhood. It starts to light up. The hero lies down on the bridge and lights a cigarette. He lies and remembers all the brightest moments of his life. All this passes in his head very slowly until the moment he goes on his first business trip to Paris. After that, his life speeds up and rapidly flashes through his head, ending with the fact that he meets Yulia at some railway station, who comes to him in a red dress, and then this is replaced by an airport where the hero sits on a red suitcase twenty years ago, so how he missed his flight and does not go on any business trip.
The novel is somewhat autobiographical. By his own admission, Minaev copied the book from himself at the end of 1997, when he worked for the French company William Peters, which sells the French wine brand Malezane in Russia. The writer was engaged in this brand in particular in 1995-1998. In the novel, "William Peters" has become a Russian-French company that sells canned "Tanduel" in Russia. And 1997 turned into 2007. The protagonist of the novel is a collective image of many absolutely real people. Yulia Lashchinina, to whom the book is dedicated, became the prototype of the girlfriend of the protagonist Yulia, but in the novel Minaev somewhat romanticized her. According to the writer, this character in real life is his girlfriend.
The author does not say what prompted him to write the book, answering that he does not know it himself. Minaev explained the use of English in the titles of chapters and parts, as well as the use of two languages in the word "duhless", which means "spirituality", of two languages at once "by the desire to show his learning" and style. The Russian literary critic, critic and radio host Nikolai Alexandrov wrote about the title of the novel: “The strange hybrid word “spiritless” almost automatically evokes associations with the banal word topless. It, by the way, is quite consistent with the nature of the book. The subtitle "The Tale of a Fake Man" refers the reader to Boris Polevoy's well-known book "The Tale of a Real Man".
The author is inclined to explain the success of the book by the fact that he "hit the nerve of the generation." Minaev also does not deny the help of a competent PR company - his friend Konstantin Rykov helped him to promote the novel, who told Interfax that the publishing house "deliberately tested this work on the Internet in order to understand how it is perceived by potential readers." Many media put forward the version that the book is a Kremlin project (pointing in particular to an episode of the novel in which Vladimir Putin appears in the dream of the protagonist as Batman, covering Russia from all troubles with his wings), but Minaev could not understand where in the novel there can be an order, and what it consists of.
The book appeared on store shelves on March 7, 2006 and became a bestseller over the next 11 weeks of sales. The first printing of the book (10,000 copies) was sold out in a week. According to Alexander Grishchenkov, press secretary of the public relations and PR department of the AST publishing group, “they did not expect such a success, the book was snapped up in just a few days, the circulation had to be reprinted.” In the rating from March 27 to April 2, 2006, the book took a solid second place in sales in the trading house "Moscow" among hardcover fiction, second only to the book by Nick Perumov "War of the Magician. Volume 3". In April 2006, the novel appeared in the online store Ozon.ru and immediately hit the bestseller list. AST called Duhless "the most successful launch" in the history of the publishing house.
The address of the publishing house "AST" was addressed by the company "S. B. A. Music Publishing, which is the representative of EMI Music Publishing Ltd in the Russian Federation and the CIS countries. The gist of the claim was that "the book contains lyrics by Lou Reed and The Smiths - three songs copyrighted by EMI and S. B.A. Music Publishing” on the territory of the Russian Federation and the CIS countries. The damage was estimated at 1 million rubles, moreover, “S. B. A. Music Publishing demanded that the book be removed from retail sale. In addition, "S. B. A. Music Publishing also sent letters to stores that sold the book Duhless, such as Moskva and Bookbury. The company demanded one hundred thousand rubles from the stores. At the time of the trial, Minaev's book was not included in the mailing lists. But in stores, she was still on the lists of top sellers.
Over the past six years, "Duhless" has been re-read by me three times. The last time was timed to coincide with the preparation and gathering of one of the book clubs in Rostov, where there was a separate event dedicated to discussing this book. It’s not even worth saying anything about how much I liked this creation, because books are not read just like that. Although usually, when people hear about how many times I returned to a book, they fall into a stupor, disgusted with both the work and the author. But in fact, the book is far from being so simple. Let me break down all its advantages point by point: one. Easy to read. In our time, so many modern authors, owns a light pen.2. Most of the characters have a subtle sense of humor, which sometimes makes it impossible to stop smiling.3. There are a lot of arguments in the book with which one can disagree and discuss.4. The book is extremely relevant even now and I am very interested in how long it will remain so. 5. No matter how strange it may sound, there is wisdom, kindness and love in it. But the most interesting thing is that the book has a double, and maybe a triple bottom. Or maybe you think that there is an all-consuming emptiness at the center of the plot? Futile attempts to feel the signs of life? A story about a major who has lost his last human qualities? What if everything that happens in the book is just a satirical image of our life with you and there is nothing left for us but to marvel at? Or is it all empty talk? And instead of a used car, do you always have to choose a trip to Paris? It is from all these questions that a genuine love for such a work as “Duhless” wakes up in me. Indeed, behind the very standard and obvious truths lies something big that can be disassembled for hours on end with other fans of the work.
The story of how I was able to read this. I'll start with a little story from my life. I myself am from Donetsk, a city that was native to me at birth, but felt completely alienated. What can not be said about Moscow, where I moved with great pleasure. And just recently, a friend of mine uttered such a phrase that if you haven’t read Duhless, then it’s hard to call yourself Russian in full. And now, being offended to the depths of my soul, I turned on the tablet and began to read. And from that moment my indignation begins about everything written in this book. I would gladly quit, but the habit of reading everything to the end just left me no choice. While I was studying this “creation”, I learned about Sergey Minaev himself, who, unexpectedly for me, turned out to be a blogger. Shortly before this incident, in one of the disciplines I had to deal with the topic: "Internet, blogs and social networks - the future of the media." So, if all bloggers are even a bit like Minaev, the media has no future. However, I don't know what kind of blogger he is. But as a writer, you can't find worse. Previously, I spoke unflatteringly towards the writing talent of Daria Dontsova, for which I want to apologize, because your talent is many times greater than the creation of this person. Sergey seems to see everything as a masterpiece of literature, where there is a huge amount of obscenity and the more it is, the more beautiful the work. What is the meaning of the book? We have a manager named Max, who, having everything that is needed for a comfortable human life, burns his life, riding in clubs with girls of easy virtue. All this is saturated with pseudo-philosophical overtones that can cause the urge to vomit. Being in the process of reading a book, every now and then I want to understand: What kind of nonsense am I reading now and why? As a result, I want to say hello to my friend who recommended this book. It's the first time in my life I read something so terrible.
After the publication of the book “Duhless. The Tale of a Fake Man” and its film adaptation, many began to wonder: “What is spiritless?” This is a complex word, and not only in translation, it has a deep philosophical content, so it is necessary to understand its meaning.
Previously, this term was not used in Russian, but thanks to Sergey Minaev, it has firmly entered our lexicon. The concept of "duhless" and its meaning will be discussed in the article.
The word itself consists of two parts “spirit” and “less”, the first part of the word is spirit, spirituality, soulfulness, and the second is a borrowed English word that means “without”. So how do you understand what "duhless" is? Translated into our language, this word is interpreted as lack of spirituality. It has become very popular among young people and is often used in the media, Internet slang, and cinema.
The synonyms of the concept are the words: baseness, unbridled consumption, moral emptiness, soullessness, a general decline in morals. It is these qualities that are now very inherent in society. That is, there was a reassessment of values, which are also actively promoted.
According to the plot of the book by Sergei Minaev, two films were made.
But in order to finally understand the philosophical meaning of the concept of "duhless", it is necessary to plunge into the world of the novel. So, what is duhless and its essence through the eyes of the author?
The protagonist heads the marketing department in the Moscow branch of a large company. He earns good money, lives in an expensive apartment, drives a luxury car. He is successful: his life is successful. A young man in nightclubs and secular parties and is increasingly immersed in alcohol and drug intoxication. But for some reason, every day he gets more and more tired of everything, the reality surrounding him becomes disgusting, and the idea comes to his head to find new entertainment. Perhaps he is thus trying to find a way to break out of this vicious circle. After all, he can feel calm and peaceful only when he is next to his girlfriend.
According to the plot of the novel, the protagonist is set up by drug enforcement officers, having planted cocaine, he learns what a betrayal of a friend and fraud is, sees how low a person can fall for the sake of money and greed. The guy even manages to ruin his relationship with his girlfriend, because he constantly takes out his anger on her. It becomes difficult for him to communicate with others.
And one fine morning, the hero realizes that everything that surrounds him is empty, like a white sheet. Everything in his life is frivolous. A young man gets on an electric train and goes in an unknown direction, the hero gets off at an unfamiliar station, wanders through a strange area, finds a clearing, sits on a fallen tree and begins to think about life ...
He is lost both in the world and in life, wandering without a goal, imperceptibly finds himself on a huge railway bridge. The hero comes to his middle and his thoughts lead to thoughts about death and about childhood, to which he would like to return. And only the best moments come to mind ...
The novel, according to the author, is autobiographical, but Minaev does not tell what exactly prompted him to write the book. The creator explains the use of English in the titles of chapters and the work itself as a desire to show his style and education.
Critic and Russian literary critic Nikolai Alexandrov wrote in one of his notes that “duhless” is a strange hybrid that is associated with the word topless. According to him, the nature of the book corresponds to this type of exposure completely.
The main theme that is touched upon in the novel is ridiculing the cult of careerism and money in modern society. These concepts and success, according to the author, are completely different concepts. Of course, it is necessary to strive for success, but it is absolutely not worth exalting a career and making it the meaning of your whole life.
Perhaps that is why the writer believes that the main character is wasting his life, burning it through. He is trying to break out of this circle, but the attempts are futile, as the young man is afraid to take responsibility and do things that are not dictated by his society. The character looks overly capricious and empty person. The author believes that only love can save him. At the end of the novel, the hero is at a crossroads in life, but this is not the end of the road, this is just an excuse to rethink what is happening.
One of the brightest storylines in the novel is the theme of lack of spirituality. The action takes place in St. Petersburg and Moscow, but there is no difference between the capital's clubs and any other. But there is a problem of brand mania, which has taken on a huge scale all over the world, the characters also often express obscenities, absolutely not embarrassed by anyone. In addition, the novel is full of English words, the characters of the novel “talk” with them, because foreign expressions are “symbols of prestige”.
The writer portrays the managers of large corporations as stupid and small people. He believes that such personalities are confidently moving towards stupefaction, because corporate thought erases the personality, it destroys it as an individuality, eradicates subjective thinking. The author is sure that the heroes are the victims of large companies and the media, they live in a world of myths and stereotypes.
The creator of the novel compares his heroes with the characters in the works of Russian classics "A Hero of Our Time", "Woe from Wit", "Eugene Onegin". In his opinion, nothing has changed. Take, for example, Pechorin, dress him in a modern "outfit", put him at the table in the office of any company, and send him to a nightclub instead of a ball - everything is the same.
That is, the lack of spirituality, which is displayed in the novel, is actually the inner world of modern "successful" heroes. So that's what "duhless" is.
The novel revealed the character of a modern successful young man and society as a whole. The moral and spiritual guidelines of the Russian public have changed. The book clearly articulates the values of the modern yuppie (a successful young man with an excellent higher education). He lives and works in a big city, strives to make a career and achieve a position in society.
It should be noted that such a stratum of society has indeed formed in our country. They work in firms, adopt the manners and behavior, speech characteristics of Western (mostly American) young successful people, "sharpened" for a career and money.
The values of Russian yuppies are:
Everything is questioned, all values are rejected, many moral principles are violated, that's what duhless means - this is a new worldview and a new lifestyle for the modern yuppie.
Shot from the film "Duhless" (2011)
The hero, full of self-criticism, self-irony and sarcasm, talks about the empty and false glamorous life surrounding him.
The story is told in the first person.
Moscow 2000s. Sitting in a pretentious restaurant with a random friend and almost not listening to him, the nameless hero reflects on the life around him and the characters that are fake and insincere. He hates all this rich and show-off public and himself, which is an integral part of it. He spends a drunken, ugly evening with a random acquaintance.
In the morning, the hero comes to the office of the company, which he calls Mordor, where he has been working as a top manager for four years. This is a French company that sells canned food. He sarcastically characterizes the activities of the staff as splurge, and the attitude of employees as in a pack of wolves. He considers himself a "prostitute", "pleasuring" the leadership. He considers business methods to be stupid and shovels, directors to be an alcoholic, and most of the employees to be superfluous and lazy. “Hypocrisy and hypocrisy are the true kings of the world,” concludes the cynical hero. His style of work is to puzzle subordinates in order to work less himself.
After giving orders to employees, whom the hero believes to be battery-powered androids, he clashes over production problems with the financier Garido, with whom he has a long-standing corporate feud. Their boss, with ill-concealed gloating, watches the squabble between employees: it is customary in the company not to cooperate, but to compete.
After work, the hero goes to a restaurant, not because he is hungry, but because it is customary. He sits down with barely familiar professional party-goers and takes part in a meaningless conversation. Looking around, he sees empty faces.
And no one here is completely happy with each other, it’s just not accepted to give out their emotions. If even for a second to give vent to our feelings, you would see exclusively curves from envy and longing of the muzzle.
Suddenly, the hero meets an old party-goer friend Misha Voodoo - "the embodiment of club culture and night fever style, a man from the top five Moscow club promoters." Rumor has it that he returned from abroad to start his own business.
Friends are glad to each other and light up all night. Unlike the empty talk of the surrounding party-goers, Misha is serious: he decided to open the coolest nightclub. He and his companion do not have enough money, and the hero is invited to become a co-investor. He promises to think about and discuss the idea with a friend.
The hero with Misha's company rolls into another club, where he is offered to sniff cocaine. Suddenly, in a toilet stall, with a drug in his hands, he is arrested by FSKN operatives. The hero has already said goodbye to freedom when Misha buys him off from the police. In a fit of gratitude, the hero decides to invest in his business. He agrees with Vadim, a top manager with whom he has been friends for seven years, to become Misha's co-investors together.
The hero wants to see Yulia, whom he has been in love with for a year. Their relationship is platonic, because the hero does not want to spoil their intimacy. The lovers are walking on the Patriarch's Ponds, Yulia convinces the hero that he is a good person, only tired and "playing the cynic", and he should notice the sea of love around him. After dating a girl, he feels better than he thinks he is.
Friends go to see the future business, where Misha and his companion show them the renovated premises. Vadim decides to invest all the accumulated money in the business. After signing the documents, the hero is in euphoria from the fact that he will soon become rich and famous and finally do what he loves.
A meeting following the results of the financial year is being held at the head office. The French leadership and regional representatives are present. According to the hero, all those present are not interested in the success of the company, but in the amount of bonuses, especially strangers. And here everyone is jealous of the Muscovites.
At that moment, a huge ball lightning hung in the room, woven from general hatred ... It can be said that hatred is the main engine of our business.
Behind the paper indicators of success are human destinies - the hero is very well aware of this: “I can imagine how many people we have rotted or fired in the name of achieving these notorious PLANNED INDICATORS.”
The hero is super-satisfied with himself and his professional, though not entirely deserved, successes.
The hero spends the evening in a new, just opened club, where everything is like everywhere else: booze, drugs, deafening music, prostitutes, half-familiar friends... Returning home alone, the hero cries from longing.
In the morning, suffering from a hangover and self-loathing, he ponders when he stopped being a real person and managed to become nothing.
... the space inside the Garden Ring is [inhabited] in the evenings by empty people. Once they were normal people... but then, at some point, they realized that it was easier to turn into characters in glamor magazines...
The hero calls the reality surrounding him and the characters “a zone” and “mummies”: “The term of your imprisonment here is not known. No one put you here, you... chose your own path. The reverse is not foreseen." Sometimes it seems to the hero that the head of this “zone” is himself, and the “mummies” are united by a common religion, the name of which is SPIRITUALITY. The hero comes to disappointing conclusions: “If people used to solve a global problem - to take place in this life, today their great-great-great-grandchildren solve the problem of how to get into this club and take place tonight ...”.
On the day off, the hero plunges into the alluring world of the Internet, completely fake, just like the real one. He tells how, among the dullness militant on the Web, he was looking for spirituality and allegedly even found it among the admirers of the counterculture and modern literature. But, having gone to a couple of meetings with them, I quickly figured out that there was no smell of spirituality here, but “... the goals of all these revolutionaries are as primitive as those of many other representatives of society. Shoot money, find new drinking buddies ... get fucked drunk with any chick ... ". The hero sadly advises: “If you see an interesting community of people on the Internet, ... in no case do not look for a meeting with them in reality. Enjoy at a distance if you don't want new disappointments."
In the Kruzhka bar, the hero meets with representatives of the underground, with Limonov's followers - the National Bolsheviks. The loud and empty speeches of adherents about the future proletarian revolution mask quite mundane desires: to socialize, get drunk for free, borrow money without return. The hero sarcastically ridicules pseudo-revolutionary loafers who only know how to criticize the regime, but do not want to work. Young National Bolsheviks try to object to him, but soon their fighting fuse fades and the gathering turns into a booze.
The hero communicates with the leader of the site of counterculturists - the drunkard Avdey. He first asks to get him a job, and not seeing a positive response, he offers to organize a website promotion business, and with the hero’s money, since Avdey himself is always penniless. Already at the exit, the leader of the National Bolsheviks, who recently called the hero a "class enemy", is trying to shoot money from him for a drink. The “enemy” is overtaken by another life disappointment.
In the morning, the hero will have to fly to St. Petersburg with an audit of the local branch. There is a suspicion that the branch management is stealing the company's money, and he will have to prove or disprove this.
Before boarding the train, the hero meets Yulia and is again embarrassed and fascinated by her, like a schoolboy in love.
On the train, he is angry and annoyed by everything: fellow travelers, food, service, and only a portion of cocaine found in his luggage returns him to a good mood. Satisfied with life, he gets off the train. They accept him as big bosses, which he is.
The hero does not like Petersburg because of its depressive atmosphere, dankness and boredom. He speaks ironically about the city and the townspeople: "The main theme of the highly spiritual inhabitants of St. Petersburg is fixation on their own significance and peculiarities." Therefore, he without sentiment refers to the Northern Palmyra.
The atmosphere of idleness, nepotism and theft reigns in the St. Petersburg branch. They fawn before the Moscow authorities and lie a lot. The hero notes the defiant appearance of large distributors and the unfortunate - small ones. Average sales representatives leave compromising information on the St. Petersburg leadership to the hero.
In the evening he meets with his friend Misha - a great original and intellectual.
Perhaps he is the only one of my acquaintances, communication with which is not built around the discussion of money, women, parties and business, and lies in the plane of spiritual dialogues.
The heroes smoke weed to the point of unconsciousness and talk about spirituality, which St. Petersburg has, but Muscovites do not. In Misha's understanding, "... this cannot be explained, it can only be felt at the level of high matters." The hero, on the other hand, contradicts his friend and claims that “this is such a semantic connection among the St. Petersburg intelligentsia. Well, you know, how drunks in the yard have a bunch of “fuck” ... And you substitute “spirituality” instead of “fuck”, which in the essence of the context is just the same thing.
Then the friends casually stroll through politics, foreign and domestic, the economy, the national idea, or rather its absence, social justice ... In a drug frenzy, the hero dreams of Russian President V. Putin in the form of Batman, paternally scolding him for smoking marijuana.
The next morning, the hero has lunch with the St. Petersburg branch director Gulyakin. They meet in the cafe "USSR" with the corresponding Soviet style, and the hero reflects on how the people of St. Petersburg love to commemorate their fellow countryman, the current President Putin, both appropriately and out of place.
Peter embraced the magnet syndrome, as I call it. Almost every Petersburger tries to attract himself (directly or indirectly, through the city) to Putin.
The hero convicts Gulyakin of theft and promises to report this to the French leadership. The Petersburger is brave, unlocks, but still confesses and offers the hero a bribe. The Muscovite refuses the money, but urges him not to steal anymore and offers to repay his debt with a favor in the future.
Gulyakin reproaches the hero that he is not like others, does not live like everyone else, and humiliates people who know how to work. In response to the accusations, the hero expresses his position in life: “... I live here, I work here, .. I love women, .. I have fun. And I don't want to go anywhere, I want all this (an honest and comfortable life) to be here in Russia... I don't want to live in a world where everything happens "because it's supposed to be." And I don't want to be like you..."
In the Onegin club, the hero and his friend Vadim put on airs like Muscovites, are vulgar and rude to others, sniff cocaine and get drunk. In a fit of melancholy, he calls Yulia in Moscow, and she comforts him. After talking with her, the hero no longer feels lonely, cheers up and the evening ends in a drunken and drugged frenzy.
In the morning, the hero reads SMS messages from Julia and he becomes ashamed of his hypocrisy and cynicism. He answers her with a heartfelt message.
I feel like the scales have swung. And that bowl of them, filled with pieces of good, fragments, resting somewhere in the depths of me, went down, outweighing all my nasty things that seemed to be dominant until tonight.
The hero’s conscientious attitude does not last long and, remembering the atmosphere surrounding him, he comes to a negative conclusion: “I don’t trust anyone, I’m afraid of everyone ... I deceive everyone, everyone deceives me. We are all hostages of our own lies...”.
On the way home on the train, the hero is sadly nostalgic for his beautiful youth, comparing it with a terrible present. He philosophically summarizes the results of the activities of his generation of 30-year-olds, believing that they will write on his mass grave: “The generation born in 1970-1976, so promising and so promising. Whose start was so bright and whose life was so mediocrely wasted. May our dreams of a happy future rest in peace, where everything should have been different ... ".
The hero meets Julia in a cafe. Because of her lateness, his jealousy and irritation, he is filled with unmotivated aggression. He accuses his girlfriend of naivety, lies and unnecessary interference in his life. He also does not spare himself: “I am a pea jester, ready to make fun of everyone, including myself. Since childhood, I quickly get tired of toys, give me something new right there. I waste my life with this daily pursuit of entertainment. I'm running away from myself, I'm bored with myself, sick and disgusting. Encourages her to run away from him without looking back, until she is bogged down headlong in the vile swamp of his life. Julia leaves, and the hero is disgusted with himself and regrets that he destroyed the best that he had.
At the exit from the club, he is beaten by homeless people and rescued by a police squad. In one of the policemen, he recognizes the operative from the State Tax Committee who arrested him a week earlier. Suspicions grip him.
The next day - the opening of a nightclub, co-owned by them with Vadim and Misha Vudu. Misha's phones are not answered, and worried friends come to the club. They are surprised by the lack of festive decoration and some deserted premises. The club is closed, and friends realize that Misha's "partner" has deceived and robbed them. Vadim falls into hysterics, accuses his friend of frivolity and irresponsibility, and leaves.
The hero goes to a club, gets drunk and sniffs cocaine. He feels bad from all the failures that have piled up at once, and he wants to forget himself.
People, I feel bad. I'm terrified. You do not see? I'm going to die here now. I will die of your indifference and emptiness. Hey, somebody, talk to me! You hear? - I yell into the hall, raising both hands up.
In a drunken stupor, he beats up a homosexual who has molested him.
On Sunday morning, the hero suffers from a hangover and depression. He thinks about how to spend the day off more intelligently, but he understands that he has no one to call, and no one wants to because of the emptiness of the surrounding characters. He leafs through glamor magazines, looks through invitations to clubs and his photos from there - it seems to him that he sees empty white sheets. Suddenly, Yulia calls him and asks to meet her from the trip in a few days. Delighted, he asks her forgiveness, and the girl promises not to remember evil.
The hero meets with Vadim in a cafe. He is hysterically looking for ways out of the trap he fell into, having lost the company's money, and offers his friend a scam to compensate for the damage. He calls on his friend to change his mind, forget everything and continue to live on, not deceiving anyone. Angry Vadim suspects him of having connections with scammers and threatens him with problems.
Realizing that he has lost a friend, the hero goes to the station, gets into a random train and falls asleep. He has a phantasmagoric dream involving semi-familiar characters who are haunting him.
And here I have a complete feeling of a vicious circle and some kind of stupid, but at the same time terrible offense that I committed.
Waking up, he gets off at an unfamiliar station, sits in a forest clearing, examines the corpse of a rat and associates the glamorous party of Moscow with it.
The hero loses his cell phone, gets up on the bridge and for the first time in many years admires the wonderful forest landscape, illuminated by the rising sun. Before him, as in a kaleidoscope, pictures of his own life, filled with emptiness and falsehood, run through. Looking at the rising sun, the hero wishes that his fire would never go out.
