There is always a temptation to dispute two truths. The first is that all creative people create first of all for themselves. Do not believe a writer or a musician who claims that they write books or music firs of all for the reader or the audience.

At the same time, the first truth does not contradict the second: appraisal is important for every creator. It is even more important if, for example, a journalist writes about one of his favorite artists. To get an appraisal from your hero is true happiness.

It may sound immodest, but I had a chance to participate in the creation of such a small (but very important) happiness.

Last summer, Novaya Gazeta published an article by Alexey Polikovskiy about Deep Purple’s new album.

I haven’t read such a gripping text for a long time. Here are some excerpts:

“In July, amidst all the world's upheavals and obscenities, the next, 23rd Deep Purple album was released, strangely detached from the evil of the day that fills souls and airwaves. Everything around is flying upside down and is fraught with a fatal catastrophe, Deep Purple stand firm and unshakable in the midst of all this.”

“The world of Deep Purple never connected with the world of everyday life, never merged with the humiliated life of kitchens and trams - it towered nearby, independent of everything and not subject to the noise of life, because it itself was the noise of another life, a roar and a rumble, darkness and happiness.”

“Enclosed in their own circle, self-sufficient, like the Olympian gods, not running the race against anyone, maniacally devoted to their sound, which they have honed and perfected for decades, on the cover of their 23rd album they sent a mockingly simple message to the delirious world that’s losing ground and has gone mad with complexity: =1.”

I loved the article so much that I decided to share it with one of the “Olympian gods”, Ian Gillan from Deep Purple, with whom I have been friends for 15 years. I translated the above-mentioned excerpts and sent them to him. The answer did not take long: “This is a great review indeed.”

And I decided that the story should not end there. I tracked down Alexey Polikovskiy on Facebook, sent him Ian Gillan’s review and received the following answer:

“Thank you for your letter, it really made my day! I am very, very happy that Gillan has read my article and called it a great review! Although I have never met Ian Gillan, he has always been part of my life - since the time of In Rock album, which I used to listen to in Brezhnev’s Moscow.”

But the story didn’t end there. I discovered that Alexey Polikovskiy was a wonderful writer and read three of his books: “Lost in Time. And Other Stories”, “School stories” and “The Lion’s Garden”.

The first is a collection of seemingly simple, but very profound stories. Second is about school life, and despite the fact that the author is older than me, and we studied in different schools in different cities, I recognized myself, my classmates and our teachers in some of the stories.

The second book is about Leo Tolstoy. Of course, I knew that the great writer was a controversial figure, but I had no idea how many layers there were in this contradiction.

That’s how many discoveries you can make if you suddenly decide to do a little “magic”.

Ara Tadevosyan is the director of Mediamax.