Grandfather of Russian TV: Vladimir Pozner turned 90 on April 1

But he’s right, Posner, he wants us to think. So you walk around so wise, wise, smart, smart, you calculate everything in the world, you practically don’t make mistakes, even in a casino. It seems to you that you have caught God by the beard, but here it is, the cherished bird of happiness. But the time comes, and the bird of your dreams in luxurious peacock feathers will suddenly shout to you one day “cuckoo-re-coo” and laugh cruelly at you. Because life is still smarter than you, wiser, and compared to it, to life, we are all fools, even the most cunning and successful. Therefore, April 1 is not only Posner’s personal holiday, but also all of us.

There was also an expression that TV is a drug. That all real life happens precisely and only on television. What if they showed you there, you exist, but they didn’t show you, you don’t exist, don’t even look for it. And there is no event.

Posner has not been on TV for 2 years. And they began to forget him, a fact. Even Posner! What he feared happened happened.

I always tried with all my might to stay on TV. And he succeeded. Because such super-professionals don’t lie around on the road. He seemed inextricably linked to the TV by some kind of eternal umbilical cord. Posner and TV are twin brothers, we say Posner – we mean TV. And vice versa.

Those with whom he started are no longer on the magic screen, but he was, until very recently, he was. And this was not considered a stretch: they say they keep him a veteran out of respect for his past merits. No, Posner was always in shape, always on the crest of the information wave, always relevant. Yes, he walked between the streams, knew how to adapt, did not say too much, and stopped in time. He threatened with dismissal, resignation, said goodbye, but did not leave, like a true… television worker. If necessary, he knew how to close a sensitive topic: blah blah blah, as it was parodied on Channel One in the program “Big Difference.”

Once upon a time, having come from Foreign Broadcasting to Perestroika TV in 1986, he made a television revolution, no less. The USSR-USA teleconferences with friend Phil Donahue amazed our people. In the Ostankino studio on the Soviet side, a man was walking at high speed with a microphone, looking like a cowboy from Hollywood films or just like James Bond. He seemed to speak Russian, but with such a soft American accent that Soviet men and women were upset or fell into ecstasy. No one has ever worked on our air like this, especially live.

We met him in ’96. He invited me to Ostankino for the first acquaintance. He himself lived then in America, in New York, and flew to Moscow to film two programs: “If …” and “The Masked Man.” “If …” was considered a specific program on social topics. Posner arrived and retired to his office for 40 minutes to prepare. Then he came out to the assembled spectators and guests, fresh as a cucumber, and, as if nothing had happened, began to talk about the most difficult problems of housing and communal services, as if he had been dealing with them for the last thousand years. “This is a pro!” – I remember, I thought.

And “The Man in the Mask” – he showed himself there as a subtle psychologist, with his questions he simply opened up a person, and carefully, tenderly, but he opened up, his hero could not escape this Sherlock Holmes, Captain Maigret, Miss Marple, Porfiry Petrovich in one bottle: “You killed it, sir.”

But love is love, and I always had questions for Posner, and I asked them. One day he was invited to the Higher School of Economics to speak to students and me to ask those same questions. I asked why he justified sending Soviet troops into Afghanistan; why in the Vremena program he promoted only one side before the Ukrainian elections – the pro-Russian Yanukovych, but not a word about Yushchenko; why did he speak derogatoryly about the hosts of that legendary program “Vzglyad”… After that, Vladimir Vladimirovich asked that the meeting not be shown online, and the next day he called me and said that he was breaking off our relationship.

Posner was offended. But this is so wonderful! Posner is a man, not a machine, but that sounds proud. And nothing human… After that I began to appreciate him even more.

Of course, we made peace and resumed our relationship. Of course, we met more than once. I simply did my journalistic work then, which Vladimir Pozner taught me and people like me.

He publicly repented for his Soviet past, for Foreign Broadcasting, for lying to please the authorities. “He lied” is a quote from him. And it was also very human. Or too theatrical? After all, there are no former propagandists.

We are used to making the biggest claims against Posner. We got used to demanding from him to be uncompromising, to tell the truth, nothing but the truth. We got used to leaning against his broad back and presenting him with a lot of reproaches. Forgetting that he is just a man, and a man is already many years old.

He is a person who experiences, I know, a person who reflects. In some ways cynical, like many of us, otherwise you can’t live, but reverent and caring.

He loves life, loves to enjoy it. Have you heard Posner sing jazz? Oh, you need to hear this! Frank Sinatra is resting.

His personal life is very rich, but we won’t talk about that. He himself told everything about it 5 years ago in an interview with MK. Everything he could and considered necessary. I just saw him with his second wife Ekaterina Mikhailovna Orlova at the Posner School. It was an amazing relationship, they always looked in the same direction, understood each other without words, she looked after him so much… But love goes away, even that kind. Now Vladimir Vladimirovich has a third marriage – Nadezhda Solovyova, which may prolong his life.

…Now Posner is silent. He probably deserved the right to such silence.

So I wrote this congratulatory address (wow, congratulatory, someone will say) and I’m thinking: where should I send it? To America, to France, to Germany, where his daughter, a wonderful composer, lives, or here, to Moscow? I thought and signed, like Vanka Zhukov: for the village to my grandfather. The grandfather of Russian television.

But… Whoever says that this is grandfather, let him be the first to throw a stone at me. What kind of grandfather is he?! Remember in the documentary, when he was already over 80, Posner played Pablo Picasso? He strips topless there. God, biceps, triceps and all that… A young man of 90 years old. We are looking forward to returning to our native harbor, to Channel One, to TV. Our sincere congratulations from those who still remember you. Health, happiness and good luck no matter what. Up to 120!