How Oleg Makosha, a tram depot locksmith, became the best Russian-speaking writer according to the American magazine Florida

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Today, the works of Oleg Mokosha are published in various magazines, and his work is compared with the work of Dovlatov, Shukshin and even early Jack London. However, in his native Nizhny Novgorod, the writer was an ordinary modest worker, and probably only the closest people knew that he was writing books. Oleg Makosha learned that he had become a laureate of the literary prize when he received a call from one of the TV channels with a request to comment on his victory.

Intelligent worker

He was born in Gorky in 1966 into an intelligent family. My father served as the chief designer in a large association, my mother taught Russian language and literature at school. But the grandfather of Oleg Makoshi was the author of seven serious textbooks for students of technical universities, according to which they study today.

However, Oleg Makosha himself did not enter the institute at the age of 17 and since then, by his own admission, has become a proletarian. But he never regretted the fact that he had the opportunity to work as an electrician and security guard, as a foreman of loaders at a large wholesale warehouse and as a garage manager. And then he got into the tram depot as an ordinary mechanic with the lowest qualification category.

Oleg Makosha was so different from his colleagues that even the head of the repair section where he worked constantly pestered the strange locksmith with questions about what could have brought him to the depot. The leader was sure: Oleg was clearly not doing his business. However, thanks to the good work of Makosh, within six months he made a rapid career, becoming an acting shift master.

It's just that he is used to doing any work with high quality, be it laying cables or repairing trams. Like any intellectual, he was looking for his own meaning in any work, but Oleg Makosha was simply not interested in doing something thoughtlessly and getting paid for it.

First literary experience

While working in the depot, some events constantly happened around Oleg Mokosha, and each of his colleagues was so colorful that the mechanic wanted to write down all these stories. At the same time, he could write rather scary things about them, revealing the reasons, trying to dig up in them everything that is unpleasant that lies in every person. However, he chose a completely different path for himself: to show the life of an ordinary person with the same humor by which one can distinguish the works of Oleg Mokosha today.

The impetus for writing his first story was the story of Palych, one of the locksmiths, who developed a special method and schedule for drinking for himself. He drank alcohol for many years, following a clear pattern and never drinking in the workplace. The novice writer was then simply shocked by the technique of a person who went to work every day, pursuing only one goal: to be able to use his dose every day. Unfortunately, in the story about Palych, the ending turned out to be sad: he died shortly after Makosha left the depot.

Carried away by writing, Oleg Makosha began to write more and more, so he changed several works in order to be able to devote more time to creativity. Naturally, he wanted to share the fruits of his labor with readers and began to send his stories to different publications.

Best Russian-speaking writer 2012

When he got hold of the address of the editorial office of the Florida magazine, Oleg Makosha sent several stories there. Since then, he has become one of the favorite authors in Miami, and his sketches from the lives of ordinary people began to be published under the heading "Urban Stories".

The readers were completely fascinated by the writer's characters: the amateur artist Aunt Motya, talented and slightly abnormal, the same locksmith Palych and many other people, touching and naive, hardworking and talented. Those whose characters with such love were displayed by the writer on the pages of his stories.

They were even going to nominate him for the literary prize of Nizhny Novgorod, but this required the publication of a book of his authorship in large circulation. He simply did not have money for a large circulation, because Oleg Makosha was going to publish at his own expense.

After "Florida" Russian magazines began to publish it, but the writer himself never went to publishers, did not try to promote himself. He does not know how to ask for himself.

Oleg Makosha learned that he was named the best Russian-speaking writer of the year by the Florida magazine when he received a call from Channel Five and asked to comment on the award. And he received a prize of two hundred dollars. And he hung a check for $ 35 for his first publication in a frame on the wall. Not because he wanted to leave it as a souvenir, but simply because he could not cash it in his hometown, and the commission when receiving money in Moscow could amount to more than what was written in the check.

Oleg Makosha continues to write persistently today, although, according to him, he has no benefit from it. But he can no longer stop, enjoying the process itself. He believes that he writes well, and his opinion is shared by thousands of readers in Russia, America and Israel. He has already worked as a watchman and seller in a bookstore, and today he calls himself unemployed.

At the end of 2019, he became a laureate of the Gostinaya magazine award, which is part of the Russian Bezbezhye project of the Russian diaspora in America. Perhaps, soon his name will thunder all over the world, and on the shelves of any bookstore it will be possible to see books written by Oleg Makosha.

Many people do not immediately find their own vocation, and on the way to the profession of their dreams, they have to try themselves in different fields. Writers in this case are also no exception. Many famous writers of the twentieth century began their career not at all from writing novels, and in order to provide food for themselves or their families, they had to master a variety of professions.