Вчера я написала маленький гайд о том, как найти давно эмигрировавших за границу родственников. Так хотела включить пример с Нимоем, но его фамилия, увы, совсем не изменилась!.. А мне надо было подтвердить, что эмигранты коверкали свои фамилии кто во что горазд. Но вспомнить всё равно приятно. Когда я впервые читала "I Am Spock", я чувствовала безграничную связь с автором этой книги, а в момент его рассказа о России - особенно. Чёрт возьми, этот человек ходил по улицам Москвы в 88-ом году! Всего за четыре года до моего рождения.
«Russia? you ask. Actually, in 1988, it was still called the Soviet Union. In order to celebrate the country's recent moratorium on whaling, the World Wildlife Fund had arranged some special screenings of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. And Harve Bennett and I had both been invited to attend. So it was that, the very day after I finished work on Three Men and a Baby, I found myself on a plane bound for Europe.
I'd been interested in returning to my parents' native land for many years,
читать дальшеever since the early 1970s, when I'd directed my first television show, "Death on a Barge," for Night Gallery. While we were shooting the episode, we had a couple of distinguished visitors:. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador. Kissinger's young son, it turned out, was a Star Trek fan; while I signed an autograph for him, I mentioned my Russian heritage to Ambassador Dobrynin, and the fact that my parents had emigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s.
"Ah," he said. "Have they ever returned to the Soviet Union for a visit? And have you ever been?"
The answer to both questions was no.
"Then you should go, and bring them with you!"
To my surprise, my parents had no interest in returning to their native Russia. "What would we do there? There's no one left that we know. What would we go see, some old buildings?" Perhaps they had a point. Their village, Zaslav, was in the Ukraine, and during World War II had been occupied by the Germans; many of the locals, especially Jews, had been killed by the Nazi invaders. I also came to suspect that my parents might have reservations about returning to the U.S.S.R. because they both had left the country illegally-my mother in a hay wagon, as I said before, and my father by fleeing across the Polish border at night. But I couldn't help being curious about Russia.
So it was that, many years after "Death on a Barge," when Roger Payne from the World Wildlife Fund contacted me to ask whether I'd like to accompany him to Moscow for a screening of Star Trek IV, I leapt at the chance. I had only one proviso-that I be able to visit the village of Zaslav. He made some inquiries and came back with good news: The visit could be arranged!
Not long after, we learned that there were relatives living near Zaslav-to be specific, a Boris Srulevitch Nimoy. (The word nimoy or nemoi means mute in Russian. My parents and I have speculated that perhaps, several generations back, we had an actual mute in the family-or perhaps a person who simply pretended to be mute, in order to avoid being conscripted into the tsar's army. The length of service was usually twenty-five years, so you can understand why a lot of men feigned illness in order to avoid the draft!) Arrangements were made for us to visit him and his family.
Despite all my excitement, the visit to Russia was in some ways disappointing. For one thing, because of Three Men and a Baby, I was unable to arrive in time for the screening at the Russian version of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences-the Domkino (literally, the "House of Cinema"). For another, while we arrived in time for the screening at the American Embassy in Moscow, there was a major problem with the sound system in the projection room. For some reason, we kept hearing an extraneous sound track from somewhere else. It got so bad that Harve Bennett went up to the American ambassador and said, "This is really disruptive, Ambassador; can't we do something?"
And the ambassador replied, with the sort of weary cynicism so prevalent in Moscow, "We deal with this sort of thing all the time. Trust me, there's nothing we can do."
In Russia, my parents' homeland, I felt very much an alien, an outsider. But this time, Spock didn't accompany me; like their Chinese neighbors, the Russian people had never been exposed to Star Trek, and had no idea who I was.
Such was the case for Boris Nimoy's family. They spoke no English at all, and I no Russian; we communicated a bit in Yiddish, but mostly relied on the services of a translator. They had never heard of me, or Spock, and were in fact suspicious of my motives in coming. All they'd been told was that an important person was coming to visit from the United States-but from their point of view, important people wore suits and ties, and here I was, casually dressed in a T-shirt! They didn't know what to make of me, and after our meeting was over, I learned that they were certain we were part of a government ploy designed to investigate them.
Still, seeing the town where my parents had spent their childhood days was extraordinary in every way. We visited with the Nimoys for three or four hours, during which time we tape-recorded some messages for my parents and took some photos.
Then it was all over, and we were completely exhausted. I'd just finished a grueling ten-week schedule on Three Men, and had flown directly from a late-night shoot to France. There, I'd spent one night before flying to Russia, where our days and nights were full of nonstop activity. My wife and I were looking forward to four days of vacation in Paris.
But the moment we arrived, we received some very bad news: My father was in the hospital, terminally ill. I immediately got on a plane and went to see him, grateful for the chance to share with him the pictures and taped greetings from his homeland. Sadly, he died a few days later».
@темы:
Star Trek,
журналис',
лучший город Земли