Journalists From Russia

"The German Culture Minister. Do you think that after that Government recruited those idiots, scum, louts, and scoundrels, we should talk to them about anything?"

"When we used to speak about German culture, it appeared to be a genuine phenomenon, and then 2022 came along!"

"And after we think about it, then there will be nuclear war."

"Our next operation may be war with NATO."

"Our guys are doing their job. They’re doing it correctly."

"Everyone understood that after we destroy all of Ukraine’s weapons—which happened long ago, we destroyed all Soviet-made arms—the time would come to demilitarize NATO."

"Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] clearly said and Dmitry Anatolyevich [Medvedev] clearly said, we’ll strike the decision-making centers—and those are not in Kyiv."

"I don’t mind it when inept people try to rule the world, but it irritates me when they’re so nervous. If you want war with us, then declare war, so we can start swinging."

"Where will we stop? Well, as I was saying today, maybe Stonehenge."

"We're telling people: Come to your senses. We're telling people: Remember who you are. Look at what's being done to you. Look at who conquered you! Remember your great past! Wake up, stop lying to yourselves! That is the main point. Why are they making up a language for you? You are a "Rusin". Do you need that language Zelensky is trying to speak? Look at the history that is being made up for you, the religion that is being made up for you. That's why the people are for us. Westerners say: "They don't greet you with flowers." Yes, they are, big time. Despite their fear, they're welcoming us. And they will welcome us even more when they understand that we're never leaving."

"The troops of LPR and DPR are fighting for their land. And now I have a question: What would the Ukrainian territorial defense fight for? None of it is their land."

"The New York Times published a column with the headline "Russia is a Fascist Country" authored by Yale University Professor [[Timothy D. Snyder|[Timothy] Snyder]]. Pseudo-Professor of a pseudo-University. Snyder knows nothing, understands nothing, he is just a regular liar. They regularly claim that Russia is a fascist country. Listen, you bastards. You're offering hallmarks of a fascist state. Look at those indicators you're proposing. How are they any different from Trump's campaign? Down to the slogan "Make America Great Again". Discussions of former greatness. Donald Trump: "Make America Great Again". Cult of one leader. Visual symbols as a sign of belonging. What about Donald Trump' red hats? Mass events in support of the leader. Do you want me to play a clip of the dancing Trump? Hate speech towards a certain group of people: Look at what Trump used to say about liberals. If cretins like those those teach at Yale University... The majority of that nation are cretins. They know nothing."

"Europe is now ruled by people elected in practice by nobody."

"Not only Ukraine will have to be denazified. The war against Europe and the world is developing a more specific outline, which means we'll have to act differently and to act much more harshly."

"When this operation concludes, NATO will have to ask itself: "Do we have what we need to defend ourselves? Do we have the people to defend ourselves? And there will be no mercy. There will be no mercy.""

"I believe the special military operation is entering a new stage. Ukrainians alone are no longer enough."

"Russians were not the first to attack Ukraine. Russians are not fighting the Ukrainians but the ‘Banderovitsi’ (Ukrainian nationalists) and Nazis, whom they are hostages of. The Nazis have taken control of Ukraine."

"If you think that we will stop in Ukraine – think 300 times. Let me remind you that Ukraine is only an intermediate stage in ensuring the strategic security of the Russian Federation."

"In Ukraine, there live people who are absolutely fraternal in spirit, blood and common history, a war with whom would be the worst crime you could think of."

"Let me put it this way: There will never be any war between Russia and Ukraine because any person who attempts in full seriousness to undertake such an act is a criminal. What's more, I can't even imagine how big a criminal."

"What is preventing us from striking the territory of the United Kingdom, targeting those logistical centres where these arms are being loaded?"

"Russia is mired in cynicism. On state TV channels from morning to evening they discuss whose rocket exploded at the Kramatorsk railway station, how the corpses in Bucha wiggled their fingers and got up ...."

"What is happening in Ukraine is a crime. Russia is an aggressor country and the responsibility for this aggression rests on the conscience of only one person. That person is Vladimir Putin. My father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian, and they've never been enemies. This necklace I'm wearing is a symbol of the fact that Russia must immediately end this fratricidal war and our fraternal peoples will still be able to reconcile. Unfortunately, I've spent the last few years working for Channel One, doing Kremlin propaganda, and I'm very ashamed of this. Ashamed that I allowed lies to be broadcast from TV screens. Ashamed that I allowed others to zombify Russian people. We were silent in 2014 when all this started. We didn't protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny. We just silently watched this inhuman regime at work. And now the whole world has turned its back on us. And the next 10 generations won't wash away the stain of this fratricidal war. We Russians are thinking and intelligent people. It's in our power alone to stop all this madness. Go protest. Don't be afraid of anything. They can't lock us all away."

"No War Остановите войну, не верьте пропаганде, здесь вам врут. [Stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, here you are being lied to.] Russians against war"

"In the minds of Russians, there had to be an image that all Americans were L.G.B.T. supporters who killed Black people and abused adopted children from Russia."

"The main goal that unites all of humanity now is to stop this merciless war. Don't argue about what's fake and what's true. Just do not succumb to negative informational influence. Turn off the TV and remember the main thing.."

"The truth is that Russia is an aggressor country. Treacherously attacked an independent state at night. This means that the responsibility for today's explosion in Kramatorsk and for the war crimes in Bucha lies solely with her. And no one else. Ukrainians are defending their native land by all available means. So they will always be right."

"The propaganda machine leads the Russian people away from the essence, clouds their minds and replaces concepts. Instead of words of condolence, it broadcasts about fakes. Instead of morality, it plunges society into chaos."

"Native penates. Semi-annual trip behind. Woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat: it seemed as if there was money for the next travelling and the hour came. Mentally howled in horror: «Orderlies, give me an injection of selfishnessI, don't want, tired! » A moment later, returning from the ghostly drowse to dull reality, as if the ice swimmer from the «February heat» club, diving from an ice crust into a hole, remembered that there were no funds yet and, therefore, a trip was impossible. This is the joy of a soldier looking closely at a small hole from a bullet (a second ago whistled over the ear) in the wall of the trench: it means that there is still time and you can again go on the attack, fight with the remnants of philistine, selfishness and laziness, who, like a tiny pygmy, lodged inside me."

"Warm autumn day. The last hours and minutes of the outgoing Indian summer. The weather is wonderful. The sun gives warmth to everyone. Children play at merchandisers. Smiles of good people from billboards attract to buy a cockroach remedy. Male pensioners in trolleybuses give his sits to female pensioners. Traffic cop gives out invitations to a concert of police ditties. Somewhere in the yellowed foliage, a stupid starling sings his trills. And yet something is missing. Missing her. Inconceivable, but there were times when I could somehow do without Africa."

"Time moves inexorably forward and this process is irreversible. The list of countries that I managed to visit is increasing every year. There are still no sponsors and probably will not be. However, are they needed? Easily and just to do without someone's help: it is necessary only, without feeling sorry for itself, to disdain money a little, to slightly ignore comfort and a cosiness and to believe very much in the forces even if... they are not present."

"On December 3, 2010, from the Nativity of Christ, with a small camping backpack behind my back, I left the house, running away from the routine of pale gray days, which look like twins in a morgue. In the backpack — a monthly supply of oatmeal, a metal bowl and a mug, in the passport — not a single visa, in the head — dreams, ideas and a vague future."

"During my childhood, the inscription «tourist» accompanied the picture, where a person in sneakers with a backpack climbs the mountains. Now under a similar comment — a beachgoers: sunglasses, a sun lounger under a palm tree near the azure waters of the ocean. Everything flows, everything changes."

"An angel of heaven appeared to me in a dream: «I was sent by providence to warn you. Do know, lonely wanderer, that for everything you have done: traveling around the globe, books, photo exhibitions... you will be severely punished in old age! Nobody will give you even a mug of water…» — «Go away, depressive nerd bore.. — I interrupted the feathered one, — you utter banal phrases!»"

"Once, when I was a teenager, with a backpack behind my shoulders, in shabby clothes and a hat with wide fields, went down from the highest, as it seemed to me, Crimean mountains, to where in the lowlands rural children grazed a flock of sheep. The shepherd boys surrounded me from all sides, mistaking for a wanderer and started asking... I told them about the world trip, African cannibals, described aborigines traditions and much more. The chappies listened as enchanted, opening their mouths from amazement: they have never been beyond the neighboring village. However, the fifteen-year-old narrator in those days was not yet a traveler, I deceived them... and I also deceived you: this story is fiction."

"Woke up in the morning. Outside the window is a dull landscape of a small city where people live like moles in burrows. An ordinary day, everything as always. But the ghost of doubt still loomed in consciousness, not wanting to disappear with the first cry of the roosters. For the sake of what I wandered and suffered for six months: starved in Papua New Guinea, slept on the sidewalk in the company of Indonesian homeless people, shaking from cold at night in China? After all, I will not be awarded a chocolate medal and a material allowance as for an international tramp will not be appointed. Who makes me do this? Maybe my own stupidity? But no, this is her sister — conscience. And I got back to work."

"Any route, be it Africa, Asia, or the islands of Oceania, I go twice: the first time in reality, the second — when I write about it. Everything that happened: adventures, joys, problems — live now in my memoirs, travel notes, in the imagination of those who have read my books and articles. It will stay when I am gone into the world of shadows."

"The teacher asked wards what the meaning of life was. They began to put forward versions. Only the failing student, sitting at the last desk, was silent, staring stupidly down. When the noise subsided a little, the teacher turned to him: «What do you think about this?» — «I do not think about what is not...» — answered dunce."

"Now I am truly rich, and this treasure will not be able to take away from me either the villains in the dark alleys or the ubiquitous tax authorities: a semi-annual expedition of one participant, which included nine countries and seven islands, significantly supplemented the baggage of knowledge obtained in previous wanderings. Spiritual wealth is more expensive than diamonds."

"The celestial omen shone the mind. The gate of the azure vault unfolded, among the clouds, in the halo of sunlight appeared the Lord, Hanuman the Most High. «I trust you with a responsible mission... — annunciate holy God — from this day forget about comfort and coziness, leave your whims and desires... Your Ego is gone, you do not belong to yourself, taking a vow to serve the muses. From now on, you are the wind of the Sudanese deserts, the fog of the New Guinean Mountains, the heat of Kenyan night and the tropical rain of the Indonesian archipelago...»"

"Paradise in which there is no way to leave territory — hell for a traveler."

"Dedicated to eccentrics, madmen, residents of the Far North — heroes of Russian anecdotes, as well as to all those who died while climbing Mount Everest. (Dedication of the book)"

"Waking up early in the morning, I was seriously scared, deciding that my company had gone to the military training — therefore, I will receive a scolding from the senior in rank for oversleeping. Crawled under the bed for footcloths and at that moment... remembered that I was not in the army now. No, this is not a barracks, but a room in a Georgian hotel, costing five euro’s per bed per day. Delighted with the return of his memory, crossed himself mentally and, having dressed, went out onto the balcony that adorned the facade of the building. (About the hotel at the bus station in Tbilisi)"

"I was about to go to bed when the commandant knocked on the door again. He brought a plastic bottle with a cut-off top, explaining by sign language that it was «parasha» (chamber pot — Aut.). Thanking the kind man, turned to the wall, trying to fall asleep. I almost succeeded: got to the waiting room of the land of dreams, when an armed convoy suddenly appeared. (About stay in the Kubul prison)"

"A trip without a camera to the African tribes for me is the same as giving a person who has lost both legs the boots he once dreamed of."

"Money is a kind of paintings, they can be framed, hung on the wall, and this will also be an exhibition."

"Anecdote from the photographer. Once a certain airline decided to conduct an advertising campaign: on the central streets of Simferopol, agents offered passers-by air tickets to Mongolia for 10% of the real cost. Of the 1,350 respondents, only one person expressed a desire to go to the land of the steppes — a homeless person at the station, but, unfortunately, he had neither a passport nor money."

"Death will come for me somewhere in the African jungle. I hope the negatives will be handed over to their homeland, and someone will make a posthumous exhibition. But another option is also possible: my photographic films will be hung on a palm tree by the native people, celebrating some local holiday, and they will smash coconuts with my camera."

"It is better to watch TV when it is switched off — that is, in the traditional way, but by pulling the plug out of the socket. One of the advantages of the alternative is electricity saving; in addition — the use of this method does not pose a threat to eyesight."

"As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell him nothing, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures. ...he will refuse to believe it... That's the tragedy of the situation of demoralization."