“Without him you feel a lack of air”: in Moscow they said goodbye to Lev Rubinstein

The master took his last book with him

More than a thousand people gathered at the Rassvet cultural center, where Lev Semenovich read his poems. They carried flowers; it was difficult to arrange them near the coffin and post-mortem photo. He was literally buried in flowers. We remembered the legendary cards of Rubinstein, which became a new word in the literature of the second half of the 20th century, his ironic, kind disposition, and the feeling of love and warmth that remained after every meeting with him.

Many came to the Rassvet cultural center, but even more people got in touch with Moscow online and remembered how they knew Lev Semenovich. From these numerous reviews, which accumulated at least a couple of hundred during the two-hour ceremony, his portrait is formed, just as his cards were formed into novels.

“After his departure, a feeling of fragmentation of the world set in” (Irina Prokhorova).

“He turned out to be the strongest support in our shaken world and will remain such a support in my and everyone’s memory” (Eugene Ass).

“I loved Leva very much and repeated this to him when he was in a coma” (Lisa, granddaughter of the poet).

“He left us the ability to live openly, to love everyone, to joke and make jokes – to live normally, like him” (Tatyana Lazareva*).

“He had the amazing gift of remembering his laughter. He often told stories, we laughed so much… His presence gave great significance to what was happening. He had an ear for music. – he heard the noise of time” (Vadim Zhuk).

“It was a Moscow angel. It increased the amount of oxygen and sanity in the atmosphere. He is already a classic and his recognition will only increase” (Viktor Shenderovich*).

For the two hours that the ceremony lasted, the atmosphere was filled with the same lightness and warmth characteristic of the man and poet Lev Rubinstein. There were some silver confetti floating in the air, left over from some past event. And it seemed like this was a performance organized by nature itself, in memory of the Moscow conceptualist, poet, who so interestingly knew how to assemble something large, holistic, and deep from fragments.

Before the rabbi performed the farewell ritual, the poem “I Dreamed” by Lev Rubinstein, recorded at one of his poetry evenings, was read:

“I dreamed that we all have to live by touch: here is a loophole, here is a fence, there is a wall of good masonry… And our life comes – from decision to doubt, from a nod to an interjection, from a dream to a pendulum… I dreamed that the light went out somewhere there in the middle. And the voice of him crying in the wilderness is no longer heard. And the warmth dissipated – there’s no way to bring it back…”

For almost ten minutes, those gathered heard the poet’s voice, looked at his photos broadcast on the screen, approached the coffin, and said their last words. After which the lid was closed. Lev took with him his last book – “Crawling Line”. She went to the printing house after the tragic accident that happened on January 8: when the poet was crossing the road, he was hit by a car. In those days when he was fighting for his life without regaining consciousness, by some miracle he managed to print this copy, which now went with him on his final journey.

*Recognized as a foreign agent in Russia