There are two words, which you'd better forget in his presence - "interview" and "photography". When he hears them, he gets very stiff inside. On the face of it he looks normal. He could even promise: yeah, sure, we'll arrange it on the phone. When? Okay, next week will do. The beginning of it would be good, the end - even better. But he knows that nothing will happen. Not in the end of the week, not in the beginning. He'd hide, disappear, disconnect himself. He'd be neither on the ground, nor in the sky. "The subscriber is beyond reach" - that's what his mobile phone says. There's no better motto for Oleg Menshikov. "Beyond reach". If only I could chisel, I would carve these words on marble above the very entrance of the office of the "Theatre Association 814". Although it's very easy to find him there. However, it means absolutely nothing.

He was told once that he's having his last reincarnation. There will be no such people as him anymore. Therefore whatever he wishes will happen. If he doesn't want to be interviewed, he won't be. If he wants to play football with the boys - everyone will go to play football, even the ones, who weren't going to play it at all. Menshikov really has this magic gift of suggestion and an unmistakable instinct for people - familiar and unfamiliar. To strangers he is amiable, to close people - unpredictable.
Don't trust the boastful stories of selected lucky people, telling you about how they had a friendly chat with Olezhka yesterday, or how they went to the baths with him, or how they sat here yesterday, eating a water-melon, and he came and brought a bottle of Johnnie Walker. Never mind, old fellow, it's cool! Gold Label! Oh, it might be true, of course. The baths, and the watermelon, and the whiskey… But listening to this table-chatter, you understand that they haven't approached him a single millimeter. Those who are really on intimate terms with him will never discuss him. Even among each other. As if they arranged it, his friends have vowed secretly once for all not to say a word about Oleg. Otherwise you could give up for lost any relationship with him. Menshikov doesn't forgive treachery. He can't stand familiarity. When an opportunity offers, he could fix with a look of arctic coldness in such a way that no attempt to justify yourself or to begin talking to him would seem appropriate.
But the opportunity will hardly offer. He'll just pass by, not looking around, cleaving his way through the crowd as if he was swimming a hundred meter distance with crawl. You'll only catch a glimpse of his back and of his profile, which you wouldn't call a "medal" one, but which is just asking to be put on a medal. The profile of a despot, of an arrogant man, with a solid gourmet nose, an imperious mouth and black gypsy eyes, which could apparently burn through walls.
I've seen it many times how perfectly reasonable people, worthy fathers and mothers of families, went absolutely crazy because of a single glance of his, obsessed with seeing him again on the screen or on the stage, wanting indispensably to know what he's like in real life, what he likes, what he doesn't like, what he eats… Even Nonna Viktorovna Mordukova, a strong woman and an experienced actress, wavered when she first saw a photo of young Menshikov at the screen tests of "Rodnya". "His eyes were as black as the night. We decided at once to take him." Actually, it's the very first reaction to Menshikov, and probably the most right one. A reaction which shows a healthy attraction towards everything fine and… inaccessible.
Although then, twenty years ago, he seemed just one of us. No phantom, no star. A funny, lively guy with an outstanding sense of rhythm, with his ever slipping off smile on still innocent lips. He had a normal Soviet childhood, loving parents, good marks in school. He has finished a musical school, specializing in playing the violin. He was chairman of the council of patrol ("druzhina"). He was even sent to "Artek" for excellent studies and exemplar behavior. He's fond of Soviet war songs and of "sailor spaghetti" - and it's all that remains of it in his present life. When I hear Menshikov sing "Sinii Platochek" or "Zatihaet Moskva", I understand that our childhood and youth have passed in close neighborhood. I don't know, though, whether he really eats spaghetti. Maybe because the restaurants, where we dined a couple of times, never had spaghetti in their menus.

From the family album
We talked with him once about the power of childhood memories. Who remembers what and why. From the brightest pictures: he's five. He's on his granny's dacha, near Tambov. He's sitting on piled logs and waiting for his father, who is supposed to appear at the very end of the country road. Oleg couldn't miss him. Because it's the culmination and the main event of the day: Dad's coming! Finally Dad appears, seen by Oleg nearly beyond the horizon. In a white short-sleeved shirt, as it was worn those days. And, of course, Oleg runs to meet him with his dirty palms, which in a minute stick into the starched shirt, leaving a clear trace of eerie black five fingers on Dad's back. And at once joy gives place to fear: "What is Mum going to say?"
Mum, Elena Innokent'evna, is strict. Or, more probably, it's that case of strongest mother's love that is most afraid to be a burden, and therefore does inconceivable effort to seem restrained, reasonable and serious. Dad, Evgenii Yakovlevich, has something in common with Oleg. Military bearing, grayish hair, glasses in elegant setting. Oleg Menshikov, how he'd like to meet his old age.
You need to see them together, all three of them, to understand how much of a support his parents' house always was and will be for him. There all over the walls his photos hang. His parents live in expectation of his calls and visits. They know all the nuances of his moods and intonations. They are very modest and bashful, so it's quite awkward for them to talk to me about how brilliant their son is. Especially as there probably is a strict ban placed on this topic too. I prefer to drink tea and to examine the family albums. There is a great number of them here, due to the fact that Evgenii Yakovlevich didn't only take photos of Oleg, but of his whole course in the Schepkin college. Another picture from the past: it's morning in the Menshikovs' flat. A customary ritual in the bathroom: taking down of the black and white imprints, which have dried during the night, from the clothes ropes. But on the other hand all his fellow-members of the course, when they finished the college, got a present from Evgenii Yakovlevich - a personal album, which was a detailed photochronicle of their artistic achievements, from the very first sketches to degree performances.

The stairs of fame
I remember well one of those performances - "Stairs of fame" by Eugene Skrib with Menshikov playing the main part. I'm surprised at myself. Never have I gone to watch the students act. Not before, not after. But this time it was as if somebody contrived it. A stuffy June evening, half-empty stalls of the branch of Maly theater on the underground station "Dobryninskaya" and the circle of the scene moving non-stop with a high unstable stairs, on which there is a young boy, running like a madman.
I don't know yet what his name is. But I like it how he fearlessly flies upstairs, how he animatedly carries on the dialogue, how he dashingly dances cancan. You could see high class play, virtuosity, ability to attract the attention of the audience in him, and even some kind of light-minded operetta cascade, which is most unexpected in the respectable walls of Maly theatre academy. I couldn't have known then that Oleg loves operetta from his very childhood, that it's his cherished area, and the part of fast liver Bony from "Silva" - his secret dream. "You're not angry at me, are you? Have a sweet". This funny cue, which is frequently said by Kalman's hero, is a key to his not implemented talents, and to his partly unfortunate fate. To reconcile everyone, to make friends with everyone, to unite everyone at his own table with ties of joy and general celebration. Hence his touching and invariable attachment to different dates, birthdays of his friends and colleagues, just actor meetings without any special cause. There he's cheerful, light-hearted and open. It's a pity that very few people know Menshikov like this.
In fact he was created to act in comedy, but in most cases he is offered drama. He's got the type of a simpleton, but he's been loaded with the titles of "the first lover" and "sex-symbol". He dreamt of giving joy and sweets, but he was always expected to perform great strains and insights. He promised to become "the life and soul of the party", and became an "iron mask".
But why? I don't know. Maybe there's a heart wound, which doesn't close up, or somebody's betrayal, or some secret, that torments him and never lets go? And maybe because he's a prince. There is such a kind of people, a very rare one, whose life is always in the public eye, everybody is in love with them, around them there are supernatural passions. But they themselves remain apathetic to other people's importunities, sufferings, loves. They exist by themselves, separately from the crowd of admirers, and are usually very lonely. Gerard Philippe and John Kennedy, Oleg Dal' and Serezha Kurehin were princes. A prince is not a king as yet. A king needs power, heirs, a queen. And a prince is always hope, a promise of happiness, which doesn't have to come true. It's enough that this promise was once given. Oh, how wonderfully could he have played prince Harry in Shakespeare's chronicles!

"I never thought that I was loved so much"
I ask Elena Innokentyevna, what kind of news connected with Oleg would gladden her most.
- If he got married, - she sighs gently.
Mother's agitation is understandable. But why the public is so much worried about his bachelor state is impossible to understand. "Why don't you marry, Oleg?" - asks his elder colleague, a celebrated actor, with a wry smile. The colleague is very drunk. His wife with a hating face looms behind his back. Of course, such unions could hardly encourage anyone. Moreover, the well-tried method of assays and mistakes in the approach to the question of marriage is not for Menshikov.
- You understand it, of course, that it only could happen once in a lifetime, - pronounces Oleg profoundly.
- In mine it happened twice.
- And what?
- Nothing. It gets better every time.
But I think I understand his fear of deception, of substitution, of a wrong step. Menshikov takes his life seriously. He's a man of habits, of an established order and a closed soul. Any intrusion, even one like a planned visit of an annoying interviewer or an incidental call of a crazy girl admirer could spoil his day, unsettle him. And here we've got a whole wife with her pretensions, unavoidable problems, lawful insults! No, there's no place for her as yet in the well-groomed interior of his flat, in his daily routine. Especially as there is a servant, home life is going right. What else does he need?
But he needs love. Like everybody, as usual! Maybe he needs it even more that the others. Because in actual fact it's the only true stimulus in art. I asked him once what conclusions had he come to after the staging of "Gore ot uma", and he confessed open-heartedly: " I never thought that I was loved so much". And he added that even if he knew how hard it would be he would repeat this experiment without a moment's thought.
Menshikov is in a much bigger degree an actor of the "inside" and a man of impulse than he is supposed to be. His absolutely cynical emperor Kaligula, his great madman Nizhinsky, his fatal "white" avenger Mitya from "Burnt by the sun" are all sheer romantics at heart, wounded by unrequited feeling or still thirsting for love. And when his cadet from "The Barber of Siberia", having found himself in the arms of the woman he loves, shouts, nearly crying: "But you don't love me", you understand that this late recovery of sight for him is equal to a catastrophe, which is worse than the approaching penal servitude.
And to the question of a French journalist, whether Menshikov could sacrifice everything for the sake of love, a question asked in connection with his new work in the film "East-West", which was directed by Regis Varnier, Oleg gave an answer after a short meditation: "The older I get, the safer I can answer this question - yes".

A million of sufferings
Menshikov has touched a string, which seemed to have fallen silent in our theatre since the time of the great tragic actors Ostuzhev and Simonov. It's the pathos of romantic intonation, pathos of open gesture, pathos of open passion. He alone could show with his baritone a million of sufferings and a thousand of pangs, so that the monologues of Chazky performed by him would look more like opera arias. Words don't matter, what is important is their melody, the inner rhythm of the phrase. That's why Menshikov, not really knowing any languages, speaks English in "The Barber of Siberia" like Paul Scolfield, and speaks French in "East-West" like Gerard Philippe.
It is said that Catherine Deneuve refused to believe for a long time that he learned his part by heart using the word-for-word translation. She had an illusion, like the whole film-crew, that he speaks perfect French. He was then absolutely exhausted. Not only because of endless cramming of his part. He's a perfectionist by nature, so he couldn't stand the thought that he could disappoint, not come up to expectations, be not up to the mark. It's not just about the success, which he values jealously, like other actors. It's about something much more important for him - the right to be loved, which needs to be proved anew every single time. That's why every new film and especially every performance requires of him colossal concentration. Everything is held up by him, everything depends on whether he'll touch the string, which rings in the atmosphere of everyone's expectations and in his own soul. If it doesn't happen, there is a very strong, professional, self-assured actor playing instead of Menshikov, but there will be no miracle, no moments of pure torture or pure gladness, which are probably the only reasons one goes to the theatre. He knows this about himself, and so does everyone in the theatre, so you'd better not approach him during a performance.
Not without reason are screens his favorite article of theatre props. Light, upholstered with simple gray linen, like the ones in his rehearsal hall, or heavy, varnished, inlayed with nacre, like the ones in the Museum of East. Screens for him are the main conditions of the trade and a basic need of his soul. In the moments of "non-play" he must be screened by them. As in everyday life he is hidden from everyone by the darkened wind-screens of his Lexus, by his polite secretary Kate, by his smiling producer Valera, by his imperturbable driver Yan, and, finally, by his Armani sunglasses, behind which you could see neither his eyes, nor what is going on in his soul. This is his line of defense, his Great Wall of China, which he tirelessly erects, trying in vain to guard himself from the glances of strangers. He seems to fail to submit the obvious truth that there's no actor without an audience, or it must be a very bad actor!
- I don't understand, why they (meaning young actors. - S.N.) don't like screens? They have no necessity to concentrate somehow, to be alone with themselves. And it's so important before entering the stage!
I remember how in Riga, immediately after the very first run-through in public of "Gore ot uma", he was approached by an intelligent-looking man, who introduced himself as a doctor of philology and offered: "Do you want to talk about the play?" Menshikov suddenly retorted: "No I don't". Everybody felt awkward because of this abruptness. He could have said something evasively polite. But afterwards I understood: it was impossible. At this moment he was defending himself.
Griboedov's "fresco" was still smoking behind his back, his throat was burning from the long monologues of Chazky, and any unforeseen spending of mental energy could threaten tomorrow's performance. Moreover, academic conversations usually bore him. He could, of course, make out interest to observe the decencies, but it's hard for me to imagine him engrossed by someone's intellectual reflections or by museum beauties.
There was a time when he became very keen on Pelevin's prose. He read it avidly. As if in childhood, in a pioneers' camp, he exchanged books with Serezha Bodrov, another fan of Pelevin. When I asked him what he found there, the answer was quite incomprehensible.
- Well, I can't tell you straight ahead. It's too complicated.
In fact, I think everything is quite simple. With his absolute pitch for novelty Menshikov responded to the new sound, to Pelevin's buffoon intonation of total delirium, which coincided with the music of the new time. At some moment it would appear to him that it's his, that there would be his future. And as a practical man he would try to adjust the new literature for his own theatre matters, and when he fails to order a play from Pelevin, he would look actively for new young drama, not opened by our stage as yet.

Youth is retribution
He has been young for too long and he got used too much to being the symbol of youth to submit the fact that the time of his romantic heroes is slowly passing away. His present surrounding is young and very young actors. It looks as if he realizes some kind of paternal complex with them. He likes to patronize, to direct, to teach. But it isn't always convincing, because he's - not by age, but by his self-consciousness - often younger, than everyone else in his "Association". Menshikov could sooner show an example of wholehearted work and fanatic devotion to his profession. But could one teach anybody that? And has he ever learnt to do that?
However, the events I'm taking about seem to have happened not a long time ago. When the famous film "Polety vo sne i nayavu" ("Flights asleep and awake"), where he had a minor part, was being shot, the director Roman Balayan time and again shouted, laughing and pointing towards young Menshikov, to Yankovsky: "Here is your death coming". He meant that the new successors are already urging on and that he'd soon have to make room for them. In fact, Balayan's prophecy came true very soon: Menshikov succeeded Yankovsky, having without much effort got hold of the place of the hero of the end of eighties-nineties' generation. He was the only one of the people of his age who managed to leap onto the step of the leaving train of famous Soviet film industry. Further on everyone has reached a deadlock of the ruined cinema system, of looted film studios, of destitute small-budget movies. But even there Menshikov forced his way. Mikhalkov's films made him a European celebrity, and the prestigious Laurence Olivier theatre prize for his debut in London's West-End only enforced his position of the leading Russian star.
For all that, no one has yet given him even a title. It goes without saying that he won't raise a finger, justly supposing that if it really happens, it would be them who should consider his consent an honor. After years of dealing with world-class stars and with superiors he knows well the system of subordination and has adopted the manner of putting in their place those who think they could buy everything.
He is impossible to be lured to a society meeting where a potential sponsor could be met. His participation in the actions of "Triumph" is more of an exception, which only confirms the rule he always sticks to. If you play, then play big. Especially as the names engaged there are the most respected in Russian culture. This is how he arranges his life. From one victory to another, from one summit to another. Only main roles, only expensive large-scale projects. Not dissipating his talents for minor episodes and ambiguous offers.

"Get out of Moscow!"
However, failures also happen to Menshikov. For example, the very film "Mama", which, in my opinion, hasn't ornamented his filmography at all.
- Why did you agree?
- They persuaded me to. But to say the truth, I've stated such conditions that I was sure they would refuse. But somehow they agreed to them, and I couldn't back down.
Or Chekhov's "Platonov", which was never staged. He planned to do it with Rustam Hamdamov. Even with "Gore ot uma" he had a lot of problems. It seems to me that no other role required of him such strain and such hard work as the staging of Griboedov's play. Everything came together here: the secret dream of his own theater, the long-standing director ambitions, the nostalgic love to Russian classics, but the main reason was that he longed to come back to where, as he thought, everybody loved and expected him. You see, Menshikov played nearly nothing from Russian classic repertoire (Ganya Ivolgin in the "Idiot" in his youth and Iharev in London's "Igroki" don't count). He returned to the stage after almost five years' absence, inspired by the triumph of "Burnt by the sun" and "The prisoner of Caucasus", crowned by all conceivable and inconceivable premiums and prizes. A tanned sex-symbol, an eternally young jeune premier and a favorite of fortune. "At first light you're on your feet, and I'm at your feet".
Outwardly Menshikov's theatre situation easily rhymed with the arrival of Alexander Andreevich Chazky at Famusov's house. The same open-hearted expectation of happiness, the same hope for success and the same illusion of general adoration, nourished by enthusiasm of friends and loyal admirers… And all of a sudden such a collapse, almost like in Griboedov's play!
I could remember the day of premiere, 14 September 1998, as if through a feverish mist. A "forest" of microphones and searchlights, pointed before the beginning of the performance straight at his face, which grew white. Police cordons at the entrance, "all Moscow", storming the stalls, dress circle and chairs of Mossovet theatre, annoyed because they have to force their way over heads, nearly hating Menshikov for these searchlights and microphones, for roses waiting for his final bows, and especially because even the terrible financial crisis, which has shaken Russia, was forgotten for the sake of his "Gore ot uma". I think that even if Gordon Craig or Stanislavsky himself was on Menshikov's place, they would have been incinerated. Love, as is well known, has many faces and appearances. And what was jealously saying spiteful things, counting all Menshikov's slips and blunders, looked most like a rejected mistress, which at last had the chance to get even with her hero. Because if you sing him for a hundred thousand times: "O mio amore"- he won't hear it. But if you bellow out: "Your production is shit!" - he'll remember it.
And Menshikov remembered, even though he is not rancorous by nature. But his cry "Out of Moscow!" sounded in the dead silence of the audience like a real last damnation, as if before falling into chasm. And that was the moment of his triumph, which couldn't be covered by even the most orderly chorus of Moscow critics.
Two or three performances would pass, and "Gore ot uma" would find its real breath. The suppression of the first night would disappear, the idea would become clear, young actors would play with all their might, normal, not premiere spectators would come - and it would become obvious, that in fact Menshikov has staged a good production, that he has won again this time. …In the cosy office of "Theatre Association 814" on Pushkinskaya, where everything right up to the blue curtains and the gray screens was devised by Oleg, normal business spirit prevails. Something is happening all the time. Someone is always drinking tea on the kitchen. Faxes and people are coming. Secretaries are changing. Young actors are rehearsing something. Menshikov himself is running like a meteor through the corridor, frightening the incidental visitors of the book-keeping department. On the whole, it's life. It seems to me that now he spends more of his time here than at home. Sometimes, when he shows me another photo on the wall or asks for advice, where to put a new poster, he would ask:
- Don't you think it's great here? - And he adds: - I like it here so much.
Once I couldn't refrain from asking the question, why he called his company an association \in Russian it sounds like "comradeship"\.
- You know, I like this word. It has something of reliability in it.
- But, Oleg, you're a prince! What do "comrades" have to do with it?
- No, you didn't understand, - he corrects me softly. - I am not a "prince" - I'm a "tova-ryszhhh" \comrade\.
And, having amusingly parodied the American accent of L.Orlova in the film "Circus", he leaves me for the place, where he's already expected, where I can hear young laughter, clinking of glasses, and where no one will ask him any questions.