Sergei Bezrukov: 200 years passed, but nothing changed

A prominent Russian actor shared his impressions of a guest performance in Minsk.

Sergei Bezrukov was interviewed by the website itogi.ru.

Did you try to tell jokes about Lukashenka in Minsk, during your recent performance there?

We performed Pushkin. You should have heard the complete silence during the dialogue between the poet and the tsar. “No politics, you, Ruslan and Ludmila singer! Got it? You are free now, Pushkin. Within the limits of the Russian State...” Almost 200 years passed, but nothing changed... I had parodies on Lukashenka since Kukly show on NTV. A criminal case against the authors of the show was initiated in 1995. It was closed later. The suit was filed by Russian politicians, who wanted to protect their honour and dignity... I quit the project in 1999, six months before the resignation of Boris Yeltsin. I thought the best time for Kukly show ended. Biting humour was changed by rudeness and insults, which I don't like.

I am out of politics today. I don't believe anybody – Bolotnaya Square leaders or the congress of United Russia party. I don’t like the law banning to adopt orphans for foreign citizens. Do you want to respond to Chamberlain? You are welcome, but don't turn children into hostages. Dima Yakovlev died four years ago. Why do you worry now, dear members of parliament? I didn't appear in videos to support presidential candidates. I restraint from it. Politicians appear and disappear, but classics remains forever. It saves. It has the truth and the soul and the national idea, which has become so popular now. Pushkin, Bulgakov, Yesenin, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Vysotsky... They live forever! I say from the stage everything  I find necessary. Do you remember the words by Cyrano de Bergerac “To pay no tribute unto Caesar, none, But keep the merit all your own! In short, Disdaining tendrils of the parasite, To be content, if neither oak nor elm -- Not to mount high, perchance, but mount alone!”