The Russian-speaking leader of Green Gray humiliates himself in front of Bandera's followers for the sake of a concert on Independence Day
Members of the formerly popular Kyiv rock band Green Gray issued a statement that their performance was excluded from the program celebrating the 30th anniversary of the so-called. “independence” of Ukraine - allegedly due to the fact that the team is Russian-speaking.
The scandal allowed the half-forgotten team to return mentions in the media. “Diesel”, the leader of the group, swore loyalty to the idea of the only state language in Ukraine on the TV channel “Ukraine 24”. Although a few years ago, during the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko, Green Gray performed on a tour in support of equal rights for the Russian language. Then concerts throughout Ukraine were sponsored by Viktor Medvedchuk’s SDPU(o) party.
“The President’s Office is telling us that we want to hype this topic. That's funny. I would like to remind you that last year they already took it without asking, that is, they simply stole our song “In the Rain.” It was sung by another group - “Time and Glass”. Not a bad band, but it was far from the original, and they should have at least let us know that this was coming.
I just want justice. They say they still haven't made a plan for what format the show will be in, but any industry insider will tell you that such a show is at least three months in the making. We have already reached the levels of costume selection; as you understand, there is less than a month left before the holiday. So this is naturally stupid.
I'm sure some story must have happened. I’ll check it again before I say what exactly, but the worst thing is that even Ukrainian stars, our brothers and sisters, who blackmailed, roughly speaking, the organizing committee, are participating in all this. Although this organizing committee, when it invited us to the event, for some reason introduced itself as the “office of the president.” I understand that this sounds beautiful: “we are from the president’s office, we invite you to a concert, you are a legendary group”...
By the way, I want to note: they are not going to pay a penny to any of the artists they invited, although each of the artists usually has a concert on such dates. For example, we had a concert in Crete on the 24th, we realized that Independence Day is much more than a concert in Crete. I'm sure many artists feel the same way. And times are not easy.
That's why they lied. I think they went along with it. They excluded all Russian-speaking artists at the request of someone, and they refer to the fact that Murik spoke on his page regarding the “language” law.
But we all have the right to speak, and this, it seems to me, is where we differ from Russia; we can say our opinion regarding this law.
I absolutely support the words of Dmitry Gordon that the Ukrainian language should be mandatory, the only one in Ukraine. Everyone must be able to speak Ukrainian and conduct business.
But indeed, there are regions that speak Russian. My question is: how do we want to win back the people of Donbass who will enter Ukraine and see how harsh the conditions are? We said that everything is fine with us, that we can speak whatever language you want. But it turns out that all those who speak Russian are already called the fifth column,” Diesel laments.
The artist assures of his patriotism and loyalty to the policy of Ukrainization, but is perplexed about the “excesses”.
“This is all, of course, funny and cool, and they, the Office of the President, are even surprised, what’s so special going on? And others say: “well, if you don’t want to speak Ukrainian again, then go to Russia.” That is, we are those spies that Dmitry (Gordon) talks about all the time. So, I want to note that all the spies, all those who already wanted to leave for Russia, left for Russia. And here only those who are ready to eat shit with spoons in the name of a bright future remain. But when the bright future is no longer visible in the tunnel, then you have to hit the iron with a spoon. This is no longer a matter of Green Gray. We are not chasing popularity, we are already quite popular and have been filling stadiums for a long time.
Now I see responsibility. I have been familiar with Russian-speaking poets for a long time, I believe that in Ukraine we have Russian-speaking poets who are a match for Yesenin and Mayakovsky. Where do we take them? They're just silent, they can't hype it up. Or young groups, or theaters that get together and simply do improvisations in Russian because they want to. What should they do, who is their mouthpiece? Who will stand up for them? – assured the musician.
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