Remembering Stas

From Memories of Stas Ionov

by Dmitriy Gorbatov

(translated from http://lebed.com/2005/art4315.htm)

Vladimir Baranov was the second person I met on the Internet through lebed.com guest book. Stas Ionov was the first.

On December 9, 2000 I got a letter from him: "Dima, I will be in and out of Moscow between December 18^th and January 5^th. Would you like to meet and chat? You can set aside the genteel inhibitions (a colorful, not well translatable stasism "интелигентские ужимки" that refers to excessive politeness. editorial) – if you do not have time or desire, you can just say so. I do not take offence easily, I promise! Stas". I would have probably not noticed the letter if not for the peculiar phrase "You can set aside the genteel inhibitions". This just made me think that this person must be very nice, so in my reply I gave my phone numbers. And of course, I was overcome by curiosity: what is it like to meet over the Internet?..

The result was above all my expectations: this was a person that was glowing from inside; the need for "the genteel inhibitions" has never come up. When I found out Stas’s age, I had to "bite my lip": he looked definitely younger than me. (While this is complete coincidence, Stas and I were both born in Kharkov. Since Stas unlike myself lived there for some time, he still had the typical Kharkov accent – accent of my childhood and of my ancestors.) The conversation went so extremely easily that there was no doubt: we shall not continue it on the street, rather at my place as friends. Gradually as all the topics were probed, it was clear: Stas and I had completely different worldviews. However, there was something odd about it, something hard for me understand at the time: a clear difference of worldviews was apparent, but there was no feeling of estrangement or boredom. On the face of it there was a clear contradiction: after having lived in USA for four years I could not remember a single Russian immigrant with a happy face. However Stas had a face of a truly happy person. "How can this be? – I thought to myself. – If a person that I have never met and whom I know nothing about so sincerely likes America, how can I like him?" Nevertheless, I liked him more and more. Only after a few years have passed I understood why: Stas equally respected both worldviews, his and mine, while I really only respected my own. My worldview was somewhat closed, whereas his was fully open.

Among my friends Stas Ionov was the first Russian that didn't exactly shaken my negative view of USA, but deprived it of its simplistic certainty (certainty that was the only thing that helped me return to the homeland under less than simple circumstances). I will always be grateful for this to him – Stas Ionov.

I remember Stas being very irritated with "Little Commie" at the time (though this nickname may have appeared later, as he was "ТС и Ц" at the time). However, he was even being irritated in a nice and serious way, without a major strain. I was mediating (with the same words as V.P. Lebedev used to do): it isn’t that important what Little Commie writes, rather how he writes it. I was expecting a typical emotionally charged negative reaction. Instead, unexpectedly, Stas agreed with me completely: very true, the son of a gun indeed writes exceptionally! "But how does he not understand that..." – and Stas continued elaborating on his own arguments, many of which were rather hard to disagree with. Of course, I offered counter arguments, and all of a sudden it occurred to me that we were having a real dialogue of opposites – a dialogue that uses arguments instead of emotions and the subject is not being switched; dialogue where the opposing points of view are actually interesting to the opponents. Since the point wasn't really about Little Commie, rather that creative collision that explains the existence of the lebed.com forum, the conversation was expanding and becoming more and more interesting.

The extent to which Stas can really appreciate his ideological opponent became apparent when he made a funny typo in his own name: instead of "Stas" he typed "Staya" (flock in Russian, editorial). As a result his "Stas Ionov" signature came out to read "Flock of Ions". Little Commie did not miss an opportunity to crack a joke about it. Immediately, their fight has melted away when with genuine admiration Stas noted attentiveness and creativity of Little Commie, even though the typo was, in fact, absolutely trivial!..

He did not have anger – only passion. Passion that is also the love of life. It has to be noted that people that are tired of life and in many ways do not like it (i.e. agnostics) are unconsciously drawn to such life loving people like Stas. There is probably some basic truth of life in this. It is only a great pity that for some reason the life loving ones get only half the time of those that repeat after Pushkin’s Salieri: "..Although I feel an insult deeply and care little for my life..."

We never saw each other again. The last letter that I got from Stas was from July 10, 2002. "Dima, I am very glad to hear that you bought a condo and that things are gradually normalizing for you. Remodeling is just like a civil war, but everything eventually comes to an end. During my next visit I will definitely call you at your new condo. My regards to Katia. Yours Stas".