Boris Koltsov journalist biography

Tags: Koltsov, media, war, hot spots of Baghdad, April of the year, next to the American checkpoint. He was in Grozny on January 1 of the year and, although he then traveled to Chechnya almost every 2-3 months, admits that never so tightly with a war - with a whistle of bullets, a rupture of reactive shells, and the buildings collapsing before his eyes - did not contact.

And it was he who-one of the few journalists who entered the Nord-Ost captured by terrorists. However, extremely in his life was enough without hostilities - with a camera in his hands, he parachuted twice to the North Pole, then an unsuccessful landing to the eastern peak of Elbrus, there was also a series of submarine films in the format of the program “Profession of the Reporter”, the most difficult stage of the roundabout on the sailboat “Nadezhda” - Cape Horn, interviews with the Afghan Field Shah What are the most roads from the most road for long, more than twenty years, years in journalism, what has been moving a person who has been going to a person who has been going to return to the whole and unscathed, is it difficult to be a Russian journalist in today's America-about this and much more Boris Koltsov, now heading RBC in New York, with interest, with interest.

Responsible editor of NG Politics Rosa Tsvetkova. There are very few such materials seriously exploring what happened in Ukraine or the motives of Russia’s actions, in the USA you often meet a purely informative presentation of events, and all analytics boils down to advice on what to do, or not very intelligible attempts to explain what they think in the Kremlin.

In addition, a lot, of course, depends on what is happening in America itself, when the news comes from behind the ocean. For example, the first day after the presidential election in Ukraine coincided with the national holiday in the USA-Memorial Day-this is the day when veterans are honored here, and somewhat similar to our Victory Day. Only if on May 9 we still have tied to one Great Patriotic War, then here they pay tribute to the participants of all wars in which America has ever taken part.

Plus, often in the United States, its own events and news come to the fore, especially the day before in Santa Barbara there was shooting at a university campus and students died. So on that day about the events in Donetsk, where, if I am not mistaken, for the first time from the beginning of the clashes, front -line aviation was used in response to the capture of the airport, in the American media literally a couple of the first paragraphs, and then about the elections, the reaction to them and all that.

That is, the transition of the conflict to another, tough phase on this day in the United States, in my opinion, was not noticed. Do you feel any consequences of these changes? At least at the household level. But the mood in society has changed. Of course, it depends on how the American media cover what is happening in Ukraine. Russia looks in these messages as a source of destabilization of the situation in Europe, as a country that takes a part of the territory from another country, violating international agreements.

Although several years ago, the same social services at the public opinion level stated some warming in relations between countries. Nevertheless, it is probably premature to say that the times of the Cold War have already come. One of the main points of the current exacerbation of relations between countries is that at all, it seems to me, in any case in the USA, that such a crisis will happen.

Especially among those who invested money in Russia over the past quarter century.

And for such businessmen, investors, now is a very difficult time. On the one hand, a lot of funds have been invested and in the case of even more exacerbation of relations there is a danger of losing them, on the other hand, few of them are ready to conduct business in Russia, as before. I think that now for American businessmen the main headache is how to return money with the least loss.

On the air of your programs, let's say? By the way, we try to attract as many Russian -speaking experts as possible. Those who have been living here for more than one decade and have already taken place as American analysts, financial players, traders, etc. And some experts with Russian roots do not even dare to give comments in Russian, because on economic topics they are easier to discuss in English.

Although at the household level they preserve a very decent Russian. Recently, by the way, we began to bring them a live broadcast of our analytical programs and here we give preference to those who own economic Russians. And now we have on the channel almost every day relevant comments from the financial capital of the world in our native language. From the first days of work on NTV, I always watched with interest what and how the operators are being removed in different situations.

Plus, when you are more than 20 years in a television topic, of course, you already intuitively understand what is a good frame and what is bad and how it is built. And then it turned out that technically it is not so difficult to master everything.True, at first the brains were in full swing to learn how to correctly configure the camera, so that there was no over, for example, the sound was transmitted correctly without marriage.

There were cases - I set up the camera and begin to ask questions a little away from it. I finish the interview ... and I understand that I forgot to turn on the recording. I apologized - and everything is new. But now I do many things on the machine and I can not only remove myself for the stand-apa, but also alone go on a live broadcast right from the street. The main thing is that the mobile Internet signal in this place is stable.

Of course, with a little year ago, I could not imagine that I would be able to work in such a lobe. And five years ago, I would not have believed in such a technique of the possibilities of TV. And what? I am one of those who stayed on NTV when there was a split, which I did not regret at all, because the period of working with Boris Yordan was also interesting in his own way.

Everything then was transparent and simple. Before underwater immersion. Report with a native instead of a microphone. And it’s funny now to deny it. But at that short time when the Yordan ruled the company, in general there was a pure business-the desire to go around competitors. Both at the level of specific reports and strategically - intellectual assaults with the participation of all leading journalists of the company's television company - this was very interesting.

It is naive, of course, to ask if it was scary when you were actually in the war over and over and over again, whether Chechnya, Tajikistan or some other war zone, but still what moved at those moments-excitement, desire to become famous, some other feelings? For me, this is a very deep philosophical question for myself: what is drawn to where it is hot? Personally, I always had the feeling that if you go to war constantly, eventually creative dullness comes.

After all, everything is simple there: I got to the place, took off what I could, washed off in time and quickly issued on the air. And this is in creative terms very much, because from the same Duma in the best times of domestic journalism it was much more difficult to make an interesting plot than from Chechnya. Especially in the first war, when there was an opportunity to shoot on both sides.

Therefore, I had about the same attitude to journalistic work in hot spots as when I worked as a nurse in the hospital after school-this is a dirty work that someone should do. On the other hand, when you are there, you see the same persons, because, as a rule, the same journalists go to dysfunctional points, you become a representative of a separate one, not that caste, but that part of the journalistic community that is practically closed to the rest.

Close friends with whom you see, as a rule, only in war. And when someone from a normal life asks you: “Why are you doing this? Yes, there is a need to do this work in which you work in which you are counting on you and even cherishes how you do it. In addition, this is also additional earnings, because business trips to hot spots are paid in a completely different way than ordinary ones.

But even to explain to yourself that you do it for the sake of money is, in my opinion, some kind of crafty, because there is still something else. But at least I did this not for the sake of glory, that's for sure. But even in this yourself it is difficult to admit that you are going there for the sake of adrenaline every time. And in order to get rid of the feeling that you are doing something monotonous and dumb, for me personally there was always an alternative to a desire to try yourself in other risky adventures.

The problem, however, is that for the news service any extreme plots, even if these are films from the series “Profession - Reporter” - this is still more likely a deviation from the rules than the norm. Such plots are not so in demand in terms of television to do it constantly. Therefore, even a report on the jump to the North Pole, and I participated in such expeditions twice - this is the plot, as a rule, at the end of the release as a decoration of the program.

On the one hand, I really used the official position, because when I jumped on Elbrus, for example, of the five expedition participants, there were several thousand parachute jumps, it was real professionals, and I had a completely different level of experience in all, as if you compare an experienced and inexperienced driver: the first in the event of a non-standard situation on the road will always react faster, simply due to experience.

But if I had not been a reporter and did not go to it for the sake of the filming themselves, no one would have taken me into such an expedition. At the moment, it was perhaps the brightest adventure in my life. Discharged air and you are one on one with a completely unusual landscape. Mountains from a height are completely different. Plus, the wind is 25 meters per second ... I finished the report on Elbrus jumping in the cyto - I unsuccessfully landed and broke my leg in three places.

Therefore, no, there were no such thoughts at these moments. They arise most often after.When we went to the Nord-Ost, I primarily recalled the picture that Sergei Grandfather with Anton Pravsky was removed before us, and tried to understand where, in which direction we had to go correctly in order not to accidentally get into the hall, where we could probably be shot right away ...-Boris, excuse me that I am interrupting, you really don’t be crawling, recalling the terrorists, that, going to the terrorists, that, going to the terrorists.

There are so many people holding in the theater hall, you didn’t even have a thought for a second: maybe I don’t have to go there? And I was ready to do this on the first night after capture. When we entered, I was really focused on reaching the place of negotiations. When we climbed to the second floor of the lobby, there we were already met by terrorists with automatic machines, so under the aim we and I and the operator were kept all the time.

I managed to even talk on the phone during these 40 minutes. First, my wife called, said that I could not say when the same thing answered the call from the editorial office, one of the terrorists, without taking a machine gun from me, ordered the phone to turn off. Then Baraev woke up and kicked us all safely. And why did he drive away, they themselves demanded the Enteves?

And my grandfather I will cut! I came out from there with a complete feeling that it would not be relied on peaceful, in a good way, and when the assault began by the morning, I generally understood that there was no other option. They waited for one of the Afghan leaders to find time for us. Several times went to the front line, but at that time there was a lull.

The living room of one -story residence is a large room with mattresses around the perimeter. There we ate, right on the floor, and slept. The most vivid impression is Ahmad Shah Masud in an everyday pale blue Afghan shirt to the knees. Not at all the way I used to see him on the screen. True, during an interview, he was already in the usual image - a jacket of Khaki and Pakul - this is such an Afghan headdress.

When later in the same place he died from undermining the suicide bombers who arrived under the guise of journalists, I thought that probably no one watched them upon arrival at the residence and they could bring anything with them. We really paved a new path in domestic journalism, no matter how highly it sounded, we tried to differ something from what happened before. They tried to get into everything that was possible and impossible, achieving exclusive or simply showing how things really are.

In the first Chechen, I even sometimes argued with the military, proving that this is my professional duty - to talk about the real state of affairs. Now, in my opinion, such theses are unpopular, and disputes are generally fraught with consequences.