The question is not idle, like all the questions raised by Gogol.

As a historical type, Chichikov had many obstacles in Russia to develop. Cherished dreams more than once slipped away from him, not so much from under his nose, but from his very hands. As the hero of Gogol's poem, he, having endured thousands of humiliations, soared to the desired height, but changes in fate suddenly threw him down, and the difficult ascent began again.

Soon after the times described by Gogol, the abolition of serfdom came. But this is a whole change of eras. Like a stream, the landlord class dried up. The Manilovs or their sons became Uncle Vanya, and the knock of an axe cutting down a cherry orchard heralded a new historical period. Capitalism came, noisy as a steam locomotive and proudly towering as factory chimneys. For Chichikov, this is the same as water for a fish. Government contracts, private initiative, a universal and open love of money. But.

The state began to have a strange fever, the very thing that seemed unshakable. The official robbed for a long time with a sense of his own importance. And the peasant has been ploughing, cunning and enduring for centuries. Everyone drank a little, was a little bored, chatted a little about this and that. Suddenly there were strikes, leaflets, calls for an uprising. Some committees, parties, words about freedom. Everything was loose and white. Like the overheated boiler of a steam locomotive, the empire soon exploded. The consequences of this explosion affected the history of even the most remote countries. We are still shaken by the shock wave of that explosion, which, although weakened, having circled the Earth a hundred times, has not yet disappeared. The world has changed beyond recognition. Chichikov had to hide for a long time.

It came to light in the 20s of the last century under the NEP.

I do not know whether anyone thought of what I am about to say, but Chichikov was resurrected on the pages of the works of Ilf and Petrov. As in the beginning of "Dead Souls", at the beginning of "12 Chairs" the main character comes to the county town of N in search of adventurous and easy earnings. True, he enters on foot, and does not enter in a cart, and he has no socks under his stibblets, but this is a tribute to the noisy hard times. And so - before us is the same scoundrel who knows how to make money out of thin air. After walking through the space of the first novel, proving to everyone his ingenuity and unsinkable vitality, he appears in the second novel to fight his own double.

Mr. Koreiko from The Golden Calf is also Chichikov. He is a lover of money and a trickster, who hides under the image of a petty clerk, like Pal Ivanitch himself once, but not because he seeks to enrich himself, but because he cannot use the wealth already accumulated (read: stolen). Bender and Koreiko are connected as a body and its shadow. For example, in Alan Parker's film Angel Heart, Mickey Rourke's character is looking for himself. They meet, and the meeting does not bode well. There is no point in retelling the plot of the film and the content of the novel. Some know them, others can get acquainted with them. But in the form of a "shirt-guy" with an Odessa accent and criminal habits, Chichikov also did not manage to live long. The NEP was curtailed. Scoundrels squeezed into the apparatus (not to enrich themselves, but to survive) or went to die on the construction sites of the century against their will. Chichikov disappeared again.

Gogol painfully wrote his poem. Burdened with the gift of a seer, he did not finish it. Russia was rushing somewhere, as if dumbfounded. Gogol felt this, and the completion of the work was not given to him because the type he had written out had to live and develop for a long time, and Gogol's Russia had to disappear.

The fact that Chichikov is "more alive than many living people" is clear. But where is everything going? All these philosophical digressions about the Russian soul, about fast driving, the questions: "Where are you rushing, give me an answer?"

A Jew inherits intelligence and persistence from birth. If he has faith, he can become the heir of the prophets. If there is no faith, but there is a conscience, then he will become a violinist, or a chess player, or a scientist. If there is no faith or conscience, then he will be an extreme materialist, a cynic and a character in jokes.

It is not appropriate for Russians to scold Jews too much, because they are both similar. If a Russian has faith, then he will strive for holiness. If there is no faith, but there is a conscience, then he will build honestly and fight bravely, and after the bath on Saturday he will drink a little with his friends. And if there is no faith, no conscience, then he will be a lazy and drunkard who is angry with the whole world.

Chichikov is a man without faith and conscience, but with ambition and education. Such a person will not drink. But not out of love for virtue, but out of pride. For such a person, the world is always full of gullible people who take their word for it, who do not read every clause of the purchase and sale agreement. This means that you can live, and not badly. We have survived a whole period of many years of Chichikovism, with various "MMMs", with the deception of depositors, with the rapid impoverishment of hundreds of thousands of people and the enrichment of a few. Pavel Ivanovich is alive, "the smoking room is alive". It has been replicated around the world and surprises overseas people with its resourcefulness and impudence. He no longer sells dead carpenters and blacksmiths, but live girls for other people's brothels. He learned how to dilute gasoline with water and hack bank accounts.

True, nations are slowly being erased, and Chichikov is no longer quite Russian. He mixed in himself the features of a Russian and a Jew, but both in their fallen — faithless and unscrupulous — state.

Dear Nikolay Vasilyevich! It was funny to us when you sang us lamentable songs, and only after a while did we understand the meaning of these songs. And did everyone understand?