Maria Zakharova wrote a song for everyone: “Despite bad weather, she will save us”

An official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims that “not a penny of public funds has been invested in this”

God sent us love for happiness in full,

Despite bad weather, she will save us.

Christmas, Christmas! Gives Divinity to everyone

Salvation of our lives and rebirth of our souls.

Christmas, Christmas brings magic to everyone,

The salvation of our lives… Good luck!

This is the chorus of a new song by the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova (the author of the text) to the music of a Belarusian composer; the song itself has already been recorded by a young performer from Belarus. The presentation of the song will take place in Moscow on the eve of Catholic Christmas on December 24. Maria Zakharova, as it turned out, did not write her next creation for a specific performer. “We made a song that everyone can sing. I wanted to give everyone a New Year and Christmas gift. Not a penny of public funds has been invested in this – yet they are always looking for some kind of catch,” the diplomat argues.

– As a rule, everything is written on the plane. In those moments when there is nothing distracting – neither the phone nor the Internet, Maria Zakharova shares in an exclusive interview with MK. – The song was not written to order. During one of my pilgrimage trips to Jerusalem, I was struck by a nun who recited poetry in which she described her religious experiences. I was struck by her courage – on the other hand, on the other – an absolutely amazing view of things that are considered serious dogma. Then I realized that a person who approaches this with love is allowed to describe all truths through emotions, without pretending to rewrite them. This is the very case when some feelings, emotions and one’s own view came to the eternal topic about which so much has been written.

I thought for a long time about who to record this song with. There were many ideas for implementing this project. Everything turned out with the light hand of the Secretary General of the Union State of Russia and Belarus Dmitry Fedorovich Mezentsev, an amazingly energetic, talented and caring person. Once I told him “It’s interesting, there is a “Slavic Bazaar”, there are Russian-Belarusian summer songs, but there are no winter ones. Maybe we can come up with something? He replied, “Great idea, come up with it!” I showed him the lyrics of this song, adding that “we are two Orthodox peoples, we go through a lot of difficulties together, suddenly someone will respond.” He proposed this idea in Belarus. There were immediately people who gladly took part in the creation of this song. I am happy that the first performance was by such a fantastic voice of the Belarusian singer Ksenia Galetskaya. And then everyone will sing this song themselves, as they feel it. But it’s great that the start has been given on such a truly high note,” concluded Maria Zakharova.

The choice of the performer of the Russian diplomat’s Christmas song fell on the 16-year-old Grand Prix winner of the International Children’s Music Competition “VITEBSK-2019” Ksenia Galetskaya. In 2019, Ksenia became a finalist in the National qualifying round of the International Song Contest “Junior Eurovision 2019”, and a finalist in the National qualifying round of the International Children’s Vocal Competition “New Wave”. In 2021, Galetskaya won the Grand Prix of the SanRemo Junior International Vocal Competition in San Remo. The young artist has performed with soloists of the Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theater of Belarus, her own video clips and a large original repertoire consisting of songs in Belarusian, Russian and English.

– Everything turned out easy and quickly. If in 15 minutes the main musical idea for the poems has not developed, then I put them aside,” says “MK” the author of the music in Maria Zakharova’s song, composer from Minsk Leonid Shirin, who wrote the song for Zakharova for two days. Shirin is the author of songs for many stars, including Alexander Serov, Vladimir Presnyakov, Emin, Stas Mikhailov, Alexey Glyzin, Lev Leshchenko. – Any song is valuable at first perception. I read the poems, heard the voice of Maria Zakharova, and immediately the song began to flow. It turned out quickly.

– How do you assess Maria Zakharova’s poetic gift?

– I heard several songs based on her poems, I remember her songs performed by Nargiz and Lyuba Uspenskaya. These are quite strong works that live their own lives. The song either works or it doesn’t. He may be a very good poet, but you cannot write songs based on his poems. All songs of this kind are on the theme of “for good.” What’s interesting here is the very order of words, phrases from the category “for all good things.” Here the song is sung, which means it works. In this song, everything is accessible, understandable and, most importantly, songlike,” concluded Leonid Shirin.

MK HELP:

Maria Zakharova has already become the author of lyrics for such famous songs as “Bring back the memory” performed by Nargiz, “I am looking for you”, sung by Alexander Kogan and “Full”, written specifically for Katya Lel. Even in the first wave of the pandemic, while the musicians were sitting at home, the speaker of the Russian Foreign Ministry shot off a hit performed by the duet Valeria and Maxim Fadeev. In April 2020, the video “To the Limit” was released. Already in December, Maria Zakharova received the Golden Gramophone award for this song. The song “Prayer” about the difficult relationship between Lyuba Uspenskaya and her daughter Tatyana first went into rotation in September 2020. In total, more than seven songs have already been recorded based on Zakharova’s poems. According to Maria, she cannot write poetry either to order or upon request. He does not run poetry websites and does not publish collections. Maria Zakharova’s poems appear in the form of an emotional response. Maria believes that it is her professional activity at the Russian Foreign Ministry that gives her in concentrated form those emotions that she cannot afford to express in comments on the official agenda.