“Friendship with him is a gift”: Anna Pugach, Shatilova, Barinov, Tishman talked about Dementiev

AiF presented the project “It All Starts with Love” in the poet’s anniversary year

The Argumenty i Fakty Publishing House hosted a presentation of the multimedia project “Everything Starts with Love.” The project was launched and implemented in the year of the 95th anniversary of the classic of new Russian poetry and USSR State Prize laureate Andrei Dementyev. The event was attended by the people closest to Dementiev: the poet’s wife Anna Pugach, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation Valery Barinov, artist and singer Mark Tishman, who was friends and worked with the poet for many years, Soviet and Russian Central Television announcer Anna Shatilova and other guests – each day shared warm memories.

“Our meeting with Andrey is a gift of fate,” People’s Artist of the Russian Federation Valery Barinov shared his memories. – I remember how on May 8 we were taken to a luxury hotel – in the morning we were supposed to go on air at 6.00 and congratulate the country on the holidays. Of course, we did not sleep, it was a night of conversations and poetry. During our conversation, I was truly shocked: this man was an amazing listener. When I spoke, I wondered every time whether Andrei was looking at me with irony? Is he laughing at me? Because there was always a smile and light in his gaze.

…Dementyev has a line “There are no unloved women as long as there are men”: for him the concept of “woman” was a kind of religion. And you know, art always begins with pain, a real artist does everything through pain, because he wants to talk about this pain. And the Lord gave him a great life so that he could tell us about us and our world.”

“Indeed, friendship with him is a gift,” agreed the artist and singer Mark Tishman. – Today I am glad that people much younger than me are discovering Dementiev’s poems. In his works, a woman is the object of his love, and he looks at love from the bottom up. I am happy about our friendship, which lasted for 10 whole years: I not only got to know such a person, I learned the history of my country through his life, and not through dry textbooks. At every concert I either sing a song or read his poems – and this is always perceived by the public very keenly and vividly. Someone will say about his poems – simplicity, but I say transparency.”

Soviet and Russian Central Television announcer Anna Shatilova noted that the meeting was not being held with the goal of promoting Andrei Dementyev: “There is no need to promote my beloved friend – the whole country knows and loves him anyway. I was lucky to meet him in 1974. Today there are many poets who mock the great Russian language. With Dementyev, everything is simple, wonderful and from the heart…

Anna, how lucky you are,” Shatilova added, turning to the poet’s wife Anna Pugach. – How lucky he is. Anna is now spending her whole life to preserve the memory of my friend. By the way, I want to note that we had only friendship!”