Some answers about the book fair from Wladimir Kaminer

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Vladimir Kaminer

Photo: Kirsten Nijhof / Zentralbild / picture alliance

SPIEGEL:

Where are you now?

Kaminer:

In my apartment.

Amazingly, there is a lot to do right now.

An hour ago a Russian television team was visiting me.

They shoot videos with Russian celebrities for the vaccination campaign so that our compatriots in this country can also be vaccinated.

The joke is that no Russian celebrity has been vaccinated.

SPIEGEL:

Are you vaccinated?

Kaminer:

Yes.

So they were right.

Incidentally, with the champagne among the vaccines.

I have also accepted that our grandchildren will unfortunately all look like Bill Gates.

SPIEGEL:

What did you do during the lockdown?

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Kaminer:

I was writing my Corona trilogy, two volumes have already been released: "The Lost Summer" and "The Wave Riders".

In lockdown I tried to recognize the contours of the future as they presented themselves to me in Germany in a state of emergency.

SPIEGEL:

Did your parents sing you to sleep as a child?

Kaminer:

When the Germans from Russia were allowed to return to Germany as »returnees« between 1990 and 1991, you had to distinguish the right from the wrong in Germany.

You should sing Grandma's bedtime song in German at the testing center for real and fake Russian Germans.

Sung correctly, the song "Sleep, child, sleep" became a pass.

I immigrated to Germany as a Jewish quota refugee and didn't have to audition.

SPIEGEL:

What did the other children hear?

Kaminer:

Every evening at 8.15 p.m. the program "Good night, children" was on television in the Soviet Union.

There was always this debilitating lullaby that persuaded the children to lie down with the already sleeping soft toys and the sleeping bear.

That was state propaganda.

No child I knew went to bed at 8:15 p.m.

SPIEGEL:

Your first favorite record?

Kaminer:

"Obscured by Clouds" by Pink Floyd.

It was always around the corner in the planetarium, so I could hang out there as a teenager.

SPIEGEL:

As a child, were you allowed to play your parents' records?

Kaminer:

Yes, but I rarely used that.

My mother only listened to classical music, and my father inherited many of Karel Gott's records when his brother emigrated to Israel.

The family had to leave everything behind.

I heard the tapes that my cousin gave me along with his tape recorder.

They were bands with rock music by Uriah Heep, Slade, Sweet and other bands.

SPIEGEL:

Do you have memories of what you heard on the radio as a child?

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Kaminer:

I especially remember the Kremlin bells.

There were constant bells ringing on the radio, from six in the morning until midnight.

The Soviet Union had eleven time zones.

The time announcement alone lasted a quarter of an hour.

They did not get that under control, reducing the number of time zones in a planned economy.

The bells rang all day.

SPIEGEL:

Does time pass slowly or quickly?

Kaminer:

Above all, we have no control over the time.

We didn't buy them, borrow them or get them for free, we stole them ... we are stowaways on the train of time.

SPIEGEL:

Your first impression of Germany?

Kaminer:

I came to Germany in 1990 when I was 23 years old.

I thought it was an incredibly positive country with lots of happy people who were all a little bit drunk.

It was the day that Germany won the football world championship in Italy.

Everyone honked.

I liked that very much.

SPIEGEL:

Do you like to think back to the nights of the Russian disco in Berlin's Café Burger?

Kaminer:

Yes, that was a very good time.

By the way, over the years neither the music nor the mood has ever gotten worse.

It was and always was great.

And with 2G it would definitely have gotten even better.

In order to get in there, many Germans would certainly have been vaccinated.

SPIEGEL:

How do you explain the long-term success of your parties?

Kaminer:

In a normal disco you have to know the music that is playing and respond to it.

It's about distinction and good or bad taste.

In the Russian disco nobody knew the music I was playing - it was sometimes really fast, danceable music that must have sounded like music from aliens to the Germans.

Nobody even knew a title.

And if it did, it was because you had heard it the week before in the Russian disco.

That was liberating.

SPIEGEL:

The all-time top ten Russian disco?

Kaminer:

Your question doesn't make any sense - what's the use of a top ten list if nobody knows the music?

SPIEGEL:

With the Russendisko, you moved to Hangar-312 near Neuruppin before the lockdown.

Will there be dancing again soon?

Kaminer:

But hello!

It has been back for a few weeks.

One evening is better than the other.

Come and visit us!

SPIEGEL:

Do you like Stockhausen?

Kaminer:

I already heard Karlheinz Stockhausen's music in the Soviet Union.

My mother had a record of his, on which he was shown with a black and white portrait, looking stern and serious.

Stockhausen showed me what art is and that you can make something completely new out of the familiar and the tried and tested if you readjust the music.

So new music does not arise in the instruments, but in the heads.

SPIEGEL:

Is Pope Francis a good Pope?

Kaminer:

Yes.

Every Pope is a good Pope - just like every mom is the best mom.

SPIEGEL:

Which Andrej Tarkowski film do you love most?

Kaminer:

"Solaris".

The film teaches us: Nothing is more deadly than when our dreams come true.

But Lem's book is also great.

SPIEGEL:

Do you like going to the opera?

Kaminer:

Yes.

However, I prefer classic productions, not modern sets.

SPIEGEL:

Vinyl or Spotify?

Kaminer:

Vinyl is for lonely people.

Maybe vinyl makes them less lonely.

Spotify, on the other hand, is the best dope for parties.

It can't be beat in terms of dynamics when several people at a table try to outdo each other using Spotify.

SPIEGEL:

Do you drink your coffee with milk or black?

Kaminer:

Black.

SPIEGEL:

And what time do you usually have dinner?

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Kaminer:

I usually have an event in the evening.

Eating in front of it is not good because then you are on stage with a full stomach.

And after the event, most of the restaurants are already closed.

So my dinner often consists of a glass of wine.

SPIEGEL:

Complete the sentence: "Vladimir Putin is ..."

Kaminer:

"... revised."

SPIEGEL:

Is peaceful protest possible?

Kaminer:

Peaceful protest is possible, but it is always unsuccessful.

SPIEGEL:

Is Russia worth visiting?

Kaminer: Definitely

!

But I'll give you a tip: It is best to travel as far away from Moscow and other megacities as you can - the deeper you get into the country, the poorer and simpler the people, the greater the friendliness, life and the nature.

SPIEGEL:

Do you feel homesick for Russia?

Kaminer:

I feel homesick for the Soviet Union, which has not existed for 30 years.

It was terribly interesting, very convoluted and unnatural.

But everything that is unnatural attracts me.

So I'm homesick for a place that I can imagine in my imagination and that I can tell legends about.

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SPIEGEL:

Where would you like to live in winter?

Kaminer:

In the Canaries.

SPIEGEL:

How much space does writing take up in your life?

Kaminer:

Writing is the consistency that I have to bear as an author.

Writing comes from my life.

Unfortunately, the necessity of writing down takes up a lot of space.

SPIEGEL:

The three best detective novels that have ever been written?

Chimney:

SPIEGEL:

Your last new literary discovery?

Kaminer:

René Pollesch, "Love is colder than capital".

You have to like him, but his book with pieces, texts and interviews is a really great mixture of neglect and enthusiasm for the world in which we live.

SPIEGEL:

Which book are you reading right now?

Kaminer:

Tina Breckwoldt, "The true story about Münchhausen".

He was in the service of the Russian tsars and actually experienced something adventurous.

SPIEGEL:

Which book would you never lend to your best friend, either?

Kaminer:

My old fish identification handbook.

After all, I want to know what I'm fishing.

SPIEGEL:

Did Peter Handke deserve the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Kaminer:

If he got it, then he deserves it.

SPIEGEL:

Who should get the Nobel Prize for Literature next year?

Kaminer:

Eric Clapton.

SPIEGEL:

The best book that Kafka has written?

Kaminer:

Basically, Franz Kafka worked on a single book throughout his life and just kept writing it.

His rejection of human civilization permeates all of his novels and also his diaries.

SPIEGEL:

Is Frankfurt am Main worth a trip?

Kaminer:

Yes, absolutely!

This is a city of stark contrasts.

From the skyscrapers, the bankers can look into the slums at the train station.

Heaven and Hell are very compactly close together in this city - like in a beer bottle.

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SPIEGEL:

What are you proud of in life?

Kaminer:

Nothing at all.

No, wait: for the weather!

SPIEGEL:

Which journalists' question can you no longer take?

Kaminer:

"In which language do you dream, Herr Kaminer?"

SPIEGEL:

A persistent rumor about you that isn't true?

Kaminer:

That all Russians drink vodka.

SPIEGEL:

How does success change people?

Kaminer:

If you ask me: Success turns every nice person into an asshole.

SPIEGEL:

And who would you like to have dinner with?

Kaminer:

Gladly with anyone who has good stories to tell.

SPIEGEL:

Have you ever seen a ghost?

Kaminer:

Yes, I have.

SPIEGEL:

Do things have a soul?

Kaminer:

It depends on the things.

Some things are animated.

Conversely, there are also people who have no soul.

SPIEGEL:

Do you believe in life after death?

Kaminer:

Believe?

I know it.

SPIEGEL:

The meaning of life?

Kaminer:

Basically there is no meaning in life that can be generalized.

That would also make bees out of people who act as if they were externally controlled.

But every person can give their life their own individual meaning, which is evident in our time.

And that's a fantastic, upscale job for everyone's life.

SPIEGEL:

And what should be written on your tombstone?

Kaminer:

A poem.

But that is currently still in progress.