Connected (2025) Movie Script

1
This old man is Dim.
Hes Russian
and Im American.
Weve been friends for more
than half of my life.
We met on the eve
of the Soviet Unions collapse,
when Dim was 58,
the age I am now.
Im Dmitry Zimin... I just took
appeared on a program
whose name Ive already
forgotten,
but it doesn't matter.
I happened to be born in 1933,
by the way.
Here's also an amazing thing:
He was an American, by the way,
young enough to be my son,
and we became friends for life.
His Russian is about as good as
my English,
very bad that is.
In December 2021, a week
before Christmas,
I got a call from Dims son, Boris,
he urgently summoned me
from Chicago
to Dims bedroom in a rented
apartment
in far-away Cyprus.
There, Dim told us of his plan:
at the end of the year,
he would undergo euthanasia
in Switzerland.
I asked to be buried in ski boots.
Here's the headstone, here's
the picture
and then the inscription:
this subscriber has been
disconnected.
In 1992, during a brief period
of friendship
between our two superpowers,
we built a very successful
telecom company -
VimpelCom,
It became the first ever
Russian company
listed outside of Russia,
and the first telecommunication
start-up
listed on the New York Stock Exchange,
making us both independently wealthy.
30 years ago,
connecting people, we were
looking forward
to a very bright future.
Two months after my friends passing,
Russia invaded Ukraine.
I found myself silently grateful
that Dim didnt have to see it.
He wouldnt have to witness
the horror
and atrocity I saw the Russian army
commit in the Kyiv region.
The prosperous future for Russia,
Dims country,
and America, my homeland,
that we dreamed of in the 90s
was gone.
Our story became a poignant chronicle
of the clash between
the American dream and
Russian destiny.
When I watch this footage,
I dont know what to make of it.
Had Dim given us hints about
his plans?
Could we have figured it out?
This is probably going to be
my last journey.
In September, Dim invited us to
what he dubbed his last journey.
I assumed it was just an older
man's way
of describing an adventure.
Maybe a cruise?
Dim left Russia in January 2021,
just as Russian opposition leader
Alexei Navalny was getting arrested.
For more than 12 years,
Dims family financially backed Navalny
along with other causes fiercely
opposed by their country.
In Russia, Dim was the only one
openly doing this work.
My dear Augie, you haven't
changed a bit
since the last time I saw you.
Three months before his
assisted suicide,
no one realized that Dim
had meticulously
orchestrated every detail of
his final days.
Bringing his wife, Maya, onto
the boat
wasn't easy, but it meant
a lot to him.
He also invited a friend,
a film director,
to capture footage and
leave behind
memories for his grandchildren.
You remember everything!
Plexsys systems are in the back.
Is it okay if I tell your story, Dim?
I know he would have said, Yes.
I've thought a lot about why
he chose to end
his life on his own terms,
and why he did it before 2022.
Dim had cancer, but it
wasnt terminal.
He was beginning to lose
his memory,
which terrified him.
Whats the point of living
without
my memories? Dimd ask.
But more than anything,
he feared
witnessing the outbreak of a new
large-scale warone that the US
would warn about daily that fall.
I got excited.
Can I have a cognac? A little one.
Gentlemen, cheers! My hand is
shaking horribly.
It'll stop shaking when
I have a drink.
Our story began in the '80s,
when Russia was still part
of the USSR.
Dim was a top-secret Soviet
radio engineer,
working on developing an
anti-American missile radar system.
For decades, the Americans
and Soviets
had been bitter enemies.
In the minds of most Americans,
myself included,
the Soviet Union was the
evil empire.
But then, out of the blue for us
regular folks, the new Soviet leader
Gorbachev shook things up
with the perestroika,
tore down the Berlin Wall,
and dismantled the communist
system.
Suddenly, the endless race
between
our military tech came to a halt.
Let us look forward to a future of
Clear skies.
For all mankind. Thank you.
Thank you.
We must realize that we lived under
a totalitarian regime.
A totalitarian regime cannot exist
if it has no enemies.
I think I welcomed Gorbachev from
the very beginning.
He was very appealing to me.
Gorbachev and his whole new
way of thinking.
He revolutionized politics.
I was 22, a sophomore at Stanford,
walking around the university
campus one day,
when I passed the Slavic
department door
and saw a sign advertising
an upcoming trip to the
Soviet Union.
For some reason, I was intrigued.
Just like that,
I found myself in Moscow
at the same time
that the Soviets were finding out
what perestroika meant.
There, my first deal was trading
a Walkman player with headphones
for tickets to the Bolshoi theater.
Back then, I had no idea
what the second one would
end up being.
I would say there have been three
major periods in my life.
The first period lasted 30 years.
I worked in the military-industrial
complex,
at the Mints Science Institute.
I was the deputy chief designer
of this giant
radio locator station.
Have you seen any pictures of it?
This is a radar station belonging
to Moscow's
missile defense system.
The missile defense systems
were developed under
an agreement with the Americans.
The famous Brezhnev-Nixon
agreement.
The most important event in
the development of Soviet-American
relations
was the visit of Leonid Brezhnev,
The General Secretary of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union,
to the United States.
Despite the Cold Wars fear
and tension,
back then you could still see
the Soviet Leader
and the American President
together
in the same helicopter.
I was about seven or eight
years old back then.
Ten years earlier, my parents
had emigrated
from Mexico and Colombia
to the States
with 24 dollars to their name.
This was shortly after
the Cuban Missile Crisis,
when Russia had engaged
in nuclear
blackmail for the first time.
My father, a highly trained engineer,
worked tirelessly in various jobs.
For a while, he even pumped
gas day
and night, hustling to build a new,
peaceful life for his children.
According to that agreement,
the famous Nixon-Brezhnev
agreement,
We could have one missile defense
system each.
The visit resulted in a new set
of Soviet-American
agreements, including an agreement
to prevent nuclear war.
We chose to deploy our missile
defense system around Moscow.
The Americans chose to deploy
their missile defense system,
At a place that I've forgotten the
name of, where their
missile launch facilities aimed
at the Soviet Union
were located.
It's this big field.
They were guarding this place,
and we were guarding Moscow,
which, generally speaking, was
an impossible task.
Because in order to destroy
the American missile launch
facilities,
which could withstand a
load of about
six kilograms per centimeter
squared,
only a direct hit could work.
They had a very sturdy armor.
On the other hand, all it would
take to destroy Moscow
was a single rocket being able
to penetrate.
Moscow could be destroyed with
one hydrogen bomb,
So Moscow's missile defense system
was money being thrown away,
no defense at all.
Brezhnev, senile and ill, lived in Moscow.
So we were making a city
defense system,
while the Americans,
their system was called Safeguard,
were protecting their strategic missiles.
The anti-missile system was
only made around Moscow.
Btw, despite the fact that
decades have passed,
Im not sure that all this can be told.
Although there is nothing
like that here.
Please be careful with this
information.
There was a completely stifling
climate of secrecy.
Secrecy, and sometimes ridiculous,
utterly ridiculous secrecy,
was prioritized over efficiency.
Why has the Institute
of Physics and
Technology produced so many
geniuses,
far more than the Faculty
of Physics?
I asked myself that question too,
I knew many people there.
Hell, it was the culture.
It was almost free entry.
There was a library next door.
They had a different life.
In some ways, I was jealous of them.
Of course.
You were completely classified
personnel,
as far as I know.
Totally closed off.
So you couldn't go abroad?
Of course! No way!
All secret papers in the Soviet
Union were
divided into secret, top secret and
top secret of special importance.
In order to have access to
documents of "special
importance," you had to have this form.
Wiretapping was completely official.
The whole system was shoddy:
It all came down to the fact that
before I could even call another
city from my office,
I would have to call the authorities to
say I was ordering a long-distance call.
And I was expressly forbidden to have
a non-monitored conversation
from my apartment.
Was anyone watching? Who knows?
But, in theory, yes.
I was the head of the largest
department,
Chief Designer, Doctor of Science,
I wasnt a member of Communist party.
I've never been a member.
I found it. I have a lot...
It is necessary to say, to be honest,
that to make more tanks than
the rest of mankind,
we have largely destroyed
the country.
A country, a society, first of all
deserves respect
when it creates a decent life
for its people.
When did you feel that you were
no longer a Soviet person?
August '68,
seeing our tanks in Prague.
That's when the last Komsomol
illusions ran out for me.
I realized quite clearly that my
country was led by thugs.
If we mark the brightest and
darkest dates
in our history on the calendar,
then I would mark as bright dates
the times that brought us
something like freedom - 90s.
This was the emergence of a free Russia.
Or at least a step
towards freedom in Russia.
Gorbachevs rise to power in the USSR
and the end of the Cold War
coincided with
the beginning of the telecommunication
revolution in the United States.
People on the go, busy people moving,
working, but some of them still able
to keep in touch by telephone with
business partners, customers, family,
friends, even while they're on the road.
My father's engineering instincts
had the wind at his back.
In 1983, the first commercial cellular
system was introduced in the States.
In 1990, my father and Ia young
inexperienced entrepreneur
Bought Plexsys,
a small technology company
in Corinth, Mississippi.
We used the company assets to
take out
roughly one-and-a-half million
dollars in loans.
At the same time, the new era
of peace
in the USSR meant that military radio
engineers were looking for a
way to support
themselves without state funding.
The Soviet Union still existed,
military orders had practically ended,
we werent being paid salaries.
There were also factories
other than us in this condition.
The factories were trying to find
what would
make it to market.
Flirting with any foreign companies
was encouraged.
They spat on all the secrecy,
but besides, there was no secrecy there.
We were looking for any way
to just survive.
We were engineers, after all
Were we supposed to starve?
Listen, I forgot everything, I have to get
my notes and use them as a base
Did you feel like you had to go
to work as
a street cleaner? You had a family
to support, tight?
You know I didn't. We had
some skills.
After all, radio electronics is a
pretty broad field.
I thought I'd be able to find
something to do.
At this very moment, on the other side
of the world, in a remote
suburb of Chicago,
a flamboyant Lebanese American
salesman knocked on our door.
He sold LOral cosmetics and
his name was Ed Saad.
He is driving a red? adillac
with white leather interior,
convertible,
with jewelry all over him.
I mean, completely crazy.
By the name of Ed Saad.
Do you remember Ed?
Yes!
A Lebanese American that lived
in a suburb of Chicago,
by the name of Ed Saad, came to
us and said,
Ive been reading about your
company.
Ive been reading about your
infrastructure equipment.
The Soviet Union needs your
equipment.
Your system is designed
for small cities.
Its the perfect system for Russia.
If you come, you can sell millions
of your systems in Russia.
He actually convinced my dad,
after about 2 or 3 months
of dialogue,
that we should go.
It took me about six months
to get convinced
that we should try and see what
would happen.
So the deal he made with us was:
I will charge you a consulting
fee of $50,000.
It was his fee.
$25,000 wed pay before we went,
and $25,000 we pay if we signed
an agreement.
We had to use several of our
12 credit cards
to pay the expenses. It was crazy.
We were driven by the LOreal
cosmetic
success in Moscow, my experience with
tickets to the Bolshoi, and the data:
even the landline density in
the Soviet Union
was only 17 phones for every
100 people.
Simply put, the people could
not connect
with each other!
Before boarding the PA74 Pan-American
flight
from JFK to Moscow, we wrote wills
and bought life insurance.
We decided to either become
American pioneers
in Russia or to leave our family
some money.
Alive, I had a negative net worth;
dead, I would have been worth
$1 million.
In our top-secret office Vympel - RTI
we started to get visits from foreigners.
It was completely unbelievable.
It was known that in our secret
radio technical institute,
my lab was starting to do something
different.
Where did Fabela come from?
We really latched onto the business
of cell phones.
Fabela supplied us with a base station
and a switch at his own expense.
He brought and gave us
about 15 of these phones.
When we first walked around
with the phones,
we loved it.
And he invited us to get into this
business together.
When we were going into these
institutes,
they were top-secret institutes,
and we were going in as Americans.
From our perspective, that was
extraordinary.
How in the world were we,
you know, if this had happened
three years ago,
hed be in jail, I'd be in jail
for going into these institutes,
right?
Within the first two days of meeting
Vympel,
before I even met Doctor Zimin,
it was clear that they had no intention
of buying anything.
They wanted technology.
They wanted to know what they
could manufacture.
Totally different from what Ed Saad
had told us.
Completely different.
So, we were in Moscow for seven days.
On the second day, we figured it out
that they were never going to buy.
They wanted to manufacture something.
I quickly realized that the only
reason these
50-60-year-old Soviet radio engineers
came to meet with me, a young
non-engineer
American, was because we had
a breakfast buffet.
Theyd head straight for the table,
pack sandwiches into their briefcases,
and then talk to us.
I understood they were just taking
food home, and I was proud that
we could
at least feeding someone.
Yeah, it even got to the point where
I invited you to my house.
In Khimki Khovrino,
I was so proud: I had a three-room
apartment.
I asked them: how many rooms
do you have?
They tactfully just said they lived
in houses.
And the final day, the seventh day
where we got together with the CEO,
the general director of Vympel.
He brought all the different institutes
that we visited
to start a negotiation as to how
we could work together.
At that point, we had kind of decided
if we have any potential of returning
our investment,
we need to figure out something to do.
And we said, let's see how we
can maybe
manufacture locally with Vympel.
And there was some point,
I have no idea
what it was, but there was some point
of negotiation that Doctor Zimin
was absolutely
against giving to us, absolutely
against it.
And he literally, literally in this
room of 20 people
started banging on the table
saying, no way,
absolutely not. Never going
to happen.
It was very animated as he can be,
but literally he is banging
on the table.
It was essentially decided that
we should prepare for the fact
that we, Vimpel,
a manufacturing firm,
would be operating, and to
prepare production
we should familiarize ourselves with
the manufacturer in America.
A delegation was assembled,
which Augie then invited.
In those days going to the States
was unfathomable.
The Americans were hosting.
They covered all our expenses.
They sent us a fax with the invitation,
and a special request:
to include in the delegation
the bald gentleman
who was gesticulating wildly and
pounding on the table.
So I was included in the delegation
going to America at the last minute.
All I remembered was the guy
that was doing this.
And I said, make sure, as he told you,
that he is on that list of delegates.
I want him.
And, I don't know if I told you I guess
maybe not,
but the response back was, are you sure?
He is very difficult always.
He always is going against everybody.
He was against you with the protocol.
Are you sure you want him? And
I said, yes,
I am sure I want him because I want
someone with passion.
He was the only guy that showed
any passion in our
whole visit. Everybody else was
just like that.
Augie, your invitation to America,
that's where it all started, that turned
my life around.
And mine.
When the radio engineers first
came to visit,
the Soviet Union had just ceased
to exist.
They flew from the Soviet Union
to Chicago,
then returned to Russia within a week.
Not long after that,
the Russian radio engineer Dmitry Zimin
and I embarked on a true adventure:
co-founding a joint Russian-American
telecommunications company,
VimpelCom.
We took on the ambitious project
of establishing our first mobile network
in Moscow, connecting people in ways
previously unimaginable.
3 titanic revolutionary events converged.
The collapse of the Soviet Union,
The beginning of the introduction of
the free market
and the emergence of a completely
new cellular technology.
And so these three massive
events led to an incredible
intellectual revolution.
I've realized in my old age that
I was a startupper.
It was a startup built from nothing.
When everything was created
from scratch,
we had our first antenna on the roof
of the Foreign Ministry, this
tall building.
And miraculously, the connection
lasted
all the way to 8 March Street.
That's where the first call came from.
On July 12th '92, I was walking
down 8 March Street.
And I called Augie in America.
Dims motivation was a simple,
yet smart idea: to keep his people
employed and paid.
He brought his credibility
as a radio engineer to the table,
knowing how to build networks.
The resources, focus, marketing,
and planing were on me.
I dont think Dim fully grasped what
entrepreneurship meant,
but his adventurous
spirit made him eager to explore,
even the things he didnt fully
understand.
The next 10 years of my life, from
'91 to 2001,
were the most colorful for me,
the brightest period of my life.
We gather to celebrate the bonds
between
the Russian people and
the American people forged during
World War II.
And we gather to pledge that
the opportunity
we lost five decades ago to build
a better world will not be lost again.
Things were moving quickly:
all sorts of Western new
beginnings
were echoing throughout Moscow.
Our adrenaline matched the risk.
It was clear that Russia was
going to be
a world leader and a major part
of the global economy.
By 1992, we had gained 200
initial customers.
It was a time of crazy excitement.
You see, we worked for 30 years
under the pressure of the
Soviet regime,
you couldn't step out of line.
And then we broke out!
If we had built cellular
communications
according to the same rules
that our
military-industrial complex
was operating under back then,
there would still be nothing.
By 1996, 50,000 people in Moscow
were using our mobile phone
network.
Only four years lay between
the first mobile
call from Moscow to Chicago and
our companys
listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
The idea of IPO was Fabela's.
An Initial Public Offering, or IPO,
is the process by which a
privately held
company offers its shares to
the public for the first time.
In our case, our IPO was
the first time
American investors could
purchase shares
in a Russian business.
I said it was a momentous deal
back then too.
That's the idea of an
IPO came up.
At first I thought it was crazy,
but then I thought, why not?
But it was crazy interesting.
Convincing Dim?
Dim has always been extraordinarily
trusting on me.
He just trusted me. He just said yes.
He just said yes.
Yes, I trusted Augie absolutely.
We decided in November of 95,
and by November of 96,
we were public.
Even today, getting an IPO done
within one year is unheard of.
I wasnt that naive;
I knew how complicated
Russia was.
I saw the IPO as a high level
of protection
for the company. That was my
main reason
for pursuing it.
I knew that taking the
company public
with foreign investors would
bring us
support from the US government.
Theyd want to protect their investors,
especially since US-Russia relations
were very strong.
I remember, Augie remembers it
better than me,
the night before the IPO.
As we sat there,
we set a price. A bidding price.
You set it too high, no one will buy,
too low - you never know.
In the end we still set it too low,
there was such a rush to buy shares.
We could have set it a little higher.
We specifically wanted to make sure
that whatever price we set,
the investors would make money
on the first day.
We wanted them to be rewarded
for having confidence.
Because keep in mind, before
we went public,
to find a bank, I was rejected
by 13 banks,
who said, "No, we will not take
you public."
Hes too old, Im too young,
and its Russia. Are you kidding me?
So do you remember Dim
what happened
two weeks and two days into
the roadshow?
We were in the roadshow,
just three to five days away
from pricing, do you remember
what happened in Russia?
Yeltsin had a heart attack.
Two weeks into our road show.
If Yeltsin died, IPO is done.
It's over.
Everyone's still wondering,
Will it really
still always stay non-communist?
Because Yeltsin is the only one
that the West
believed was going to keep Russia
non-communist.
Keep in mind, just three years earlier,
there was a coup three years earlier.
So without Yeltsin, everyone believed,
it wasn't true.
But they believed, the West believed,
that it would fall back to communism.
So that was very dramatic for us
that all this work and one single
incident
could have broken everything.
Fortunately, he was fine. He had
his bypass surgery.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah,
how lucky we were!
This is World News Tonight.
On Wall Street today.
Yes, it is Wall Street with
the Russians.
After we listed our company on
the New York Stock Exchange,
its capitalization reached
$822 million...
In just five years, after starting
from
nothing in a new country.
Nobody would have thought
this was possible
back in 1990, except for perhaps
Ed Saad,
the cosmetics salesman,
and Yegor Gaidar, the first
reformer
of the post-Soviet economy.
Well, Dmitry Borisovich?
No matter how much
they laid into Gaidar, it turns
out that he was right.
Only four years have passed
since '92
and for the first time ever
a Russian company is listing
Russian securities
on the New York Stock Exchange.
When we needed money to
develop our business,
quite understandably, at one
time we lived off
bank loans. But loans in Russia
are very expensive,
up to 30% per annum.
In the first stage,
when business was booming,
it was still acceptable.
But as soon as even
a little bit goes towards
the interest,
you can't develop business on
loans like that.
Indeed, we should have fought
to have access,
as in the rest of the world, to the
cheapest capital
to grow the business. This cheapest
money is
found on the exchanges.
It was a first for the company,
a first in history.
There was actually a company in
the Russian Empire
that went public.
Under the blessing of Tsar Nicholas II,
securing a loan for the construction
of the Moscow-Vladivostok railroad.
But this company gave up something
there, bonds,
or something like that.
And there was no stock exchange
structure itself.
So as an exchange structure,
we were
the first in history.
Ever.
And what did we give them as a gift,
was it a samovar?
Nicholas the Czar had given
us Golden Samovar
to the exchange when they
listed the bonds.
And it sat in their boardroom,
because it's a very valuable piece.
So today, if you go to the New York
Stock Exchange
that sits in their boardroom.
So from that, we got the idea
that we would give
them a Gzhel samovar. And so that.
There's a picture of it.
We had the Russian flag.
We get the US flag and we have
the Beeline flag over the balcony.
The whole Wall Street closed.
We were doing all kinds of different
Russian culture events.
First time ever, we brought Russian
dancers onto
the stock exchange floor.
On the stock exchange floor,
we had Russian dancers.
Everyone, of course, stopped to look.
It was incredible.
I remember Augie's father, he was,
In my opinion, happier than Augie.
Do you remember your closing line
at every speech that we made
for the road show?
What was your closing line?
Do you remember, in English?
You said one phrase.
I can try to remember.
I memorized it by heart,
I've forgotten it now,
Augie, remind me.
I look forward...
I look forward to a very
bright future.
I look forward with...
To a very bright future!
Yes!
Every speech he ended with
I look forward to a very
bright future.
I look forward to a very
bright future.
That was his trademark
I also waved my arms around.
We must have had 120
presentations.
When, Dmitry Borisovich,
did you become
a rich man?
Don't you remember?
But he never thinks like that.
I'm a very bad conversation
partner.
Well, I don't remember.
No, he doesn't think like that.
There was never a moment.
I don't remember.
I'm starting to remember.
Now, just a second.
I'm remembering what
I'm remembering.
So this was the first time
I ever heard that I was rich.
Someone told me.
We used to know a guy named
Rozhetskin. Lenya.
Sometimes I went home not from
the "Airport" subway station,
but from the station "Dinamo",
just so I could walk a bit through
the park.
Sometimes I'd even walk all
the way home.
Once I ran into Rozhetskin near
that "Dynamo" station.
"Dmitry Borisovich, what are
you doing?" he says,
"Why?." "Do you know how much
you're worth?"
That's when for me this phrase...
I hadn't thought about it at all.
And when he said to me, "You're
wandering around alone,
but do you know how much you're worth?".
I couldn't begin to think of selling
Vimpelcom shares.
It had nothing to do with wealth.
How could I sell my shares?
It was unthinkable.
It would be like selling a child.
Unthinkable.
I was considered a rich man,
but only in name.
That's how I felt, I remember it well.
Was this time easy for you?
Did you encountered any difficulties,
resistance, or pressure?
God bless you, whatever happened!
In the early 1990s, after the fall
of the Soviet Union, Moscow
saw a surge
in violent organized crime.
It was a fight for "protection."
Gangs wanted us under their
umbrella and
would then demand shares
in return.
Wasn't it frightening?
There actually were periods
when it was scary.
I remember the moment I had
to get a security guard.
When?
I won't say!
Quite late in the evening,
in the summer,
at around midnight
I was walking home, by the Rechnoy
Vokzal metro station,
I concluded that, in many ways,
Dr. Zimin was more nave than I was.
It was a deserted street.
That neighborhood was pretty
empty at the time.
A crowd of guys came up to me,
I didn't pay any attention to them.
Suddenly, out of nowhere,
a couple of guys emerge from
this group,
They come up to me in absolute silence
and strike me in the face
without saying a word.
Bam! Silently.
So, I tried to move and got hit again.
I fell and they kicked me.
I ended up with blood all over my face.
And that's the state I came home in.
Then all sorts of theories started
pouring in,
It was obvious that they wanted
to intimidate me.
They wanted to understand they
could do to me,
they only hit me in the face,
But they could have gone further.
We routinely went through this with
criminals in our office, and once I had to
urgently escape to the United States.
One of our early partners was actually
killed, despite already having left
the company.
Though Id lived near Chicago,
I had never encountered anything
close to this kind of violence.
Yeltsin was already gone and
Putin was already there.
What did you think of him?
About Putin?
I can barely remember now.
I thought something like:
he seems like a nice guy, but
he's a Chekist
"Chekist" is an old term for
the Soviet secret police,
the predecessor of the KGB.
Dim knew this word well
from his early childhood.
They aren't decent people.
I had some vague suspicions.
The fact that he's a Chekist was
clearly a big question mark.
So, good morning!
Good morning!
Good morning, good morning!
Good morning, good morning!
In '35, my father was arrested.
I found out about it from my
'second mother',
my nanny, who remembered
him being arrested
and told me all about it.
She told me, half-whispering,
how they came for my father.
Just so my mother wouldnt hear,
mom prohibited discussing it,
God forbid.
Oh, if only your father were alive...
They had a whole crew that
was drinking,
snacking and telling jokes.
And someone reported it.
I read that denunciation.
Then it was then published.
What makes a scumbag?
Not from a journalist's point of view,
but from a scientist's point of view.
In the animal world, for a number
of reasons,
a heightened sense of aggression
is inherent in many, particularly
in males.
Aggression is an attempt to assume
a dominant position
in any relationship with others.
There are individuals in herds
who cannot show their aggression.
They're weak, they can't help it.
They have the only way to show
aggression is
to get closer to the leader,
the alpha male.
Then under his protection, as a herd
of monkeys would be,
they can allow themselves
to throw feces
at the stronger individuals.
That's how they form a layer of scum
around the leader over time.
Should we even have met?
Dim, a secretive Soviet radio engineer
and intellectual, born into a family
labelled as enemies of the state,
lost his father to Stalins prison camps.
And Im an American,
son of immigrants,
to whom my country has
given everything.
We seemed worlds apart.
Even up until Dim died,
we couldnt
fully explain what had brought
us together.
From the start, there was
instant respect,
endless loyalty, passion,
and a shared sense of adventure.
Simple human qualities
connected us forever...
Dim even became godfather
of one of my sons.
It just popped up on Facebook:
What did business leaders do
when they were 18?
Dmitry Zimin, founder of Vimpelcom.
Dynasty Foundation.
The Enlightener Awards.
I completely forgot it.
To read it out loud?
Spring of '51, our great leader
is still alive
Our friend and teacher.
We live in a communal apartment
in Bolshoy Afanasievsky Pereulok
with queues to wash up at the tap
in the kitchen and
in the restroom. The word "toilet"
was not used then,
at least not in our apartment.
There was no toilet paper either.
Speaking of which, you could
get into a lot of trouble
if you accidentally hung
a newspaper with the
portrait of the leader
in the restroom.
There was no bathtub or shower
in the apartment.
But I already knew that I want
to be a radio engineer.
And that's what I ended up being.
Oh, my God!
I started photography at a young age,
I think I might have been
in seventh grade?
I negotiated a deal with
my parents for a night.
We had two rooms
One room was given to me.
No one was allowed in or out.
The windows were curtained.
I dragged in buckets of water,
There were these special tubs.
When I built up a mountain
of photos
I'd move to the kitchen tap.
The neighbors were understanding.
My pice de resistance is
a homemade TV set.
The only one in our
communal apartment.
I earned some money by repairing
receivers and TV sets.
At times, it would blow me away
with thoughts and feelings
you couldn't share with my relatives.
Mom.
They were coming from
the Dokshitsi place.
Their family name is Dokshitsky.
First of all, then,
even before the revolution,
the Pale of Settlement line collapsed.
So, Jews were allowed to
live in big cities.
They rushed to St.-Petersburg
and Moscow.
Mom was among them.
She worked as a stenographer
and typist.
It was very much appreciated
back then.
I was born to the sound of a typewriter,
it typed us to life.
24 hours a day.
I'd never seen her documents.
The only thing I really didn't know
is that before my father
she was married, I had no idea.
Mom.
Her first husband was also repressed.
As my father.
He died.
She was dragged around
for interrogations.
No, talking about political topics
was categorically avoided.
She'd learnt from her experience.
Stalin is the name of Russia.
Where does someone get this
love for your master?
We witnessed something
absolutely insane
where people began not only to fear,
but also to love their tormentors.
A member of the herd is
afraid of his leader
because he can do anything to him.
But it is easier for him to survive this
if he begins not only to be afraid of,
but to love his tormentor.
Its easier for him to live,
its easier to reproduce,
If he loves his tormentor.
What are your impressions,
if you're honest
about the last journey of our lives?
Pleasant.
Yes.
So that gives me the right
to smoke a cigarette.
One cigarette, Mayechka, okay?
One single cigarette.
I'll go get a cigarette if I even
have one here.
I will then allow myself the pleasure
of spanking you.
There's nothing posing a threat
to my health anymore.
And youre robbing me of happiness.
In the name of what? Why?
What kind of a long life is this?
What matters is the quality of life.
To deny yourself pleasure for the
sake of better health?
Why? What's this health thing for then?
To live for a long time?
How much longer?
Why? For what?
Is physical immortality attainable?
I don't think so.
Prolonging life may simply be immoral.
You can't do that.
The renewal of life, the change of life is
absolutely necessary for its continuation.
It's just like constant, unchanging power.
Let's remember "Borodino."
- Hey tell, old man, had we a cause
When Moscow, razed by fire,
once was
Given up to Frenchmans blow?
Old-timers talk about some frays,
And they remember well
those days!
With cause all Russia fashions
lays about Borodino!
One thing no one knows
anything about is
how I married Maya Pavlovna.
What it was like. I had a friend,
Valera Sotin,
we used to go camping together
in the summer.
He said: "Let's go camping,
I have a friend
who is an archaeologist
and organizes
expeditions. You can go camping,
and they'll pay you for it.
Somewhere in Novgorod province.
Anyway, I'd been contracted as
a chauffeur there.
I liked it a lot.
A driver was considered a very
respected person.
The places where Maya
conducted her excavations are
absolutely incredible.
My father's relatives.
My dead father.
They lived in the village Losinka,
which I remembered as one
of the most
joyful places of my childhood.
This house in Losinka was full
of books.
Books were all that was left
of the very rich,
I didn't realize it at the time,
I later learned that the Zimin
family was very rich.
We absolutely need
to understand our history,
which has not yet occurred.
100-odd years ago we had
this catastrophe in our country.
This is essentially the rise to power
of the Chekists, the Communists,
who are still in power there,
if only in disguise.
This doomed the country
to a very modest set of achievements.
My grandfather was a big manufacturer.
These were really people of
a very different culture.
Alexander Guchkov, the head of
the State Duma (the Parliament),
was my grandmother's cousin.
Obviously this was kept secret
in the family.
I remember some time
towards the end of the WW2,
my Aunt Lena told me that in some
of her documents,
where you had to list your relatives,
she carefully corrected one
letter in her surname:
Guchkov to Tuchkov.
He was Head of the Provisional
Government,
Chairman of the Tsarist Duma,
it was unthinkable
to be related to someone like that.
Of course, the whole affair
was covered up.
And from this dynasty the only
thing I have left is
the Encyclopedia of Brockhaus
and Ephron.
A completely unnecessary book.
I think what depresses me the most,
what evokes a sense of grief is
maybe not even the history of that
particular family.
I have the impression that Russia
was shot down at takeoff,
that this wasn't just the fate
of my kind.
Thousands and thousands
of other families.
A massive tragedy took place
in the history
of the country, Russia was shot
down on takeoff.
The emigration of Zworykin,
an inventor of television,
cost Russia,
because television was invented
in the US, not in Russia,
it cost Russia, as I was sho? ked
to find out,
multiple times the value of
country's annual GDP.
The same thing with Sergey Brin,
a young guy,
he is a co-founder of Google,
for our viewers.
It is estimated it cost 2 - 3 time
Russia's annual budget.
Now were it not for these tragic events,
this would be one of the greatest
countries in the world,
which prides itself not on the number
of tanks produced,
but on the standard of living
in the country.
And it was all destroyed, shot.
Or emigrated.
What year did I graduate high school
and go to college?
I've forgotten.
I graduated in '54.
Well, you're young.
And you're three years older.
I've forgotten completely.
I finished first grade...
41 - 42, one moment...
In 1942 I finished the first grade.
So, in 1952, 10 years later
I graduated from high school.
In '52, I started university.
I have already said once
that my life really came to be as
it is by some
happy accident:
my mother taught me in her time,
when I was 15 or 16 years old,
when I had to fill out the first
questionnaires,
I never once wrote that
my father was repressed.
I wrote that my father died when
I was two years old.
It was true,
I just didn't write where he died,
and he died in the Gulag.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have seen
either the
aviation institute or the radio
department.
My mom followed up on that.
Only did I go through with it, stuck
my tongue out, filled out this form,
and made myself a copy.
After that, no matter how many forms
I filled out,
I'd always write the same thing.
It never showed up once.
Not to mention that my passport
stated that I was Russian, not Jewish.
This is an important feature
of my biography.
I'm not sure if I had registered
as Jewish,
I would have seen an elite radar
faculty.
A anti-Jewish pogromic mood
hung in the air.
The institute was at the Sokol
subway station,
the final stop, and I had to take a tram.
I walked sometimes, sometimes
I took a tram,
but I was starting to get scared
of riding the tram.
The pogrom feeling hung in the air.
I didn't have the nerve to deny
having a Jewish face,
I didn't have the nerve, especially if
I was with my mom,
who was clearly jewish.
This humiliation was really distressing.
The circle that I've gravitated to
all my life,
starting from my school years,
from the '59th' school
in Starokonyushenny Peruolok,
and then at the Institute, and so on.
I have little recollection of
any other conversations
relating to power other than
rejecting it.
Contempt, resentment.
Resentment and indignation.
People who are interested in science,
they're different across all industries.
They all somehow end up being
called dissidents.
Otherwise, science can't be done.
Why did so many dissidents
come from
physics, but far fewer came
from the humanities?
Is it from being used to systematic
thinking, to conspiracy, why is it?
I guess, at least for the ones I knew,
from here and there
among physicists. You see,
maybe it's because
in the exact sciences like physics,
maths well,
there's a kind of vulgarity in
what I'm about to say.
I mean, they require absolute
honesty.
Innovators, as a rule, are not
conventionally-minded people.
They are different.
They are dissenters.
These people are passionate,
and there are very few of them.
How they live their lives and
what they create is
determined not only by money.
We won't succeed
if we do not develop a
respect for dissent
to other people.
'53. I remember Stalin's death
very well.
Oh, my God!
I don't know whether it was
a tragedy, a farce, a mockery,
I didn't keep the paper for
when my father was rehabilitated,
my mother received his salary for,
I don't remember whether it was
for two or three months.
She was hysterical.
It happened at the same time:
we were given his rehabilitation
and paycheck.
The fact that he's a Chekist was
clearly a big question mark.
Now regarding whether Russia
will use military force
without UN sanctions?
We will always act strictly
within the framework of
international law.
Let's put it this way:
what's happening now makes
me sad.
What is happening in
the country now
makes me want to cry.
This feeling is like we've become
a different country.
Then it was time for hope,
and now it's just about survival.
Do you remember the meeting
of major
businessmen that Putin came to?
The one happened a month after
Khodorkovsky's arrest,
in October 2003.
When Putin came and said:
everything is fine, you can relax.
The famous congress of the Russian Union
of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs,
that greeted Putin with
a standing ovation.
In one newspaper article
the headline was: loud and
prolonged applause,
everyone stands up to avoid
going to jail.
What was happening there?
Augie can add something maybe.
We were mostly a Moscow-based
company.
The business was in Moscow.
I put in a lot of effort back then,
fighting for licenses for the regions.
It was clear that we needed
to expand
to other regions.
That would have cost a colossal
amount of money.
It became clear to me pretty quickly,
that in order to develop the company,
you would need to spend money.
And that I would lose controlling
interest.
If I have to dilute control
to grow the company.
I'll leave business altogether.
Why did you decide to leave
the company
right as it was exploding? It was
in 2001, as I recall.
It was completely informed decision.
A very important factor was that
the situation in politics had changed.
There were a lot of factors,
and they came
together at the same time:
the rise to power of the Putins crew
from St. Petersburg,
and the emergence of certain officials
who found themselves in a
conflict of interest.
They regulated business
on the one hand,
and on the other hand, they were
businessmen themselves.
There's a competitor who
gets everything.
They won't give you anything.
Yeah, it was a dead end.
I realized that we were facing
a government intervention
aimed at hurting our business.
We could see it happening.
Reiman was a minister, and
at the same time
he had his own cellular company,
based in St. Petersburg.
He aggressively helped develop
this company
where he was a shareholder,
it wasn't even very secret.
Moreover, as soon as he
became a minister,
this company got a free license
for the whole of Russia.
Which, of course, is completely
unthinkable.
In this respect, it was obvious that
we were losing competitiveness
precisely
because of the shameless use
of administrative resources
for his company.
It was pure thuggery.
He was a minister and business
owner
and administrative power was
used for
the benefit of his company.
It was obvious, and I could do
nothing about it.
We were being targeted and attacked.
But dealing with these kinds
of problems was
very different to the organized
crime of the 90s.
The type of craziness and its intensity
had changed.
Everything was clear to me.
And so almost simultaneously with
the sale of the shareholdings,
and essentially the transfer of control
was my resignation.
I mean, it was all leading up to it.
Anyway, I decided I'd rather do it myself
than have someone else do it to me.
All this was happening step by step,
we were gradually coming to
the point where
we are no longer, in fact, a federation,
but a unitary state. In fact,
the Constitution
is completely dysfunctional.
In the same hands is both
political power
and control over all branches
of government:
judicial, executive and legislative.
And the main financial proceeds
coming
from oil are in those same hands.
I remember when Boris Nemtsov,
a man I respect,
he said that he would now sit
in defiance
when the national anthem was played,
and all of that.
It was all very painful for me as well.
That's how he was thinking.
He was instinctually smart enough
to say, "It's time."
Its time.
And that was the bigger decision
not being done with Vimpelcom.
It's saying, "I will finish all
my commercial activities.
I will do only philanthropy 100%.
I will no longer do anything
business related"
which is extraordinary.
A whole new career.
A whole new life.
Maybe.
Maybe.
My friends!
The next major stage of my life
was retirement.
From 2001 to 2016, it is philanthropy,
it's the Dynasty Foundation.
I was never a billionaire.
I was a millionaire, even
a multimillionaire,
but I wasn't a billionaire.
Long story short, I made a trust
where I gave 90% of all my money.
This was under a very strict
written condition
that the beneficiary of this money
cannot be me,
nor my heirs, nor any of my relatives.
Only for charity.
My son and wife supported
this decision.
When I gave all my money
to this fund,
it was no longer mine.
If they were mine, it would be eating
me up from the inside.
What the hell?
Once you've made up your mind
and given it away.
I get it.
It burns the bridge.
I began to set up Dims foundation,
making sure it was transparent
and would last forever.
Dim decided to give away 90%
of his wealth.
He even took money away from his son,
but it didnt faze Boris at all.
He fully supported the idea.
Back then, no one was giving all their
money away, except for Warren Buffet,
who did it later that year.
The foundation operates on the basis
of an instruction that was written from
the very beginning,
where it was written that the
foundation is dedicated to supporting
not even science but scientists.
It is dedicated to supporting
smart people.
In the field of science it is easier
to identify
a talented, intelligent person
than in other fields.
Spending money.
What did I spend the money on?
It was the Dynasty Foundation.
It was the Enlightener Award,
which still exists today.
It's been really great.
I feel like an honorable man.
In mythology, probably not just our
Russian mythology,
the process of making money
was considered some kind of sin.
Vimpelcom was, of course,
earning money,
it was listed on the stock exchange.
But it was associated with some
kind of joyful,
light emotions.
Nothing like Mephistopheles'
"People die for metal.
Satan rules the ball there."
It was nothing like that. It wasn't
destructive
but it was a new and very interesting,
almost holy act.
In Russia, I saw many successful
businessmen
and wealthy people.
I saw that many of them made
money
not to become richer,
but cooler than everyone else.
I saw how money became
a tool to get closer to power.
But neither power, nor
the constant
alfamale competition ever
inspired Dim.
He needed to create something unique,
something that would bring
real change.
Many of the people Id met
had leadership
qualities and talents just like Dim,
but Dim had something else:
a weakness,
his big heart.
You see I've always viewed
my work in a rather selfish way.
I've been doing what I enjoy.
Fate has made doing good
deeds bring
me the most pleasure.
Well, thank God for that.
Philanthropy.
I can only be grateful to fate that
I was allowed to do this work,
and enjoy it.
I'm a hedonist.
And by the way, the only Russian
to ever receive the Carnegie
Medal of Honor.
What?
The only Russian to ever get
a Carnegie Medal.
Yeah yeah yeah
For philanthropy. I forgot Yes. Yes, Yes
For philanthropy.
After Dim sold his shares,
I also gradually sold mine.
I returned home and decided
to become a police officer.
As a child, Id never dreamt
of being a cop.
A dear friend of mine from Chicago
was on the board of a non-profit
police helicopter unit.
He asked me to build a business
model for them,
so that they wouldnt constantly
have to
beg for funds for fuel.
It started as a business task,
but one day the chief asked me
if I wanted to be a police officer.
I said Yes.
But I spent 9 months in
the police academy
as a cadet,
even though I was 44 and everyone
else was 20.
Now, I probably see myself as
a cop first
and a businessman second.
This is actually my Chiefs patch,
which I wear with my uniform.
My star number is number seven.
We have 11,000 officers in the
Chicago Sheriff's Office
so I am number seven.
In police tradition,
when you train with each other,
you exchange patches.
We have been through some
incredible trainings
together in business.
So I want to share this patch
with you.
My visits to Moscow became more
and more rare.
Like most foreigners, I didnt notice
significant changes in Russian until 2014.
I only saw how business was growing.
But everything changed when
Russia annexed Crimea.
I realized then that Dims vision
of his countrys future completely
contradicted Russias new trajectory.
I, we, are watching with great interest
Everything that's happening in Ukraine.
We pray: God willing that everything
works out for you!
It's extremely important, the fork
in the road is clear.
A fork in the road in politics,
God willing that things work out for you.
It's not just your affairs
this concerns us too.
I'd been uneasy about our
government even before,
but Crimea was a real blow for me.
Crimea was some kind
of personal insult.
How could it happen?
Guarantees were given to Ukraine.
Guaranteeing its integrity.
And they were completely violated.
The Dynasty Foundation was labelled
as a foreign agent.
It was, quite frankly, a shock to me.
After the dozens of books
that have been published,
after the amount of money that has
been invested in science
and in support of many projects.
Do you remember how you felt
when you first heard about it?
I felt gravely insulted.
I see.
Insulted and offended.
I said: Lord, how could this be?
I'm from here,
Im from Arbat.
What's happening?
It was despicable.
I guess.
By law I was supposed to
put everywhere,
what it's called,
a stamp, a sign
to signify a foreign agent.
If a foundation raises money for
some godly activity
and is then told that it
has been labeled
a foreign agent.
It's kind of understandable.
But when a foundation,
which does not collect
but donates money,
has to say that it is a foreign agent,
it's absolute nonsense and
a mockery.
It didn't make sense to me.
Oh, this is all very sad.
It's all very sad.
The root of the problem,
as I understand it,
was that my son Boris was
funding the opposition.
Did you really finance sending
Navalny abroad?
Yes. Maybe Boris financed it,
but the money was mine.
Will he (Navalny) come back
and does he need
to come back?
I think he'll be back. He's
a brave man.
Though I'm not sure it's necessary
to do so.
What does he need to do now,
from your perspective?
He needs to do
all the things he's been doing so far:
speaking, writing, dissenting.
In 2021, at 88 years old,
Dim set off abroad to visit
his son Boris,
who had fled Russia to evade
political persecution.
Shortly after Dim's departure,
his granddaughter received
a summons
intended for him,
calling him in for questioning.
Its a dark reflection of Russias
present climate:
Dim would likely have not been able
to return without getting arrested.
Dims life journey intertwined
with a complete historical cycle
in 20th-century Russia.
After nearly 100 years from
the first time
the State tore Dims family apart,
it did so again.
Dmitri Borisovich, just a second.
Okay. Hold this.
We'll be leaving soon.
Yes, lets do it.
Let's do it before we leave.
Thank you.
I love Moscow so much.
I'm a Moscovite,
I often start to miss Moscow
even now.
But at the same time, when you
hear the news,
the longing for Moscow starts to fight
with your own common sense.
It's one of the most depressing feelings
I've had lately.
I'm an Arbat native.
My whole life is there.
I see the most beautiful places
right here.
But at the same time, there's
not a place
where I have that amazing
incredible nostalgic feeling
like when I walk down
the streets of Arbat.
Sivtsev Vrazhok,
Starokonyushennaya, Vlasyevsky.
Talking about it makes
it sound banal.
You can't really describe it,
You can't experience these feelings
no matter what beautiful
place you visit,
Rome, London.
They're beautiful!
But this feeling of a life lived,
it's only there.
Yes, it's settling - I have left
My native fields for good.
No more will rustling poplars shed
On me their winged leaves.
The old house sinks lower
without me.
My old dog died years ago
God has condemned me to die
An exile on the streets of Moscow.
I am really patriotic in the sense
that I am not as ashamed of any
country in the world
as I am of my own country.
I might be horrified but others, but
I am ashamed only for my country,
not for any other.
Patriotism has different facets.
Love for the tribe, love for the leader,
who might be cruel, but who
is your leader.
This love very quickly turns
to xenophobia,
to hatred for your neighbors.
That's where the danger is.
So, this complex was called patriotism
in the Stone Age,
and then it became love of the state,
love for the leader.
There is another kind of patriotism.
It's almost like loving your parents,
it's loving your birthplace,
a tender love for your immediate
surroundings.
What interesting things can
you take from
and bring to your country?
So the first love is a proud love.
Pride for your tribe.
The second type comes from
learning from the world.
Those are the two kinds of patriotism.
I lost faith a long time ago.
I understand that we live in
an authoritarian state
with all the consequences
that entails.
And a political system that
no election will change.
Should investors be wary
of Russian troops entering Ukraine?
Look, they talked about
the possible entry
of Russian troops into Ukraine
at the beginning of the year,
we conducted the Zapad
2021 exercises,
but as you can see, it didn't happen.
No man,
no one, Lord knows, should be
in power for long.
He must not have absolute power.
It was a great discovery: separation
of powers and
succession of powers.
Wars only take place when someone
rules indefinitely.
I have made a decision to conduct
a special military operation.
At the same time, our plans
do not include
the occupation of Ukrainian territories.
What does it take for a war
to start between
France, England and Germany?
The simplest thing:
a leader for life. That's it, it's war!
There are approximately 200 nations
in the world.
Some of them have nuclear weapons
in increasing numbers.
Some of them are in a state
of savage enmity
with their immediate neighbors.
In some of them there are
authoritarian regimes,
where the decision of using those
weapons or destroying
a hated neighbor is practically down
to one person.
People ask how stable a world
like that can be
for a hundred years?
Can a world like that be stable?
It seem very unstable.
Regarding nuclear escalation:
we never started this rhetoric.
We have our tactical nuclear weapons
That are three or four times
more powerful
than the bombs used by
the Americans
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Three or four times more powerful.
We have much more of them
than those in Europe, even
if the Americans
bring theirs from the United States.
We still have many times more.
Aggression against Russia by
any non-nuclear state,
but with the participation or
support of a nuclear state,
is proposed to be considered
as their joint attack on
Russian Federation.
Including if the enemy, using
conventional weapons,
creates a critical threat to
our sovereignty.
Only a society
which is capable of, in its soul,
substituting its love for the nation
to love for people.
Only such a society can be
guaranteed longevity.
A society that is permeated
with hatred,
cannot be stable or sustainable.
That's the colossal challenge
before us.
Only a humane society can expect
to exist for a long, long time.
I realized that this was going to
be my last journey.
I'm 88 years old after all.
Almost certainly. Overall, though,
I'm feeling pretty good.
Father, I'm happy we're all here.
I honestly didn't even think
it was possible.
Thank you Augie for coming here.
About ten years ago
you asked me to write a book,
about Vimpelcom and my perspective,
my experience.
I'm much closer to writing it. I have not
written it yet,
I have not publishing yet, I actually
have written
about one chapter from finishing it.
Before my flight home,
Dim gave me
his updated autobiography,
and I told him about my nearly
finished book
on our shared history.
In a few months, when Russia
bombs Kyiv,
destroying entire towns
and families,
Ill have to rewrite the ending.
The Russian part of the company
Dim and I founded 30 years ago
can likely never again be part
of the global business sphere,
while the Ukrainian and
international
branches continued thriving
and operating.
I returned to its board to revive
the pioneering spirit that defined
us in 1991.
During the third week of the war,
I made my first trip to Ukraine
on a private police mission.
We committed to helping Ukraine
and have been volunteering
there ever since.
Sign it right here in Russian
and then I will translate in English.
When you're ready.
One moment.
When you're ready.
Boris, my hand is so shaky,
I haven't been
able to write for the past year.
Okay, I'll sign it.
Ok, you.
Let me put it this way, you correct me,
Dear Augie,
Dear Augie, I ask you to consider
yourself
a co-author
a co-author of this book
as you have co-authored my fate.
Well said.
Co-author must be written together.
How you became the co-author
of my fate.
I can't.
Damn it!
It's about to get so ugly, I can't do this.
Later. I'll sign it later.
Terrific, thank you!
Let's read something.
Farewell, my friend. Farewell
My dear, you're in my heart forever
It was predestined we should part
And meet again someday
Farewell for, my friend - no shaking hands,
no tears.
No furrowed brows.
Theres nothing new about dying
In this life. Nor's living any newer.
Just before the end,
Dim gathered a team of colleagues,
scientists, and intellectuals in Cyprus.
They had been working with
Dims foundation
for many years.
There, they envisioned new
philanthropic goals.
To the joy of learning, to enlightenment,
which is a good thing not only for the
enlightened, but also for those
who enlighten.
Congratulations!
Right before the Christmas of 2021,
I went to accompany Dim and Boris
on their final trip to Switzerland,
where euthanasia is legal.
Dim had decided to undergo
this procedure before 2022.
That's Health and Well-Being,
isn't it?
He sought to depart this world
peacefully and,
notably, at the right moment...
His sense of timing was extraordinary.
We were very different people
in many ways:
Dim was a staunch atheist,
and Ia Christian with faith in God.
Initially, I found his death almost
impossible
to come to terms with.
Despite my attempts to dissuade him,
he remained resolute and in a hurry.
We both shared a belief in
the significance
of free will and the absolute mastery
of an individual over their
own existence.
I think this helped me accept it.
This is our goodbye photo.
This final journey marks the end
of my personal story with Dim
and post-Soviet Russia.
The history we shared has
come full circle.
Everything that was achieved
during the brief
friendship between the US
and Russia
is now being undone...
Except
for our connection.
If I were younger, if I were young...
I think that one of the most
important tasks
that any literate people,
the intelligentsia out there,
have is to educate.
Generally speaking, being an old
man is not great
my legs aren't walking well already.
There's always something.
But there is a certain positive
side of things,
because you see your horizon
and you want to shout: guys,
you have to live,
You think about it!