I talked to Mike Davis almost exactly 9 years ago on October 31, 2013. I wasn’t sure if I still had the audio from the interview. But turns out that I do. So I decided to publish it in honor of his passing.
I used to work as a contributor for the now-defunct Prime Russian Magazine, a vaguely left-wing cultural magazine published in Moscow. I talked to Mike Davis for an issue the magazine was doing on the subject of poverty — and that’s where this interview is from.In it, Davis talks about the evils of micro-financing, praises Islam for banning usury, and laments the failure of the Occupy Wall Street movement (which was still fresh back then) due to lack of any strategic planning. As David said, “politics is depoliticizing people in this country on unimaginable scale.”
The interview starts at about 40 minutes — after an intro where Yasha and I talk about Prime Russian Magazine and the media world in Moscow when things were all positive and happy back in the day.
—Evgenia Kovda
P.S. I did this interview for print so the Skype audio recording isn’t the best quality. But it’s clear enough, so bear with it!
Want to know more? Check out previous episodes of The Russians.
RIP Mike Davis