Page 48

[Alexandr Korol]

people don’t see it that way, and it immediately seems scary to them. I don’t know why they’re so afraid and so biased about it. And so, as soon as I post something like buying some antique icon somewhere, suddenly everyone feels uneasy and immediately thinks I’m “not right in the head.” Yet all the volumes of my “Alternative History” are actually about the future, the past, and the present — about time and the structure of the world. And how could I, while studying the world and sharing it with people, how could I possibly overlook topics like: who is Shiva, who is Satan, who is Hades? That’s fascinating stuff. I’m decoding it all, describing it all. But people see it like this: if you write about Hades, then you must be Satan. If you write about an icon, then you’re religious. In the world of people, it goes like this: if you write about an icon — cultist. If you write about the devil, about Satan — then you must be the devil yourself, Satan. But if you write about a time machine or the multiverse — “Cool guy, let’s fly together!” That’s the kind of reaction I’ve seen from society today. That kind of reaction. And I’d really like to ask a question later to someone who knows the answer: why is that? Who’s in charge of the Church? The Pope or, in Orthodoxy, the Patriarch? Tell me, how did it come to be that if I have an icon at home, people consider me a cultist? What for? Why is that? I don’t get it. Or the fact that in my Saint Petersburg there are so many holy places, like the Chapel of Saint Xenia the Blessed — why is it that if I write about it, I’m immediately seen as a cultist? How did that happen? That’s really strange. You know, if I take a photo with a drug addict, people will think I’m a drug addict. But if I take a photo with the Chapel of Saint Xenia the Blessed, people call me a cultist. How is that possible? I don’t understand. Maybe someday the Christian Orthodox Church will defend me and my book. Maybe people today have just become so godless, and that’s where these associations come from. I don’t know who planted that in their heads — maybe there’s some TV series like that. Maybe some blogger put that into people. I don’t know. But for some reason, that’s the reaction now. But most often... well, no, in phases — like at one point when I started wearing rings with stones, many people started saying to me: “What are you, a mage? A black mage?” And I’d say: “Why?” I said that in the 90s all men wore them — some kind of big shots or authorities all wore rings with stones, right? And also, actually, back in the tsarist era everyone wore rings with stones.