Songwriter Nikolai Dobronravov has died – Kommersant

Songwriter Nikolai Dobronravov, husband of composer Alexandra Pakhmutova, died at the age of 94. He wrote lyrics for such Soviet songs as “Nadezhda”, “Tenderness”, “Bird of Happiness”, “I Can’t Do Otherwise”. Singer Nikolai Baskov announced his death, as well as “Express newspaper”.

“I just found out that Nikolai Nikolaevich Dobronravov has passed away…” Nikolai Baskov said on Instagram (owned by Meta, recognized as extremist and banned in Russia). According to Express Newspaper, he died after a long illness.

Nikolai Dobronravov also wrote lyrics for the songs “Belovezhskaya Pushcha”, “A coward does not play hockey”, “How young we were”, “You know what kind of guy he was”, “And the battle continues again”, “Goodbye, Moscow” ( farewell song of the 1980 Olympics). The music for them was written by his wife Alexandra Pakhmutova.

The song “My Yaroslavl, Prince City” by Nikolai Dobronravov and Alexandra Pakhmutova became the anthem of Yaroslavl, and “My Vorkuta” became the anthem of Vorkuta.

Nikolai Dobronravov was born in 1928 in Leningrad. He graduated from the V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko School-Studio at the M. Gorky Moscow Art Theater. At the beginning of his career he acted in films, but then began to write songs. He met Alexandra Pakhmutova in the early 50s of the last century. In 2006, they celebrated their 50th anniversary of marriage.

Music based on the poems of Nikolai Dobronravov was written by Mikael Tariverdiev, Arno Babajanyan, Polad Bul-Bul Ogly, Sigismund Kats, Evgeny Martynov, Arkady Ostrovsky, Muslim Magomaev, Mikhail Chuev.

Anastasia Larina