- Andrei Anatolyevich, when a person has a problem, he usually says: "You need to turn to the expert, to a specialist." In your case, the concept of "expert" is not limited to a specific area. So you a specialist absolutely for all questions?
- This is a common misconception that experts are people who know a lot. The expert is primarily a person who can think much. The broad public does not conduct boundaries between knowledge and the ability to think, and these are far from being bound, in any case directly, things. The ability to think is given to a person from birth, and knowledge is acquired throughout life. Then the interesting process begins when new knowledge is capable of improving the ability of a person to think. I am in my past life, up to 30 years old, was a teacher. I finished the university early, at 21, and under the age of 30 worked on the distribution in the Zhdanovsky Metallurgical Institute, which is now called a university. I am a chemist, and many of my energetic students were interested in: "Why do we need chemistry?" And then I brought for myself the formula: To raise the bar, you need to develop muscles, and to be an engineer, you need to develop your head. Muscle called "Brain" gets used to work when you have not only the ability to receive new knowledge, but also the ability to find them. The ability to find new knowledge is - this is the ability to think. After all, what is a minute of discussion in "What? Where? When?"? This ability to collectively think. And during this minute we are seeing a collective process of thinking, the origin of the new knowledge: from complete misunderstanding, what they ask us before finding a response. Here Vladimir Yakovlevich Voroshilov came up with how to show the viewers.
- If the ability to logically reflective your style of life, do you use it outside the game?
- I will not open the Big Secret, if I say that it is useful to think at all. (Laughs.) But for me "What? Where? When?" - Not only the ability to think. In a short period of time, six people must discard his ambitions, except for one single: to find the right answer to the question they asked the lead, television viewers, but in general - put life. For example, Jung's theory about the collective unconscious is well known. And I suddenly did not understand so long ago that in the best minutes, played by me in "What? Where? When? ", I am becoming a living witness to the existence of this collective unconscious, which is later verbalized. Of course, you after that you start feeling yourself in the world much consciously, having only the experience of answering questions in "What? Where? When?".
- In order to devote all her life to the game, with a capital letter, you need to be a person and passionate, and smart, and gambling, and devotees. What is paramount to you from these qualities?
- First, I will not even turn the language to call yourself a smart person. I want to think about myself that I am smart. But rather I will express this way: people say that I am not a fool. (Laughs.) Secondly, it is very important here that all these years I follow that the game is not the main goal of my life. For example, this season, which just ended on TV, I decided that I would not play. Probably also because a little to push this habit for yourself. And then any of these words: both excitement, and dedication, and intelligence - not only positive connotation. Everything is good in moderation, and our passion, in general, you need to restrain. It is impossible to live on a high note all the time. So the game "What? Where? When?" - This is a very important part of my life, but to do from this cult ... No, it's not all.
Being a member of the intellectual club "What? Where? When?" Since 1986, Andrei Kozlov does not make from his favorite television game of the cult, but admits that if she were not, he would have understood much in life wrong. Photo: Gennady Avramenko.
- Partly, so you made a decision not to play this season, but you are present on each game. You do it not because you are the president of the Association of Clubs "What? Where? When? ", And because you yourself want it.
- Yes, recently my colleagues elected me by the President of the International Association of Clubs "What? Where? When?". But I am also a Master of Club. And, like a master, I defined some obligations for myself. This time it was so it happened that I needed to take my aunt to a serious operation, Mom Guli. This is Mine sister (I lost my mother this fall). And I picked up the date of the trip so as to take Mom Gulla, leave it in the hospital and immediately go to the game. It is not from what everything collapses me. I just feel certain responsibility. In general, being in the club since 1986, I missed only one game, and that - by illness.
"You never hid that you experience a strong nervous tension when your team play." When you watch the game as a viewer, do you worry the same way?
- I often spend an analogy between "What? Where? When?" and football. It happens, playing your favorite club, but the game leaves you indifferent. And sometimes the game of the ordinary football team makes you not just root, but to yell at some moments. It is clear that if the team plays, as part of which - Sasha is friends, or Max Potashev, or Lesha pancakes, or Lena Orlova, or Balash Kasumov - the people with whom the long life is connected to "What? Where? When? ", Then I come to the game configured to the sore much more than when the newcomers play. And with newcomers just happens: if they surprise me with something in the first five to ten minutes of their game, then I begin to hurt for real. An even more fantastic case - when I start to hurt in the depths of my soul even for TV viewers. (Laughs.) If we talk about an extreme degree, then one day my game ended with a microinsult. And it happens, and you do not understand why you, sorry for physiology, did not even sweat.
- How it turned out that you were not just a selection at one time to play in the club as a connoisseur, but also stayed in it to work like a producer?
- I got to the club in 1986, it was the beginning of restructuring in the Soviet Union. Then Vladimir Yakovlevich Voroshilov and Natalia Ivanovna Stetsenko decided to create the organization of players playing in "What? Where? When?" around the world. And I suggested to take the organizational part of this event in Himself in Zhdanov. We conducted a fantastic opening ceremony, she was shown on the CT, and after this Congress Voroshilov and Stetsenko began to offer me to move to Moscow and work with them in the then-director, according to today's producer. About once a month, Vladimir Yakovlevich called me and said: "Come, we are waiting for you." In May 1990, when the decision was already decided to shoot "Brain Ring", I came to help them in organizing filming. It was just the May holidays. And, remaining in Moscow for ten days, I entered this rhythm that I no longer wanted to return to Mariupol. I realized that if I was offered to stay, I would agree. Of course, I like to play much more than being producer. And in this regard, we had a certain code. For example, if I go to the room where the editors are found by questions, I say loudly: "Here Kozlov. So I have already been talking for 20 years to even accidentally hear some of the questions that will participate in the game. In May, it will be 24 years old, as I work in the club, and if you look back, then they all flew like one day.
Andrei Kozlov with his friend's family, a connoisseur of Igor Kondratyuk (right in his wife and daughter). To the left of Andrei is his nephew and a sovereign (son Igor). Below: Aunt Galina Aleksandrovna and Mom Irina Alexandrovna and his wife and two daughters leading "What? Where? COGD
- Initially, you went through the grandmother's path and entered the theater institute.
"Yes, I did it there, but did not learn there.
- You seem to dissuade your parents?
- Nobody discouraged me, just taken from the institute, and that's it. My favorite deceased grandmother devoted all my life to the theater. And at the same time, it was absolutely rightly believed that if you do not become a people's artist of Ukraine, then this is in general, ungrateful work. Today, when I am already like a grandfather I can say that everything is so, and I also do not advise anyone to go to this profession. So, by graduating from school at the age of 16, I told my parents that I would go to rest for a couple of days to Moscow. Thank God, the family was secured and we could afford it. I left and immediately went to tours to all theatrical colleges, including VGIK. Three passed on the second round, in two - immediately on the third. When the question arose where to give documents, I gave them to Pike. Next passed the exams and already in the 20s he saw his last name in the list of twenty lucky ones enrolled in the institute. Naturally, called home to share this news. But the next day, relatives came to my hotel, led me to Pike, applied all their connections, and I was expelled in a few hours. In the evening, I was already flying to Donetsk, where he took the documents to the local university, he finished it and well graduated. I do not regret anything. Of course, the entire first course at the university I still lived with a feeling that I would go to Moscow, especially since I was promised to take me immediately to the second course if I return. But the more I studied, the less sought to leave. Moreover, I began to put student evenings for which even today I, already with a big directorial experience, is not ashamed. Plus, I worked for three years with a correspondent for Poliow on Donetsk television, that is, sublimation occurred. Then, when he was already taught in the University of Zhdanovsky, wrote a letter and accidentally hit "What? Where? When?"…
- Andrei Anatolyevich, if you have so much to work, then what do you find discharge when television ends?
- I watch TV, TV series, read your favorite states and Lukyanenko. I often re-read the "doses" that when I see with Seryozhe Lukyanenko, who comes to us on the "cultural revolution" (I am also a director of the "cultural revolution"), then I am pleased with his knowledge of such plots from his novels, which he even does not remember. (Laughs.) If I have enough time - just leaving, I like to travel. Moreover, it can be like an active leisure when I wind the day 10 km on foot in Orlando Park and a relaxed stay on the beach. I do not follow the news, but because I have Ukrainian roots, I can't completely abstract from them: I worry, thinking. I still live in Ukraine my very close friend, Igor Kondratyuk, with whom we played in "What? Where? When?". Now he is a star of Ukrainian television. Son Igor is my soveret, so with his family we have a very close relationship. On the other hand, Lesha Kapustin lives in Mariupol, too, my close friend has already been a thousand years. But if Lesha is configured soon, Igor - on the contrary. And I am afraid that my relationship does not spoil with anyone with any other in the human sense. Because there are geopolitics, but there is my personal life, my friends - and I do not see the reasons to quarrel with them.
- You say also a passionate car enthusiast.
- This is Kolya Fomenko - a passionate car enthusiast. And I'm just with pleasure I drive the car, and naturally when we travel with my wife and friends, always take a car for rent. I love to steer, I have a good car - thank God, I can afford it, "I behave well on the road, never Hamlu and not participating in quarrels with other participants in the movement.
- I read that you had a confessor. Does this mean that spiritual matter still is still not subject to connoisseurs?
- The question of faith in God is quite personal. But as a baptized and Orthodox person pleases me that, playing, we do not conflict with the Orthodox Church. And when they tell me how in "What? Where? When?" They even play arrival or Sunday schools, it calms me. I will not say that if hierarchs did not approve this game, I would stop it to get involved. But the fact that there is no sin in this really soothes. And for me, a 53-year-old man in the heighter of the forces, it is obvious that if it were not for a television game, then a lot in life I would understand wrong.