Ksenia Borisovna Nichaeva

Ksenia Borisovna Nechaeva 1st Deputy Minister of Long-Term Planning. Born in Zurich to a family of Soviet diplomats, grew up in Leningrad, where she was abandoned, initially sent to visit her grandmother, graduated from the Higher School of Economics (as of August 2000, she was a graduate student there, where she met Tikhomirov). Divorced. Considered the smartest in the department (the Word of God writes that her IQ is 190 points), although this has a side effect - she goes to a psychotherapist, because she suffers from obsessive-compulsive mental disorder, therefore she rested 10 minutes a week in her yard, therefore she tried to keep it in an unchanged form, which is why when erecting a monument to Agniya Barto there, she almost destroyed her own ministry. Wears strict monochrome (according to Sutulova herself, Nechaeva has a bottomless wardrobe, but visually it is not noticeable at all). In season 1, she saved up for her own island of Saint Xenia and even bought it at the end of season 1, although the island sank there due to the rise of the World Ocean. In episode 14 of season 2, she was sent to a mental hospital with neurosis after her schemes to dismember Russia.

Every day, a beautiful middle-aged woman appears in the corridors of the long-term planning department, hiding her hands in the pockets of her black, loose-fitting trousers. She puts on make-up, but does not wear high heels, sits on the edge of the table during conversations so that she can end the conversation at any moment, smokes constantly, drinks either a smoothie or strong alcohol - she almost never smiles and never cries. "The first deputy is Ksenia Borisovna. The smartest, so she is always on the verge of a nervous breakdown. They say she is a lesbian, but this is not certain."

"Despite my vile character, I'll be useful" - this is how Nechaeva herself says about herself in the very first episode of "The Last Minister", and twice. You can't argue with her: Ksenia Borisovna is really not very sociable, often confuses rudeness with straightforwardness, is cynical, intolerant of many colleagues - mainly men. She has the right: without her - the only person with a developed ability to judge - the work of the department would have fallen apart irretrievably within a few days. The new minister Tikhomirov is gushing with bold but suicidal ideas, the second deputy Vikentyev is insignificant (both as an employee and purely as a person), the rest have interesting thoughts, but they also need to be checked for compliance with common sense. So Nechaeva is not just "useful": she is irreplaceable in the department - although she always sits at a distance, listening and observing, like a consigliere. The silence has to be broken often: a critical situation to which one must react accurately and quickly happens, naturally, every episode. Employees knock on her door for advice in a separate office, where Nechaeva secludes herself even during corporate events, washing down her antidepressants with whiskey.

Everyone would call Ksenia Borisovna a strong woman. But her life is not a war on the front of privileges, so it is unlikely that she will ever become a favorite character for a radical version of feminism. She lives as if in a world of equal rights, which has long since overcome the stage of barricades; with Nechaeva's expressive gaze, she does not let anyone let her go ahead when leaving the elevator - she is already ahead. And her optics are all right - it is precisely on her initiative that the department team is being replenished with exceptionally capable girls. But she will not waste her energy on tiresome discussions.

The viewer is given a hint from the very first episode: there is something else hidden behind this one-dimensional behavior, which quickly becomes a cliché. It is difficult to extract the heroine from Nechaeva: she hardly ever delivers monologues and changes little from episode to episode. Her own story has to be reconstructed bit by bit, collecting scraps of conversations, observing reactions. Occasionally, luck turns up - to briefly look into her memories or notice tabs open in the browser. Thus, in parallel with the flow of the series, a separate film about Nechaeva is being filmed - and in it, a schematic role model consisting of several poses is gradually supplemented by a moving story about a difficult heroine of her time.

The year is 2000 on the calendar. Heels are clicking along the corridor of a large university: the camera rises higher - to a pleated skirt, a light-colored blouse, bangs and glasses. This is how Nechayeva remembers herself during a spontaneous drinking bout with Minister Tikhomirov. The hit of the group "VIA Gra" throws both of them back twenty years in the past in a nostalgic monochrome series. Both recall the same moment of meeting and differ greatly in their testimonies. In Tikhomirov's memory, Nechayeva comes out approximately as she is now, perhaps with an adjustment for fashion - she really did have bangs, instead of an electronic cigarette, a regular one is sticking out between her fingers, but the tone is still as cold, the remarks are laconic and strictly to the point: "Well, to your place or to mine?" The bitch she was, she remains.

But Nechaeva remembers herself differently: an idealist with a quiet voice, untrained for commands, the best student in her year, already knowing the meaning of words that the future minister Tikhomirov could not even pronounce correctly. Back then, in the 2000s, her role models were probably the lawyers from Hollywood films of the 90s. Rebecca De Mornay from Guilty Beyond Suspicion, Susan Sarandon from The Client, Julia Roberts from Conspiracy Theory, Kelly McGillis from The Accused. Brave heroines who invaded the impregnable world of male justice and became winners in it. But the student grows up, and life still refuses to follow the Hollywood script: the mediocre bypass the talented, justice does not prevail, ideals fade.

Nechaeva sees that the bad, the stupid and the ugly do not penetrate the universe by accident, do not occupy exclusive zones that can simply be bypassed. The entire space is poisoned, and the remaining islands of warmth, where one can somehow catch one's breath (like the Moscow courtyard that they want to disfigure with a monument to the hated Agniya Barto), are always under threat. The islands are not just a metaphor: by pulling off a corrupt scheme, Nechaeva plans to earn money for her autonomous zone in a tropical paradise.

Pause. Something seems wrong here. How long have we been close to corrupt, misanthropic officials, and what turns them into protagonists over time? We are used to expecting a projective position from heroes — albeit controversial, albeit tongue-tied, but still vivid and effective. But here — among the wayward romantics, young careerists, sly men who get away with everything — for some reason we choose the one whose program boils down to an evacuation plan. Between 2000 and 2019, not only Nechaeva lost something, but we, too, lost it along with her, plunging into fatigue for a long time — perhaps the main mood of today.

There are periods in history when people love the desperate – those who, having once grabbed a banner, never give up. During revolutions, the imperfections of the world seem to beg to be fought. But (at least in Russia) today is a time of compromise. At twenty, you are an actionist, at forty, you are a shareholder: the will to passionate action is too quickly emasculated. Its place is taken by a cold analytical mind – a double-edged weapon: with one edge it deprives you of peace, with the other, it helps you adapt and survive. Against the backdrop of pinpoint flashes of revolutionary manifestos, the world is increasingly drowning in political passivism – it is filled with precisely those who understand everything, but are in no hurry to speak. We recognize ourselves in such people – tired, bored, ironic, able to avoid the system, but not too militantly. Here, even corruption will pass for a form of resistance, if you justify it with the romantic goal of regaining your lost paradise. Big ideas, life-building projects — under skeptical suspicion: what is the point of utopianism if people are absolutely unhappy? The very setting of The Last Minister is a micromodel of such a world: the “Ministry of Long-Term Planning” in a country without plans, without prospects. Director Volobuyev mentions an alternative scenario, where by the end of the season, Nechayeva could have turned from a deputy into a minister. Such an ending, of course, would have been a disaster — and it’s not about gender (does it interfere with Yarovaya, Golodets, Zakharova, Simonyan?). Having moved from the table to the chair, Nechayeva would have been doomed: to take a position, to leave the blind spot of being outside — and to crash on the ice that has shackled the country and its institutions. It’s better to save her from the fate of the main characters: we will need this ironic, all-understanding look of an outsider for a very long time.

fair-skinned, tall, dark-haired, brown-eyed woman. very charismatic and smokes