If the United States believes that Putin has helped the Tramp to come to power, Christensen, Marit (Marit Christensen) considers that it is fiction.
We have misunderstood Russia? We’ve never tried. We can see the world only through the eyes of the West.
Marit Christensen stares through his glasses in a thin gold frame. Wearing something bright. In Theatercaféen in Oslo enters on crutches.
Expert on Russia in recent years, often in the hospital. Many of her health problems were the result of surgery to reduce weight in 2009. First, there was osteoporosis, then a kidney stone, then she was treated with penicillin, inflammation of the mucosa.
Marit Christensen
• The writer, a former journalist NRK correspondent in Russia.
• Family: There is, but that’s my private life.
• Transportation: Have a car, but any brand, any model I will not name not to do advertising!
• Reading electronic versions of Newspapers, books.
• The last impression of the field of culture: a film about Stephen Hawking “The Theory of Everything” (“Theory of everything” or “the universe Stephen Hawking”)
• Favorite word: Try to avoid its use, not to be repeated.
“Those who say, that gastric bypass is a quick fix, wrong. But now I’m on my feet, hoping for a good summer sores”.
It’s been about three years since we last heard from her. The publication of the biography of wenche Behring Breivik (Wenche Behring Breivik) was difficult. Even before the book was completed, there were threats that the lawyers of wenche Behring Breivik will claim, they were followed by criticism in the news media.
Yeah it was the storm that I really don’t understand. Because I never in my life not so much praised. But the press always thought it was very funny to hit me in the head with something heavy. I was ready and firmly standing on his feet. And, of course, there was no claim.
Russia. Putin’s Russia. Where the West think that the giant from the East does not give the UN Security Council to intervene in the civil war in Syria, Marit Christensen sees the Russian President, who is trying to preserve the unity of the Syrian state in order to prevent chaos in the future — such as in Iraq.
If the United States believes that Putin has helped the Tramp to come to power, Marit Christensen believes that it’s fiction.
— Actually it is quite scary how much we here in the West, were hostile. People say that it is so dangerous when Russia is stepping up weapons, but NATO with its military arsenals can destroy Russia 50 times. Yes, they have nuclear weapons, and it’s serious and I’m serious, but it is nothing compared to the military might of the West.
— You’re afraid of a new war?
— Yes, but it will come, at least not from Russia! They have not forgotten the horrors of world war II. On the contrary, it may seem that we forgot them. Russia has offered 22 millions of lives during world war II. We would be defeated in the West, Hitler without the Soviet Union? But never.
Moscow Marit, though our heroine would prefer that name not recalled, speaking calmly and clearly. She feels that her lot should be clear, for example, in the question of the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
There was a reason why I had not expressed his opinion about all of this. It is necessary to stand on his feet in terms of the health to stand in the hurricane of criticism that will inevitably rise if to say what I now say for the first time: that the Crimea is b-s-s-s-l and e-e-e-St Russian.
In 1945, Crimea administratively was a part of Ukraine.
— Since Russia and Ukraine were one country, then it does not matter who controls the Crimea. And after the collapse of the Soviet Union it suddenly became of tremendous importance, says Christiansen, and continued In Soviet times, Ukraine was a Soviet military center. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia has practically ceased to be engaged in the armed forces. It was absolutely hopeless. The fact that Ukraine is in addition got another Crimea was a total mistake. And why doesn’t the world protest then? If the West wants to punish Russia for the fact that she returned to the Crimea, it means that he forgot the story.
On the table there “eggs Benedict”. Marit Christensen cuts the yolk and looks up at me your cat’s eye.
— No, Crimea was never Ukrainian. I spent four months in the Crimea to work in the early 1970s, and the only Ukrainian with what I have seen there in all that time, was the rolls with the soup of beets.
It may seem that the first meeting Marit Christensen with Russia was practically predestined fate. She was 17 years old, and actually she was going to study medicine, but to earn some extra points, she decided to go for language courses.
Wrote a list of languages closed my eyes and pointed at random. Under the index finger turned out what was destined to be a case all its life: Russian.
About 18 years later the Soviet Union collapsed, and Marit Christensen became the representative of the West on the East side of the iron curtain.
— To work as a correspondent for NRK meant to work around the clock. All the time something was happening, there was always something to give, says Christensen.
She even does not remember exactly how many times they invited me to dinner guests, but got a phone call from NRK, and she had to flee on a mission, leaving the guests alone.
— Could only say: so far, help yourself and I must go! And I’m five years has not touched alcohol. If I got some instructions from the Russian foreign Ministry, it is that alcohol and driving are incompatible.
That Marit Christensen thinks about Putin?
— Could be worse. As I expected, it behaves as it should behave the Russian leader. In Norway, we are all the time whining about his unpredictability, but he is very predictable. Largely I must say that I admire him. It’s not easy to stay in power for so long, and mostly everything is going pretty well. If it was something I absolutely believe in, is the fact that he runs the country as good as it can.
Christensen makes it clear that he wants to say something else. Starts tapping his index finger on the table.
— Russia — not like the West and will never be like the West. Therefore, it is absolutely useless idea to throw away millions on measures of democratization, to make Russia like us. And besides, the Russians should be given the opportunity to decide how it should be, in their own opinion. But our attempts to spread democracy around the world is just a modern form of imperialism.
— Is Russian does not need freedom of speech?
— And can it be there? I’m just asking. Because what’s freedom of speech, if they will have nothing? For Russians it’s important not freedom of speech, and the economy of the country.
— They don’t want to be like the West?
— No, why? In addition, they may not think so, because I speak Russian. Neither equality, nor equality in Russia is impossible. This prevents the language. But in order to understand these things, you need to thoroughly understand in the Russian language and culture.
The reporter looks around the restaurant.
— I spent 30 years thinking that the Russian are the same as us, but found that actually it is not so.
