Limonov

- Well, Monsieur Limonov.

Limonov.

- Oh, well, Monsieur Limonov, again,

well Monsieur Limonov.

Limonov.

- Limonov, when you're ready,

just look at the camera and you can begin when I say action.

- Should I do it in French?

- Yes, in French. French is good.

And action.

I am an independent communist.

- Last name Limonov. First name Eduard.

Also known as Edishka, or Eddie Baby.

Born somewhere in Russia in 1944.

Known domicile in the '50s and '60s, Kharkov,

a major industrial city in Ukraine, and Moscow.

Occupations, schoolboy, hoodlum, factory worker, poet.

Emigrated to New York in the '70s.

Occupations, dishwasher, butler, poet.

Last known domicile, Eau du Turen, Paris.

Eddie, is it hard to be a writer in Paris today,

a Russian writer and an immigrant?

- Well, it's hard to be a writer anywhere.

- Is it hard to be an immigrant?

Well, for me it's good.

Writers must be thrown out of their native country.

Yes, they must be. That is my opinion.

There are two images of the Russian writer,

the dissident and the Soviet.

I was the new guy. A new type of writer.

Neither official or distant.

- If you aren't a dissident,

why don't you go back to the USSR?

- Well, some people can't imagine that anything else exists.

For me, it's not the question of,

living here or living there.

It's stupid.

"MEMOIR OF A RUSSIAN PUNK"

UKRAINE HOTEL

- And have a good night.

We need more territories!

Why go fighting

the British, the Americans, and the French for their colonies?

You can make the USSR its own colony!

At least the thriving republics

among its neighbors,

even Ukraine.

- Everything has changed in our country,

thanks to the policies of perestroika and glasnost.

And now we can finally bring people

like today's guest back to Russia.

He gained fame in the West as a writer.

And it's wonderful that he can now return

to his native country

where his novel, "We Had a Great Era," is a top seller.

I wanted to ask the author

why a man who claimed to be a dissident

is defending the KGB?

- I never claimed to be a dissident.

I was just a man at odds with the criminal code.

- I remember you from when you were still living in Moscow.

We used to know each other a bit. Doesn't matter.

What matters is that I remember a young poet with long hair,

inspired and talented.

And what I see now, if you excuse me, is a bureaucrat,

some old secretary, and it breaks my heart.

I don't care about your heart.

(television reporter speaking Russian)

It's me, Eddie, and I've returned to the USSR.

It's become much more interesting here

compared to the measured life in the West.

With the empire in ruins, the country plunged into chaos.

People can feel they are a waste of space.

The opposite is true for me.

While others are content with their boring pedestrian lives,

I tread many paths, waiting for when my time will come.

The time for a hero.

And when it comes, better to be in the motherland.

You need to live in Russia long enough

to see the pendulum of time make a full swing.

To hear the sound of its sweeping ax,

to feel a part of history.

Oh, my loving and motherly land,

I curse you with words that are banned.

For the living inside you, the dead, for the young,

for the nude, for the mad.

What the fuck do you need with a freak?

I'm a merman who lived in a creek,

born and raised a deformity

in the darkness of a city-like sea.

I live in Kharkiv, a city in the Ukraine.

I'm actually a poet, though no one here knows it.

To them, I'm just another workhorse

trudging to meet a quota.

The USSR runs on quotas,

but I abhor the dreariness of a life planned out.

I just can't make sense of it.

What am I with all my talent

doing here at this damned factory?

But that's life for a guy in Kharkiv.

You either get stabbed in a street fight

or you drink yourself to death out of boredom.

There's no third option.

- I heard the fucking letter-

- The rules of the motherland

make it difficult for its children to blossom.

I'll thank you for you.

Come to my aid and I'll light the flambeau in your name

and Russian will look in the flame,

and your purpose he will understand,

take his hat off and weep for the land.

- Father, I was wondering if Eddie went to Moscow

with poems like this, would he make it?

- This is avant garde stuff. Not for official publishers.

You know, to make it big in Moscow,

one has to be really tough.

- It's a good poem. Better than good.

You should go to Moscow, Eddie.

Moscow's gonna burst soon.

Why is everybody's so much obsessed with it?

That's such a nice setup to write, paint,

throw parties, debate.

Life is good in Kharkiv,

detached from this artificiality

and emptiness of the capital hustle.

This is good life right here.

You know, I almost envy you.

- Speaking about life, I want to share with you my latest.

Uh-huh.

- I might need some encouragement.

Don't melt away my darling star.

It's time to be as merry as can be.

Let me cross the line and go too far.

Hey, Eddie, hey.

Hey, I like the way you squint.

It's like you're trying to crack a puzzle.

I'm shortsighted.

- (blows raspberry) How do you like him?

He's full of shit.

Why did he bail out of here if he loves Kharkiv so much?

Come on.

Ah, good job.

- Here is here is some of some of my poems.

Have someone look at it.

- Oh, god, I have to say...

Okay. (chuckles)

Did you copy all of this by hand?

Me? No.

No.

My fans, some are my-

Ah, good for you.

Can you imagine that?

Oh, I don't know.

What's not to know?

It's the regime of form and-

How are you doing?

- Savenko, Savenko, should have cut lengthwise.

Not across.

Yeah, I know that now.

Was it a girl?

Among other things.

Did they lock you up?

- Yeah, my mom turned me in.

She said it was for my own good.

Look, if you're gonna do it,

do it like a man.

Get a rope or a gun.