Good toilets make good democracy too
Alexander Lipkov is a very interesting person to talk to. His knowledge of toilets is striking. He knows a lot about everything that has to do with toilets - who invented them and when, how Russian empress Ekaterina II preferred to do it, and why Joseph Stalin was shy of Russian lavatories. Alexander Lipkov has not kept his knowledge just to himself - he wrote a book about toilets, which immediately became a bestseller.
Why did you decide to write a book about toilets?
It took me my whole life to write this book. The idea came from movie director Andron Konchalovsky. In the beginning of the 1990s, Konchalovsky decided to make a movie about a Russian toilet, and I was supposed to be a part of the project. However, the project was not realized due to lack of money. A toilet was a cultural phenomenon for Konchalovsky. Culture is not only Pushkin and Tolstoy, culture is a system of values that determines people’s daily behavior.
What were toilets like in ancient times?
The Ancient Greeks, for example, did not invent plumbing, despite their great spiritual achievements. They used chamber vases - pots. However, people had plumbing in ancient Egypt: archaeologists have unearthed escape canals that are 2,500 years old. In Ancient Rome, for example, closets were also used as such places, although only rich people could afford it. Others used stinking public toilets that were full of flies, especially in summer. Residents of Paris took their chamber pots and emptied them right out of their windows. Leonardo Da Vinci was shocked by the smell of Paris when he visited the city. He even designed a flushing toilet especially for the French king. However, his project remained just a project. Old Moscow was not better than Paris. Stinking streams used to flow along Moscow's central street, Tverskaya Street.
Modern Moscow environmentalists can celebrate the day of April 9th as a holiday. Peter the Great issued a decree on April 9th, 1699, about public cleanness in Moscow. The decree also stipulated punishments for throwing garbage and sewage out on the streets. However, the sanitary condition of the Russian capital did not improve anyway. Moscow suffered from a lot of epidemics, like other European cities did.
So when did the "toilet revolution" take place?
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