“Vakhtang was surrounded by vile crooks”: Safronov spoke about the last sufferings of Kikabidze

The artist believed biased information

The death of Vakhtang Kikabidze made me remember the political views of the artist. People’s Artist of Russia Nikas Safronov stood up for his late friend before critics and explained his difficult condition.

“People who write nasty things about Kikabidze on social networks are not entirely objective,” says Nikas. – Kikabidze is from the USSR. And for him, the collapse of the Soviet Union – his then homeland – was a great tragedy. He was also very worried at the moment when relations between Russia and Georgia changed. I know this from his words, as we have been friends for over thirty years.

– They say that there were not always decent people in his environment.

– Vakhtang himself has always been a trusting and naive person, like all great masters. And this, of course, was used by various dubious personalities. There were vile people and swindlers in his environment, who often misled him, gave biased information. And he believed it.

Was he really that trusting?

– Perhaps everything happened due to some age-related changes – which only helped nationalistic people use it for their own purposes.

And earlier, Kikabidze often visited Moscow, we regularly met with him. We had a well-coordinated company, Slava Govorukhin, Oleg Tabakov joined us … It was a good time.

Have you seen him often in recent years?

– Just got in touch. They congratulated each other on holidays. By the way, we tried not to raise the topic of politics. We always had a lot of creative topics to discuss. He invited me to Georgia.

– Vakhtang Kikabidze has been very ill in recent years. Did you suffer a lot?

Of course, it was not easy for him, but he held on. Vakhtang did not like to be pitied. This was the kind of person he was – doubtful, suspicious and very trusting. Time will pass, everyone will forget his political views, but they will remember this wonderful actor who gave us “Mimino”, “Don’t Cry!” and many other films. And, of course, the Orera ensemble, in which he sang, loved and knew the entire Soviet Union. My sincere condolences to all his family and friends.

Read the material “A friend told about the last hours of Kikabidze”