Impeccable Shirvindt: “Never got in trouble”

Shura says, Shura remembers. Shura’s voice faded a little, but otherwise he is handsome. Shure 88.

Shura is enough. And that’s a lot. Shura is the essence (it has nothing to do with a toothless singer with an emphasis on the last letter – “summer rains have stopped making a noise” with a lisp, like Gorin’s).

Shura is Shura. As in Soviet hockey there were Maltsev, Kharlamov, Yakushev, and you don’t need a last name on your back, you don’t even need a number, you immediately recognize them by their stroke, by skating, by the way they hold the stick. Shura is style.

An artist is not enough, Shura is more than an artist. Shura is a person. And the ship, although it never allows any pathos, greatness, it does not allow itself. Shura is a taste, a standard of taste.

Shura is always there, he is a friend. Well, who else could and should have been with an unparalleled friend Andrei Mironov on that very day, at that very hour, on tour in the city of Riga, 1987. “Shura, head,” dear Figaro addresses Count Almaviva according to some unpredictable diabolical scenario, who could possibly write this play? Mironov – a great, grandiose artist – finished the text in a deadly delirium, and Shura, no longer a count, but his best friend, dragged him backstage. And then, when the doctors were powerless, in some kind of “gas truck” from the capital of the then allied Latvia to Moscow, of course, Shura accompanied Andryusha, who died on stage.

Shura is one as a finger. With a wonderful wife, a wonderful son, infinitely beloved grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Shura remembers. And at his call, at the voice from there, from heaven, his friends come, who are his life. Gorin, Zakharov, Mironov, Derzhavin, Ryazanov, Kvasha – they are all here, nearby: they heard, they returned. And Peltzer, Aroseva, Papanov, Pluchek, Efros, Smoktunovsky, Markov, Efremov, Gurchenko, Mordyukova, Todorovsky, Gerdt, Gaft, Kozakov, Armored, Durov, Volchek, Zhvanetsky … Without end and edge. This is the bygone nature.

In the movies, it seems that Shura often plays himself. Here is his passage around the coveted “Zhigulenka” when he met Muravyov in “The Most Charming and Attractive”. So imposing, with chic, brilliance, relish, only Shirvindt can! Yes, I recognize the sweetheart by his gait. And in the “Station for Two” Ryazanov generally called his pianist Shurik, Alexander Anatolyevich, and gave the most important words to him and Gurchenko: “Hurry to change your life!”

Shura has something that so many people do not have: his own irony to life. Without bile, without envy and search for enemies. He has all the good people, but he immediately forgets about the bad ones. Shura has a good irony.

When they say “civilian position”, Shura winces painfully. He does not like this, although he respects the temperament of his beloved comrades. But he does not need it, he is out of politics. It seems so.

Impeccable taste, style and tact – these are his documents, his civil position. It allows him to save face, and therefore reputation in any situation. Although Shura does not think about it on purpose, he does not play with his face. He’s just very organic.

Some colleagues close to Shura behaved impeccably in the totalitarian Soviet years, they never bowed to the authorities, but in the “free” they became ugly, they could not stand the “copper pipes”. Shura withstood everything, passed between temptations, temptations, like an ace from Formula 1, never got into a mess.

“I learned to live simply, wisely …” This is Akhmatova. Well, yes, the teachers were good: Stalin, Beria, the Gulag, Comrade Zhdanov, they shot their first husband, Gumilyov, they imprisoned their son and another husband … Shirvindt is not so tragic. From the abominations, troubles, absurdities of life, Shura was always protected by smart, kind irony. Therefore, “simple and wise” is also about him.

Shura 88. “Up to a hundred and twenty” we say, right? He will still call all his people to the light, and they will come again, flock to him like pretty ones. Saw, Shura, saw, speak, remember. As long as you do this, they are alive. Departed nature.

Freddy forever

Again “Culture”, “The Secret of Freddie Mercury”. Seminar by Pavel Surkov.

I had never known this man before, never seen him. I attended his lecture for the first time. Yes, he stayed there, listening, as if spellbound.

Rock and roll as part of the culture, of course. Pavel Surkov talks about it this way. Rock is a philosophical, deep, super-sincere concept. Here “Culture” is very out of place.

And Freddie, this genius? And he’s on point. His voice, his songs-masterpieces, taking to the skies, are a brilliant part of world culture.

Freddie Mercury died at 45 from AIDS. And culture can and should talk about it. Now, when it is customary to broadcast about a “bad” disease and its carriers in Russian television with condescension, through the lip, with disdain, with a sense of one’s own sinlessness (well, what can we take from this geyropy?), Kultura has set its own example. There is dignity, nobility, intelligence and there are no taboo topics. Without anguish, scandal, vulgarity, without all sorts of teachings, it turns out that one can talk about Freddie’s orientation, while observing tact, not interfering in intimate life.

This is an example of true culture, and not the obscurantism or madness into which so many of us fall.

Our Allah has arrived

On the channel “Mosfilm. Golden Collection ”Alla Pugacheva shone for two evenings in a row. First they gave “I came and I say”, then “The woman who sings”. If this is not a feat, then there is something heroic here.

The show happened immediately after the return of Alla Borisovna to her native land. What until recently would have been considered quite an ordinary event (think, two sessions with Pugacheva), now it is a gesture of support, no less.

She is silent. What is silent about? Why is silent? Is it possible to remain silent when the fatherland is in danger?

It’s screaming on the box. They feel strong, having the right to overthrow the authorities from the ship of modernity. By themselves, Pugachevsky’s little fingers are not worth it.

But one small but proud channel took Alla and supported her.