“He was an absolute king”: Yuri Vasiliev remembered the prophetic words of Shirvindt

“He treated death ironically”

Second day without Shirvindt. And the second day begins with him. Yesterday’s shock and confusion are gradually giving way to – what? Inhibited awareness of what happened and the inability to fix anything. Never! Therefore, while Alexander Anatolyevich is still here and has not gone into that unknown, but that none of us will miss, he is remembered, remembered… The leading actor of the Satire Theater Yuri Vasiliev worked with Alexander Anatolyevich – scary to say – 48 years.

Yesterday I found his book “Excerpts from Scraps”, and there is an inscription: “To Yurochka Vasilyev, co-author of life, creativity and friendship. Your Shirvindt.” And so much came up at once. How I first saw him at school even before the theater. There were two Masters that all the students dreamed of getting to – Vladimir Shlesinger and Alexander Shirvindt. I studied with Vladimir Georgievich, but I observed Alexander Anatolyevich: he was very handsome with masculine beauty – huge eyes, stature, voice. There was no completeness then, but the breed was felt in everything. Memories are like flashes. We are flying from Riga on an airplane after the death of Andrei Mironov. Shura held up well. True, I smoked a lot. And on the plane, where at that time it was still possible to go out and smoke, he suddenly stood up and addressed all of us: “I’m pleased with you.” But he was not the artistic director then. It’s just that everyone got together after what happened with Andryusha. They stood like a wall, holding each other in the face of death.

And he treated death ironically. This is his famous expression – you need to be closer to the ground. He loved to repeat it at all the anniversaries that he hosted brilliantly. He joked, made jokes, but at some point he would take it and screw it up: “We need to be closer to the ground.” It seems like everything is fine so far, go for a walk, but remember – closer to the ground.”

Or when he had already become the artistic director of the theater, he somehow went to see Olga Aroseva. She was already sick, weakening before our eyes. “Ol, if you only knew, I’m so tired of this artistic direction. I’ll leave,” he tells her. “Wait to leave, Shurik, you have to bury me” – “Well, don’t delay this,” he replied. How they laughed.

Always a lightning-fast reaction to any joke. All professional wits knew that it was dangerous to joke with Shirvindt. Khazanov, Vinokur, Zhvanetsky, knowing that he was in the audience, tried not to address him from the stage. Because they understood that Shura would answer in such a way that the jokers would shut up. Here he was the absolute king. It was impossible to joke with him.

And how he helped – everyone, absolutely everyone. They ran to him, talked about their problems, and cried. He dug in, picked up the phone: “Hello, this is someone Shirvindt.” And all the doors opened. I hated greedy people. He gave money – as much as needed, and gave as much.

One of our last meetings – after the premiere of the play “Ivan Vasilyevich,” I ran into his office. He hugged me and congratulated me. And I look at him and see that his facial features have sharpened greatly… I remember Menglet’s face was like this shortly before his death. I thought: “God, how can I save it?” And now that he is gone, everyone just repeats: “He is the face of the theater, the face of the theater.” It’s not true, the whole theater is him.

And this photo was taken somewhere in 2010 or 2011. I brought photographer Elena Martynyuk to him, and she photographed us.