Summer is in full swing, so it’s time to talk about Paris. You won’t find a better conversationalist for this topic than Oleh Skrypka, the lead singer of the Ukrainian rock group Vopli Vidopliasova (VV), who lived in this legendary capital for nearly seven years.
How did your relations with Paris begin?
“I first came to Paris in 1990. At that time hardly anyone was allowed to leave the USSR, so it was already cool to come there. Imagine us coming from Soviet Kyiv — that dull city with long lineups for peas or toilet paper. It was like coming out of a closet into the sunlight — I was simply dazzled. I even remember getting a headache after 15-20 minutes of being on the Paris streets because there was such a great stream of information, such speed, so many people, goods, and pictures. Everything was so unusual that you needed to make a serious effort to adapt. Today people coming from Kyiv to Paris hardly experience this kind of culture shock.”
Did the language problem worry you?
“During my second visit Paris had such an effect on me that I suddenly began speaking English, having remembered all my 11 years of studying the language in school and at the institute. I immediately found out that the French either don’t know this language or don’t want to speak it. Later I bought an old French textbook for a few hryvnias in Kyiv, on Khreshchatyk Boulevard, and soon learned the language. When I came to Paris the third time, I saw people who already knew me — artists, managers, and friends — from an unexpected angle.”
Why?
“There is a very interesting moment when you suddenly start talking to your acquaintances in their language; you begin to understand people...”
In a more intimate way?
“Yes, in a more intimate way; that is a very nice word. The Soviet Union had already collapsed, and we started performing in unheated halls, the invasion of Laskovy Mai clones had begun, and then we were invited to give some concerts in France. So we stayed there for nearly seven years.”
Have you visited Paris frequently since returning to Kyiv?
“I haven’t been there in nearly 10 years. I know Paris during the time of Francois Mitterrand. And Mitterrand’s France differs from the France of Chirac and even more so of Sarkozy. One time I visited Paris as a tourist, and it seemed to me a nicer city than I remembered it.”
Do you miss it?
“It is always interesting to visit Paris and travel around the country. The landscapes are beautiful, and there are a lot of gorgeous places. The countryside is different. But I barely have any desire simply to go and breathe the air of Paris. It is an industrial city, and the air is very polluted. You should come on a weekend or for a holiday when there are no cars and there is no business activity, and afterwards dash off to the countryside. I still view Paris as the world’s business capital. People there work more than they relax. Life in Paris is as fast as it is in Moscow. This may sound strange, but New York seemed calmer and more suitable for a vacation. People there even walk slower, whereas they run in Paris and Moscow. Here’s a problem: the pace of living in Paris is too high for us, Ukrainians. Maybe that’s why we get dizzy there: we have to move faster and we simply have a different frequency.”
Did your notions of Paris correspond with what you saw?
“As usual, neither myths nor the image of a person or a country ever correspond to reality. What I know and feel about Paris differs completely from what people imagine.”
What do they imagine?
“L’amour toujours, romance, and the city of love. This is just an image. And it completely differs from the way you perceive it and the way it really is. There are romantic things there, but they are absolutely different. The French say that France is primarily the land of democracy, which established democratic values. Those famous notions of ‘Liberty, equality, fraternity’ are important to them. So, I think that the French reacted more sharply to our Orange Revolution. Most of Europe’s fans of our revolution are French people, strangely enough. They say, ‘We created the real France that we dreamed about and continue to dream. This France took place on the Maidan for you.’ They did this both during the time of Robespierre and in 1968, and they are trying to do this now with numerous strikes and demonstrations, and each time they are not satisfied with the results.
“We are not satisfied either, but they say that a serious public movement has taken place in our country. At the same time, there were no casualties and it took place in a peaceful way. They say that they would like to do this, but it never works out; somebody is always taken to jail, there are always casualties, burnt cars, some sort of cataclysm. Many of my French aqcuaintances have a good idea of what took place in our country, and they respect us very much for this.”
There is another myth that sets one’s teeth on edge — “to see Paris and to die.” Does this city really have a developed culture of death?
“No, I don’t think so. On the contrary, all the arts and romance do not revolve around death but around love, although, I must repeat, not in the way we see it. What is the difference between our and French aesthetics? We have an archetype: when you fall in love, it is love until death. Our love verges upon death. French love doesn’t. They have life after love. When you face love in France or people tell their stories to you, everything seems unreal and false. They have a different kind of love, and that’s why so much has been written about it, many popular songs have been composed and numerous films have been made about this subject.
“We aren’t accustomed to talking about these kinds of things. We have a taboo even on the religious level: these are sacred things. For them love isn’t sacred. This gives rise to another phenomenon. The image of a prostitute is romanticized in literature and in society. When love is not sacred, it is easier to sell it. And this does not affect your fundamental and humane things. In our country, when anybody sells love, it is much more problematic from the point of view of morality.”
To what extent is Paris a free city?
“For example, the residents of a small street decide to hold a party. They choose the date, submit a letter to the city council (the city council has no right to refuse), they close off the street and organize the street party for the whole community. They bring out tables and chairs, drink wine, and invite musicians. Communities decide a lot of things there. They often organize festivals and other events.
“The wonderful Day of Music was developed on the public’s initiative. This is incredible. Standing on any corner of Paris, including in the suburbs, you can hear music coming from at least two sources. There is an area where musicians perform on any street, intersection, or at any restaurant. On this day a thousand bands can be performing. Skillful musicians and those who can’t play, professionals and amateurs — they all perform. By the way, most of the professionals I have talked to started their careers on The Day of Music. This festival was organized on people’s initiative, the owners of bars and cafes, and the heads of city councils. There is also an American stage, a Swedish stage, and an Italian one: people come from all over the world, and it is impossible to imagine the scale of all this. I have played many times at The Day of Music, and maybe at that time I came up with the idea for Dreamland on the subconscious level, when I saw the way people can celebrate.”
Each city has its own geometry and its unique profile. What about Paris?
“When people come there, they don’t know that it is actually a small city. It covers the area in Kyiv from the Lybidska subway station to the Taras Shevchenko station. Geographically, Paris covers approximately one-quarter of Kyiv’s total area. But it has a ring road that must have been built in the 19th century, and there is a huge suburb behind it. On the way out of Paris the city does not end for a long time. There are other towns behind the ring road that were absorbed by Paris, but they have their own town councils and their own laws. And Paris has always been conservative.”
Paris has a red zone.
“Yes, there is a red zone, which is often represented by communists. I have traveled a lot there: there is a whole array of streets named after Lenin and Gagarin. As for Paris itself, this is a circle cut by the Seine along its diameter. Montparnasse, the bourgeois districts are located on the Left-Bank, in the south. The central city blocks are located in the north along the Seine, and further to the north, although it may seem strange, there are more ordinary urban, proletarian city blocks; immigrants from China and Africa also live there. Montmartre is in the city’s northern part. There used to be the village of Montmartre, and Sacre Coeur Basilica is located there. I think this is the most beautiful structure because it is absolutely not in the Parisian style. It looks more like an Orthodox, a Byzantine one: it is white and has stairs. Standing near it, you can see across the Seine and all of Paris to the Montparnasse Tower, which is a tall skyscraper for Paris, but average size for New York. The Champs-Elysees stretch from the center across the Seine, starting from the Louvre and ending at the Arc de Triomphe; then there is the Eiffel Tower, and if you go westward, Paris ends and the town of Nanterre, the La Defense quarter start. I recommend a visit to this place, which is a kind of urbanistic corner. But those skyscrapers were built from an aesthetic point of view rather than practical, as is the case in New York. Modern French architecture looks absolutely futuristic.”
Many cultures have left their mark on Paris. Which is felt the most? Or is there a kind of big melting pot?
“You noticed. Paris is like borshch: whatever you throw in, borshch is the result. This is a post- imperial phenomenon. Russia and England are the same. I’ve seen Hindu dandies in London. They were wearing turbans and carrying canes, but they were dandies. I met Ukrainians who lived in London. They repair cars, but they have acquired that sort of charisma. And Paris is the same; it grinds up everybody. You live there and feel normal, and you don’t notice these changes. But when I come to Kyiv, I see that I have turned into a resident of Paris in my outward appearance. That’s the way it should be.
“We know the great poetry of France. Right now they have a very serious cultural layer: modern rap written by dark-skinned Frenchmen, whose texts have been created according to the traditions of high poetry. They have a competition similar to our Song of the Year, where I saw the rap artist MC Solaar win a prize for his great poetry. There is a musical style called rai. This is Arab hip-hop in French. It is street poetry, but it has existed since the 19th century, when popular poets wrote about street life and prostitutes, and now this classic genre is continued in Arabic hip-hop. These streams — French black and Arab rai — are French phenomena.”
But, just like in any empire, there must be an incredible mix of languages.
“We say that we have problems with surzhyk (a mixture of broken Ukrainian and Russian — Ed.) You haven’t heard the mixed dialects that exists in France. The residents of Paris don’t understand the residents of Marseille. By the way, Marseille is like Odesa: all the comic actors come from there. They have a Marseille dialect, which is a kind of folklore; it is used only in the cinema and literature. Each city speaks its own language. Our Ukrainian is a unitary language, compared to the number of their dialects. When we moved to Toulouse after living in Paris for three years, we were almost beaten up: look, the Parisians have come.”
After so many years in Paris, what things are still pleasant to your eye?
“It seems to me that Paris is moving in a good direction, in the direction of regaining its image as a cultivated and calm capital. During my last visit Paris seemed calmer, in the good sense of this word. There were more exhibits, performances, people dressed in elegant clothes, and galleries. You should understand that all of French history is a dialogue between the cultures of the bourgeois and the proletarians. Today there are more bourgeois.”
You must have felt sad there at times. What did you do in such cases?
“After you live in another country for a couple of years, you get nostalgic. I have to confess that I listened to recordings of Akvarium and Meladze, which I had never listened to at home.”
Maybe you were enchanted in a special mystical way. Is there any urban mysticism?
“I haven’t felt it. Maybe there is something else: the aesthetics of Breugel: the same vagabonds, somewhat mad people in the streets, some dwarfs and acrobats. There is probably no mysticism, but the Middle Ages are present there.”
And theatricality...
“You are absolutely right. There is a hint of the theater-like Middle Ages, and it seems at times that medieval Paris is peeking through the veil of a modern city.”
Is there a mystery of Paris that you haven’t penetrated?
“I have heard many of these stories, but French love remains a mystery to me. I have talked to many emigres, and this is our common problem: you don’t understand how the locals fall in love. They create families, but how does this take place? This is a mystery. We have looks, touches, and first kisses, but everything is different with them.”
To what would you compare this city?
“To a beautiful old sail. It is both a heavy, ancient structure and beautiful and airy.”
It moves lightly.
“No, not lightly. There is a dynamic, but it takes a lot of effort to unfold a sail — and this is a large one. This is not light romanticism. It has weight, solidity, inertness, but also wind and water.”
