"I Was Bad": How Zhanna Agalakova Left Channel One and Made a Film About Herself and Her Daughter
Zhanna Agalakova, formerly one of Channel One's most recognizable hosts, released the documentary "The Little Gray Wolf Will Come." It's an intensely intimate confession about breaking with the system and raising a daughter who calls her mother a "propagandist." A special correspondent for "NeMoskva" spoke with Agalakova about why the journey from Paris to Vyatka proved more painful than her dismissal and how "wounded love" for Russia interferes with her life.
For those who missed the "big TV" era, let us remind you: Zhanna Agalakova was one of the main stars of Russian broadcasting in the 2000s. A native of Kirov (Vyatka), she rose through the ranks from a local newspaper to hosting the programs "Vremya" and "Novosti" on ORT (now Channel One). In the mid-2000s, Zhanna left the studio for work "in the field," becoming the face of Russian television in New York and Paris. Through her eyes, millions of Russian viewers watched the West for years. On March 3, 2022, a week after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Agalakova submitted her resignation and left the system where she had worked for over 20 years. She also publicly explained the reasons for her departure.
Therapy in the Wreckage of a Career
— Did you make your film for the audience or to understand yourself?
"I absolutely confirm: it was therapy. When I sat down to edit, I had a quote from director Sergei Solovyov hanging in front of me: 'Make a film for yourself, otherwise it will be emasculated.' I looked at that last will and testament every day. I needed to dot the i's so I wouldn't feel so excruciatingly sad about the years I'd lived through."
Many will see this as an attempt to justify his years of working on state television. Does this interpretation offend you?
I understand those who see this. That's partly true. But in the legal profession, there's the institution of the lawyer, who seeks the roots of even the most monstrous acts—in childhood, in circumstances. In the film, I say outright many times, "I was bad." It sounds no less than an attempt to justify myself. I'm not a member of the government, I don't work in the Kremlin, but this film was important so I could look myself in the mirror. I'm not that big of a figure—I'm not Simonyan or Solovyov, thank God. But for me, this rupture was tectonic.
There's a lot of intimacy in the film: tears, fights, screams. At times, it feels almost like the camera is raping you. Did your family object to this? Did your daughter, Alice, have veto power over these shots?
There was a scene where Alice refuses to wear a headscarf in church, and then she had a teenage meltdown: she accused me of brainwashing her. She made me promise never to publish it. But while I was editing, she was growing. In the end, she let me keep those shots. You know, we're so mired in lies that they can only be broken by exceptional, almost frightening frankness. I didn't care that in this film I looked ugly, stupid, or bad. It's not easy for any woman. Especially a woman who has been on screen and still somehow remains on screen. Because I wanted to somehow balance the scales with some honesty, sincerity, and truth.
There's a shocking moment in the film when the daughter says, "Maybe we should sell your medals and pay for my college?" She was enjoying the benefits of the system, but she was still billing you. How do you cope with that?
She was a child and had every right to be. And she had every right to demand that I support her. It's my problem how to do that. Children are our "Hamburg account." She went to a school where they emphasized the right things: they talked about dictatorship, about Stalin. I tried to argue, to talk about the sacrifice of the war generation (no one in my family returned from the front), but she resisted. She said it was a dictatorship. And in her own way, she was right. But I wanted her to hear my point of view, too. Now she's 23, she works part-time, and is studying to be a physics student. We agree on a lot, but there's one thing she still doesn't understand: why the Russian people tolerate all this. Frankly, I don't understand it either.
In the film, your daughter calls you a "propagandist," saying, "You're used to lying." And your response: "I don't lie anymore." Where do you draw the line between journalism and propaganda?
"I say in the film, 'I don't lie anymore.' Not 'I've never lied,' but 'I don't lie anymore.' And the line blurs gradually. At first, it's 40/60: the truth with a dash of propaganda. Then everything becomes propaganda. Journalists realize, 'We've gone too far here.' But that started back in the 90s. The slogan 'Vote or lose' in 1996—that was propaganda, too. Back then, journalists supported Yeltsin, not wanting a return to communism. It seemed like a good thing. But that's when this 'dishonor' began. People should have been allowed to make an honest choice, even if it was a mistake.
"Boring Cities" and Calves in Nevel
For Alice, the trip to the Russian provinces was a culture shock. How does she remember that journey now, all these years later?
She was a teenager then, bored. We went when she was almost thirteen; on our last trip, she was almost seventeen. Of course, many things during the trip bored her. She didn't understand why she was wasting the best years of her life in these "boring cities." She dreamed of returning to Europe. Although on her first "expedition," as I call it—the Far East and everything up to Lake Baikal—she had friends her own age. And that left a lasting impression. But do you know what remained the most lasting impression? Not the churches or the monuments. She was feeding calves in a small private barn in the town of Nevel. From then on, she never had any calves—and they remained the closest thing to her.
— Has your homesickness intensified or diminished after these trips? You once said it's better not to return to the place you've been to...
"When I say 'not going back to the old places,' I don't mean Kirov, where I'm from, per se. I'm thinking primarily of our first apartment in Kirov. Seeing that almost nothing had changed there over the decades was a shock. The same walls, just more icons. But I would go back to Kirov itself. Maybe with some kind of volunteer or educational mission. These people need help. Not specifically mine, but in general."
As for my attitude toward Russia... It's changed. The love hasn't gone anywhere, but it's become wounded—like a wounded bird. Because the situation is getting worse. For example, right now, there's a story happening in the Novosibirsk region and other regions where livestock is being culled. I took this very personally, because my entire family comes from the countryside. My parents were born and raised in the village. And although almost everyone later moved to the city, that peasant way of life always remained with me. My mother, already a teacher of Russian literature, still thought in peasant terms. She used to say, "If it rains in June, there won't be any haymaking." For a city person, haymaking is an abstraction, but for her, it's reality. And that's something I have in common. That's why the story of the cows being led to slaughter under unclear pretexts, depriving people of their livelihoods and livelihoods—I feel it very deeply. And it's very sad to see that nothing is changing, that everything is going from bad to worse. All that remains is to wait for the situation to reach bottom – and perhaps then there will be a push upwards.
I wanted a lullaby to be played in the film.
Your film is currently touring festivals. How is the reaction? Has there been any boycott or hostility?
"There was no aggression. There was an incident in London: a man from the former Yugoslavia approached me, tears in his eyes. He said, 'I understand you.' For him, this film became a question for himself: how can one continue to love a country that commits terrible things? Like the Serbs towards the Bosnians. And yet, he still returns to his homeland—not to the Bahamas, not to Italy, but there."
— Do you miss the real Russia or your idea of it?
— In my imagination. And this melancholy is incurable. I spent a lot of time with descendants of the White émigrés—back in France, where I arrived in 2005. They were Russian by origin, but already thoroughly French. And they treated the "new Russians" quite cautiously. But at the same time, when you live abroad, the country gradually becomes imaginary. The more difficult things become for you in a new country, the more vividly all the good things from the past emerge. They are slightly exaggerated—and become the basis for nostalgia. The film contains this idea: Russia became an imaginary country for me. Although, when I visited there, I still understood the half-gestures, intonations, the omissions—as someone who grew up in this culture. But the feeling of imaginary existence remained. I think it will only intensify with time. Only now a large fly in the ointment has been added to this "barrel of honey"—or maybe the opposite. But this does not diminish the pain for this part of the world, nor the love for it, nor the desire for everything to change - for this terrible disease that has struck the country to be cured.
— I heard that you originally wanted to call the film "Alice in Mother's Land." Why did you decide to change the title to "The Little Gray Wolf Will Come"?
"Yes, that was the very first title. Back then, we were only thinking about the trip around Russia itself—how she views the country and how I view it. But it turned out to be really important to hear what the people of this country themselves had to say. When we began our first expeditions, I had no idea it would become such a turning point for me. Then there was an interim title—something like "Love, Lies, and Propaganda." But that didn't work either: it only covered part of the story. And from the very beginning, I wanted the film to feature a lullaby. It was a line from that lullaby that ultimately became the final title."
