this street still cheap seat secrets but now it's time to really feel a little something that sounds. good to have you with us here on our team three thirty am in moscow these are your headlines iran share power plant is fueled up with the help of russian engineers said to be fully operational within a month and will be run under the strict supervision of the un watchdog. russian security forces kill a top militant believed to have been behind the suicide bombing attacks on the moscow metro in march in a separate operation four other terrorists were killed in the caucasus region.

new york bids farewell to the iconic cabs that have graced its streets for decades ford is halting production of its crown victoria model next year competition is now being held in the big apple to find a more fuel efficient success. up next album of talks with a french author whose novel ninety nine francs became a must read for russia's elite find out why and what he thinks of russia in just a moment spotlights next. every month we give you the future we help you understand how to get there and what tomorrow may bring the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world join us a technology update on our g. hello

again they're welcome to spotlight the interview shell on r.t. i'm old enough and today my guest is fed the think back bed there in the cave all paul says two thousand and ten is the year of france and russia since the eighteenth century no other european culture as influenced russia more than the french one and the same still to be a case at least with literature but that's only one of the reasons why i guess novels are so popular in russia what else what does he himself think of russia and is there still a place for literature in the glamour obsessed cultures such as russia pretends to

be the famous french author is here to answer the question of. why to frederick baghdad has the reputation of being somewhat of a modern day liberty a man who indulges sometimes to excess from a privileged french family he works in advertising before finding claim an authority with his book ninety nine francs the book's a pamphlet on capitalism and people's passion for consumption eight years ago frederick decided to help the french communists in their unsuccessful election campaign. i returned to writing and produced several successful books one of them is about russia where the writer is a frequent visitor he says russia experience the feeling of eternity and only here so beautiful but so strangely like what else attracts frederick but there is russia to spill the beans on spotlight.

hello fredricka thank you very much for being with us thank you very. well last year let's play this magazine single you out as the french writer particularly popular in russia is there any other country outside france that you're really as popular as the as a russian of. nineteen in france was popular in germany. in italy but there is no place like russia really it's the only country who translated every one of my book all of them including my and my chat with bishop. and all the little. every everything i wrote. leading in papers examination throughout the school thing yeah the fact that he often say that ninety nine friends became popular in russia by mistake because of misunderstanding because of because you really tried to to to mark at things and

russians took it seriously is that true well i don't know. why readers like what i do and if there is a misunderstanding then it's great i don't mind you know i think i'm just doing my job i write what i like and if people don't understand it it's ok with me but it is possible that in russia some of the young people took ninety nine front guide to learn more and to. a cynical way of life. which i was criticizing making fun of you know it's just it's a colleague at u. of advertising and this was my life i see my life on the on the wall it was my life when i was in the ninety's as a copywriter in a big american agency and i hated this job so i was i wrote this book basically to destroy advertising in maybe some of the young people read it as fernie book

and they love it and they want to work in advertising so it's crazy ok well people say that so that you like russia or you like being in russia you mentioned it in couple of your interviews and that actually russia has inspired you to write the whole school. but critics say that this book is filled with well we're with western cliches about russia so how does that add up with the fact that you that you say you like russia but you love but but is there also a third tara mockery of russia or what no it's it's a description of the new russia and the new russian people of the rich people. by a french guy who is a foreigner so he of course it's field of stereotypes and cliches if you come to paris you will maybe if you write about paris you will see that the french people are buying a baguette in the morning and complaining all the time and the taxis are crazy and

these are cliches but it's also true and what i just wrote in in this book called. in russian is the story of a french guy who is looking for the most beautiful face for an advertising campaign and so of course he's surrounded by beautiful mother he goes out in crazy clubs like i did last night and it's also true it does exist and russia has to accept that part of the clichés about russia are. the reality it is not bad well you don't you don't only find beautiful girls in nightclubs in moscow but here you can find a lot of russia today one of the more acts of our spotlight and today spotlight cuts how you know what you want about what out of the moscow to find out what attracts foreigners in this country let's take a look at scots and that has tory there today i'll try to find out what the russians think attracts powerless in this country and what keeps them coming back

for more. of them over there i think it's because the cities full advantage of the streets give you a charge of energy. even when we must start feeling it down taking a walk in the streets makes us feeling great again. probably to unreal the russians so to see for themselves that we have no business in the red square to drink vodka and probably because we opened our country for visitors creates a recently and people are just curious to see a new country. we see onesie and spirit as we have a well developed culture you know people are quite friendly i think that means a lot and we have a little nature and russian hospitality per month before are you asking about moscow or rushing general because we are from siberia from brusk and we feel a lot of foreigners on lake baikal and i think they're interested to see our nature which is way different than in their countries they like by called. some of the.

i think it's because of our girls and women right considered to be the most beautiful in the world there may be some other reasons such as business school is also a piece of food but i think the girls are the main reason for example you are very beautiful your eyes are very expressive. you keep up with its business possibilities and wild life so to speak. out i've got out of jealousy he's got a question podcast. go they say you have a reputation of the whole again is it your personal p.r. campaign. you really this kind of person ok is it a reputation that you want to want to follow your one or is it him i don't know what you are really i don't know where it comes from i think this comes from the characters in my novels because in all my books the heroes are anti heroes and they behave in a very strange way and they are very weird they take drugs they go to prostitutes the the on dance floor going mad all the time but it's not really my life i am more

normal and that's why i write because i am too normal in my real life so i want to be crazy as far as i remember you were arrested arrested for taking drugs in the center of paris so this is not normal i mean you get arrested for these things so you're already starting rams normally people go to the toilet yeah i do it in the street. strange i know but i agree with what this say you know it's not only the beauty of of women who are trucks people to russia for example between france and russia there is a long history of mutual love and fascination for little at you and poetry so now there are good reasons to the beautiful nature of this so you know yeah sure i've been tunisia need to go to some peters but also you see in sendai yeah and it's really it's the real reason is to to be inside the russian classics that i

read when i was young like dr zhivago for example dodge of august break here so but do you read some of the contemporary russian authors is there anything in russia written in russian today published that's worth translating into french for those of you know of course like like many of you mentioned some of the names that picked up a living is translating well here translated is sorkin and so. i have a friend who is not translated yet. i think it's it could be son because our people tell me he's a little bit like a russian myself so i would love to read him in french i'm trying to make him translated now but. because i think it's a lot of humor and it's important that people know that russian are funny you know . well you mentioned the classics that you're light russian literature. you also mention the young the young writers but as far as i know now you mentioned

that a couple of times in other interviews that moscow advance because of your affairs because one of your favorites well why is that one of the afraid is and do you think that vodka consumption is still the most remarkable experience for for for you. i think. this. novel it's a failure for you is it's really. a masterpiece because it's a little bit like. russian catcher in the rye you know the catcher in the right by selling a church it's a guy who is walking around the city and he does nothing but drink and he maybe wants to take a train but finally doesn't and it's for me it's very simple very very funny and also you feel the soul of russia in this book and it's in a way an answer to people who criticize

a book about russia and see it's full of cliches because if you read this if you have a lot of cliches well go. for it three leary you know is a romantic guy it's. clear that it's really wouldn't compare you know thieves to. our school though i'd rather compare it to the ninety thousand friends making because because this kind of vodka is a mockery well yes he is. on purpose of clinking a cliche yet out of this it's too much it's very high he is a judge or a guy that's what they do all the time i think really as i said in the beginning real life is boring if you write books it's because you want to improve your life and make it exaggerated make it more than life bigger than life would life be right . yeah i think sometimes when you're bored you start to to imagine things and you

muse start to dream and maybe writing is fighting boredom and this is one of vodka really helps me. well says frederick veg better at french writer and author that's here in moscow spotlight will be back shortly and while he still is here not country we will have another fifteen minutes with him in less than a minute stay with us. this

mystery still keeps its secrets but now it's time to reveal. the soviet finds and.

welcome back to spotlight i'll bring all of in just a reminder that my guest in the studio today is frederick bad bad there are french one third say she thank you thank you thank you nastiness and with pleasure as well as you say that well though actually you say you had to and you like to talk about it and a lot says written in the russian magazines about about lots of fun you're having when you come to moscow you know your name is all around the glamour magazine is nightclubs well what about is there something else except having fun and that attracts in moscow a lot i know you're introducing a new book but but but but except making money and having fun is there anything else you know it's not only making money when you promote a novel you have the chance to meet a lot of people who ask you deep questions why do you write these what about your childhood who are you really friendly and it's all those questions will have no

answers they have no answer. you know it's like doing a psychoanalysis for free and in a foreign country people don't know my image in france they have another image they think i'm somebody else it's really very relaxing and very rewarding for me i feel like it's a big honor to meet all these people and discuss during the day but also during the night because going out at night is not only to destroy myself it's to meet people and dog and sit down and you know for hours talk about lot of talk about the absence of god you know you know like why americans have so many shrinks i mean they're the these personal side because they don't have enough russians to talk to exactly exactly the russians are helping me so used to feel better listen you know you once said that moscow reminds you of paris in the nineteenth twenties is that true well i was not unfortunately in paris yes well that's what i want to ask you

how do you know i mean from when i read it what did you mean when i read hemingway or scott fitzgerald talk and henry miller talk about a city where everybody is free and everything is possible and i think most schools now is a little bit like that that's why everyone wants to go there because it's like new york in the eighty's or so it's a city where you have a lot of energy electricity people want to do things build things create new new companies and it's it's not only fun it's human behavior that is really positive i think do you really hate capitalism do you really hate paris paris is a little bit. dead right now i hope it's going to resuscitate do you know you know i lived i lived in paris for six years when i was in which younger and i visited it lots of times but last year the first time in milan. if i went to paris in winter

i loved it yes so you have to go to paris and i think there is so much better you know it because it doesn't have as many japanese and russian well even even not as much french but it was there all way for for the council. says ok it's better power is made out of the french is always there but you know the french we. prevent the grass is always greener on the other side so maybe because i was born in perry's and raised in paris and it's been there all my life i prefer to move and see other cities you said about the grass and you know what my father always says it's he says dealing with people is like washing washing the went shield of your car when you wash the grass you also think that the dirt is on the other side when you start washing the other side you also get to think that it's on the other side where that's exactly the thing out ok now in other another quote from

yourself you said that all literature is again that if a book is too serious it's crappy what so what's the purpose of literature going to entertain people i think it's important that you give pleasure to your reader i think so i think if it when i write i try to have fun myself if i have maybe the reader will have fun too i'm not saying every novel has to be funny and entertaining but i'm seeing the novels i like are full of humor and they have have a distance they have irony in them the best russian novels are like that you know check of what's really funny and i think people think the book has to be serious i think the book has to be ambitious which is not the same you have to have an ambition to some the world in a few words but if you do it was distance and you know cynicism. if you do it in

a little bit spectacular way then it's more of a distraction and it's not a crime to distract people when you write but. of course chuck of maybe firmly but especially the short story as a source of is not always funny no and not always funny and also you mentioned you mentioned coffee and mention god you mentioned for example dusty have skin your interviews and of bush tell stories oh i'm not funny at all although that someone on the phone when the guy finally kills the old lady this is funny but. i mean he's a for example he needs a sort of a homeless guy in a bar at the beginning of crime and punishment and drinking together i think this is kind of funny it's a little bit like when i go in a disco and i meet girls it's exactly the same except petersburg

a long long time ago. today uses something different from what you've been saying for a long time you said that you know that that our society is going to prove there before for a pretty long time be kept on saying that you believe that that that the end of the world is coming soon that that that you really believe it accounts. do you think that it's going to is going to get better i think or what i think i'm just changing my mind because i'm getting older and as people grow old always start to believe in god also you know because they have to do things that this is not the end so i am like that beginning and also i have a daughter she's ten years old and i cannot hope that it's the apocalypse i have to hope that it's not going to end but it and scare them feel very scared. you were born into the bush family even mean even interest to create a family you know you've been sort of a holy ground for prayer for

a pretty long. but as you say that you're growing older doesn't that mean that you're returning to a bushel way of life there that there's bourgeois mentality starts taking over inside of you oh my god. you know i think being a hooligan is very bushwah you know all the sons of rich people are always like acting like bad boys it's really a cliché this is really a cliché of the boss. my i'm a going to be boring old man is a possibility i bought a house in the southwest of france i go there named leave a very peaceful and quiet where i make a fire and prepare the dinner for my daughter reading my books but my books other books in my library so if if i see this on russian t.v. i'm going to disappoint all my readers i'm very sorry in fact an old and wise man

sitting on a chair going like this you know but but but but you do you know do it sound. but then but then you do call the. russian girls that a lot of them are in the south of france when you're one family goes away you pick up the telephone how. is it really. you know listen you took points. you took part in the french communist party's election campaign once it was very successful was a disaster like no one because there was paid by jacques chirac to destroy the communist party. so now you do need to go the first part of the party. i was very surprised that they asked me for help they were reading the engine in france and they thought there was a new car marks source of course i thought it was crazy and. came to see the

remarks with great relief for the russians so it was your. and you know our friends if they want to go they only father ross of that of the french so what happened is i did an advertising campaign for for the community candidate. and it didn't work but i still believe that the ideas of communities are going to happen if you look at since two thousand and eight what happened with this crisis the economy crisis is americans french and all the oxendine countries are buying the banks and the state is ruling the economy now so in fact as you are becoming more and more capitalist we are becoming more and more communist it's really incredible are you mentioned when you're when you talked about your your little house in the south of france and the rocking chair and reading your books you said sitting on my love reading a well you said well not my books but what like like books about reading your own books do you think you will ever write

a book that you will be able to read yourself like sit up in front of a fine laugh i was scared that you will end your sentence and just do you will you ever write a book. i don't read my my own books because i know them totally because when i finish them i have read them one million times so i don't know i never read them again. i don't know if i can be proud of my work is difficult for me to answer your question i think the last one is really honest really sincere and for the first time i talk about my past so when you finish a book you don't you don't really read it you just give it. just to the editor and then i like to listen to what helps people react some people will hate it some will love it and i like them to see them fighting each other. i like to be a conversation that's what i like but reading my own work is it's too painful.

you are becoming a little philosophical or you say yeah your church and i are changing and this is good this means you you will still be worth reading in the future back to you very very much and all the best to you thank you for being with us and just a reminder that my guest in the studio today was frederick big bear get a french writer and that's it but out from all of us here if you don't have your say and spotlight just drop me a line we'll be back tomorrow with more until then stay an hour to take care thank you.

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