Defines - understanding of far from perfect processes related to the individual and society, the private expression of which is this or that problem, even global.
Defines, arising on the basis of this understanding, the ability to accurately operate in the instability of these processes and on the cutting edge of critical situations, that are provoked by people who not so deep thinking and feeling.
So Gerashchenko - a giant, standing on the shoulders of whom, clever politicians and financiers could be see very far.
But he was more lucky, unlike, for example, of the other giant George Arcadievich Arbatov, because that giant-financier sometimes simply not enough.
Whereas giant-politician in the pond of market was just some kind of spaceship from the future...
What has helped me to touch the essence of Gerashchenko?
I think that it helped frank questions and mutual search of answers for them.
But what helped to understand this essence, to feel it, at least in part? I think, time helped, and follow-on work at tasks, partial view of which I formed at the time of our meeting.
When we negotiated about our meeting on the phone, I asked Viktor Vladimirovich, does he consider, that money as equivalent are outdated, despite the fact that majority regard its as goal, as measure of everything?
Viktor Vladimirovich thought for a moment and replied: "Of course, out of date ..."
Of course, we at once have clarified the situation, that money being outdated as equivalent, but it can not lose value as a means of circulation.
But in the economic question we were not interested.
And when I told to Viktor Vladimirovich idea of free intellectual turnover he exclaimed:
- I realized, it's for a boy from the any far Buryatia, in order that lit thought came to him, he arrive to Moscow and became the new Lomonosov!
- There is a striking feature of the geniuses, if they do something, they just make the correct, holistic, without breaking the internal structure.
- Perhaps genius is manifested in this.
Yuri Osipov told me that they at the Academy of Sciences, in the Institute Steklov, have not lost some belief and interest in the "nuggets". And sometimes they find a "nugget" in some Buryat village.
Viktor - too nugget. Because from childhood was able to use the main wealth, which was in their house.
- For me the main interlocutor, if I may say so, there were writers and literature. At that, with the excellent opportunities to use the voluminous library that we had, I was more attracted by prose, and sometimes even dramatic works, than poetry. While I understood the musicality of poetic forms, but it seemed to me that often in the narrative form can be easier to imagine this or that thought. At one time, I was struck by the beauty of the book seems to be simple, remember, Paustovsky, where he begins by describing the day of Tchaikovsky in Klin. When he goes from the entrance to the grand piano in an old house with creaky floorboards. And he has to go through so that does not creak floorboard. That it does not spoil his musical impulse or mood...
And then in the 60s appeared the writer Yury Kazakov, who too early passed away. He studied at the Institute of Literature as time almost in the studio of Paustovsky, but his word was deeper than. When in eighties years I sailed on the ship and took the stories of Paustovsky and Kazakova, again I was struck by how much sharper it was skill Kazakov than Paustovsky, who seemed was master.
Sophisticated perception of literature, of course, is the main condition of deep perception of life. Therefore, the discussion about talented people Viktor Vladimirovich also continued at a literary example.
- In Asimov's small story, happy children running around the age from seven, do not care about anything. After all, as in the barber shop, they put a cap on the heads of children, and they become literate. Then comes the crucial moment - 17 years. Again, at some point, they put on a cap on the heads of children and determine by the advanced technologies, "You're going to a baker ... You'll be fitter ... You - an engineer ..."
And one says: "I don't want to be a baker; I want to be a programmer." They said him: "You will be baker." He rebels, runs away, they caught him... And, finally, they say, "You have such a character, you'll be a programmer ..."
Or in the "New World" magazine, which I loved, were described situation in the school, in fifth or sixth grade, somewhere before the New Year the children were asked to draw a picture. They are painting, and one boy sits and not draws. The teacher asks: "Why are you not drawing?" And he asks: "Is there a black sheet of paper?" She says: "Always you have a whims. Use paper that you have." He something reluctantly draws. And then she however wondered: "Why do you wanted black?" He said that he wanted to draw a Christmas night, which on the black sheet, of course, is easier to draw: a hut, lights, steppe, and so on...
The unusual thinking, huh? And we often suppress it in the bud.
For Viktor Vladimirovich relationship of literature and life are inseparable, as evidenced by his relationships in family.
- My daughter from seven years old wanted to become a teacher, became a teacher and a good teacher. Then, she received a second degree and began working at an insurance company. Now she said: "I want to leave." I said: "Go away, do not pay attention to income. Children became adult; we will help you with your favorite profession..."
By the way, - suddenly distracted Gerashchenko. - Here is another interesting, I told her once: "Tan, read..." And she says: "I recently saw the movie..." This about question, in which form and how is perceived an information. As known in the West "Anna Karenina" is published in reduced version...
So the question arises, what will be popular in the future, Pushkin, Lermontov, or the same, Pasternak, Brodsky?
And will be poetry needed?
After all, we will need for poetry a certain mental inclination (this word Gerashchenko said in English), impulse, and understanding. I like Lermontov more than Pushkin . Although everybody says me: "The great poet Pushkin". It depends on your interior features, inclinations; I do not know what else, psychology.
And who will be reading Tolstoy, if you can watch an abridged version of "War and Peace"?
Who will read "Master and Margarita", this complicated thing, if it is possible to see the screen version?
In this monologue, Viktor Vladimirovich, and said the keyword for understanding the reasons for the formation of its depth. And the fact that he said it in English - inclination, but did not use the Russian version was stressed its importance.
Inclination, sincere attitude, the mood at an unknown depth of the problems, with which you have dealing, the ability to feel the bottom... do not leave the possibility of being mistaken in what is happening. So, when we again touch upon economic issues, he makes very clear assessment.
- There is club of developed countries in the WTO, which often keep the rules in their favor. But they this prefer not to talk...
Full-fledged in the human sense people has always featured the ability to call things by their proper names, as well as the ability to see issues, by which the perfunctory people can easily pass.
- And, of course, the question always arises, Who are the judges? .. Who will decide? .. - This was one of the regular questions of Viktor Vladimirovich, when we tried to go beyond conditions of our life, that take shape, albeit in distorted, far from perfect form.
- I know that, historically, society will be find itself and fix. But how many will be side effects?..
In this phrase of Gerashchenko, I think, is reflected his own attitude toward the future. And this attitude, of course, rests upon on his own worldview. This is perception of a man, who has found on the basis of inclination the depth, which enabled him to rise to the unconditional authority of Hercules in the financial and economic matters, and to the rare refinement, which, of course, not with all he has a chance to reveal.
But people like Gerashchenko very few in the environment those, who prefer all their life to splash in the shallows of thoughts, feelings and actions...
Therefore, his optimism will be appropriate only if people, who feel "inclination", will become much. And if they will have a choice - to wear a consumer cap on the head or independently choose their own way.
Vladimir TESLIN