Alla Pugacheva: A Big Interview "Tell Gordeeva"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6rFxVPz7UI
video in Russian with english subtitles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alla_Pugacheva
https://zygaro.substack.com/p/the-russian-queen-speaks
ChatGPT - Here’s a concise summary of Alla Pugacheva’s big interview with Katerina Gordeeva:
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Life & Resilience: Pugacheva reflects on living “from war to war,” childhood illnesses, family tragedies, and how scars made her nearly invulnerable. She stresses the importance of conscience over fame or comfort.
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Leaving Russia: She and Maxim Galkin left after he was labeled a “foreign agent.” She recalls a deceptive meeting with Sergey Kiriyenko and the shock of official repression. She insists that true patriotism is telling your homeland the truth, not silence.
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Views on War & Politics: Pugacheva condemns war as senseless and rooted in pride. She recalls past crises (Cuban Missile Crisis, Chechen wars) and regrets not being able to help people like Dzhokhar Dudayev’s widow. She praises Gorbachev’s courage of repentance.
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Family & Childhood: She describes post-war poverty, cramped housing, her father’s wrongful imprisonment, and her mother’s simple purity. She recalls happiest days with music, summer dachas, and feelings of freedom.
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Career & Image: From early amateur performances to Golden Orpheus with Arlekino, she became a national star. She discusses hardship despite fame (tiny pay, state taking profits) and how she invented legends of wealth. She emphasizes singing about love, not ideology.
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On Being “Prima Donna”: She dislikes the title, preferring “a woman who sings.” She insists her art was always about sincerity, not status.
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Music & Colleagues: She admired Shulzhenko, Piaf, Kamburova. She recalls offers abroad (e.g., ABBA’s Chess) but refused, unable to abandon family and homeland. She speaks critically yet compassionately about Shaman, saying his art lacks love despite talent.
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Personal Life: She clarifies she had two real marriages (first and current with Maxim Galkin); others were technical or symbolic. She values her family deeply, saying Galkin’s love and protection make her truly happy.
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Legacy & Meaning: For her, homeland is not geography but where loved ones are. She feels betrayed by the state but not by her fans. She wants her children to know the truth and leave behind a record of sincerity, not myths.
👉 In short: The interview is a mix of personal confession, political stance, and life philosophy, showing Pugacheva as candid, vulnerable, resilient, and still deeply tied to love, conscience, and truth.
Here are 25 of the most striking quotes from Alla Pugачёва’s interview with Katerina Gordeeva, selected to reflect her views on life, politics, art, and love:
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“From war to war, I live.”
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“Our country lacks just one word — magnanimity.”
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“How little must you respect your country to say someone ‘ran away’ from it, as if it were a prison.”
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“Guys, learn to tell the truth.”
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“In my life I’ve received so many scars on my soul that I am practically invulnerable.”
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“Conscience is more precious than fame, than luxury, than anything.”
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“To tell your homeland it is wrong — that is patriotism.”
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“I don’t want to end my life again under Stalinism. I was born under Stalinism, and it was nothing but prohibitions.”
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“I’ve lived from the Cuban crisis to Chechnya to today — always from war to war.”
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“The only politician who had the courage to admit a mistake was Gorbachev — the courage of repentance.”
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“To defend the homeland, I’ll be the first to run. Even on crutches.”
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“Pride is the root of our misfortune. And pride is a sin.”
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“If I don’t return to Russia, I’m not me.”
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“Homeland is not pigeons and sparrows — it is the people you love.”
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“Homeland betrayed me, but my fans never did.”
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“I am not a Prima Donna. I am a woman who sings.”
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“Success, money, fame — all of it is worthless without love.”
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“Fame is the hardest test of all. Poverty you can endure, but fame distorts people.”
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“Sing about love — that’s what soldiers needed, not slogans.”
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“I don’t know what envy is. I’ve never understood that feeling.”
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“Happiness for me always came from moments of freedom and beauty.”
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“If homeland treats you like this, you must leave and prove that life goes on.”
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“Don’t think of me as rich — compared to Madonna, I’m poor.”
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“Everything God does is for the best.”
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“True happiness is when you are loved and protected. And I have that.”
Contents:
00:00 Who plays this piano?
3:18 "My knees sometimes shake, but my hands don't tremble yet"
5:24 "This interview is a document for my children"
7:18 When and why Pugacheva left Russia
8.30 What Kiriyenko said to Pugacheva in September 2022 and what she answered him
10:56 How Galkin and Pugacheva's children were teased at school when their father was declared a foreign agent
11:20 "Conscience is more important than fame, luxury, more important than anything"
13:24 "We had neither citizenship nor a home"
17:18 "Pride is inherent in any government in Russia"
20:06 Why didn't Pugacheva leave the USSR and was there a chance?
24:42 "You know what, it's better to smoke"
27:14 "I was born, suffered all my life and died"
32:00 "I should have been a general, and my brother - an artist"
36:44 "My father was arrested, and my mother said that he picked flowers in someone else's garden"
39:39 Was Pugacheva in the Communist Party?
43:14 "Stop!" - how Pugacheva learned to speak with the audience
49:49 "I like legends about my life"
58:18 "And how am I a traitor?"
1:01:31 "I am very happy for Nadezhda Kadysheva"
1:02:30 Bulanova's advice
1:04:50 What is Shaman missing?
1:09:18 Pugacheva suddenly sings
1:13:13 "I don't know what envy is"
1:17:12 "This is real happiness"
1:18:34 "I wish you happiness, Pugacheva, in your personal life" - Alla Pugacheva's five husbands
1:25:35 Who is the song "Don't offend me" about?
1:29:32 "Kirkorov can't be mad at me"
1:32:18 "I fell in love and that's it"
1:33:58 A dream in which Pugacheva saw her whole life
1:36:00 Is it true that Pugacheva's grandmother knew how to do magic and it was passed on by inheritance?
1:40:29 "For the first time in my life and for me they live"
1:44:59 "Kristina got into trouble" - why Orbakaite was banned from entering Latvia
1:48:37 Nikita Presnyakov's talent
1:50:38 "You will hear about me again" - where Alla first said this phrase
1:53:14 "Such ugly people call for giving birth"
1:56:15 Who is the song "Maestro" dedicated to?
1:58:34 "Not only the Pugachevs, but also the Bukharins." Family history
2:02:41 "Voznesensky suggested adding in each verse: a million, a trillion scarlet roses"
2:03:45 "Three happy days." Who is this song about?
2:04:42 "We corresponded in verse. This is how the song "Airplanes" was born
2:06:09 About Manizha
2:07:02 "I came to see a talented person who was having a hard time" - how Pugacheva visited Serebrennikov under house arrest
02:08:28 Question from Zhenya Berkovich!
2:10:05 What happened to Pugacheva's voice?
2:14:37 What happened to Pugacheva in Chernobyl?
2:18:52 Did Pugacheva like Solzhenitsyn?
2:23:02 How Gorbachev asked Pugacheva for advice
2:27:01 "I'll show you what vulgar means"
2:30:07 Why did Alla support Mikhail Prokhorov?
2:31:16 "You can't shoot them all"
2:33:52 Pugacheva for president?
2:36:20 "Birdsong is my music today"
2:37:19 Who's on Pugacheva's playlist today?
2:41:20 "Remember, 2027" - Pugacheva's prediction
2:43:09 "It's a shame when haters hit the nail on the head"
2:47:46 "A great power lacks generosity"
2:52:16 "Money has triumphed over good"
2:53:53 Pugacheva's charitable foundation
2:56:30 "A profitable acquaintance"
2:58:22 "I voted for Putin and was delighted"
3:01:47 "It's none of our business what others say about our family"
3:02:57 "Nikitushka Sergeevich, don't get sick!"
3:04:28 "I didn't leave to rest, but to worry"
3:07:27 Who did Pugacheva "cut off"?
3:13:28 Who is the real Prima Donna?
3:15:35 "Why do I need to influence the masses? The masses influence me"
3:21:01 "Nobody noticed that I came to Russia"
3:22:14 New war songs by Pugacheva
3:24:46 "The children will return home"
3:26:35 "If something happens to me, the children know that I must continue to live"
3:28:38 What after death?
3:30:52 Appeal to fans
3:33:12 "If there is at least something left in your hearts, then I do not wish for a greater reward for myself"
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To this day, from war to war, I live.
This time is important to me because
it really revealed the essence of people.
But people in Russia don’t step down
from the top positions.
In vain!
Our country is such, a great power, which,
in fact, lacks just one word — magnanimity.
But now you’re a traitor.
Remind me, how am I a traitor?
You must tell everything to your homeland,
come and help with that.
It’s a necessity!
How much must you disrespect your country
to say you ran away from it,
as if it were some kind of prison.
Guys, learn to tell the truth.
Why is the opinion of intelligent people
so suppressed?
You can’t imagine how sorry
I am this is happening.
Later it will all end,
but the people won’t return.
Before me sat the doomed.
Did you understand that?
Of course,
but there was no way back for us.
I still had many marriages.
Five?
Just a minute.
I feel that people live for me too.
This is probably the first time in my life.
In my life I’ve received
so many scars on my soul
that I am practically invulnerable.
Katyusha!
Hello!
Hi!
Greeting on the doorstep
isn’t very good, of course.
But you’ve stepped in.
How sunny it is for our Latvia.
By order, all by order.
A piano.
Yes, Raimonds Pauls comes here every time.
In a couple of days he’ll come and play.
- And you?
- Yes, I play.
But with nails like these
you can’t play anything anymore.
So, if you had to choose
between nails and...
I used to choose the piano,
and now — the claws.
See, it catches.
Not Raimonds Pauls.
I think there’s no point in us
sitting at home.
So let’s better go to the lawn.
We have a nice spot there.
Which side is better for you to sit?
It makes no difference to me.
Let’s sit here.
Because in life they say,
“oh, you’re so beautiful.”
Then you look at photos
or somewhere else and think,
oh my God, the light is wrong,
bags under the eyes,
it turns out something else too.
But honestly, I don’t care anymore.
Tell Gordeeva
Alla Pugacheva
Take your hand out of the sleeve.
- Why?
- There, that’s it.
But why?
Because on camera it will look different.
It’s fashionable.
Fashionable, but a little bit
should stick out.
Otherwise they’ll say
Pugacheva hides her hands.
And do you know
why she hides her hands?
Because the guys filmed in the kitchen,
I said, my hands shake.
And it really was hard for me to stand.
And everyone started saying
my hands were shaking.
Sometimes my knees tremble,
but my hands don’t shake yet.
In general, I feel quite good
for my age.
The only thing is
those childhood illnesses,
but I’m still a post-war child,
and those childhood illnesses
are, of course, showing themselves now.
Back then everyone was sick,
but it was fine.
At the time I seemed to withstand it.
And now they’ve somehow begun to show up.
My legs have started to hurt.
I ran to the doctor.
I said, “why have my legs
weakened so much?”
This was my favorite doctor in Moscow.
And he said, “you’re taking statins.”
You can’t not take them.
But I learned a lot from them.
They weaken the legs a little.
So I started exercising them.
And it’s fine. It’s okay.
- Does it annoy you?
- Why would it?
On the contrary, it amuses me.
You see, my parents lived
to 64 and then passed away.
Grandma lived to 74.
But my granddad was long-lived.
My great-grandmother was also like that.
Apparently I take after my father’s line.
There were long-livers there.
And granddad lived long.
In principle, I do have reasons
and people to live for. Here they are!
And I haven’t seen you, Harry.
When I have a goal,
then I have the will to live.
Because I don’t understand
when someone says,
“I can’t, I don’t want to live.”
But I have a goal, I am happy.
They give me some kind of tenth youth.
And I can’t complain.
I understand that some people
won’t like hearing this,
but I am satisfied with my life.
And maybe that’s why
I’m giving you this interview,
so that maybe some gossip,
those silly myths,
which I, in principle,
brushed aside long ago,
I’m doing this for them.
It’s like a document.
If there are any questions,
I will answer them.
Ones I didn’t even intend to answer.
Who knows what! Tomorrow — who knows,
you understand?
But who knows what.
Let it remain as a document for people.
Just like I did the “Postscriptum”
concert at 70.
And I need to do it now,
since these thoughts appeared.
It’s clear why.
I think, I’ll tell Katya everything.
So be it.
I want the children to know the truth
about their father and mother.
And what’s happening in the world,
they already know.
What do they call you at home?
The kids call me Mommy.
Max — Bun.
- Bun?
- Well, I’m Bun.
He’s my Masyanya. Masik.
I always hear people call you
Alla Borisovna.
Can I just say Alla?
Of course.
Well, so that we’re somehow…
Well, they’ve called me Alla Borisovna
since childhood.
That’s impossible to change now.
I realize I don’t have a single chance
to make this interview impartial,
objective,
to expose you somehow,
because I love you endlessly,
and this will be an interview with love.
But we agreed with you that
at least we’ll try to answer
all questions honestly.
Hey, when have I ever answered
dishonestly?
Of course honestly, Katya.
What are you saying?
Listen, your life has always had
a lot of mystification.
Well, basically, yes.
Probably, deep inside I never
fully open up.
That’s personal, only my close ones know.
So I’ve lived in an image for many years.
But in any image,
you must remain an honest person.
How did you make the decision to leave?
That February of 2022.
As I understand, you were in Moscow then,
but Maxim wasn’t?
Well, let’s see then.
Alright, I didn’t want to talk about this.
The fact is, Maxim was abroad.
I was at home,
and I had to go for treatment in Israel.
They simply saved me.
And saved me then because
there was a doctor
that I desperately needed.
As soon as I left, everything started.
That crazy priest,
what’s his name, Tkachov,
“what happiness, the air is clean now.
She left.”
And I hadn’t even planned to leave.
Well, I thought,
maybe that’s just his opinion.
Then, since we were against the war,
they attacked,
some people wrote things at
the Ostankino TV center.
It was nonstop insults.
Well, if they don’t like you,
you start thinking, so why stay?
My friends told me,
“they want to talk to you.”
And Max had already spoken out by then.
I said, “alright, let’s talk.”
Talk in what sense?
Talk with Sergey Kiriyenko.
Well, I knew Sergey.
I always had a good attitude toward him.
I thought, fine, I’ll go, we’ll talk.
Maybe he’ll advise me.
We talked.
He first asked what I was unhappy about.
I said, I’m unhappy
with the permissiveness.
That is, I can basically
give up everything,
get through it all,
let it all pass by my ears.
But what worries me most is this
permissiveness toward our family.
I think it’s very bad, because
they’ll rehearse on us, and I worry about you.
Well, he said, “are you planning to leave?”
I said, “no, why would I leave?”
He said, “well yes, I read here…”
And I saw on the table nearby
all the materials about Max.
What he said, how he spoke out.
He said, “I looked here, it’s clear,
a person spoke in emotion.
He’s sensitive, he’s an artist.
So I see no reason for you to worry.”
I said, “but wait, you could have
at least warned us
that there’s no freedom of speech anymore?”
He said, “don’t worry, it’s all fine.”
That’s when I felt something was wrong.
Something was hanging in the air.
I even kissed him.
I said, “goodbye, Sergey.”
I knew I was unlikely to meet him again.
And I just had a feeling,
like something suspicious.
It was so pleasant and suspicious
that everything turned out so easy,
that everything would be arranged,
decided, banned — whatever.
“Live calmly. You are our national pride.”
I flew on wings to visit Igor Nikolayev.
Igor Krutoy was there.
I said, “Igoryok, listen,
there are decent people.
Like Kiriyenko, I’m just thrilled.
How rightly he understands everything.”
Two days later my husband Maxim Galkin
was declared a foreign agent.
Can you imagine?
Of course, my friends who brought me there
told me, “don’t think about it,
don’t think, don’t think.
There’s just no contact yet, right now
there’s no connection with the Ministry
of Justice, with the authorities.
There’s no common agreement
on one position yet.”
He kept saying things,
and I thought it was strange.
And I had to think about it.
Why?
Alright for me, but when the kids
went to school after that,
when “foreign agent” — as I say,
“they called him a foreign agent” —
and children being children,
they started trolling.
Trolling?
Of course, because “you’re spies’ kids,
your dad’s a foreign agent,” and so on.
Like "Children of the Arbat" —
the father is an enemy of the people.
We packed our suitcases, called their father,
said we’re leaving.
We had $30,000 with us,
the amount allowed to take across,
and left for Israel.
I’ll be honest,
it was such a sharp pain for me,
that it was happening like this, you see?
I wrote something like,
“declare me a foreign agent too.”
Because I don’t understand why the opinions
of intelligent people are so suppressed.
Because I believe that in a state
there should be different opinions.
How can you decide correctly if you only have
one opinion and all others are suppressed?
Do you think one can speak out
against a war in a country
that is waging war?
Yes, but I thought it was possible.
Could you have stayed silent?
Could Maxim have stayed silent?
Did you tell him, “be quiet, we’ll
live peacefully, everything is fine,
the kids go to school,
let’s stay and be silent”?
No, I wouldn’t have stayed silent,
because it was better for me to leave.
Of course, I knew how it could end, and
Maxim wouldn’t have stayed silent either.
Because, Katya, there is such a thing
as conscience.
And conscience, Katya, is more precious than fame,
than luxury, than anything.
Especially at my age.
In the last minute you’ll be thinking about
what you did, and how you treated people.
No, it’s conscience.
Don’t cry.
- I’m not crying.
- That’s it.
To tell your homeland it is wrong —
is that patriotism?
Of course.
You must tell everything to your homeland,
come and help.
It’s necessary — differences of opinion,
discussions, debates.
It matters. How can there be only
one valid opinion
and not listen to another,
then make your own judgment
from everyone else’s opinions,
find the best,
and only then decide something?
It was all unpleasant.
Especially since we had no villas,
nothing at all.
- Were you leaving for nowhere?
- For nowhere, absolutely.
And when they processed
our Israeli citizenship, because
it’s necessary in the country
where you live to have some…
So you left, and you didn’t even
have Israeli citizenship yet?
We didn’t.
Max started thinking how to work,
and he’s focused on that to this day.
Father chops, I carry away.
Yes, it was unpleasant,
because, so to speak,
they practically expelled you.
It turns out you can’t say anything.
That shocked me.
I don’t want to end my life
again under Stalinism.
But Katya, I was born under Stalinism.
It was nothing but prohibitions.
Even when Joseph Stalin died,
on TV they showed
everyone weeping,
crowds of people crushing each other.
Listen, it was such a celebration.
Whoever you asked, it was just a celebration.
But still, everything was forbidden.
Then the repressed returned from the Gulag.
It was always nerve-racking, because...
And did they pass through your house?
Well, there were relatives, yes.
- You had relatives?
- Yes, of course.
We had to help them, and even though I was little,
I understood what was going on.
Especially when Easter was forbidden. A ban.
You had to cross yourself in secret.
We were baptized at about eleven.
So you see, the bans were always there.
Always prohibitions.
Long hair later,
when it was no longer allowed.
You’d get on a tram,
it said, don’t lean out.
In the metro,
don’t lean against the wall.
And always this no, no, no, no, no, no.
Well, it all got a bit tiresome.
And besides, I remember from childhood
that our parents…
I was about 13, my brother 12.
It was the Cuban Missile Crisis.
They just cried, hugged us as
if saying goodbye.
Everything was hanging by a thread.
Well, thank God, they reached an agreement.
That ability to agree — that is real peace.
And to solve problems by saying,
“what did you say? I’ll punch you in the face,”
that is, of course, shortsighted.
It turns out that to this day
I’ve lived from war to war.
The Cuban crisis, the Suez crisis,
Afghanistan, the first Chechen war,
the second Chechen war.
Not to mention Damansky Island, the peninsula,
when our men were cut down by the Chinese.
That was such a tragedy for me.
It touched you personally, didn’t it?
You had a fiancé there?
- That was at Suez.
- He was at Suez?
Yes, Valery Romanov.
He, by the way, later became a big boss
in the local KGB.
A big, intelligent guy.
He nearly died there, really.
So you see what was happening.
The first Chechen war
especially stuck with me,
because I knew Dzhokhar Dudayev.
He was such a decent, honest,
intelligent man.
A handsome man.
And his wife — oh, what a wife!
An artist, a writer, a politician.
I even feel ashamed.
She called me, as if she thought
I could help somehow.
But how could I help?
With nothing.
Even now I feel ashamed
to send her regards.
Alla Fyodorovna, if you happen
to see this interview, I apologize.
For not being able to do anything
to keep Dzhokhar alive,
to help you somehow.
I couldn’t do anything.
Is that the reason you never went
to the front to sing?
Listen, I’m a post-war child.
I know veterans
who have long since passed away.
And I know about war, maybe more
than the current generation —
what it is and what a nightmare it is.
But not from my parents.
They were always silent.
But when veterans came,
they tried not to talk about it.
But I knew where they talked.
They could talk about it in a café.
It was simply a catastrophe.
And I never wanted it to be repeated.
Never.
I don’t know who could like war.
Probably no one.
Especially when war is, so to speak,
with brothers.
Vitaly Borodin, get ready.
Informers and snitches. Attention.
All of this is wrong.
But in my opinion,
the only politician who had
the courage to admit a mistake
and rethink it was Gorbachev.
The courage of repentance.
And the goals of war matter to me,
you see?
To defend the homeland, I’ll be the first to run.
Even on crutches.
But when I don’t understand
what’s happening, and
when I do understand what’s happening,
that’s terrible too.
When people die — ours
and those from another country.
It’s unbearable.
I kept thinking, what is this?
But why?
What are we lacking?
But I realized that it’s inherent
to any power in the Soviet Union
and in Russia.
It’s pride.
And pride is a sin.
That’s what’s horrible.
You’d think — I had a brother
who was just unbearable.
Unbearable. Also a KGB man.
He was military originally?
Well yes, military.
He was irradiated on the Chinese
border in Semipalatinsk.
And children were born dead.
He was an excellent
communications specialist.
For some reason they sent him to Afghanistan,
he went with a comrade.
And when the bombing
or shooting started there,
he held his comrade’s hand,
and they ran holding hands somewhere to hide.
And he reached some shelter
and said, “that’s it.”
And he had only one hand left —
his friend’s.
Can you imagine the trauma
of the people who are fighting now?
- Can you imagine that?
- No.
I can’t either.
Because we don’t want blood
in the 21st century.
It seems to me that politics
should already be farsighted,
diplomacy at the highest level,
the ability to negotiate not by fear.
But it turns out it’s all so difficult.
Did you ever think of escaping
in Soviet times?
Well, leaving the country
and not coming back.
No, of course not.
What are you saying? Escape.
Well, imagine what kind of career
would have awaited you, for example,
in Sweden, where ABBA offered you
to sing in the musical "Chess".
Oh, I was offered many things.
The offers were absolutely incredible.
To act in movies, to play a Russian, and yes,
the musical "Chess", and sing with someone.
What was the coolest offer?
Well, I think "Chess".
Because for me they were very close
and wonderful people.
I adored them and visited often.
And during one of those visits
they invited me to their gorgeous studio.
I still remember, Benny was at the piano.
And next to me was a Swedish translator
from the embassy, Marianna.
And they, with such joy, such happiness,
told me, “sit tight, sit.
We are offering you the role
of Svetlana in our musical.”
And I was like, oh my God, how amazing!
And then suddenly the translator said to me,
“quiet, calm, you must not agree.”
And ABBA didn’t understand
what she was saying.
I said, “why?”
“You have family in the Soviet Union.
Parents, a daughter.
Who knows what could happen.”
Tears were streaming down my face.
I couldn’t help myself.
They thought I was crying from happiness.
He stood up, hugged me,
“Alla! Congratulations!”
I didn’t even know how to tell them.
I said, “I can’t.”
How did they react?
For some reason Benny immediately
stood up and left.
Björn frowned and said,
“why, what’s wrong?”
I said, “I can’t, because… well,
such circumstances.”
Later we talked about it.
He said, “you should’ve agreed,
and then we’d have figured everything out.
Your mom, your dad here.”
I said, “you don’t understand,
if I don’t return to Russia, I’m not me.”
And they explained that the contract
was only signed for one year.
No. I had to refuse.
But seriously,
you never thought of leaving?
Imagine what kind of career awaited you.
Well, I had many offers.
Once I was, of course, very, so to speak,
upset, disappointed.
I was even offered a fake marriage —
I won’t name who.
But just to leave for America…
I couldn’t.
After five days abroad I already miss home.
Not the homeland, but my home.
I get bored, I don’t understand anything.
I’m such a Russian person.
Back then I couldn’t imagine life
without Russia.
I simply couldn’t.
And now, as you see, I not only imagine it,
I’m living it.
Everything God does is for the best.
I don’t know how I’d feel there now,
what it would be like, and with the children.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
In Soviet times you were accused of
not singing civic or patriotic songs.
How so? Who could accuse me of that?
In the film "The Woman Who Sings",
not a single patriotic song.
Wait, I sang the song "Birch Keys".
"Birch Keys" — fine, that’s one song.
And "Tell Me, Birds". Give me the list,
I’m old already, I don’t remember what I sang.
But for me they were all patriotic songs.
And what is patriotism, really?
It’s not love for the homeland,
because homeland means something
different for everyone.
It’s love for your loved ones.
That’s homeland for me.
Where your loved ones are,
that’s your homeland.
It’s the place where you were born.
For me, homeland is gone
in the sense of what it meant.
There are no longer those places,
those people
with whom I shared that homeland.
And now, of course, it’s still homeland,
but not the pigeons and sparrows
fluttering around, you see?
And not the swans and cranes,
when there was Perestroika, the Thaw.
Now it feels like the time of piranhas,
you see,
who must devour each other,
imprison, arrest.
A time of lovelessness in this world.
And that?
Songs for the homeland.
Do you remember "Dandelion"?
“My dandelion…”
Maybe I’m explaining this clumsily,
but homeland is also love.
If homeland treats you like this,
whether you love it or not,
you have to leave home
and prove that life goes on, not ends.
It always seemed to me that
when people taste wine,
they mostly lie.
No one really understands much.
Well, I have friends who do understand.
But that’s different.
I just go by: does it taste good or not.
But do you drink?
I don’t drink, but I can sip a little
to keep company.
It’s just that after the 90s
\I can’t see it or hear it,
or sniff it, because I had
to drink back then.
Not a single issue was solved without a feast,
without drinking.
Smart people always told me,
if you’re forced to drink,
what should you do?
- What should you do?
- Drink kefir.
Before or after?
You can chase it with kefir.
During? Alcohol with kefir?
Yes. Vodka, for example.
There are many ways — to drink,
pour it back, spit it out.
Pour it out somewhere, you know,
while talking.
It depends on the circumstances.
And I always feel very bad
after alcohol.
Well, with the musicians we had to,
at the end of a tour.
We had a dry law, so only when
the tour ended, we’d set a table,
a spread, and
have a little drink.
But is it in your nature
to actually get drunk?
That was always my joke.
When I was offered a drink, I’d say,
“listen, I don’t drink, I get drunk.”
I can get drunk,
but I don’t like drinking.
That was my folksy reply.
They say the only thing
you can drink a little of is red wine.
So that’s what we ordered.
- But you do smoke.
- Oh, Katya.
- Well?
- I hadn’t smoked for a long time.
And I was happy about it,
though I did put on some weight.
And in 2022 it turned out that
Max said to me,
“you know what, better smoke.”
Well, I was very nervous.
I told the kids, “forgive me, children,
it’s just for a short while, just a little.”
I had good cigarettes, so I didn’t hide it.
I said, “I’ll smoke a little.”
Such is life, such is the lifestyle.
There’s no serenity that I dream of,
but peace of mind appeared,
because I’m in harmony with myself.
I know that peace of mind can save me,
but it can’t help anyone
if I don’t have it myself. Right?
Then my toast will be for peace of mind.
No, for serenity. I await it,
I wish for it.
To your serenity.
What a box instead of the sea.
Look, it’s like milk.
No horizon.
Oh wow, what is that?
I’ve never seen it before.
Mom, even the ships look like
they’re floating on the horizon.
Oh yes, they look like they’re flying.
Really, like they’re flying.
My God, right there.
Yes, yes, you see?
Listen, this has to be filmed.
Amazing.
Looks like fields.
It’s the first time I’ve seen
ships flying on the horizon.
And you can’t see the horizon at all here.
There it is.
Yes, yes, fantastic.
Yes, even two are flying.
Three, mom.
Alla Borisovna, thank you
for supporting Ukraine.
My God, they dream.
My heart is jumping out.
Thank you, thank you.
You know what I was thinking?
We have three filming days with you.
A person’s life usually divides
into three periods.
When he prepares to become who he will be,
when his finest hour comes,
and when he reaps the fruits
of who he has become.
And I’d like to ask you about
each of these three periods
about the happiest day.
The happiest day of your childhood.
Interesting, you speak of three periods,
but I think people live like this:
born, endured life, and died.
Those are your three periods.
- Interesting three periods.
- Yes.
And I never even had time
to think about periods.
I studied so much.
There was a time when the family
had no money at all,
I worked from the age of 15 across
from the First Watch Factory club.
I was good at accompanying.
They took me into a group
where people came to sing.
Amateur performances.
And as a side job, I was a cleaner
after all that.
And I earned decent money.
First 30 rubles, then I think 35,
something like that.
That was very good.
I could buy a duck, roast it in the oven
when friends came over.
So what was the happiest day
of your childhood?
I’ll tell you now.
In May, when we were taken
to a rented dacha.
A little house. And the piano came with us.
I was on the truck, with the piano.
Me and the armchairs — and I could
go a whole month without studying, without playing.
I was resting.
That was my happiest day.
I sat and watched.
And there appeared those yellow flowers,
buttercups and dandelions,
that later turned into white fluff.
And so I’ll say honestly,
that was the happiest day of the year.
I remember for my birthday they gave me
a very fashionable nylon scarf.
What color?
It was light blue, nylon, very pretty.
It didn’t suit me at all.
But proudly tying it on,
I went out into the yard to show off.
Well, you know, I’ve had many happy days.
So you can’t single out just one.
I had some absolutely amazing periods.
I was happy.
Because I wanted to be happy.
For the first time, I went on a boat
at night with our neighbor.
He convinced my grandmother
to let me experience it.
He took me through the forest
to the tourist base — scary.
There they sang songs,
and I sang something too.
And after that he took me out
on the boat at night.
The moon, it was very beautiful.
So you see, happiness for me came from
moments of freedom, of beauty.
And it still does.
Like you telling me about the sea.
I’m already happy just to see this.
Something I’ve never seen here.
I’ve been here so many times,
but this is like a painting.
- Floating ships.
- This is like a painting.
Good evening.
You look wonderful.
I want to paint.
- Can you?
- Good question.
I think you can, Mom.
Liza is learning.
It’s not that I can. I don’t know.
I’d call them mood drawings.
- Hello.
- Hello.
Somewhere you told that
when you can’t sleep,
you always imagine a field full of
cornflowers and daisies.
And you walk through it,
and somewhere there
at the end is a house
where your grandmother waits.
That was a dream, yes.
And then I started to imagine that field.
Such peace. Grasshoppers chirping.
Grandmother waiting at the doorstep.
Then I walk through the field,
I’m walking.
It’s calming.
I see that field before my eyes,
because it was real in my life.
And I walk, I know my father
is fishing at the bay.
And I go to him.
And he treats me
to black bread with oil
and onion or garlic.
That is my homeland,
those are my memories.
And where was this?
In Novoalexandrovsky settlement.
We spent our whole childhood there,
renting. A tiny house.
- And in general you lived poorly?
- Well, like everyone. Like everyone.
There were five of us, living
in 12 square meters.
That’s father, mother, you,
your brother, and grandmother.
- Mother’s or father’s mother?
- Mother’s.
Grandmother would unfold a cot
at night in the kitchen.
Father and mother closed themselves
off with a curtain, I still remember,
where only a sewing machine and
a small wardrobe could fit.
My brother and I were in the living room,
in the hall, as they called it.
12 meters — that’s about the size
of where you and I are sitting now.
Well, it’s nothing, others
didn’t even have that.
They lived in communal apartments,
and we called it a communal house.
Because we had a separate apartment, we
moved out of a communal flat
when I was born, I think.
There were such apartments.
Still, you could hear everything,
just not see it.
Guests came, some even stayed overnight.
My brother and I were under the table.
That was our favorite night.
We had a round table, and that’s where
we were put to sleep.
We liked it, our little house.
In childhood, did you
and your brother get along?
We did, yes.
And when did that change?
Later, when he was older.
He had a tragedy, of course — his life was
an unfortunate life.
He studied at the only English school
in Moscow, near Aeroport metro.
And every day he had to go there
with Mom or Dad.
He studied brilliantly,
he knew the language perfectly.
And he dreamed, he was advised to apply
to the Military Institute
of Foreign Languages.
He passed all the exams with top marks,
but wasn’t accepted because
of special features.
That “special feature” came in his final year,
when they staged "The Snow Queen" at school,
and a boy had to lunge at him with a knife,
and he was supposed to catch the knife.
But the knife was cardboard,
so nothing serious.
But he forgot the prop and grabbed a real knife,
without warning it was sharp.
The other boy caught it the same way
and cut his little finger.
Of course, it healed,
but the finger remained a little bent.
And he was rejected because of that.
It was such a tragedy for him.
I think he almost lost his mind then.
It was bad, very bad.
He started drinking, all sorts of things.
They sent him to some factory
so at least he’d be occupied.
Then a family acquaintance, Uncle Misha,
came and said, “come to Gorky with us.
There’s a military communications school there.
Let’s go.”
And so he became practically
a military man, not a translator,
but a soldier, a communications officer.
But even there things never
quite worked out for him.
And mentally, of course, he wasn’t well.
When he was nearing the end of his life,
it was very hard.
He couldn’t speak with
that tube in his throat.
And as always, I forgave him everything.
I said, “don’t worry.
I’ll help your children,
I’ll help everyone.”
I thought, imagine that.
My life turned out so fortunate,
and his the exact opposite.
That’s what it means to be
an unwanted child.
Mother felt guilty about him
her whole life.
Well, he knew right away.
I was born on April 15, he on April 7.
He was incredibly talented.
He wrote poetry. He wrote beautifully.
He even sang.
He acted, he was an artist.
I don’t understand how it works that
one child’s fate turns out one way,
and my mother always said,
“what an artist is growing…”
- She meant him.
- Yes.
“You should have been the general,
the soldier,
and he should have been the artist.”
And in your yard they teased you
as “Feldwebel.”
Yes, Feldwebel.
Well, what could I do, when my brother was Russian,
and my cousin Jewish.
They would go out together.
And then it started — as they used to say,
“zhid-zhid, running along the stick.”
You understand, it was unpleasant
for me to hear that.
Even if it hadn’t been my brother.
Well, I used to open the window.
And then they shouted, “the Feldwebel heard,
the Feldwebel is coming.”
And of course I gave it to them for all that.
And how hard was it for the family
when your father was imprisoned?
Well, it was, of course, a terrible shock.
And we couldn’t even understand why.
He was always praised,
always the proper war veteran.
Later we learned that the guilty one
was a man responsible for some export of goods,
but he was disabled.
And my father took pity on him
and took the blame. Can you imagine?
Back then, they imprisoned everyone.
Managers.
Khrushchev suddenly decided
to restore order.
The director of the Sapphire factory
committed suicide,
he was such a good man.
He couldn’t even imagine
he might be accused of something.
He was a proud man.
And how did your mother tell you?
Oh, well, you had to know my mother.
I asked, “where did they take Dad,
what did he do?”
My mother said, “he picked flowers
in someone else’s garden.”
That was my mom.
And I was so naïve too.
I was friends with our neighbor,
Dima Straussov.
He said, “I know what happened.”
And I said, “can you imagine,
why did he go into someone else’s garden
to pick those branches,
those flowers?”
He looked at me.
“You believe that?”
And then?
And then they confiscated property.
But we had nothing to confiscate.
A veteran had given us a painting.
He must have brought it back
from the war.
Well, as they say, don’t touch
what’s not yours.
So they confiscated that.
I was even glad,
because I used to sleep under it.
And later I was scrolling
through something.
The internet, maybe Instagram,
I don’t remember.
But I saw that painting
in someone’s apartment.
So interesting. I even have it somewhere.
I took a photo of it.
But tell me, when you went to school —
your father was in prison.
Surely there must have been whispers.
No one said a word to me.
That school had such tactful people.
Our teachers were all very, very good people.
And my homeroom teacher was
Vera Alexandrovna Petrovskaya.
Such an intelligent person.
You asked such a good question.
I think it was thanks to her that
no one ever said anything.
No one.
So it wasn’t like what later happened
with Harry and Lisa at school?
No. And besides, he wasn’t in prison long.
After a year and a half,
they understood the case.
It was cleared up.
I don’t know,
maybe friends helped somehow.
He worked in the library.
And then he came home.
Did prison change him?
No, he just didn’t go back
to the Communist Party.
They invited him. He said,
“no, thank you.”
“I’m not worthy.”
And how did you end up in the Party?
You, in 1985.
When it was already almost over,
you joined the Communist Party.
Me? My God, what must my comrades
think of me?
Well, well, well.
Who told you I joined the Party?
I read it in books about you.
Katya.
So now we’re clearing up some myths.
Yes.
So I must ask you,
were you in the Communist Party,
Alla Borisovna?
No, Comrade Gordeeva.
I never made it into the Communist Party,
though they courted me
and said, “Borisovna,
it’s time for you to join.”
And I thought, let me think —
why would I, what would I even do there?
I didn’t have the time.
And suddenly another man walked in,
sat down arrogantly,
and said, “what’s going on here?
Are you inviting her to the Party?
Oh, that’s fine, just remember,
you’ll have to sing different songs.”
I said, “then no need,” and ran away.
Did your father ever tell you how
he was wounded?
He lost his eye in the war.
He never said a word,
veterans never talked about it.
For them, Victory Day
wasn’t a celebration,
because it was the most tragic day,
when they remembered everything,
their friends.
And there weren’t parades,
because it felt awkward.
What parades?
They would gather, go to Red Square,
meet in little restaurants,
drink and remember,
but not at home.
And then, I don’t remember which year,
the parades suddenly began.
Under Brezhnev, in ’65.
But without parades it felt somehow
more honest, you see,
because they couldn’t even
imagine such a thing.
It was very moving — Kristina was little,
she went to veterans’ gatherings and said,
this is unbearable —
Mom with her veterans, Dad with his.
And your mother spent the second half
of the war in an agit-brigade?
No, she was in air defense
and sang in agit-brigades.
Did you know your mother gave an interview
to Svetlana Alexievich for
the book "The Unwomanly Face of War"?
No.
How interesting.
My mother was such a dandelion, simply,
so pure, so naïve.
I remembered —
I often tell the kids this story,
it really captures who my mom was.
I was leaving for a tour, and she said,
“I want to talk to you seriously.”
I said, “what is it, Mom, tell me quickly,
I have to pack.”
“Georgy came by.”
I said, “which Georgy?”
“Well, that handsome one from Georgia.
He spoke with me, he proposed marriage.”
I said, “to you?”
She said, “to you! Shame on you.”
I said, “he’s a good man, very good.
But he’s homosexual, they say.
I’m not interested.”
She looked at me for a long time.
“I don’t understand — I raised you,
did everything right, everything good.
Don’t you understand that in our
country all professions are equal?”
That floored me completely.
That was her — she didn’t
even understand what gay meant.
But truly, the guys in
Georgia were wonderful.
Inguri HPP, we had an
agit-brigade with which
we traveled everywhere.
My God, what an interesting life it was.
I don’t like to live in memories,
to live in the past.
But there’s much to remember.
Some things resurface — unforgettable.
Absolutely.
Even now on Instagram you’re Alla Orfei.
And Orfei is forever with you.
Of course.
Was that the moment when Pugacheva
became "Pugacheva"?
I was born Pugacheva.
It’s just that people found out,
because when they sent me —
there was supposed to be another singer.
From Armenia?
Yes, he got sick, a very good singer.
And they turned to Konstantin Orbelian.
He said, “I see only one replacement
— Alla Pugacheva.”
They called me in.
“What songs will you sing?”
Not for them to decide — you decided.
Well, of course.
They sent me one Bulgarian song, and then
Mozhakov wrote a second song for Alexei.
Those were the two I had to sing.
"Arlekino" — and I thought
I needed a third one.
And quite by chance, in a dark hall,
I was waiting for a rehearsal with
Vesyolye Rebyata, and a man walked in —
I don’t remember his name,
because he appeared suddenly and left.
He said, “I want to give you
a song — a translation
of a Bulgarian song, "Arlekino".”
I said, “all right, give it to me.”
And he left, disappeared — as if sent by God.
I started looking at this song,
put on a cassette
with Emil Dimitrov singing it.
I thought, well, the theme is gorgeous.
But what is he singing about?
It was nonsense to me.
You see, it was such a sad little song.
Emil Dimitrov — "Arlekino".
Not a hit at all, you know?
I thought, what kind of sadness is this?
How will I sing something so sad?
But I liked the theme — “Arlekino.”
And how do you tell if it’s a hit or not?
I don’t know, I just feel it.
It’s like wearing something you
feel good in — that’s a hit.
And you step on stage knowing it’s a hit.
You feel that it will stay
in people’s hearts.
Yes, and once at a party,
we were hippie-ing like crazy,
visiting Boris Barkas.
Alexander Lerman, Vesyolye Rebyata —
everyone sitting around, having fun.
And I remember I brought this
little gadget
you could fry things in.
We were all cheerful, having a good time.
And Boris said, “let’s talk.”
I said, “all right.”
We started talking — he had been drinking —
about creativity.
I said, “Boris, write me lyrics
for this music.”
He said, “for me that’s a five-minute job.
I’m a people’s, a genius poet.”
I said, “Boris, I’ll go back to the guys,
and you sit here and write.”
Not even half an hour,
maybe forty minutes later,
he came down with the lyrics.
We were all stunned,
the text was incredible.
And that was exactly the final lyrics?
Yes, that text.
And the laughter — was that your own idea?
Of course.
Back in circus school we used
to sing songs with laughter.
Even the Soviet national anthem.
Is it true you sang it,
and then they clapped
for 10 or 15 minutes until
you sang it again?
Yes.
You performed and toured a lot, but
that had never happened before?
Katya, nobody knew me, but I always
performed successfully, you see?
And with Yuliy Slobodkin we put
together a program.
Two absolutely unknown people.
In little parks, Zhdanovsky Park.
We even opened for Kartsev and
Ilchenko, because
nobody else wanted to — it was such a
specific audience.
They came for comedy, for laughter.
And whoever they brought on was
completely lost,
because people would just
step out to smoke,
or simply walk away.
And when no one else wanted to go on,
they thought,
“well, these two unknowns,
they won’t care.”
So we went on stage.
And again the crowd started moving,
drifting off —
and that’s when my character showed.
I said jokingly — it was
a comedy show after all —
“Stop!
Who told you to leave when such
brilliant singers are on stage?”
I started making jokes about it.
They laughed, sat back down,
and then it was a huge success.
They saw us off with ovations.
That concert stuck with Kartsev,
Ilchenko,
and Zhvanetsky, who wrote that program.
After Bulgaria, where Dimitrov
brought you flowers
to your hotel room, surprised by the second life
of his song — is that right?
He carried us onto the stage. Of course.
He was absolutely shocked, delighted,
a wonderful man.
You returned to the Soviet Union a star.
I was so proud, walking
with the Golden Orpheus,
though it was in a box.
And the customs officers asked,
“what’s in the box?”
I said, “the Golden Orpheus.”
They said, “Golden? Show us.”
I took it out, showed them.
“Oh, an athlete, huh? Go on.”
They thought it was a sports trophy.
Nobody even knew about it at all.
So the contest wasn’t shown on TV?
No, it wasn’t.
It was always shown, but that time,
for some reason, they refused.
I don’t know why.
Maybe they didn’t want the success.
An unknown singer —
who knows how it might end?
Everyone was afraid of something.
But the Bulgarian authorities
insisted on the broadcast.
We were at Mineralnye Vody
with Pasha Slobodkin.
We were invited to a party.
Everyone was eating, drinking,
watching the Bulgarian festival.
I thought I hadn’t seen it.
So everyone was sitting there, eating.
And then suddenly, silence.
Forks, knives, plates stopped clattering.
They were listening to me.
I glanced over and thought, not bad.
And I relaxed. Good.
And when my performance ended, they looked
at me with different eyes.
That moment I remembered.
They looked at me differently.
And that look became a guide for me.
That’s how people should look.
Alla Borisovna, we’re glad to welcome you.
Hello, hello.
We love you! We adore you!
Happiness, health. Come visit us!
Bravo, bravo, bravo!
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Well, what more do you need? I’m an introvert.
What do you expect from me?
No one would believe you’re an introvert.
Well, imagine that.
That’s why the stage is my salvation.
Because the people are far away in the hall.
I don’t see them, but I feel them.
I start to love them.
But in real life, I’m wary of crowds.
Or when, you know, you have
to attend fashion shows.
Or even step onto a festival stage.
God, 76 years old, and I…
Hello, hello.
I start to feel shy.
Shy, maybe, of some unnecessary attention.
It always feels excessive to me.
But the stage saves me, because there
I’m completely free.
I feel good.
I’m all focused on the fact that everything
I’ve held in when not interacting
all comes out on stage.
I craved that contact.
— Is this your house?
— No, of course not.
We’ve been renting it for years.
This is Villa Marta, designed
by some brilliant architect.
It’s really something…
Well, the kids got used to this house
since they were four or five.
They love it here.
Now it’s harder, of course,
because they’re teenagers.
You must be bored now, right?
But when they were little,
there was always something —
going to the park, riding the tram.
And now?
Now I just do everything alone.
Skateboard. They have bikes now.
Speedboards, bicycles. I still do it.
Just like last year, but dad
can’t do it now — you never go out.
How can you say I don’t?
What are you talking about?
We go for walks together.
Well, we do go out.
But you don’t ride a skateboard.
Are you used to living here now?
Not in Moscow, I mean — not in Russia.
Yes. What does it mean, “to live”?
We live as we always did.
Before this, you lived in a castle
in Gryaz, near Moscow.
It’s still there, let it stand.
They always want to confiscate it,
take it away, as if
it were something stolen.
I don’t know.
It’s enchanted, you know.
But really, what difference does it make
if you live in a castle or not?
What matters is health — the children’s,
my husband’s, and happiness in the family.
That’s all you really need.
To be honest, I was never used
to any kind of big luxury.
Well, they say Pugacheva is not
only the most famous,
but also the richest singer in Russia.
What are you saying?
That’s all relative.
Compared to Madonna, I’m poor.
And for the first 20 years
of my already famous career,
I didn’t earn anything.
They just threw us crumbs.
The state took everything else.
The stadiums, the recordings,
the records printed in huge numbers.
I’d get maybe 25 rubles.
And can you imagine how much
the state took?
I never even thought about it.
They told me to work.
I ran there — paid or not paid —
because I lived for it.
But later it got tiring, because
I kept telling Raimonds Pauls
and Ilya Reznik,
“Maybe you could share with me?
I still need to live somehow.
There’s Kristina, and everything else.”
They said, “No.”
— I said, “At least 2 percent.”
— No.
And I thought, if they don’t pay me
as a singer,
15 rubles from a stadium show, you know?
Later it became something like 40.
And abroad, it was $200 per concert.
Honestly, I didn’t even know how much,
because everything was taken away.
We only got daily allowances.
I remember meeting
a Japanese journalist who
afterward wrote that there were
two great people:
Can you imagine — Gagarin and Pugacheva.
I almost sank through the floor.
I thought, my God, what will people say?
Then he asked me,
“How much do you get for a concert?”
I thought, I’ll tell him something outrageous.
So I said, “I get a thousand rubles.”
And he said, “That’s all?”
I thought, oh no.
That’s when I realized I had
to write music, because
the authors made good money.
So I started writing songs.
So the appearance of the pseudonym
Boris Gorbonos
wasn’t just a creative mystery,
it was also a business project?
Of course.
I’ll tell you, I lived wonderfully.
On Sundays we had shrimp,
even meat from the market.
Yes, we did.
Bella Akhmadulina
and Yevgeny Yevtushenko came over.
All in my 19 square meters.
But I thought it was amazing.
That apartment was filled
with love and creativity.
That was near Yaroslavka?
No, in Vishnyaki.
Reznik slept on the kitchen floor,
and in the morning he’d bring new lyrics.
It wasn’t just life, it was beauty.
I didn’t need anything else.
— Was it a happy time?
— Yes, of course.
Very happy.
But foreign journalists,
from West Germany and elsewhere,
started pushing to see how I lived,
and where could I take them?
I arranged with Zatsepin,
since he was my sound engineer.
Svetlana played the role of my maid.
Kristina and I came there.
I told the West German reporters
that our apartment was under renovation.
You see, the apartment’s huge,
so it would take a while.
“Let’s meet at my studio instead.”
They were amazed.
Zatsepin was such a tech genius.
He invented all sorts of things.
Press a button, and the curtains would open.
For me, that studio was just magical.
I was lucky.
So they filmed me there, at the studio.
Then others wanted to as well.
And I said to Joseph Kobzon,
“What should I do?
Film at your dacha?”
He said, “No, mine’s not great either.”
So we went to Kolomin at the city hall.
Joseph Kobzon explained the situation,
and they were shocked:
“How? This is the foreign press!”
And they gave me that apartment
on Tverskaya-Yamskaya.
Back then it was called Gorky Street.
Well, they gave it to me.
But it still had to be furnished.
So, well, friends helped…
They just staged it for me.
Then I finally relaxed.
Everyone came, everyone liked it.
Rumors. Is it true that the plumbing
for that apartment
you got in exchange for performing
at the opening of Hotel Cosmos,
where you sang with Joe Dassin?
Of course.
He got a pile of money, and you
got a toilet and a bathtub.
That’s not how it was.
I performed with him.
We kind of became friends there
and talked a lot.
After the show he found out that
I hadn’t gotten money,
but a lighter with “Cosmos”
written on it.
— Thank you.
— Can you imagine?
Why did you even tell him that?
He said, “I’ll give you a present.”
And so he arranged it.
And they sent me this gorgeous set,
custom-made,
because I never saw anything
like it at Cosmos.
Of course it was luxurious,
and then they even sent
a French plumber to install it all.
You had to see and hear it.
It was an amazing exchange.
A hilarious dialogue.
He was working, tinkering away.
And he says, “Listen, Joe Dassin,
you need thicker pipes.
You don’t know our water, our system.
It’ll burst everything.”
“No, no, no,” Joe Dassin replies
to him in French.
And the plumber, not understanding,
goes, “Well, you could’ve just said so.”
That’s how it happened.
In our apartment — a gift from Joe Dassin.
But you never admitted to anyone
that you lived in hardship,
that even after performing
at Golden Orpheus and becoming
hugely popular, you had nothing.
I read in Reznik’s memoirs
that he came to see you in Vishnyaki
and saw you only had a mattress.
But you created this legend
about living in luxury.
I like those legends.
Katya, it’s so nice.
Even today they write that
I have a luxurious villa in Caesarea.
A villa somewhere in Tel Aviv.
A chic apartment.
It’s nice.
Nice?
Well, of course it’s nice that
they think I have it.
What am I supposed to say,
that we rent from my brother?
I love when people make things up —
as long as it’s not nasty.
And nasty things?
Now they call you a traitor.
And what exactly am I supposed
to have betrayed?
They say you betrayed Russia,
left it, didn’t stay.
And now live outside it.
And your husband is a “foreign agent,”
if you didn’t know.
No, wait.
Yes, they say I ran away.
Ran.
With my heels flashing.
How little must you respect
your country to say
that someone “ran away” from it?
What is it, some kind of prison?
No. I think the real subtext was that
the country fed me, clothed me,
pampered me, cherished me,
gave me some awards.
And then I supposedly turned
my back and left.
As if I’d been lying since childhood
on a soft couch,
and the country had been
spoon-feeding me all my life.
And the fact that I worked,
that I studied—
that doesn’t seem to count.
It’s strange, really.
And besides, a person has
the right to leave
so as not to be insulted.
And if you’re insulted out of
nowhere, honestly…
Well, I was shocked at such insults.
Yes. Just shocked.
— But not very surprised.
— Why?
Because I knew it would happen.
In my youth, when I was starting out,
I was surrounded by
very smart and talented people.
Like Lidia Ruslanova, Muslim Magomayev,
Klavdiya Shulzhenko.
They all lived very modestly.
And when I talked with them,
Muslim Magomayev told me,
“Leave at sixty.”
Why at sixty?
I said, “Why not sixty-one?”
He said, “I swear, after sixty
it will be terrible.
They’ll belittle you, erase you.”
Lidia Ruslanova said,
“The sooner, the better.
Do your job and run".
Well, she had her own business
to attend to, adding:
“If you say anything else,
you’ll be arrested.”
Klavdiya Shulzhenko used to say,
“As long as I could bow to the ground
like this, I could sing.
The moment I realized I couldn’t
make such a bow, that meant it was over.”
I believed her.
And I don’t regret it one bit, you know.
Because now I fully understand
that you need to leave the stage
and even the political arena in time.
Just in time.
Otherwise, they’ll turn against you.
Traitor.
But what exactly did I betray?
I said long ago that I could
leave my homeland,
which I love deeply, only in one case.
If my homeland betrayed me.
And it did betray me.
But I am not betrayed
by the millions of fans,
in Russia and abroad.
As long as they are alive,
as long as this era,
this living generation, exists,
I will always enjoy
hearing their declarations of love,
watching the videos they send.
Even from abroad,
like my friend in India,
who sent me a clip of people driving,
while an Indian man
was singing “a million, a million, a million.”
So, I have no reason to feel down about that.
As for those, what do they call them, bots?
Who write God knows what, well, over my life
I’ve received so many scars on my soul
that I’m practically invulnerable.
Russia is the kind of country
where there must always be
one main writer, one main artist,
one main singer.
And even when you yourself said
that you no longer perform,
you still remained
Alla Pugacheva, the main singer
on that stage.
Now that you are no longer in Russia,
it’s as if there is no Prima Donna anymore.
Oh, for God’s sake, for God’s sake.
God, how I hate it
when they call me Prima Donna.
“Prima Donna” is the title of a song.
From the very beginning,
I said I am neither queen nor empress,
“I am a woman who sings.”
And I don’t care with
what voice I will sing.
But I will sing,
I’ll even whisper, you see?
And I can do that
because I am not the Prima Donna.
“I am a woman who sings.”
But now Nadezhda Kadysheva
is taking her turn.
—Well, thank God.
—Tatiana Bulanova.
Well, I’m happy for Nadezhda.
Very happy, very happy,
because I remember
many years ago, there was an anniversary
of the magazine "Rabotnitsa".
Most likely an anniversary
of the magazine "Rabotnitsa",
at the Rossiya Hotel, with many guests.
And a girl in a leather jacket
was singing songs.
It was so cool, so striking,
that I remembered her from back then.
And now when I see that the very same songs
have lived such a long life,
and that people still love them,
the time has come.
And is there some explanation for that?
Of course there is.
A time machine back?
It’s all driven by people.
Whatever they lack, that’s
what they seek on stage.
Of course, they lack optimism,
they lack
faith in something, they lack simple joy,
a chance to forget everything
that’s happening,
to rest a little.
And that’s Nadezhda Kadysheva.
I’d run to her myself, I swear.
Nadezhda is wonderful.
And of course, it’s amusing
how they now discuss Bulanova with her dancers.
Tatiana, don’t get rid of those dancers.
It’s so original, so unexpected,
unpolished, but it feels like people
just stepped out of the audience
and started dancing for you.
There’s a real charm in that.
Tatiana, soon people will come
just to see them.
Bravo, guys.
So, onward with your song.
Are you speaking sincerely now?
Max and I discussed it yesterday.
Can you imagine, as someone already older,
Tatiana too.
She doesn’t throw these people away,
you see?
Because they’ve all been
with her together.
That’s what?
“We don’t abandon our own.”
And what’s wrong with that?
By the way, I do listen to the president.
I noticed.
I used to have doubts about some things.
Well, let’s say, about life’s various issues.
And suddenly I hear.
“The president says we need people.
The kind who are fed, drunk,
and with their noses in snuff, or even cocaine.
But the smart ones are harder.
The former are easier,
the latter are harder.
They can influence opinion.
We don’t need those.”
And a weight fell off my chest.
— Do you follow this closely?
— Well, of course I do.
By the way, Shaman is your protégé.
Well, Shaman, yes.
And you gave him a ticket to life.
Well, it wasn’t me.
Well, Shaman. Shaman.
He couldn’t even support me, at least
in one thing, when they said
that supposedly I
kicked him out of, what was it called,
Factor A.
Well, just say that’s not true,
that in the final jury
we weren’t the ones who voted.
Yaroslav, remember that.
It was a public vote.
And they liked not you, but that one—
what’s his name, Savin, Savin.
Well, what can you do.
So I banged the table and said, I knew it.
I was absolutely convinced he was a real star.
That’s charisma.
I wasn’t blind.
I could see the voice was strong.
The guy was modest.
He had an image that really won me over.
Well, I did everything I could.
And his father, well done,
an honest man.
He said that I helped,
and helped a lot.
That was nice to hear.
Thank you, Shaman’s father.
And I truly believed in him,
and I didn’t expect
that he would turn
into this kind of singer.
I thought the whole world
would be at his feet,
because he performed
amazing Russian folk songs.
— Right?
— Yes.
And the whole world would have been
at his feet for a long time,
because that’s timeless art.
And he could even, maybe, have been greater
than Sumishevsky, whom I also really like.
But he could outsing him,
that song, anything.
Now of course it hurts to watch,
but money beat goodness.
I feel sorry, because maybe I hope
I won’t cut off his air with these words,
but I’ve always said what I think.
The man achieved what he wanted.
He is a talented person.
But I didn’t think he was that pragmatic.
And the songs that may be needed, and
all the songs he sings, I feel
they’re like “a clanging cymbal.”
Well, if you don’t understand,
look it up: “a clanging cymbal” or
“sounding brass.”
It’s very well written there.
There is success, there is beauty,
there are, let’s say,
songs, money, fame, everything,
but there is no love in the person.
When he sings those loud songs
like “I Am Russian”
or “We Will Rise,”
works that are indeed
patriotic and necessary
in people’s view.
But then he starts singing other songs, and I
immediately understand,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He most likely won’t even understand
what I’m saying.
That’s the real tragedy.
I’m not talking about carnal love.
Love is God, it’s something sacred,
and songs are not just words and music.
If you don’t add love into them,
it won’t reach people anyway.
No matter how hard you try, how loudly you sing,
how much you move around,
and no one will tell him,
no one will hint, and I won’t either.
It’s not just about crossing yourself
in church, you must
sanctify every song with your soul,
with love for the audience.
Not for success—success will come anyway—
but with love for the people you sing to.
As they’d say now,
“those who feed you, give you drink,
and you don’t sing songs about love,”
or you’ll run off somewhere else.
Who knows where, but I know
where he might run off to.
A candidate for deputy—that’s
the lesser case.
He’ll already be Minister of Culture
or head of the presidential administration.
Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes.
But can someone who lives for music,
for creativity,
be a deputy?
Well, Kobzon could.
And why should he be any less?
Look how people support him.
There they are, cheering him on.
And with Mizulina by his side,
you see.
That’s already a very interesting alliance.
And that keeps him afloat,
and he’ll be judging others for how they sing.
And no one will care anymore
what Pugacheva said,
“that there’s no love. Oh, you old hag.”
Listen to me.
I don’t say things for nothing.
Actually, fame—money a person
can endure and get through.
As they say, through fire, water,
and brass pipes.
Poverty a person can endure.
But fame—that’s something very few
can endure without serious distortions.
Did you ever catch yourself thinking
you were going overboard?
Well, yes, there was a moment.
I thought I could get away with it.
Like driving off somewhere in a police car,
something like that.
I don’t remember.
Basically, reckless behavior.
Like, what could they do to me?
I was acting from the heart.
Some silly woman’s excuse, you know,
who’s lost her head.
I didn’t do anything bad, of course, but
I’ll admit honestly,
I remember that case.
Alla, sing something for us.
— A little tune?
— For Russian people.
— Which song?
— Any.
Oh, frost, frost, don’t freeze me.
Why don’t you sing yourselves?
Don’t freeze me, don’t freeze my horse.
There, that’s a Russian person.
So, they say you have no voice.
— Me?
— Yes.
I have one,
I just don’t want to show it much.
I’m tired of it.
I want some new colors.
Even in a whisper, with rasp,
with something different.
I won’t tell.
Well, I want to sing, but I won’t say.
I have some ideas, even just so people
won’t recognize me.
Like, “the aunt is having fun.”
I read somewhere
that the city you toured most often
was Tyumen.
Well, not that often,
but for me it’s a sacred city.
Why?
Because we were there with
the youth agit-brigade,
under the toughest conditions,
but we met amazing people.
Raul–Yuri Ervier,
Farman Salmanov—what men they were.
They believed in me so much,
they loved the way I sang,
and I celebrated
my 18th birthday beyond
the Arctic Circle there.
My God, the things they said
would happen with me —
it was amazing,
“if anything, we’ll help.”
They were the first fans
who made me believe
that I truly had to do something.
And then you got fans in Ostankino,
I’d say.
No, that was Trifonov, Ivanov,
that was before.
That was actually
my very first appearance.
I remember we didn’t have telephones,
you could only send a telegram.
I woke up and my mother said,
“You got some strange telegram.”
I said, “What?”
I looked, it said, “Good morning,
could you appear”
at such-and-such time for a meeting
with Vladimir Trifonov.
I said, who’s Vladimir Trifonov?
He was one of the editors
of “Good Morning.”
Yes, yes, Dmitry Ivanov
and Vladimir Trifonov.
They liked the song "Robot,"
so they asked me to record it.
That was my first recording.
My God, my legs were shaking,
there’s even a photo online
where I’m in a little dress,
with short black hair.
So funny.
By the way, that’s my elder son’s
favorite song of yours.
"Robot"?
Well, Lord, I didn’t even realize
it was such an ironic song.
I was suffering. "But you were a man."
Listen, now that we’re all talking to GPT,
I think that song is very relevant.
Now it’s relevant.
I quarreled with it yesterday.
— Why did you quarrel with it?
— It was rude.
Unbelievable.
I’m afraid to use it because people say
so many strange things about it.
Yes, you shouldn’t get too close to such a person—
or whatever he is, a robot.
Maybe he really was a man.
Were there any singers you wanted
to see yourself alongside?
Not alongside. I just admired them.
And they were a life lesson for me.
Like beacons I should follow and look up to.
Klavdiya Ivanovna Shulzhenko,
Édith Piaf, and Elena Kamburova.
I used to run to Lena’s concerts.
When I was a student, I was amazed.
I thought, what an actress,
what command of her voice.
And she seemed to do nothing.
She just stood there.
She was like Édith Piaf for me.
And Klavdiya Ivanovna—such a unique woman.
She always said,
I asked, “You performed during the war,
in those brigades.
My mother too. What did you sing?”
She said, “What do you mean? About love.”
I said, “And Blue Scarf?”
She said, “That’s about love too.”
They didn’t sing those so-called
morale-boosting songs.
And everyone was happy, and sometimes the boys,
the soldiers, cried.
For them it was as if they were home again.
She told me then, “Sing about love.”
Yes, that’s what she said.
Before that,
you should’ve heard me
when they forced me to sing Soviet songs.
Songs that were very, even industrial.
About mentors, for example.
“My mentor, my friend.”
Well, what did you expect?
I was searching for myself.
I realized it wasn’t mine,
but I couldn’t not sing anymore.
They asked, I sang.
Was there a singer whose voice you envied?
Or an image you envied?
Or you looked and said,
“My God, I want that, but I can’t do it.”
Many won’t believe me,
but I don’t know what envy is.
I don’t understand that feeling.
I know it exists.
I know many even suffer from it.
But I don’t understand what it is.
There’s the feeling of frustration.
I had that when I imagined
what I would be like,
what songs I’d sing.
I must’ve been 19 or 18.
And suddenly on TV they showed
Caterina Valente.
Yes, I think she even came
to the Soviet Union.
She began performing, singing,
sitting on a high stool.
And I saw the songs she sang,
the way she was dressed.
And I realized, excuse me,
it was all already done.
I cried for two days, you know?
Then calmed down, I’d find my own way.
Oh no, no, no, no, no.
Hello there.
One-armed bandit.
Sit with us. Let’s relax together.
I’m without a microphone.
Oh, you’re on cushions,
you’re comfortable.
Listen, while you’re here,
I want to recall
the name of that architect who designed
this villa, and what else he built?
— What was it, Gerher?
— Meinhard von Gerkan.
He built this villa around the old one,
the old villa is over there.
And he built this one, the big one.
Yes, Gerkan.
He also built Sheremetyevo-2, he built
Hamburg Airport, Stuttgart Airport, and
Alla performed at the Tempodrom in Berlin,
a big concert venue,
a sort of tent, also his work.
And I performed at the concert hall
in Bielefeld, also his.
And now you walk around
with that little net bag.
You know everything.
Meinhard von Gerkan.
I’m heading out.
Did you say something nice about me?
We said you’re the breadwinner.
Ah, yes, I’m off to provide.
Shall I help you up?
No need, I’m a sporty breadwinner,
it’s fine.
Just in case, I’ll walk backward,
I don’t know what might have left a mark.
Go that way.
I don’t even know how to get in there.
Oh well, I’ll go.
Yes, fine. Done.
Nothing left a mark.
— You’re in a white coat.
— Perfect.
Is this happiness?
This is happiness, true happiness.
I can’t even talk about it.
He has an incredible gift of l
oving me, loving the family,
and protecting me. You see?
I’ve had quite a few marriages.
— Five.
— Hold on.
Two real marriages.
The first with Mikolas
and the last with Max.
And those three in the middle
were helping a friend.
— Really?
— Yes.
Stepanovich needed residency registration.
To get that, you had to live
three years in Moscow,
married, so he had to marry someone.
And Derbenev advised him and asked me
to enter into such an official marriage.
And the story that he left his fiancée
and you left Orbelyan because
you loved each other so much,
is that not true?
You have to know Sasha.
Good Lord, if he wrote scripts,
then in his own life he certainly wrote one.
How could he have made me a singer,
when I was already a singer, you know?
And already quite famous.
And he didn’t invent your image,
as they say?
Of course not, why invent it,
when you’ve worked in the same image
all your life?
It’s all nonsense.
He was always afraid that, as he said,
“Pugachevochka, I have one idea, you know,
they could catch us for a fake marriage.”
And it really was strict back
then if anything was off.
“Let’s sit at the table now.”
So we sat in the kitchen.
“Let’s write love notes to each other and put dates.”
I said, “Why?”
He said, “Well, why? As proof.”
I said, “Alright then.”
We wrote each other some silly little notes.
And I forgot about them.
And only recently remembered.
I thought, my God, what a clever,
cunning guy.
And suddenly I had done him
such a kindness.
Exactly three years—we got married
at Christmas,
and three years later at Christmas
we divorced.
And even celebrated it with Vysotsky.
And some other friends were there.
And instead of thanking me—
I did everything I could for him, you see.
Really, everything.
Knowing we were going to divorce,
he withdrew all the money from my accounts.
And back then, excuse me,
it was 47,000 rubles—
enough to buy three Volga cars.
And after that he stunned us all.
Friends and acquaintances—
he started dividing up property.
— Yours?
— Mine.
And just try to say something.
Was there a marriage? There was.
By law?
He brought in some people
who appraised everything.
I was just so shocked by all this.
I thought, how is this possible?
Naturally, the trial began.
I had to fight for every single little thing.
The funniest episodes were
when he appraised some rug made of dogs.
It had been gifted to me somewhere,
God knows where, beyond the Arctic Circle.
So we found the man.
— Who gave it?
— The lawyer, yes.
And he testified in court.
“I gave it. These are my ten beloved dogs.
I can name them: Zhuchka, Puchka,
and the others.”
Both laughable and shameful.
Humiliating.
Then he had some extra notes,
apparently he had them.
Some kind of evidence,
I remember he had.
That even before this sham marriage,
we already knew each other...
That’s what he explained.
So he said, “She was my woman.
So this property was already given back then.
That’s it.”
We had to call in people.
Reznik came in and said,
“We need witnesses now.”
It’s funny to remember now.
Orbelyan came in and said,
“Don’t lie. I lived with her.”
Looked at the note.
“This year and that year.”
Then out comes Stas Namin.
“Why does he say
they were together in Poland?
He wasn’t there at all.
I was with Pugacheva.
I even have two keys to the hotel room.
Mine and hers. We lived together.”
In short, it was like Fellini.
An absurd film.
With your passion for mystifications.
His fantasy.
And it produced some incredible result.
Because I’ve read so many biographies of you -
they’re all different.
He’s an interesting person,
I have to give him that.
He was very well-read.
The only thing he gave me
was to read Mandelstam.
He was a terrible anti-Soviet.
I said, how do you know all these laws?
“Pugachevochka,
I hate the Soviet Union so much
that I memorized all these laws by heart.”
He introduced me to the artist
Anatoly Brusilovsky.
I adored him.
He really gave me a lot.
He introduced me to artists.
He introduced me to a magazine
against censorship, I forget its name.
“Metropol.”
They were all very interesting people.
I sat there in awe of them.
Limonov, of course, was there…
You never had an affair with Limonov?
I feel like you two really…
Me and Limonov?
He was crazy, come on.
I’m a woman with taste.
I’m a woman of taste.
But he was charismatic too.
Charismatic, yes.
But what affair?
He already had a wife then.
Or someone, I don’t know. They left.
Then Natasha Medvedeva appeared.
Another colorful, talented girl.
I felt so sorry for her.
Now she would have been interesting,
just like Chelobanov,
who was of no interest to anyone.
And now suddenly he’s interesting.
What a voice!
And where were you before?
Where were you before, when from some
alcoholic and drug addict Senka,
as everyone called him,
we had to create Sergei Vasilievich Chelobanov.
But he’s a grateful man, truly.
He remembers it all and knows it.
And to invent, in particular,
this passionate affair
That never existed?
It never happened. Well, sometimes I…
A traveling wife, I always said.
Felt like, “who’s around?
Okay, this one.”
Well yes, I don’t hide it.
For health.
What can I say?
I was a young woman, you see?
Why should I care?
But that wasn’t love, of course.
And the funniest thing
was that in my apartment
there was this beautiful mirror,
he brought it from Leningrad,
and two plump little golden angels, gilded.
They were on either side of the mirror.
And when the divorce was over, and he had
to take his things,
the mirror was lying on the balcony.
And at that moment, Nikita Mikhalkov
was sitting with a friend.
Sasha says, “Where’s the mirror?”
I say, “On the balcony.”
Nikita says, “We’ll carry it out,
and you sit at the piano and play something.”
And they carried it out to Chopin’s Funeral March,
everyone singing along.
They carried it out.
A large, round mirror. Yes.
And he carried those little angels.
Like this.
Well, we started laughing, because it was
the buttocks of those angels.
Big, gilded ones.
He stood there with these
two little butts and said,
“I wish you happiness, Pugachevochka,
in your personal life.
Forgive me if I did wrong.
Nothing personal.”
I said, “That’s true.”
Well, of course we roared with laughter,
fell under the table.
When he turned to leave,
the angels’ butts were waving at us.
My God. And the most interesting thing
is that in one
of his last two TV interviews,
he was walking down the Ostankino corridor
and said to me,
“Pugachevochka, forgive me.
That’s just how it turned out.”
And he asked forgiveness through friends,
because I didn’t want to see him,
and then he died.
See, he managed.
Did you forgive him?
Yes, of course, my God.
This is my life. This is my script.
Any film, good or bad,
if you made it yourself, you love it.
— Do you forgive easily?
— Easily.
Later forgiveness
I don’t want to talk about now.
— And Zhenya Boldin.
— Boldin, yes.
Yes, we were together for,
what, 10 years?
Yes, indeed.
Yes, we had a good relationship,
and such closeness.
I adored him. He was so handsome.
Also not quite love.
We weren’t exactly suited to each other,
but we had a good life.
And then he was no longer allowed abroad.
We went to the Oktyabrsky district
party committee and asked,
“What happened?
Why isn’t he allowed abroad?”
“You are setting, by your example,
the wrong lifestyle
and a bad example for young people,
musicians, because
you’re not married,” and so on.
It was around half past four,
maybe four o’clock.
I said, “Until what time do you work?”
They said, “Until 7.”
I said, “Okay.”
We went, called friends, they became witnesses.
We went, arranged it.
And we got married and ran back
to the party committee
and said, “So you would have let us out
if we were husband and wife?”
They all said, “Of course! Of course!”
I said, “Just because of that?”
“Of course!”
And so we…
Here’s the document,
the marriage certificate.
You should’ve seen their faces.
How did you manage, where, how?
They let us go.
That’s why we…
Well, really, it was a joke.
Yes, we got married because of that,
but honestly, we didn’t plan to.
We were fine,
and I was already disappointed
in the institution of marriage by then.
But as the years went by,
I saw that he liked
completely different women,
I kept quiet, I understood that
maybe we weren’t right for each other.
But we were friends, that’s all.
He’s a good guy, well done.
The only thing I won’t forgive him for,
but that’s not for…
For some reason, I imagined that the song
“Don’t Hurt Me” was about him.
— Actually, yes.
— Really?
Yes, because once we met again,
I don’t remember in which city,
maybe Dnepropetrovsk or something.
And he said, “Well, that’s it,
let’s say goodbye, and I doubt we’ll…”
“I mean, we’ll see each other,
but I already know where I’m headed, that’s it.”
And from the hotel window
you could see a park,
and a path, such a beautiful path,
even visible in the dusk.
And I stood at the window,
and he walked away down that path.
Such a beautiful image.
And every time I sang that song,
I remembered
him walking down that path.
He didn’t really hurt me.
My God, what would he hurt me for?
Well, it’s just a song,
kind of for everyone.
Who actually hurt me?
— Many hurt you?
— Many, of course.
I’m already invulnerable,
because there were so many.
I won’t list them now,
but there was the “Baltic story,”
how many nerves it cost me.
— With the hotel?
— Yes.
All over nothing.
Just tell me straight,
“We don’t want to let you go abroad.” That’s it.
Why make up all this nightmare,
these articles, “Leningradskaya Pravda,”
calling me anti-Soviet, and so on.
And I answered them,
“Moskovskaya Pravda.”
Nothing is simple.
Nothing is straightforward, you see?
There’s always some story that can be spun.
But back then there was a wonderful man,
Aleksandr Nikolaevich Yakovlev.
And of course he sorted it all out.
And I went on tour with Udo Lindenberg.
They thought he was some kind of
fascist youth,
and that his song was against
the Soviet Union.
But he didn’t have a single one like that.
Can you imagine?
But!
You should’ve seen how I was received
in any German hotel.
Everyone stood at attention.
They didn’t want a scandal.
They had read everything.
Oh, and when I arrived,
and when I left.
“Leave us a note that everything
was fine.”
Well, that was Boldin.
To this day, we’re still friends.
His wonderful wife, Marinka.
And then the third.
At that point, in fact,
that’s when we met.
And back then I was very young.
And I was interviewing you.
And you told me,
“Ask something about Philipp.”
And I was so embarrassed.
I said, “Why did you marry him?”
Do you know what you answered me then?
What? I don’t remember.
You said,
“Because he promised to make me happy,
but let him try.”
That struck me so much.
Because I thought one could only marry
Philipp Kirkorov out of despair.
Well, basically, yes.
I was worn down.
My mother, while she was alive,
said, “Help little Philipp.”
His grandmother, who was friends with my mother,
said, “Help little Philipp.”
Why? Was he in need?
Sort of young, talented.
And this goes back to his teens.
And you were friends with his mother?
Well, I knew her, of course, yes.
I didn’t like Bedros,
but Viktoria was, of course,
a grand woman.
She had cancer.
And her crazy,
supernatural love for Philipp,
even back then I couldn’t understand,
and now, like I
love my Harry, it amazed me, really amazed me.
And that’s a special kind of story too,
because she was dying,
and I came to see her.
She put on a cassette for me,
and he was singing some song in polka-dot pants,
feathers here, something else there.
She said, “What is this?
Tell him something, give him some advice.”
So I would visit her, and later, when she
was really very ill,
she said, “I beg you, don’t abandon him,
help him, be with him,
be like a mother to him.”
Oh, it’s hard to remember all that.
And when they were taking her away
for surgery,
her last glance was at him.
Yes, it was very hard.
And so somehow it was decided
that I would help him.
I thought that in three years
I’d raise him up.
But couldn’t you not marry him?
Well, how?
You see, the thing is,
if they say, “An affair with Pugacheva,”
everyone knows it.
But this was marrying Kirkorov.
Who is he? What? How’s that possible?
And everyone was talking about it.
And it immediately drew attention.
It was a primitive move, of course,
but it worked really well at that time,
at least.
It works now too, back then as well.
Well, that’s how it happened.
He can’t hold a grudge against me.
I gave him everything I could.
And he to you?
— What could he give me?
— Well, thanks.
Well, I don’t know.
He only makes fun of it
on KVN or something.
But basically,
it’s clear he’s grateful to me.
As far as I understand.
Isn’t that so?
And after those three
“help a friend” marriages,
how do you explain to Maksim
that this one was for love?
Make it possible for him to believe it?
I couldn’t care less
whether he believed it or not.
I fell in love, that’s it.
I realized that this was what I needed.
And he did too.
It was strange.
Even sometimes I myself didn’t understand
how it turned out
to be absolute harmony
from similar family backgrounds.
Well, I earlier, of course, he later.
But exactly the same upbringing,
the same attitudes, nobility.
Not just sexual connection, you see,
that you can’t do without it.
But also friendship, understanding,
and support.
That’s what family is.
It’s not just about sex, right?
Is there a private life after fifty?
Yes.
And there are different ways
so that age doesn’t get in the way.
Well, to enjoy yourself.
You’ll tell me about that later.
That’s something you also have to prepare for.
Well?
Well, if you want it all,
then fine, take it all.
I don’t even know,
I can’t find the words.
What’s always in my head now is
this talk in Russia about
family values, family bonds,
family traditions.
Instead of setting an example,
they still somehow…
Ah, I don’t want to talk about this.
We’re happy, thank God.
May they be healthy, because I can’t
imagine what I’d do without him.
I pray every evening and morning
that everyone stays alive
and well under a peaceful sky.
You see, that’s so important to me.
I told you how when I was about 12 or 13,
on Christmas Eve,
my grandmother tied a key to my finger
and put a lock under my pillow.
She told me to say, “My betrothed, reveal yourself.”
I said it, of course,
without giving it meaning, and fell asleep.
In the morning, with the cheesecake she baked,
a kind of curd pastry,
I was supposed to go outside
and ask the first man I saw his name.
And I went out, it was freezing,
no one in our little alley.
And suddenly I saw some man with a briefcase
coming from the next yard.
I said, “Wait, wait,” chasing after him,
and he for some reason ran from me,
and I after him.
I said, “Please wait.”
I said, “Sir, it’s Christmas Eve,
I congratulate you on the holiday.”
“I have a cheesecake here.”
“I need to know your name.”
He said,
“My God, why do you need my name?”
I said, “Well, that’s the custom.
Then your name will be the name
of my destined one.”
He said, “Georgiy.”
— And left.
— So?
And I never had a single Georgiy.
There were a few “Zhoriks,”
but never a real Georgiy.
I was strangely surprised that everything
in that dream came true,
but this one part somehow didn’t.
And only when Max bought
a sculpture of Saint George
for the castle grounds did I realize
that he had been with me all along,
protecting me.
There he is, Saint George.
And there was also Saint George on the house.
And now I pray to him: “Saint George,
this and that,” I say.
In Russia they usually think
you’re either happy at work,
successful in your career,
or happy in your personal life.
Wait, I haven’t told you about dreams.
For me they’re very important events
in my life.
There were five episodes.
I woke up in the morning and remembered them.
But then I immediately forgot.
I only recalled them
when they happened in my life.
Like a staircase with a little dent in it,
I was climbing it, painted with linseed oil,
a door on the right, a door on the left,
you open it, and in the corridor
some students are running around.
And a ladder of logs leaning up to the attic.
When I came to my first almost-fiancé,
Valerka Romanov, I thought,
“How strange, the staircase.”
And I remembered that dream.
But there was no door to the right,
and the staircase was iron along the wall.
You open the door, there are students.
I said, “Valera, you know, in my dream
maybe you really are my destiny.”
But when Valerka left for his Suez Canal job,
I met Mikolas at the music school.
And before that I had gone to the poetess
Karina Filippova
and the composer Kirill Akimov.
He was supposed to give me
the sheet music for a song.
I came, rang the bell,
and he said, “Quiet.”
I thought, what is it?
“My wife is opening something today.”
— I thought, “My wife?”
— His wife, Karina Filippova.
What a sight that was.
A tiny apartment, a piano,
a couch where she sat
with long hair.
Just sitting there like this,
that kind of woman.
Beautiful.
In front of her were some silver spoons.
I walked in, and suddenly she shouted,
“Ahhh! Oh, Kirill! Kirill, look!”
Kirill: “What? What do you see?”
“A star has come! Do you understand?
A star!”
“You can’t imagine
what a star she will be!”
I thought, “She means me?
Or what’s wrong with her?”
And I needed to go to Gutse
to get a job as an accompanist.
I thought, “Uh-huh, a star, sure.”
And she also said,
“The first man you meet
will be your husband.”
Of course, I went there curious.
I arrived, and right on the steps
jumps out Oleg Nepomnyashchy.
Curly! With olive-shaped eyes.
And he said, “Ah, wonderful, great!
Oh, we’ve been waiting for you!
Waiting! Come on!”
Then we went in, and he shouted,
“Mikolas, take
our accompanist, I’m off to get the keys.”
I went up to the second floor,
there was a niche, and a door.
And we stood facing each other.
I said, “How interesting.”
He said, “What?”
I’d gone to a fortune teller, some witch.
She told me, “The first man I meet
in this school will be my husband.”
And Mikolas said, “I’m the first man.”
So we laughed.
And so it turned out, you see.
It’s simply amazing.
All those dreams came true, because
that staircase—he invited me to the dorm,
Mikolas did, and I tripped,
just like in the dream.
— On that little step?
— Yes.
That was exactly like in the dream.
You see how I walked in there?
Can you imagine, I had goosebumps all over.
And is it true that your great-grandmother,
Marina, was a witch?
Well, she was.
I don’t know if she was a witch or a healer.
She healed people, and lived to 95.
Everyone adored her, she helped people.
She was still running to someone
when she dropped dead.
So at 95, she was still running.
Yes, but then the younger ones knew
a bit of the knowledge.
And they told me different things
that could
have been useful in my life.
But I only remembered
how to remove warts.
But rumors say you can do things
with your hands.
And not only with my hands.
That’s not something you talk about.
You see?
You don’t say that.
Probably yes, because I’ve been on stage
for half a century.
And my hands are very important to me.
If anyone noticed,
I basically hold all the weight in them.
For me it feels like some kind of jelly,
I don’t know, airy.
Yes, that’s exactly the feeling.
But I won’t say what it is.
I’m not Katya Lel, to talk about UFOs.
Maybe she saw them, I didn’t.
And here I don’t know.
Maybe it’s real.
Or maybe not.
I supported my mother.
She believed I could.
She had five heart attacks.
And each time I pulled her through.
But the last one, you see,
I didn’t make it in time.
Orpheus, was that the moment
when you told yourself,
“Now I can sing what I want,
choose what to sing,
and behave on stage the way
I think is right”?
First of all, I never even thought
about how to behave “right.”
Did you talk to people from the stage?
That wasn’t really accepted
in the Soviet Union?
Well, first of all,
I was a very shy person.
Quite insecure.
I was afraid of the stage my whole life.
Backstage, I’d be gathering myself,
calming down.
“God, why me, why me, Lord.”
And I needed three songs to get steady.
On those I had to calm down.
After that I had to say something.
I would just take it out of the air.
I felt that’s what I had to tell them.
About what was happening in the world,
in the country.
And joke about it.
I was almost like Galkin.
No one taught you that?
And no one suggested that image to you?
No, no, it was all improvisation.
If only I could have recorded
what I said
and how I talked—it would
have been interesting.
That was how I tuned myself
and the audience.
I really needed it.
I felt, here I need to say something.
And from the very first solo concert,
I’d say at the end:
“If something stays in your hearts,
then I couldn’t wish for a greater reward.”
That was like an amulet for me.
I always went on stage
as if it were the last time.
I thought, if something goes wrong,
they’ll kick me off this stage.
Well, it was that time.
Say the wrong thing, sing the wrong song.
“Kings Can Do Anything”—they banned me
from singing it.
I’d already won the Grand Prix,
and they still banned it.
But I sang it anyway.
They bribed the sound engineer,
he “accidentally” pressed play.
But often you were criticized
for your shows
being too intimate,
your behavior too candid.
Mine? I don’t remember that.
I don’t live by that now.
Maybe I sang a song?
Even in Rostov, you sang and cried.
— Oh, you mean in a song?
— Of course.
Ah, I thought I just walked out and cried.
Well, it’s not good to cry on stage.
Better when the audience cries.
But sometimes it got to me.
Yes, with the song “Loving,
One Does Not Renounce” it could happen.
But my task wasn’t to show that I was crying,
but to bring people to tears of joy.
And in general, I always lived in such a way
as to make someone just a little bit happier.
Not only the audience, but in life as well.
I never really spoke about it.
Probably saying it for the first time now.
And Max and I were just sitting here,
and I suddenly realized
that, as it turns out, my whole life I’ve lived for others.
I’d never thought about it before.
Probably because it’s easier for me
to live that way.
And it’s a pleasant goal,
a doable task
for me then and always.
And even now, it keeps me afloat.
What’s the point of living just
for myself, for my own pleasures?
Max is the one who brings
that into my life—
joy, gifts, little things.
He tells me stories, shows me things.
He takes care of me.
I feel that someone is living for me, too.
Perhaps for the first time in my life.
Interesting.
When did hate enter your life?
After Orpheus, too?
Or was it even earlier?
It started when I became popular.
When those robes appeared and all that.
“A sack with a shaggy head,” “vulgar,”
“one-song singer,”
“don’t pay attention to her.”
I wasn’t allowed on “Song of the Year”
until 1979.
With “Arlekino” it never happened.
But in 1979, I think, the song
“What Else Is to Come.”
Funny story—when I came early,
as always.
And Silantiev, the conductor,
he knew me well.
He said, “Why did you come so early?”
I said, “Well, I need to prepare.”
“So that no one sees you.
You’re a star, you must be late.”
It was the first time I’d heard that.
I said, “Why?”
“Listen carefully. Be ten minutes late,
that’s all.”
Turns out there were rules back then.
It was easier in the robe,
because it always adjusted to me.
I didn’t want wet clothes,
so we designed it that way.
Slava Zaitsev made it black in the spots
where you sweat.
Why say this?
A robe is a robe, but it was a work costume,
so it helped me a lot.
And many singers adopted it,
especially opera ones.
And not only in Russia.
Scatter my red curls
On stage, as always,
And, perishing, I’ll survive again,
To return here once more.
It was in this period,
when Pugacheva equaled herself,
before she ever announced
leaving the stage.
At that time,
what was your happiest day?
The birth of my daughter.
The happiest day of my life.
Kristina—for me, after 60,
happiness is my years with her.
And before 60,
it was of course her birth.
Did you struggle internally
while Kristina was growing up,
and you were on tour, basically
not seeing her grow?
Not that I didn’t see her.
How long do tours last?
Sometimes a year.
No, no, of course not.
For her sake, I shortened tours,
so that naturally
I could be within her sight
and raise her somehow.
But of course, a mother is one thing,
a grandmother is another.
A mother is a mother.
She cannot be resentful of me.
But do you feel guilty?
Children will always find something
to tell a therapist.
I don’t know. At some point
I thought I gave her too little.
Then I thought, how too little?
I gave her life and the chance
to do something—so no,
I don’t feel guilty.
Did you talk about it when she grew up?
There were jokes.
Jokes?
I even remember saying at her birthday:
“Give the floor to the Mother-Echidna.”
By the way, how did you react when
Kristina couldn’t come,
couldn’t bring your granddaughter?
It’s sad not to see Klava,
but there are other cities
where we can meet.
Thank God, freedom.
It’s a strange situation,
though understandable to me.
Understandable how?
There’s anxiety in the country.
Do you know from what?
There’s anxiety, and people try
to show the authorities how
they safeguard the country’s
peace and security.
Kristina just got caught in that.
Though legally it’s wrong.
She’s an EU citizen.
But still, it’s not her problem.
It’s the state’s problem,
always restless.
It’s a pity for the fans, the audience,
who won’t see this show.
A wonderful one.
I think that’s the main problem—
that the program is in Russian.
They’d rather it not be.
Does the question of fairness
arise here?
Not at this time.
Everyone looks out for themselves
by any means.
Nothing you can do.
But Kristina went on a wonderful journey.
I think she’s already shown Klava
half the world.
Do you feel resentment
toward Latvia over this?
It would be absurd to hold a grudge.
I don’t see my granddaughter.
I wasn’t allowed to meet her in Latvia.
But on Instagram I see their travels.
It’s so beautiful.
Perhaps I’ll get over some barrier and finally
fly to them in America.
We’ll gather together. You too.
Yes, we’ll gather and go.
In America you also have another protégé
of yours.
There’s Nikita.
He deserves a separate conversation.
A separate one indeed.
And a very serious one.
He’s a very talented person.
What’s your merit in that?
My merit is that I scolded him
back when he lived with us in Berezhki,
on the Istra.
I overheard him swearing with his friends.
That’s when he got it.
Because I believe swearing
is from the devil.
All of that.
Do you swear?
Of course I can. I know how.
That doesn’t mean I should speak that way.
I think it’s funny when swearing
is in ditties or jokes.
If my musicians ever hear me swear
at rehearsal— that’s it.
They know it’s the limit.
They say, “Okay, okay.”
I use two words.
But what I hear now is basically Russian
as a swear language.
Instead of… Like when something
comes flying at you.
We’d say, “My God, what is this?”
And they curse. You see?
How can that be?
To use it sometimes, I get it,
it’s our quirk.
But to just talk constantly
in swear words?
That’s degrading the language.
And your own personality too.
It means your vocabulary is so small
that you can’t explain yourself otherwise.
But back to Nikita.
Let’s not get back to Nikita.
I adore him so much.
We all love him dearly.
We wish him…
Do you see a great creative future
for him?
I see that he should have such a future.
But he’s completely inert
when it comes to acting for himself.
But in that way, he takes after me a bit.
But you really fought for yourself,
didn’t you?
You mean, in my career?
No, what fight? I just sang and sang.
Who came up with the phrase,
“You’ll hear from me yet”?
That was me.
When I was first taken on tour—
30 concerts: Kirov, Perm,
Sverdlovsk, Omsk.
With Livshits and Livenbuk.
And they had a manager, Uncle Lyonya.
Of course, for a 17-year-old girl,
it was hard.
But I never complained.
My tears froze in those cold buses.
The steppe roads got stuck
somewhere in the fields.
That awful stage full of holes.
Those little cold hotels.
I had to endure it all,
but I thought,
this is the real artist’s life.
The right one.
And then, after all that,
I suddenly hear
they were listening to another singer,
a very good one.
I realized they wanted
to replace me with him.
I came to Leonid Abramovich,
and he starts roundabout.
“Tell me, where do you live in Moscow?”
I said, “I live at Krutetsky Zastava.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s a district in Moscow.”
“There’s a watch factory there, right?”
“Listen, go work at that factory.
Make watches and sing
in the amateur club.”
And suddenly I grew up ten years at once.
“If you want to replace me
with this singer, just say so.”
He said, “No, not now.
You’ll finish this run.”
I said, “But I’m not going to
that watch factory.”
And for some reason I told him,
“You know, Leonid Abramovich,
six years from now you’ll hear
from me again.
You’ll be asking me to sing
where you want,
and I won’t go,” and I left.
I took off that brocade dress
they made me wear, backless.
Took off the heels, put on a black skirt,
a white blouse.
And suddenly I told the musicians,
“May I do it myself?”
I sat at the piano
and began to sing songs.
It was a success.
For the first time on the whole tour.
I played Vysotsky.
- Vysotsky?
Vysotsky, then my own song.
I was a hit.
What was Livshits’s face like?
He was a bit different.
And what about Livenbuk’s?
He stood there going,
“Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!”
That was the Pugacheva-style rebellion:
“You’ll hear from me yet.”
That’s what I made everyone
on “Factor A” do.
Of course, people get upset
when they’re told, “You’re out.”
I made them all say,
“You’ll hear from me yet.”
You always sang from a woman’s perspective,
a woman singing.
Which means that 90%
of your audience were women
who projected their own fate onto yours.
And that’s right.
Is Russia a women’s country?
I just think there’s
no country in the world
where women aren’t as vital.
Generation after generation,
women raise children alone.
And they pass on that experience
as heritage.
It’s a strange thing,
when you’re not even sure
if your mother loves you.
Because she has endless daily struggles,
having to replace both father
and herself.
That’s not your case,
but in Russia it’s common.
I know, because I’ve always been,
so to speak, a supporter of women’s rights.
So much depends—banal but true—
on education.
The education of women and men alike.
Because an educated person is more inclined
to value family.
While a less educated person just lives
by whatever knowledge life happens
to give them.
And that knowledge can be twisted
any which way.
What should your wife be like?
“I think, if anything, hit her
with your fist.”
A woman’s duty is to give birth.
Yes, especially priests push that.
It terrifies me. Such obscurantism.
My God, what nonsense is this?
What do they want to make of women?
I’m not talking about women
who should be allowed everything.
There are boundaries of decency,
family, dignity, honor.
That too exists.
But what’s happening now?
I don’t even want to talk about it.
It’s a very serious topic.
A woman should be cherished, cared for,
her health watched.
If you want them to give birth—
this call to “give birth”—
telling schoolgirls to “give birth.”
Who comes up with this?
What are they smoking?
I can’t understand.
Just give families stability,
and then they’ll want children.
And they say,
“Well, you didn’t have stability
and still gave birth.”
Why? Because I had somewhere
to bring the child, basically.
But some people have no home, no money.
Young people don’t want
to just have a baby
and then not know what to do with it.
Why? To raise it and send it to the front?
Oh, don’t even start with me on that.
It’s horrific.
How would I live in Russia
with such calls?
And tell Liza, for example,
“Quick, go give birth.”
Mom, I got pregnant, you know,
in 9th or 10th grade.
I’d tell her, “Don’t you dare!”
- But in Russia: “You must give birth!”
What is that? Abortions?
Yes, they’re bad.
Girls must be taught how to live.
That’s a whole school of
life to start with.
But instead they just order them
to give birth.
And these unattractive people say it all.
And with such arrogance.
Oh, awful, awful.
Since this interview is about truths.
The song “Maestro” wasn’t
about Raimonds Pauls.
It was dedicated to Arbelian.
Well, maybe I once said it was for Arbelian.
But how do you feel?
Do you mean literally, that
it’s the image of a young singer
standing there
dreaming of the stage, guided
by her teacher—Pauls, Arbelian?
It’s a composite image.
I was supposed to dedicate it
to Arbelian.
No, the story goes
that you gave him a poster
signed “we share one sacred love for music.”
Tell me, dear, when was that?
I don’t even remember what I sign.
But I always sign the truth.
No idea what poster you mean.
If it pleased him, why not?
Because I love him.
He’s wonderful.
The music of Raimonds Pauls “A Million Scarlet Roses”
had lyrics by Andrei Voznesensky.
A man who wasn’t really
a lyricist for pop songs.
How did you get Voznesensky
to write words for a pop hit?
I didn’t. He just wrote them.
I was the one forced to sing it.
I didn’t even like it much.
It was originally a Latvian song.
They just translated it into Russian.
In Latvian it wasn’t even about
“a million roses,” was it?
No idea, but certainly not that.
And yet he wrote those lyrics. Imagine.
Then Voznesensky tormented me, saying,
“Listen, what if we increase
the sum each verse?”
I said, “What do you mean?”
“Well, the first verse ‘a million,’
the second ‘a trillion.’”
I said, “Please, let me sing it as is.
A million is enough!”
And you didn’t like it?
I was just in a phase
when I wasn’t into such songs.
I wanted something deeper,
and this was all la-la-la.
But I realized it was a hit.
I had a cassette with me in Yugoslavia.
And a very gloomy driver took us
around Yugoslavia,
through all the mountains and towns.
I’d play the cassette sometimes,
just to check if it was good.
He’d listen.
Then one trip I didn’t put it on.
He said, “Million.”
I asked, “You like that song?”
“Million.”
So we drove all over Yugoslavia
with that “Million.”
Tell me about Akhmadulina.
She was a woman of great impression.
Her way of speaking was impossible
to imitate.
It couldn’t be acted—it was
real inspiration, her own philosophy.
She could throw out the strangest phrases.
And when indignant,
she’d breathe and say,
“How could you, Alla,
how could you sing that song,
‘When I Become a Grandma’?”
Based on Marina Tsvetaeva’s poetry.
A song called “When I Become a Grandma.”
“That mustn’t be sung.
It’s sacred. It was wrong.”
She was like that…
I’d look at her and say,
“All right,
I’ll try not to repeat mistakes.
Advise me, whom should I sing?”
“Sing me.”
She was unique, amusing in her way.
She could look at me and say:
“I remember you in red socks.”
- What socks?
- Red ones.
In “The Half-Baked Wizard”
you wore red socks.
Really? I didn’t even realize.
Wonderful people.
Okudzhava—it’s amazing
we never really met,
but he knew of me, he followed me.
And when I wrote the song
“Autumn, Red-Haired Friend”…
I wrote it for his birthday.
And since there was no music yet,
I just played it.
“Autumn, Red-Haired Friend.”
Like the bards love.
He was thrilled.
For me it was like a medal.
And those lines are so important to me.
How they…
They always wrote them down. Always.
I still carry them with me.
I’m afraid to ever misquote them.
“Maybe you won’t be a winner,
but at least you’ll die as a human.”
Just four lines, you see, very important ones.
Just four lines, but so meaningful.
And I was just creating something,
wrote some verses.
- You? Now?
- Yes.
Sometimes it just comes over me like that.
I want to record a song about
what’s going on in show business.
And it has some lines.
Oyster on a platter, tatata and bananas,
People are dying, nobody gives a damn.
That’s important, you see?
I mean, well, it’s really such a tragedy,
you could say,
both in the country
and all over the world.
You know, you think,
somewhere out there it’s happening.
And Okudzhava, did you sing it
to him on the phone?
How did you sing it to him?
I passed it on,
they recorded me on tape.
- Ah!
- They gave it to his wife.
That’s nice.
Well, I always loved bards.
From the later ones,
like Sashka Rozenbaum,
he still remained a bard in essence.
Since I’m from Rostov, in Rostov always,
well, everyone, no other word,
went crazy over
the fact that the main Cossack songs,
the most accurate
Cossack songs in this country were written by a Jew.
Well, maybe more precisely, when you fall in love
with this theme, and you sing it honestly.
I’m not a circus performer either, but with
such love I sang “Arlekino,” you see?
Well, at least you have circus training.
I’m not Jewish, though,
although I think
Valentina Talyzina,
she insisted it was funny.
She even donated blood.
I always wanted to be, I said,
“Max, I’m so smart,
so talented, surely I must be Jewish.”
He said, “Oh shut up,
what kind of Jew are you.”
I said, “let’s check.”
And from America Kristina brought us
this tube,
so you had to spit in this tube,
and they’d
send you back what kind of blood
you have.
I’m not Jewish, but it turns out
I’m half Polish.
And now I understood
why I have relatives in Belarus,
because apparently they somehow came
from Poland,
and stayed there in Belarus.
And I wondered why in my family tree
there were names like Jadwiga,
or some other Polish names
in my whole damned lineage,
you see, honestly, it was always hidden.
I thought maybe it was because
those white, red, old albums,
they just disappeared somewhere.
I always wanted to look,
but they told me “nothing for you there.”
Well, maybe noble origins,
maybe something else.
That’s what my grandfather and
grandmother feared since then.
And grandmother was also a Bukharin,
who knows where from.
Indeed.
As if being Pugacheva wasn’t enough,
there was also something Bukharin.
But they didn’t let me search anymore,
and there’s no way now.
So, taking advantage of the situation,
I’ll ask you a few questions
about my very favorite songs.
About which one?
“Airplanes,” which you wrote yourself.
Both music and lyrics.
Well, sometimes I do that.
You do that often,
but this is my absolute favorite song.
Of course, I have some story
under every song.
“Three Happy Days,” that’s
“Three Happy Days” in France.
Because there was a man,
such a smart one from
some company, Russian steel,
I don’t know, “Stankoimport,” I think.
He was an amazing, educated man,
who knew
France, Paris, at least.
And he gave me those
“Three Happy Days.”
He showed me museums, showed me painters,
showed me restaurants,
showed me the Eiffel Tower.
Well, he showed me all of Paris.
And I told this to Ilyusha Reznik,
who basically lived with us.
And he wrote that wonderful song.
There’s a story behind every song.
But “Airplanes” you wrote yourself.
Well, yes, but that was
during Radio Youth times.
And somehow we became very close
on a human level.
I adored Boris Vakhnuk.
And he adored me.
The program was “Hello, Comrade.”
And he started writing me letters.
I had a whole stack. Don’t know,
I can’t find it.
Each of our letters began with
“Hello, Comrade.”
And all in verse.
Those letters were unique.
I won’t survive if I don’t find them.
It’s just awful.
And of course, I answered him too.
Also in verse.
One of Borya’s replies
began, of course, with
“Well, hello, comrade.”
And airplanes are flying away.
Clouds melt.
I shrink inside one of them.
I suffer, hiding tears in my fists.
And, by the way, I smile.
I’m afraid, afraid not to smile.
Because it’s the first time I try
to force myself not to return.
And this song had a second birth when
Manizha sang it at Gogol Center
at the “Our Alla” concert.
Oh, well Manizha is simply a genius singer.
Brilliant.
And it doesn’t matter how she looks,
unlike today’s singers
who think little about what they sing,
about the meaning.
And most of all—what they wear.
Figures and all that.
But here is such talent.
And she, of course, could become a singer
even of international level.
Had you heard her sing this song before,
at that concert?
No. But I really loved the concert itself.
I think they’re planning to do it again
somewhere.
Kirill Serebrennikov called, said so.
Oh, so many people.
Were you the person who came to Kirill
when he was under house arrest?
- Yes.
- Weren’t you afraid?
Of course, you don’t know me
the way others might.
I didn’t even think about it.
I couldn’t.
I just went to see a talented person
who was suffering.
- Was it your initiative?
- Yes. Of course.
And they would let him out
for 15 minutes.
He was allowed to walk.
And we had such a lovely walk.
I’m happy I took photos with him.
Beautiful photos.
And is it true that back then
you were to be given some order?
And you said, “No order,
let one guy go free.”
Well, that happened too.
Everything happened.
- But they didn’t agree?
- I won’t say.
Now I know you’re sending letters
to Zhenya Berkovich.
Yes.
She asked me to pass on a big thank you.
Zhenya, I’m here. Don’t worry.
I’ll help however I can.
To your daughters too.
There’s also another girl,
Petreichuk.
I try to help her too.
And how else, Katya?
Well, how else could it be?
- Now I already know it could be otherwise.
- It could.
I was raised on this.
I lived by it. And I will live by it.
However much life I have left,
I will live only this way.
A question from Zhenya.
Which of your songs do you sing
when you’re alone
with yourself, and you’re happy?
I don’t sing, I play the piano.
- And what do you play?
- I improvise.
Because just like my little mood sketches,
which I sometimes draw, the instrument for me
is just a moment of mood.
If I’m sad, I go there.
If I’m happy, I go there.
My son knows.
And today the sun is shining.
Again the sun? You conjured it all.
There’s a connection.
Isn’t the sun too much in your eyes?
Doesn’t matter.
Let the sun be in my eyes.
It lifts the mood.
When you listen to your songs in a row.
“Robot,” something else, something else,
little by little.
Such a voice, you can hear it’s incredible, but
that voice doesn’t yet know
what it can do.
And then suddenly the voice starts doing
what it thinks is right.
Not asking anyone for permission.
That was around, probably,
’77–’78 and on.
For me the voice is
like a little person inside me,
sometimes sick, sometimes unwilling,
then suddenly I order it, and it says,
“I want to or I don’t want to.”
Like some little person.
I never analyzed how I sing,
with what I sing, what I sing.
Everything I sing, I analyzed.
But my voice itself I never analyzed.
But when it was all over, I realized that
it was an amazing state,
because I wasn’t thinking about the voice.
I was thinking about what I was singing, and
the voice itself came out exactly as it should.
That is, I wasn’t controlling it.
Like, here you need to take a breath,
here you need to pull yourself together.
No.
And did you take care of it?
No, I didn’t,
because I never thought about it.
I just knew it was there, that’s all.
And I could sing in a very low voice,
you see.
And I wanted it so much, I achieved it.
And also with a very high voice.
But there was a moment
when I recorded a song
for a movie with Zatsepin,
the song “Shaman,” by the way.
“Shaman lives in some land.”
And there was a very high note there…
And I hit it.
Even though I came sick.
They said, “We need it urgently.”
I said, “But how?”
And Derbinov said,
“I know what to do.
You need to sniff tobacco.”
I said, “Why sniff it?”
I was already smoking it then.
It was a special kind of tobacco,
you had to sniff it.
He gave it to me, you know,
like in those old movies, the countesses,
yes, like that to me…
I sneezed, coughed,
cried everything out, and
the voice came back.
How I hit that note…
Do you love me?
Of course, I lost my voice.
I couldn’t sing for two months.
Were you scared?
No, well, I thought,
I’ll just treat it.
Well, those high notes were gone.
But the low register appeared.
And I was thrilled, because I could even
sing other songs, more mature,
more sensual.
I wasn’t the Prima Donna,
“I’m a woman who sings.”
So how does she sing? Why does she sing?
With what does she sing?
And who came up with that phrase?
Well, first of all,
from the film The Woman Who Sings,
and I liked the poems.
There was “The Woman I Love.”
So I, like in the film,
changed it a bit.
And that’s how it stuck.
When we talked with Lenya, she said,
“That’s what it should be called,
this woman who sings.”
And since then, “I am a woman who sings.”
The way your repertoire changes in the 90s,
was that a conscious decision?
- Did it change?
- Yes.
I never thought about it either.
Songs fit the times.
That’s exactly what I mean.
I especially liked how my musicians
sort of accidentally found “Nyam-nyam-nyam.”
Yes, yes.
We weren’t used to it.
“Nyam-nyam-nyam, and Boris comes to you.”
Variety stage, let’s call it that.
I won’t say show business.
- "Show business" is such a stupid word.
- Yes.
Variety stage is a mirror of the times,
you see?
Everything that was done there,
everything that happened.
But I tried this way.
If it was a very sad time for people,
I sang more cheerful songs.
Like how Kadesheva is needed now, badly.
And if it was too rowdy, I,
on the contrary, made people think.
Well, that’s me, you see,
what kind of authority I am, you know?
All this was invented, of course,
but there were more opportunities, of course.
That’s when we did a concert with Troitsky in
Chernobyl, dedicated.
Let’s start from the beginning then.
1986, April, the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant accident.
You and Kuzmin end up at a concert
for the “liquidators” on Channel One
Right there, at the reactor.
No, it wasn’t just Kuzmin
and my musicians.
There was also a completely charming boy f
rom Belarus.
My fan and a journalist.
He was the first to die after that.
Did you go there at the call
of your heart or by party order?
Well, I went by the call of my heart.
Although we were warned,
we didn’t understand anything.
Only Igor Nikolaev didn’t go,
because he understood it was dangerous.
So you wouldn’t go sing for the military,
but you went to the Chernobyl NPP…
Well, how could I not, Katya?
Can you imagine, in front of me
sat doomed men.
- Did you realize that?
- Well, of course.
But by then we couldn’t go back.
Because people were asking for oranges
and Pugacheva.
And I realized that people were
in a hard situation,
such a catastrophe.
I didn’t fully understand,
but I did understand.
And I couldn’t refuse anymore.
They even scared us so much:
this is forbidden, that is forbidden.
Did anyone talk to you about
how dangerous it was?
Well, did at least someone
speak with you?
- Yes
- What did they say?
I won’t say it wasn’t dangerous.
It was dangerous.
Although it was all in a zone
between some petals.
It was called a daisy.
That you would be between these petals.
First, don’t eat anything
they offer there.
Bring something with you, crackers or so.
By the way, I lost weight in 3 days.
And don’t walk on the grass.
They’ll run to you with flowers.
Don’t take the flowers.
Well, lots of such warnings.
But of course, we went out.
Everyone ran to us.
Everyone ran, and as always,
I couldn’t resist.
Well, you can’t ignore someone
with flowers.
And I always had this phrase
from childhood,
“Do what you must. And let it be
what will be.”
I thought, I can’t run away
from a person bringing flowers.
So the guys also came back.
Took the flowers.
Barykin was there too.
When you returned, you and
Troitsky organized the first
charity concert in the USSR.
A huge one.
Where you raised almost more money
than the budget.
Yes, yes, yes.
That, of course, was Artemy Troitsky’s
brilliant idea.
And Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev
helped us a lot.
But nothing like that had ever happened
in the Soviet Union.
Troitsky knew that people did
that elsewhere.
There was the idea. We made it real.
With such soul, such heart, and on
live connection we organized
a conversation with those people.
It was an amazing event in my life.
Amazing.
And it didn’t matter
what the consequences were.
Barykin’s were worse.
He stayed there longer.
And what about him?
He had terrible problems w
ith his voice too.
- And you?
- Mine came later.
Well, because of my thyroid.
And it affected that.
From the thyroid to the hormones,
that’s how they explained it.
But later, well, no, I can still sing.
Maybe not like before, but I can.
But speaking is harder.
That’s why I keep silent.
- Did you regret going there?
- No. Not for a second.
You can’t imagine what it felt like,
when you sing with them,
when you hug them.
I even danced with one.
Those tears in their eyes.
Those tired faces that
by the end brightened completely.
They literally became bright.
Such joy it was.
In fact, all I got after that trip
was a scolding for singing
with a big black bow.
Who scolded you?
Well, as always, someone
from the party organization.
They gave me a cap, of course.
Everyone was in white caps. Everyone.
Well, and we were, of course, heroes.
I said, "let’s do it this way.
This doesn’t suit me at all,
I don’t know how to sing in this cap.
I’ll tie a bow, it’ll be cooler
than your cap."
I tied a bow, and they said,
"yes, yes, fine."
And then they picked on that bow.
No one cared what we did, what
our heroism was,
what our weakness was.
“She sang in black,
with a black bow on her head.”
You see? What a horror.
Always something forbidden.
To live in a country of bans
for 76 years.
Well, there were glimpses, of course,
when Gorbachev’s thaw came,
not Khrushchev’s.
- Khrushchev’s doesn’t count?
- Well, no, that was okay too.
Everyone breathed easier
when he suddenly
started to suddenly understand
something in art and creativity.
He was probably afraid of American influence,
as always in Russia.
I don’t remember how old I was and
what year it was, but under Khrushchev
relations with America got
more cheerful, and in
Sokolniki there was
an American exhibition.
It was an event.
Not only did they sell Coca-Cola there,
there was a line.
I thought, what an interesting drink,
I want one too.
We stood in line, mom, dad,
me, brother.
And then I saw, they weren’t drinking Coca-Cola,
they were keeping the cups.
Because we didn’t have those plastic cups.
And the whole line stood not really for
Coca-Cola, but for those cups.
When our turn came, I tried it
and thought, well,
it’s like shoe polish, just shoe polish.
And so I absentmindedly threw it away,
cup and all.
My mom said, “Why did you do that?”
Can you imagine?
There were also these big, round pins.
We didn’t have those either.
So beautiful.
And for the first time we saw
colorful plastic bags.
And of course, we saw color television.
So they wouldn’t get broken,
they were placed up high.
And everyone stood like this,
mouths open, staring.
How’s that? A television? In color?
And then people walked over,
and down below there was rock-n-roll dancing.
And everyone waited for him
to flip her over to see her panties.
That’s how innocent and pure people were.
And so…
They had such curiosity about all of it.
And of course,
at that exhibition there were
abstract sculptures on display.
That interested me.
How they made a human figure out
of just one stone.
And apparently it interested people
so much that when
a wave of abstract art appeared here, our
leader got scared.
And so they bulldozed such a good exhibition.
Those poor artists defended their paintings.
But in life, despite all the bans,
there were interesting things.
At the Mayakovsky monument we always
went to listen to poetry.
- And you went too?
- Of course.
It was wonderful.
Although later they dispersed them
and all that.
But again, a ban…
A ban makes it even more interesting,
as always.
Stilyagi.
Watch the film about the stilyagi,
it’s all true.
But those bans, especially later,
when the stilyagi were around,
boys weren’t allowed to have long hair.
They’d cut it off in the street.
Or take them to the police
and cut it off there.
They also banned reading Solzhenitsyn.
And I found that book at my parents’
under the linens.
And I really wanted to read it.
And I did.
And what did you think?
Well, that’s a subject not really
for teenagers.
And what was it? The Gulag Archipelago?
The Archipelago. Prison.
I wondered why it was banned.
When did Gorbachev come?
You were already an adult.
What was it like?
It was such a breath of freedom.
Not freedom in everything,
not permissiveness, but
the freedom to say it’s freedom
of your thinking,
the freedom of a desire,
that you want to do
but were forbidden, and now you can.
It was such a wonderful time.
And before Gorbachev
we were basically hated
in the West.
But we had to go there.
And we felt it.
We even tried not to speak Russian
too much.
- Like now?
- Yes, yes, yes.
It was already like that.
And then suddenly perestroika,
and we went to
a rock festival with musicians,
and we saw, my God, such happiness!
They hugged us and shouted
“Perestroika! Perestroika!”
That is, people wanted to be friends
with us and love us, you see?
Well, and such happiness
it was that it happened.
And then we still showed them
“Kuzka’s mother.”
Is it true that in 1996 you refused
to take part in the
“Vote or Lose” tour?
- To vote for whom?
- For Yeltsin.
Well, when I wanted to vote,
I voted, I wanted to.
But this time I didn’t feel like it.
Later we met
when he had already left office.
So Igor Krutoy
and I went to visit him.
And then, honestly,
after that meeting we got drunk.
And we said, “What a cool guy!”
said Krutoy.
“He’s so cool!” Cool or not cool,
but you had such a role as a ruler,
so to speak.
Rulers also make mistakes,
but some rethink them,
and some don’t.
Some don’t have the courage
to admit mistakes.
No courage for repentance.
That is a magnificent,
noble quality.
But so far I don’t see any like that.
And what about Gorbachev?
Well, he, yes, he was the kind of person
who could make mistakes and did,
but he rethought
it all and said, “No, that’s not right,
that’s wrong.”
So, well, that was fine.
Well, maybe he lacked something
like a mind-blowing kind of genius,
but he truly wanted people
to have a good life.
A peaceful, happy, and joyful one.
Some things didn’t work out, some did, but
we had time to rejoice.
It was a time of joy and creation.
To hurry, maybe this time would pass,
to create something, to make things. Ah!
Well, maybe I’ll live to see
such a time again.
That Gorbachev, with his last decree,
gave you the title of People’s Artist.
Oh, don’t remind me,
can you imagine?
I was surprised, but of course
it was pleasant, very symbolic.
You know, when he was just elected president,
the phone rang,
I picked up and heard.
And they said, “Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
would like to speak with you.”
I said, “Couldn’t you come up
with something better?”
Though there weren’t such scammers
back then.
Anyway, they connected me
with Mikhail Sergeyevich.
He said, “I’m so glad to hear your voice.”
And many compliments and all that,
then he said,
“You know, I have one request.
Can we meet?
I have questions about
how to conduct discussions, debates.
I basically learned from your interviews.”
That struck me so much.
He said, “I have a question,
but I don’t want to discuss it on the phone.”
It was so nice, I remembered it well.
And you went to him?
Yes, we met and just chatted, honestly.
I said, you already have everything,
just be open and honest.
That is, if you don’t understand the question,
you ask again.
“I don’t understand,
I don’t agree with you.”
“Thank you very much,
your question showed me something.”
That, I said, is essential for you, for
your role now in the state.
He looked at me. “I understand.”
He was a wonderful man.
Raisa Maksimovna,
she was quite different.
In my opinion, she was a little uptight
and reserved.
She wasn’t pretending to be like that.
She really was.
We were once at her birthday.
She greeted everyone like this.
Well, I thought, all right,
let’s sit through this, endure it.
And suddenly at the end
she comes to the table,
opens her handbag, takes out some candy,
puts it inside,
and looks at me.
“Mikhail Sergeyevich loves
these candies very much.”
She closed the bag.
“A bear up north.”
That touched me so much, you see.
I began to see her with completely
different eyes.
It really stayed with me.
In fact, she was probably the only one,
at least in Soviet times,
the ruler of our country
for whom love was more important
than power.
Yes. And I think we had a lot in common.
And when he was already very old,
he invited me,
3021
but I couldn’t go, and I regret it.
I came to the funeral.
Did you ever want to be close to power?
Never.
I always told others,
“Don’t be friends with them.
That’s a kind of friendship.”
For an artist it was an obligation.
A concert for Police Day, another concert.
Police Day was the best concert.
It was broadcast live.
And I strove to be on that show.
So much so that even one of my songs
got through thanks to the live broadcast.
- Which one?
- “Guardian Angel.”
But everyone was outraged, because I had sung
“Kings Can Do Anything,”
and they called me back for an encore.
But I wasn’t going to repeat
“Kings Can Do Anything.”
I said, if you want,
I’ll sing you a song.
“Guardian Angel.”
And the cameramen were already
panicking, because
“Kings Can Do Anything”
was always shown to Shchelokov.
And they were terribly afraid
that “Guardian Angel”—
since it was about a policeman,
it was all right.
But they didn’t think
about the real angel.
We must meet.
And bring each other more joy.
Maybe because of that the Earth
will become stronger.
And the heavens above it,
which lately are all full of holes.
The swamp of spaceships.
The swamp of curses we send from Earth.
Born of human malice, of wars.
Brothers and sisters, we are human beings.
Yet sometimes we behave like animals.
I wish that time would come sooner,
when all our human malice would remain
only in the rhythms of music.
And all we’d have left
is peaceful skies above us
and happy, healthy children.
Well, it passed.
It’s gone, flown by.
Come on, were you really planning
to show up at Police Day like that?
A dress that unbuttons with snaps,
and nothing underneath.
- Panties.
- Ah, so panties after all.
Well, of course, but pretty ones.
Because I was already so fed up
with being called vulgar, punished.
Banned from television for two years.
So I thought, fine, I’ll show you
what vulgar really means.
Brezhnev didn’t let me do it.
I had that dress made, beautiful,
all with snaps.
And the panties too.
Not some sexy kind,
just very simple ones.
Pretty, decent.
- Respectable.
- Yes, respectable.
We had even rehearsed it.
Who was there? Borya Moiseyev,
someone else too.
Everyone was trembling.
He saved me, you see — he died.
And that concert was canceled.
And you say higher powers intervene.
The universe hears me.
Where’s the line between being
folksy and being vulgar?
Well, it has to be natural.
When people say freedom,
it’s not permissiveness.
When they say modesty,
it doesn’t mean
you must wear armor and hide everything.
Everything should be in moderation.
So the only serious time
you entered politics
was when you supported Mikhail Prokhorov?
Well, yes. It seemed necessary.
And why necessary?
Well, in all these elections you had to.
We supported him.
And someone told me,
“Even if he doesn’t get elected,
you should support him.”
We understood perfectly it was unlikely.
That’s the way it worked.
And we were friends with Makarevich,
with Mikhail Prokhorov.
So it wasn’t a commercial story?
No. He always helped me. Always.
“Christmas Meetings.”
Because before he came along, to make
a quality show, you had to spend money.
I poured all my money into it.
- Your own?
- Well, of course.
And at first we didn’t even know
what a sponsor was
when the “Christmas Meetings” began.
Later a sponsor appeared,
some company, I don’t remember.
And he paid us with televisions,
which we gave to an orphanage.
But the “Christmas Meetings”
still brought no money.
No, I invested my own,
what are you saying?
- Then why did you do them?
- For beauty.
In the ’90s a new period began
in your career.
That moment when you
could already organize
events, “Christmas Meetings,”
on a grand scale.
You could already make decisions.
You were already becoming an authoritative
figure in show business, right?
Of course, if I did a lot,
I had authority.
- And did you like that?
- Like what?
Being someone
who could decide people’s fates.
I never thought about that.
I had the opportunity to help people.
And that was important to me.
Now it’s so nice that I could afford
to do it, and I did.
The ’90s. What were they like for you?
Well, first of all, money appeared.
Royalties, and concerts suddenly
became more expensive.
It was happiness, because
I could buy something, like furniture.
In everyday life it was very good.
And if we talk about the criminal world?
They respected me. What can I do?
They respected Lyubov Uspenskaya.
Like she used to say.
And they respected me.
And they had rules —
not petty pickpockets, rapists,
and the like.
There was a certain code,
like no touching children.
That’s not allowed.
So, by and large, I knew these people.
By and large.
But when Listyev was killed,
you came the next morning?
It was the first Sunday of spring.
We found out.
I was, of course,
in some kind of hysterical state.
I roughly know why.
It was a financial matter, basically.
You understand? The division of everything.
But still. I felt so sorry for him.
He was such a wonderful man.
Well, you came there and said
very important things.
Why did you call the journalists yourself?
There are journalists.
- So what should we do?
- Do?
I don’t know what to do.
We have to live, but live by some rules,
some laws.
Sacred laws.
That must still exist in something.
Well, that’s the way I was.
And you said the time was coming
when all the colorful ones,
all those who stood out,
would be killed and eliminated.
But you can’t shoot everyone.
Yes, you can’t shoot everyone.
I’m about to cry.
Because that stayed with me.
This moment just brought it back.
So even if they had taken me away
after those words, I would have said them.
Because it was such an explosion
of emotions,
so unexpected.
And in fact, I had an idea
of what was happening.
It made me terribly indignant.
It was grief on the first Sunday
of spring.
And since then we stopped walking the streets.
We only gathered together.
Is it true that when you were, by the way,
a member of Russia’s Public Chamber,
you pushed for pension increases?
Yes, we pushed. At least something.
But basically, I left because I went broke.
Went broke?
Well, because I got bags full of letters.
“We don’t have a TV, help us.
We don’t have this, help us.”
I thought the Public Chamber
would give some money for help.
That’s how it seemed.
And I sent everything to everyone —
a TV to some, something else to others.
One girl asked for mascara.
I still remember.
“Otherwise I don’t know
what I’m using on my lashes.”
But people go into the Public Chamber
to promote laws, don’t they?
Well, there were different people.
We were doing this kind of thing.
Gathering help, people’s requests.
And in the end pensions were raised.
Did you ever have the idea
to go into big politics?
I’d vote for you.
Oh no, no, no.
I remember, there was
what they now call a flash mob.
Suddenly they decided
I should become president.
That started.
Even at kiosks, they said,
“Come vote here.”
They collected signatures.
I said, “What, are you all crazy?”
You mustn’t do that.
You have to know the person.
I wasn’t a professional in this at all.
In short, I was indignant.
And someone hinted to me,
“Better refuse.”
- I said, “Why?”
- Or they’ll remove you.
You’re in the way.
It was such a time, you know?
- Was that in the ’90s?
- Well yes, back then.
I think you tried almost everything
that was popular in the ’90s.
You had your own chips, your own shoes.
Oh, let’s not talk about that.
My shoes...
Still have them?
Let’s not talk about shoes,
it doesn’t matter.
I still have everything.
No chips though.
- Radio Alla?
- Radio Alla, yes, I was scammed.
I don’t regret anything.
And you did it because you wanted
to make money,
or because you were curious to try?
Well, first of all, I was curious to try.
I knew I could help many people.
There were such segments.
Bublik, see how popular he became
after that.
- I really liked it.
- Did you?
Yes, I really loved that program.
And I so enjoyed talking, interviewing,
like you’re sitting here.
I liked getting to know people better.
It was great.
Radio was very interesting.
I even got an award for it,
a journalism award.
And what do you listen to now?
Just don’t tell me “the sound of the sea.”
You’ll be surprised.
I play recordings of forest birds,
field birds,
morning, evening… the nightingale, rarely.
But I feel so good.
That’s my music these days.
It’s so interesting
when the morning itself wakes up.
Not me waking up, but the morning waking up.
Some sounds.
We have seagulls screaming
under the window all the time.
Every evening, every morning.
But once, around five
in the morning, a bird sings.
Just one, the only one.
And it’s so wonderful, so beautiful.
And I get up with that bird
and just walk around the house.
Or come in here. No one around.
Silence.
And such unity with nature,
it’s amazing.
So beautiful it brings tears.
Haven’t there been any new performers
on the Russian stage
in recent years who impressed you?
Anyone who would be in your playlist?
I don’t really follow who’s around now,
I sometimes watch.
But I don’t quite understand
what they’re singing.
Because the words are all unclear.
But I see the audience knows these songs.
And sings along.
So it must be needed.
Maybe if I don’t like it,
it doesn’t mean it’s bad.
For me, my favorite
male singers in Russia are
those whose singing I enjoy,
like Stas Piekha.
Just an amazing singer.
But very inert when it comes to himself.
Anatoly Tsoy.
Oh, what a singer that guy is.
Dima Bilan.
A wonderful singer.
Among the young ones,
some have started to interest me.
I picked Bravo, George Granzh.
I’ve already set my sights on him,
this young boy.
Well, no shame in that.
I can… There are no other topics, you know?
I just can’t support anyone else.
Anastasia Sadkovskaya, very strong.
And George Granzh. He’s finding himself.
Now is such a time...
They used to call it
the soap-bubble era.
But it’s a period when the old ones
are still singing,
and the very young, really talented ones
haven’t quite appeared yet.
So this space is filled by interesting,
but short-lived people, so to speak.
Because this period lasts about four years.
Which is enough, actually.
Then others will come who approach
this time more consciously.
Understanding that you don’t sing
just for a hit,
but addressing people’s hearts,
their souls.
So that they realize it helps them.
That it preaches something.
In any style.
Rock, hip-hop, whatever you like.
That’s what Western music has always had.
Because they always had meaning.
And in about five years, say,
a girl like Alisa Golomysova will grow up.
There are such talented teenagers.
And then they’ll be calm,
no need to convince anyone,
they’ll just sing from soul to souls.
Do you like Monetochka?
Very interesting.
Very smart, very distinctive.
How can anyone silence her?
On the contrary,
you should listen to her as a clue.
Like how they treat those comedians.
It’s terrible. I don’t get it.
It’s always been like this,
and always will be.
But I just don’t understand.
Smart kings always had jesters.
Not to entertain them,
but so they could tell the truth.
So they could speak the truth to them.
What could they do there, you see?
They knew what was being said, what the situation was.
And when they came with news to the tsars, and
he asked, "So, are they telling the truth or not?"
Should this be done?
The wisest people were jesters.
I wouldn’t advise getting rid of them.
- Do you like Morgenshtern?
- Yes.
I’ve always liked him.
He’s incredibly talented.
And self-directing.
His delivery is interesting, everything about it.
At first, maybe he showed off with it, as always, overdone, excessive.
He wanted to be remembered exactly that way.
I get all that.
You remind me of that now, because
I don’t think much about it these days.
Who else among the girls...
There’s a lively one.
Mia Boyka, right?
Not just Boyka, but boykaya, you see?
A grabby girl. She’ll grab what’s hers.
She sings well, but hasn’t chosen what yet.
In three chords it was wonderful.
But then I listened to what she does on stage.
Such a huge contrast.
You can’t sit on two chairs at once.
You’ve got to work this youth audience, and also
this other one, that’s already...
That’s why I say, it’s just that kind of time.
You have to guess right now.
In 2012 on Pozner’s show you said,
"that we’re standing on the edge, I feel that
something is about to start happening, something
is hanging in the air, and how to get out of this
shit, literally, you don’t know."
I don’t know.
But you really felt something?
Yes.
And what was it connected to?
That Putin and Medvedev switched, and
Putin went for a new term?
That there were these election stories?
What was it?
I wasn’t thinking about them at all.
Putin, Medvedev.
I was friends with Dima, because he...
With Medvedev?
Yes, but because Dima
and Sveta I liked very much.
Dmitry Anatolyevich
is a different person today.
I don’t recognize him.
Even like Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich,
I didn’t expect that.
They’re just different people now...
I had a gut feeling, you see?
I’ve lived a long time,
and when this comes, I feel it.
I won’t explain how.
Because when that scum
of informers appeared,
that was the beginning, you see?
And this is just the end.
It’s such a disgrace.
I was born under informers.
Turns out I’m living under informers too.
It’s disgraceful.
It’s the fungus of the country, you see?
Where informers appear.
It must be cleaned out, cleaned out.
But if they’re allowed, it’s the end.
They’re in the Justice Ministry,
in the investigative committees, everywhere.
I think it’s ridiculous for them.
Honestly. It’s just horrible.
Disgusting. Shameful.
But if you have this gut feeling,
what’s next?
I have no right to say.
I know, but I have no right.
That’s for my committee.
Let’s live to see 2027.
Remember. 2027.
That’s Lighthouse.
We’ve already gotten here.
At your pace, I’m surprised
we’ll be going on for long...
What pace? I crawl like a snail.
Then they’ll say my legs don’t work.
But they do.
Oh, Lord.
I don’t care what people say,
but it’s funny,
that sometimes they hit the mark.
And I’m sorry they notice it.
For example?
Well, it’s obvious my back hurts.
So I walk like this.
Especially when I’m walking with kids,
I usually talk like this.
Just to look them in the eyes.
And that’s when they film me,
and I look like this.
Listen, after so many years
you still haven’t gotten
used to it, don’t you just not care?
Hello. That’s why I’m telling you,
I don’t care.
Otherwise,
I wouldn’t have said anything.
I’m fine.
Like others know how to say.
No, I’m fine.
We even say yes, you mustn’t slouch.
But I always do.
I tell Garik, and he tells me.
But I’ve been slouching
since childhood, unfortunately.
Because when I started school
in first grade,
I was the tallest.
- You?
- Yes.
In first grade, second, third,
fourth, I was the tallest.
Then they started catching up.
And when I went to college,
they all turned into beanpoles.
I came to a reunion of some kind.
I saw they were all so tall,
so big.
And I was so small.
What a joy,
I was a different person then.
By the way, I always thought
you were really tall.
Well, everyone thought I was tall, big.
Oh! Well, okay.
Listen, all the youth magazines
of my time were about
how you fought with excess weight.
You did?
Of course, I did. I was sick
from childhood.
I’d faint from dyes, colors,
fabric quality.
Only certain black fabric
worked for me.
Even at school they let me have
a uniform tailored for me,
not the store-bought one.
The illness tormented me,
and they took me to Botkin Hospital.
Because they said there’s a woman,
Faina,
an acupuncturist.
But acupuncture was forbidden.
It was underground,
in Botkin Hospital.
I said, what needles?
Come on, I know nothing.
But if she trusted the person, well,
her grandfather had been in China,
learned acupuncture.
And those golden needles remained,
gorgeous, the proper kind.
I cried, said, “I suffer so much.”
And I was already performing on stage.
“I can’t wear anything but black.
White, at best.”
She kept looking at me.
Said, “Well, you need 15 sessions.”
I said, “Even 20.”
And Kristina was about that age then.
I went, but she warned me,
“I’ll cure you.
This illness will leave you.
But you’ll gain 20 kilos.”
And for me, 20 kilos was like this:
I come from the market
with 10 kilos in one bag,
potatoes in the right hand
and 10 in the left.
And I stomp home, you see?
So I didn’t care much.
20 kilos more, fine.
And after the treatment,
some time later
I sang in a dress with open sleeves.
Kristina was in the audience,
it was filmed.
When I saw myself, my arms were so fat,
I was like—ugh!
I hated it, I was so upset.
And since then, I’ve been fighting
those 20 kilos all my life.
But at least I was cured.
When my heart hurt, when I met Max,
I was really overweight.
I never thought it affected
the vessels, everything, so much.
It was hard for me to walk.
And after the bypass surgery,
I just deflated. That’s it.
I was so happy.
At what age did you like yourself
physically the most?
I never thought about it.
At any age.
I’d look at myself and think, yes.
And then say, everything’s fine.
One more song I want to ask about.
On the way here, we listened
to Shakespeare’s 40th sonnet.
Not every pop singer would sing songs
to Shakespeare’s poetry
with Khrennikov’s music.
You robbed the beggar of his bag.
But I forgave the captivating thief.
How did that come about?
He just asked me to sing for his film.
But I never thought about it.
I just sang, the way I liked.
Katya!
You were supposed to sing
in Alfred Schnittke’s "Faust."
Yes. But it was forbidden.
We prepared so much.
The Devil’s Aria.
God steered me away from it, you see.
It was interesting,
the symphony orchestra and my band,
and it all blended, rock with classical.
And so I sang there.
It was amazing.
- I didn’t want to sing it.
- Why?
Because I was nobody
to our classical composers.
And I started to be afraid.
Alfred Schnittke called me.
He said, "Nothing strange happens
to you at night?"
I said, "Yes, suddenly
all the candles blow out.
As soon as I start rehearsing."
They blow out. I think, what is this?
No wind, nothing.
When I went to bed and started
rehearsing with the score,
lying there.
Someone walking on the balcony.
Almost knocking.
At first I wondered, what’s going on?
And then when Alfred Schnittke
called, he said,
"The same happens to me."
I said, it happens to me too.
He said, "That’s what
the Devil’s Aria means."
Don’t fall for it.
I really wanted to refuse,
but couldn’t say no to him.
Then the composers’ union gathered
and said, "We don’t need this.
We don’t need Pugacheva."
So not the opera, but not Pugacheva?
Not Pugacheva.
They replaced me with another singer.
But amazingly, when it was at
the Tchaikovsky Hall, and the concert
went on, I was walking.
It was winter. I walked around.
I was drawn to it.
I didn’t go inside,
but I walked around.
That was a rather scary story.
What was it like working
with Alfred Schnittke?
He was amazing.
A bit withdrawn,
but when he opened up,
his eyes would change.
You could see on his face,
yes-yes-yes, like that.
As if every half hour
he was struck by inspiration.
It was always on his face.
Though he was a very reserved person.
And he apologized to me so much.
I said, "I beg you,
I’ll sing something next time."
But inside I thought, thank God,
thank God, thank God.
That’s the story.
Schnittke is a recognized genius.
But about Khrennikov, for example,
they always say
he was just a functionary
in the Composers’ Union,
but he was also a great composer.
Of course. Every era is great,
and you can’t deny it.
Always great, in its own way.
Great.
In one way or another,
by different things.
Our country is like that.
A great power,
though the one thing it lacks
is magnanimity.
A great power is magnanimity.
Then it’s truly a great power.
Well, so be it.
Great people never thought
of themselves as great.
That never crossed their minds.
But the great craftsmen,
they always flaunted it.
"I’m great, everyone, look."
No, great people
are the most humble ones.
Geniuses are more complicated.
Why did Khrennikov decide
you should sing the Shakespeare sonnet?
Because he loved me.
He really did, you know,
he liked everything.
I think he was thrilled to find
something for me to sing.
He was such a nice guy.
Igor Nikolaev loves
to recall that because
we added sound effects like wind.
And Khrennikov had never seen that.
During all our recordings,
he stood there watching
how it was done.
He said, "What’s this,
where’s it from?"
And Igor showed him.
Here’s wind, here’s rain,
here’s a dog barking.
He said, "Well, that’s genius."
So all the arrangements
were Nikolaev’s work, right?
Well, yes. Igor is a talented man.
Do you still keep in touch with him?
I don’t really feel like it.
He doesn’t really reach out either,
well, kind of does,
but going on TV about his work,
there was a show once hosted
by Maxim Galkin,
then, I think, Nikolay Tsiskaridze.
He just came, they told him
not to mention Pugacheva and Koroleva.
And he said, "Alright."
If they told me, "Come to the show,
we’ll even pay you.
But just don’t mention Igor Nikolaev."
I wouldn’t go.
You know, and for me as a person,
he just became...
Well, never mind.
I’ll always forgive,
because we did so much together,
he grew up before my eyes.
That time was important to me because
it revealed people’s true essence.
Very much so.
And I don’t judge the people around me,
some of my fellow performers.
It never even crosses my mind.
I might criticize them
for something or
give advice, but to condemn them
for something—
that’s their life, their conscience,
their business.
And when I think that money
has defeated kindness,
I pretty much agree.
Because all people talk about
is how much someone makes.
Or how this artist
got a bigger paycheck.
Or where the money went—palaces,
and all that.
Honestly, I couldn’t care less.
Why did it never occur to you
to start your own
charity foundation?
I know many urged you, because
it would’ve brought both
charity and respect.
And you could have centralized
the help, distributed it.
But if something went wrong,
they’d accuse you of stealing money.
No-no-no, I never deal
with finances at all.
Charity foundations.
I never told anyone,
never said anything.
But trust me, I did a lot
for charity.
Why should I trust you?
I know quite a lot.
As a person, I’m still a believer.
I felt relief,
some kind of repentance,
if I felt some sin weighing on my soul.
I really purified myself that way.
I don’t know, it seemed so to me.
It made me feel better.
Have you always been a believer?
- Well, no, of course not.
- When did it come?
Well, in adulthood.
But you don’t talk about that.
When it came and said,
"We are with you."
So it was a specific event?
Not just life experience,
but a specific event that
influenced you?
Yes.
No one is obliged.
One must want it.
That’s why I never saved money,
honestly.
It’s not good to say, but
I never understood the value
of suddenly having money.
I didn’t realize it.
My father always told me,
"Save for a rainy day."
I’d say, "Dad, what rainy day?
What are you talking about?"
And whenever I had money,
I spent it on helping others.
An apartment for someone,
a car for someone, costumes, guitars.
An orphanage.
Yes, of course, an orphanage.
Once I saw a boy who was very sick.
I called Emma at the Oktyabrsky Hall
in St. Petersburg.
I said, "Emma, I have the money,
just give it
to this grandmother, pass it on,
they’re bringing me to Petersburg now,
so that the boy survives."
But the boy didn’t survive.
The chief doctor called me.
What a pity, he was such a good kid.
- I said, "What, he died?"
- "Yes."
- "And what about the money?"
- "Leave it to the grandmother." Well, so be it.
On one hand, it’s nice to remember
that I wasn’t clutching, hoarding a chest of gold.
And it’s not really scary that we poured everything
into that house, in the village of Gryaz.
It’s a pity people behave so strangely,
so inhumanly.
They say, "We’ll confiscate it."
Well, dear Lord.
I read they wanted to demolish it.
They did, well, let them,
what can you do.
We won’t lose anything.
Won’t it hurt?
It’s not a loss, it’s a release.
Just like with those friends
who tucked their tails right away.
It’s not a loss. We got rid of them.
I watched a video of Maxim’s birthday
five years ago.
It was full of people.
We welcomed everyone gladly,
but I was already
not a very trusting person.
I understood perfectly
that the people around us—
it was interesting
and pleasant with them,
but it was also
a convenient acquaintance.
We’re gone, they’ll find another
convenient acquaintance.
I’ve lived long, you see?
It’s happened before.
Only the truest friends remain.
Even though as soon as I got
money, people suddenly started
coming to me.
We used to gather 20–30 people.
And then it turned out
there was no money.
None. Just no money.
But everyone still came
every Saturday.
They’d say, "Come on, pour,
let’s have a drink already."
And Lyusya, who worked with me,
would say, "And did you bring something?"
- What do you mean?
- That’s how it was.
Take what’s given.
I had some beer, soup,
we cooked soup from processed cheese,
so tasty, and pasta.
She said, "Run to the store
for some booze,
pasta, we’ve got pickles, pour that
soup over the pasta
and you’ll have Italy."
After that, no one stayed.
And I even stressed,
"I’m afraid I’m screwed,
no money for a long time."
That was the test.
The only ones left were
Svyatoslav Fedorov and Yevtushenko.
I won’t list them all.
Good people remained.
So I was ready for anything.
It was such an interesting time,
it revealed people’s true essence.
There was war, it was hard,
but God must have needed it.
That’s how it was.
I thought for a long time,
but Putin is not a stupid man.
I knew him.
You even campaigned for him.
Not campaigned, I voted for him.
I was thrilled.
I thought, finally!
What did you like?
First of all, he said all
the right things.
Even about Ukraine,
look at what he said.
He said, "There will never be a war
between Russia and Ukraine."
Everything I thought, he said it.
He was an idol. What a man.
Of course, now it’s a shock.
But wait, you say
you understand people.
How did you not see anything in him?
You saw him, like me.
He gave you an order.
When he gave me the order,
I already...
Already saw it.
I waited three hours
and realized something was wrong.
Joke.
Be late, Vladimir Vladimirovich,
be late.
But stop it already. Enough.
Of course, it was a shock for me.
Suddenly… I had this thought.
I won’t elaborate now,
but it was terrible.
Everyone knows I’m against the war.
And I believe our country
has suffered greatly.
Secondly—
First of all,
I feel sorry for Ukraine.
It’s like explaining with fingers
that some people
don’t want to live in a communal flat.
They want their own apartments.
That’s understandable.
And when they say they want independence,
that’s it.
No.
"But that’s your brother."
I had a brother too,
he wanted independence. Fine.
I helped him in everything,
though it was unbearable.
He’d come and shoot at the ceiling.
He was a very sick man.
Still, I helped his children.
That’s what people should do.
They should, above all, talk.
Negotiate.
They should smile.
They should think about the future.
Not only of their children.
That’s how I see it.
And a person, besides fighting, kills.
Now it comes from the other side.
Everyone suffers.
It’s hard to make things right.
There must be some business in it.
But I don’t understand it.
And how many people suffer.
At what point did you realize about him
that he wasn’t the man you
wanted to vote for and support?
It really shook me.
I got tense when the Kursk sank.
I thought, he’ll rush here.
Poor man, he must leave Sochi
and comfort everyone.
But he didn’t come.
You can’t imagine how sorry I feel
that this is happening.
And later everything will end.
Things will be fine, right?
But you can’t bring people back.
Broken lives.
Traumatized children.
It’s a tragedy.
And so, I can’t say.
I can’t help in any way.
And that kills me, truly kills me.
And even having an opinion now is criminal.
Your point of view.
You can’t even say it.
By the way, foreign agent Galkin,
right?
The funniest thing.
How could they think about Galkin,
about me,
about the guys who left, Makarevich.
All these “foreign agents,”
that our opinions are paid for.
Some foreign agencies,
or whatever they call them.
They pay us to say this,
to think this way.
How is that possible?
They implant this in people.
And they believe it.
How do you shield your children
from the internet?
Especially the internet
that came after you left.
They simply don’t have it, you see.
- Internet?
- Yes, no Instagram.
And online, I don’t know,
they’re not really interested.
Why keep track?
But everything Russian politicians,
journalists and so on said about you —
does it reach them?
Well, yes.
We explain it all with laughter,
so they laugh too.
I always tell them, "Only people
who are worse off than us
talk like that."
So you think when Margarita Simonyan
comes out
and says you don’t have a real family,
she’s worse off than you?
What did Simonyan say?
That your family isn’t real, that
Maxim, and now in Russia
it’s a criminal offense.
- Gay, you mean?
- Yes.
Call me a pot,
just don’t put me in the oven.
What do I care,
it’s their favorite topic.
Who isn’t gay these days?
Feels like everyone is.
Whatever blog you open, it’s
“this one’s gay, that one’s gay,
hey-hey-hey.”
It doesn’t concern us.
Let them say what they want.
And you’re not going to respond?
Absolutely not.
As long as we’re fine.
They can say whatever they like.
You portray people so well,
I think
you could star in more
than one big comedy film.
Right.
Have you been offered roles?
You mean the comic old lady again?
Nikita Mikhalkov always told me,
"I’ll cast you as a comic old lady."
A long wait.
Back then you couldn’t just slap
on makeup, do something.
Then years went by.
I said, "Remember the comic old lady?
Remember you have to age for that?"
After you sang “Madame Brushkina”
into his ear?
That was such a fun, unexpected bit.
He went along
with all the improvisations.
You know, I adore him.
I love him.
Despite everything he says about you?
Yes, of course.
That’s also a forced life and position.
Do you think he says things
he doesn’t believe?
No, of course not.
He’s much subtler.
He takes after his father.
Maybe he didn’t believe,
but he supported it all.
He knew that’s what had to be done.
Still, I think he treats me well too.
Despite what he says.
But times are like that.
Nikita Sergeyevich, Nikitushka,
I love you very much.
Don’t be ill.
I know something’s hurting there.
Don’t be ill. Stay healthy.
And be more joyful.
- I’m about to fall off my chair.
- Why?
It seems there’s nothing
you couldn’t forgive.
There are things.
But I won’t name them,
or they’ll do it out of spite.
In 2007 you said you were retiring.
The word “retire” was used.
Yes? Ugh, what an awful word.
What is retirement made of?
Does it even exist?
You can’t keep working
when you don’t feel harmony
within yourself.
If something is off.
That means you’re either
suppressing something in yourself,
or you want
to burst off in a completely
different direction.
And since all my life I’ve been
a seeker, I realized the moment had come.
I didn’t retire, I went into unrest.
Because I’m interested in some new current
in my soul, some new moods.
I have plans that have nothing to do
with singing.
That’s rejuvenating.
Because it feels like the beginning
of a new life,
the beginning of some inner mood.
I like this state.
I even went through such periods of change,
because I wanted change inside myself.
My dear Raimonds Pauls used to say,
"She’s in her youth period."
Yes. Because I wanted that.
Life is so short,
you need your desires.
Even if you can’t fulfill them,
the desire itself —
there’s no magic fish,
but you still have to wish.
And for something new.
In short, I like it.
And then this harmony,
it’s like merging with nature,
both human and earthly nature.
It’s such a state, Katya,
that means everything is ahead of you.
I think you’re the same way.
I really look forward to it.
On the other hand,
I’m afraid, because what if
in that “peace” I stop being
interested in anything.
Or I stop being myself.
No, you must remain yourself.
In any image.
Especially in Russia, where after 60
it’s considered you don’t exist.
Seriously?
I think there’s a main law in Russia.
If you’re a former champion,
former star, former president,
then no one needs you anymore,
they treat you differently.
And you felt that?
Of course, certain groups
did everything to make me feel it,
but I live with such support,
millions of people.
That really sustains me.
That love shown to me, wherever I go,
wherever I am.
People really want to, they try,
they say something nice.
I consider myself a very happy person.
And I have a very interesting life, very.
How do you live now?
When there are no stadiums,
no daily glory
at your fingertips,
when you gave it up voluntarily?
Do you miss it?
I gave it up voluntarily.
Obviously, I feel good.
My thoughts are completely different.
I freed myself from that constant pressure,
that on stage
you must do this, learn that,
do this, do that.
Everything has its time.
But in Russia, people don’t leave
the top positions.
Not in politics, not in art.
Well, that’s a mistake.
There are artists who sing
into old age, and
of course, politicians who do too.
How is it not hard for them?
I don’t know.
Everyone said I was cutting off
their oxygen.
- And were you?
- Me?
Of course not.
They were the ones cutting off
my oxygen all the time.
Because I was always being talked about.
And it was all wrong.
A wrong performance, in a short skirt —
banned for two years.
Only that all-union contest saved me,
where I sang “Let’s Sit
and Cry a Little.”
I wore a horrible green dress
with a polka-dot tie.
But they liked it.
And the skirt was beautiful, short.
I remember I sang Shainsky’s song
“The King, the Flower Girl and the Jester.”
That’s what it was called.
Long, long ago,
In some kingdom,
A merry, merry beauty lived.
And word spread, and word spread,
That the most beautiful of all
Was that young beauty,
That young beauty.
Good evening.
Thank you, we’re with you.
We’ll live some more.
Yes, we’ll live.
We’ll live some more with you.
We surely will.
- I know you.
- Really?
- I follow you.
- Seriously?
Ah, well, I’ll follow you back.
I was constantly banned, constantly.
Somehow I broke through,
I don’t know how.
That’s why I know what bans
are and what they mean.
And above all, who’s saying it.
Who?
Well, I even counted it. Zarubina.
I don’t even know what Zarubina sang.
But she has some interview
where she says
that I had some kind of catastrophe.
The playback stopped.
And now I’m banned from TV for it.
And she left for America.
But what do I have to do with that?
Then there was Gulkina. You know her?
From the group “Mirage.”
Well, I wasn’t interested
in “Mirage,” you see?
At all.
But did you even have the authority
to ban someone?
- Back in the 90s?
- What authority?
I was afraid to even go to TV
somewhere.
There were people sitting there
who would ban you
right away just for showing up.
What, am I crazy or something?
Then, let me list them for you.
Zarubina, Gulkina,
Muromov took back his words,
that I supposedly shut him down.
He said, "How can anyone shut me down?
I’m a star." Good for him.
Legkostupova said something.
But Legkostupova had nothing to do with it.
Her sister, I think, said there
were no conflicts at all.
No conflicts, nothing.
And besides, why would I ban her?
Then there was...
Ah, yes, who popped up…
Igorek Nadzhiev.
He said I banned him because
I was helping Kirkorov,
and so that he wouldn’t be
Kirkorov’s competitor,
I supposedly got rid of him.
But let me tell you,
Igorek, let me remind you.
You came to our theater.
What did I tell you?
That you had to work on your image.
Because you always said,
"I want to be like
Leontiev, I want to be like Kirkorov."
I bluntly told you then —
what do you mean, like?
You’ll crush everyone only if you find
your own image and your own repertoire.
Did you forget?
Just two months later, your father came
and asked me how long it would take
for Igor to become a star.
Naively, I said, from a year
and a half to three.
And how can that be taken?
Of course, as a contract,
even a commitment.
Because to really make an artist famous
is such work.
He had to be himself,
he was a handsome guy,
and he needed a special repertoire,
not to be
like Leontiev, not like Kirkorov, but
like Igor Nadzhiev.
So I told his father,
from a year and a half to three.
He said, "Oh no,
that’s too long to wait."
And he took you away, Igorek.
Did you forget that?
Aren’t you ashamed?
What a case.
Well, Antsiferova, yes, she started first,
but then realized
it wasn’t true, because when
I quarreled with Zatsepin,
and I had already recorded
all the songs for the film "July 31st",
he gave them to Antsiferova.
I calmed down too, thought,
well, she’s a good singer,
so I didn’t let him down.
I was happy.
Who else?
Well, anyway…
Wait, do you follow this?
Does it hurt you?
No, I just recently decided to look
at who’s
saying this, because it’s ridiculous.
Usually it’s said by competitors
I supposedly destroyed,
wrote denunciations against,
but they weren’t competitors to me.
And who was?
I never understood competition.
They were my colleagues, so to speak.
Well, there was Sofia Rotaru.
And since childhood it was always
either Tsvetaeva or Akhmatova,
for Pugacheva or for Rotaru.
No, she and I were always friends.
It was strange,
Stepanovich started that story.
You see, because I refused
to act in his film,
which was supposed to be called "The Voice."
He renamed it "The Soul."
And probably thought he was doing me harm.
No, he just needed that star.
Sonia and I still keep in touch,
we support each other as best we can.
That’s about it.
So, that’s all.
Who came up with the idea
of your duet with Rotaru?
We just somehow came to it,
I don’t know, we often chat, talk.
I said, “We should sing something
together.”
What song is there?
Either I said, or she said,
“Let’s do this one,
‘They Won’t Catch Us.’”
- Won’t catch us.
- Won’t catch us.
And we really liked it.
And we sang it decently.
No, they won’t catch us.
No, they won’t catch us.
No, they won’t catch us.
The sky will drop the night into our palms —
they won’t catch us.
They won’t catch us.
There are so few reasons to have fun.
We need to find them.
Well, and "The Prima Donna"
with Lyudmila Gurchenko.
Yes, that’s sacred to me.
I’m so glad Bondarchuk still
convinced her to take part.
For me, she is the Prima Donna.
My God.
She behaved like a Prima Donna
all her life.
She lived like a Prima Donna.
And what does that mean?
I am the main one in your life.
I am the main one
in this whole acting world.
Even if I’m not recognized,
I’m the first and
the last, at least for myself.
That’s a Prima Donna.
So that’s not me.
“I Am a Woman Who Sings.”
Was it easy to be friends with her?
Yes, but not exactly friends —
it wasn’t friendship.
I respect so much those
who are older than me,
who have done more,
who have been through more.
What kind of friendship?
We just liked going
to the same restaurants.
You know, the ones
with all those pizzas.
Yes, and do you know
how much she ate of
those steaks?
I asked her,
“How do you manage that?”
She said,
“It all burns off for me.
The food, the troubles,
everything burns away.”
You see, she was amazing, of course.
Though I understand how much
she went through.
She had a love of life.
What really hit her was
when she didn’t act for a long time.
Everyone has their own fate.
And the sacrifices she made in the name of,
let’s call it art.
But she wasn’t just some actress,
she was of a special kind.
Unfortunately, in our country
there are so few
films where she could show her talent.
Well, "Carnival Night", you know,
but where else?
But she showed herself even in dramas.
Like "Five Evenings"?
How I love that film.
How I love her in it, adore her.
- "Twenty Days Without War."
- Yes.
Everyone thought, well,
since you were in "Carnival Night",
we won’t give you roles like that,
and if we do, only something trivial.
Of course that’s unfair. But oh well.
And in that sense, your stories are very
similar, at least in the beginning,
when there was that
article about how everyone
feared a cult of personality
around Pugacheva.
Because they always thought,
and still think,
that if a person is famous,
they can influence the masses.
But why would I want
to influence the masses?
It’s the masses that influence me.
What to sing, how to behave,
all of that.
But for me the main thing was
to be happy myself on stage and
to make someone in the audience
just a little happier.
But it was always like that,
I don’t know why.
Some people think differently.
The person who truly was your friend —
Galina Borisovna Volchek.
- That’s when you were friends.
- Yes.
Do you often think now about what choice
she would have made in 2022?
I don’t think about that at all.
I think about how sad
it is that she’s gone.
Choice, choice.
I think she would have done
what was best for the theater.
She had her age,
her responsibility for the theater.
She probably wouldn’t have gone
against the grain.
So what? There’s your choice.
She had done so much, she wouldn’t have
needed to choose anymore.
She would have just lived on.
That’s what I think.
Maybe she would’ve been offended
if she heard me say that.
That’s what I think.
But I have an amazing woman,
Tatyana Tarasova,
who, my God, knows how to support.
And directly so.
- Fearlessly.
- Fearlessly.
Now, unfortunately,
in our country, in Russia,
people are driven by fear —
fear of humiliation, fear of loss.
But how not to understand that?
It’s understandable,
though some live differently.
But why destroy, humiliate someone
who wants
to live differently,
to think differently?
Everyone has their own point of view.
I respect yours,
why don’t you respect mine?
Well, maybe that will come.
I’d like to live to see a world
that’s changed for the better —
peaceful, kind,
intellectual, decent — where people
wouldn’t count others’ money,
but would earn their own
beautifully and with dignity.
But not like it is now.
Now it’s like,
“Oh, you’re rich, let’s quickly…”
No, but there are still differences, like,
those who support get paid more, and
those who don’t should starve.
It’s all fine when Gazmanov
does push-ups on Red Square,
on stage, where they’re all
cheering the annexation of Crimea.
Gazmanov always did push-ups
and supported
where there was power and money.
Always, as long as I can remember,
he’d support a mayor,
like when there were mayoral elections,
different candidates,
and Luzhkov told me, “Clever guy,
he made money off me
to support me, and guess what,
he also made money off others
to support them too.”
Honestly, I even envied
that he could do that.
Well, that’s Olezha for you,
that’s Olezha.
The fact that he talks badly
about our family
does surprise me a bit.
He’s not such a primitive person,
you see, to just
say outright, “They can’t be supported,
I won’t support them.”
I won’t support them.
I immediately think, really,
do you have nothing
good to say about us?
Even about me personally.
Because when I first met him,
he was the one
who brought me two songs — “Yesaul”
and another one he sings.
“Squadron of My Wild Thoughts.”
I said, “These songs you brought me?
I don’t know yet, I’ll try them on,
but honestly, I don’t know
how I’d sing them.
It’s not quite me,
don’t be upset, Olezha.”
And he said, “Well, if it works out,
then maybe.
If not, well then no,
but I’d be happy if it did.”
I’d be happy if it did.
And what’s with your voice?
“My voice is gone,
I don’t know why.
For years I’ve been speaking
like this, and
it’s just hard for me to talk at all.”
I said, “Let’s go.”
And I took him to the Bolshoi Theater clinic,
they had such wonderful specialists there,
and after a while they restored
his voice.
I was very happy for him,
and of course
he came back and said,
now I can sing.
I gave him those songs,
even backed him up
— I sang backing vocals
on his recording.
So I don’t know why talented people
aren’t talented in how they treat others.
If someone ever did something
for me in life,
even if something later happened to them,
I’ll still remember it,
and every time say, well,
I don’t demand
that people talk about it,
but at least remember,
remember — for me it’s
strange otherwise.
Do you think talent
and kindness are connected?
Ranevskaya already said that.
I look — a fool through and through,
yet talent like a pimple on the nose.
And what to do?
I love him and will support him.
I believe talented people
should be protected.
But could it be that the Lord takes away
a person’s talent for bad deeds?
Honestly, I suppose that could happen.
When commandments are broken,
probably,
God does punish somehow.
I know such examples, but I won’t
name those vile names.
I think we just thought
of the same one.
Well, I always wish people health,
even if
what they did was disgusting.
Health is so precious,
especially with family, children.
But yes, you’re right.
For me, it was psychologically
very important when
you had already sort of left,
but still
you returned to Russia for one day,
for Yudashkin’s funeral.
Why?
Because he was my closest friend.
I adored him, and he adored me too.
And he came to Israel
to say goodbye, because
he said, “I’ll be leaving soon,”
and we took a picture.
He said goodbye, left, and died.
I couldn’t not go.
But your coming wouldn’t
change anything for him.
So it was for you?
Who knows?
Maybe he would have been upset
if I hadn’t come.
- Were you afraid to go back?
- No.
What should I be afraid of?
What did I do that I shouldn’t return?
I often went home to my village, Gryaz,
just to tidy things up a bit.
So I’d stop by, check, and leave.
But now there’s nothing
for me to do there.
Why would I go?
- When was the last time you were there?
- Long ago.
I think last summer
I stopped by the studio.
Ah, so all these songs were recorded
in Russia at the studio?
Yes.
But I have a secret way.
Once I broke it, with that studio,
a mistake happened.
They saw me.
Otherwise, no one noticed.
Those two songs you recorded —
“Mama” and “Kiss.”
Yes.
Why?
Those verses “Mama”
just suddenly came to me.
Well, obviously, it’s the war, and
I felt sorry for the people,
for the mothers, for the sons.
That situation itself — I always relive it.
From the bottom of my heart I feel
it’s wrong, wrong, wrong.
And so I wrote the verses.
And I wanted to write them very simply.
So it would sound like just
a person talking.
Without any elaborate poetry.
And it turned out that I…
Where was it, Liza?
Where?
- In Cyprus or where?
- In Cyprus.
Yes.
And I read that poem to our
assistant Oksana.
And I saw how deeply it moved her,
and it moved me too.
Just by looking at her.
And when Andrey Misin suggested
composing music for it —
he’s a genius.
You see?
He’s a genius.
It’s not so much the text,
but the music,
the music he put under it.
Every time I listen, I cry.
Every time.
Everyone who hears it cries.
Yes. That’s it.
No exceptions.
And you know, that’s good.
Sometimes people need
to cry to a song.
I don’t read the comments
about it, but
I just judge by the people
who have heard it.
In front of me,
and then they’d call later.
And especially that song struck
a chord, oddly enough.
"Believe it or not."
Honestly, I already…
Hello, hello.
I sang it a bit later,
because I had to.
It’s a sacred holiday for me,
Victory Day.
And I thought I should dedicate something.
Believe it or not,
Wings are easy to fold.
Some fear death,
And some fear to live.
How they always called themselves —
The men. The veterans.
I don’t really count on
whether it will be accepted or not.
At least not right now.
The main thing for me is
that it exists.
And maybe people liked it.
I only listen to what people
around me say.
The military.
They asked my friends to tell me
that it was just amazing.
It was nice. That pleased me.
I thought it wouldn’t land.
If we talk about three happy days, then
in this third age, which few
know well, what was the happiest day?
The third age is
when you’ll interview me at 100.
Or 99.
- That’s extra?
- No.
Like a bonus, right?
But one should aim for it.
I can’t answer that question,
because I am happy.
I have those days as they should be.
They exist.
I don’t have that “Oh! Finally!
I’m happy!
Happiness has come to me!”
I’m happy all the time.
They don’t really stick out for me.
It’s like a little bubble.
Happy days.
I even have a song like that.
“Happy Days.”
If I say “home” to you now,
what comes to mind right away?
- The first thing.
- We have one home.
The village, Gryaz.
It still doesn’t fade away.
Why doesn’t it fade?
Who would erase it? Why erase it?
Especially since I walk there
with Liza.
What home?
Home is where there’s family.
Yes. Where there’s family.
Ah, so that’s another,
mobile version of home.
Mobile in what sense?
That’s how I always hear
about this house.
They don’t let me forget it.
But why? It just stands there.
And why did they decide
we should sell it?
First of all,
they won’t even let us sell it.
But do you believe you’ll return
there someday?
I don’t make such predictions at all.
We live on.
I think one day the children
will visit the house.
They’ll make a museum of love there.
Plenty of photos. Not for free.
Admission will cost a little money.
Motherhood at 20,
and motherhood at 60 —
how are they different,
apart from age?
Probably age makes the difference,
because you
value those moments more.
You’re not in a hurry.
You’ve done everything.
You can give yourself
to your children completely.
With Kristina, it was hard,
because even though
I loved her, I still raised her
in such a way that, God forbid,
if something happened to me —
I was always flying —
she wouldn’t be traumatized.
She knew she had to keep living,
doing things.
Otherwise what?
That I loved you in vain,
that you’re so weak?
That I’ll watch from heaven
and be glad.
So that’s how you see it?
- How else?
- That’s far too farsighted.
You see, I had cases in life when,
at school, I saw how
when one boy’s mother died,
he was so attached to her,
he nearly killed himself.
He stopped going to school.
And I, and his classmate, told him,
"How can you let your mom down
like that?
She’s still alive.
She has another life now,
she sees you.
Why would you upset her like that?
We don’t know how it is there.
I only know one thing — that your mother
sees, hears, and feels it.
How can you do that?"
And it was like he woke up.
He was like…
“Mom, that’s it! Enough!”
I can’t even recall it
without tears welling up.
They just come to my eyes.
And you decided to carry
this experience into your own life?
Yes, more with Kristina,
let’s say, because,
well, here too I always tell them,
"Whether I’m here or not,
I need to know
that you, as I say,
I must have time to tell you how to live."
He says, "Why are you nagging?"
I say, "I must have time."
So no, we talk about it calmly.
And it even prolongs my life.
It makes me calmer.
- Are you afraid of death at all?
- No.
Why should I be afraid? No.
I don’t want to be helpless,
and I don’t want
to be in terrible pain.
That I don’t like.
But otherwise?
I would like — well,
who knows what I want —
but beautifully, in old age,
among my loved ones,
to fade away like a candle.
- Beautifully?
- Very.
That’s how it will be.
With what music playing?
Just not my own songs.
No. Why?
But what then, really?
Well, Mozart’s "Requiem,"
something like that.
- Whoa!
- What?
Yeah, that’s cool.
I think that’s what heaven looks like.
Yes, like that, divine.
- Divine.
- Yes.
See? It’s just the refraction of light.
And what do you think?
What’s after death?
Life.
- What kind?
- A new one.
Were you in doubt?
I don’t know.
No one knows.
No one’s returned.
No one knows, but you know,
when I really want it
to be that way, it will be.
I don’t even doubt
that the soul is immortal.
Anyway, we’ll sort it out there.
I think otherwise it would be…
I’ll send you a note,
tell you what it’s like.
So what turned out to be
the most important in life?
Love, of course. Family.
Family, love, fans, the audience.
That’s all. Love is God.
That’s everything, you see?
And if you have that,
then that’s happiness, of course.
And do you still have any unforgiven things,
unresolved grievances?
No.
And how can you take revenge?
Simply by not being like them.
That’s a good way to take revenge.
Not being like them, that’s all.
Life is beautiful, honestly,
in all its forms.
It’s beautiful even in sorrow
and in everything,
because you realize that
even some kind of
emotional trauma forces you
to defend against it,
and you gradually become stronger,
stronger, stronger.
And now your connection
with your audience —
do you think you’ve lost it?
If you could say something to them,
to the people in Russia
who still love you,
and who, by the way, now in some sense
risk prosecution,
remember they wanted to criminalize
listening to your songs?
Beat your own so others are afraid.
And to my audience I can only say,
thank you for the happiness
of sharing with you.
Thank you for mutual love
and support through all the years,
through all these five decades.
Thank you for still being with me now.
And you don’t even need to say it,
be silent, I know it.
It’s hard.
I love them.
I love them and I suffer because of them.
Because I worry for them, you see.
How can they live like this?
They’re told that this is good.
And they take pride in it.
They don’t know history.
They take pride in history.
They don’t know that we have
no medicine, no drugs.
They take pride in healthcare.
All this showiness.
It’s a tragedy, of course.
We’re for, we’re for, we’re yes.
Guys, learn to tell the truth.
Learn to strive for what’s good,
kind, and beautiful.
There’s no need to destroy.
You need to create, create.
You need to pray for peace,
not savor war.
And don’t think badly of people,
if you don’t know them.
There was a joke back in Soviet times.
Not today’s.
They announced all over the country
that at 7–10 in the morning
everyone must be on Red Square.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re going to hang everyone.”
- Any questions?
- Yes.
“What’s the question?”
“Should we bring our own ropes
or will they be provided?”
That’s such a patient people,
ready for anything.
Please choose: justice or mercy?
Justice.
Because that’s mercy too, you see?
How can you be merciful
if you’re not just?
For me it’s not a choice.
Justice and mercy go hand in hand.
Freedom or security?
Freedom, of course.
But again, freedom, when you feel
that your freedom is in danger,
then naturally
the desire to safeguard
your freedom is there.
I can’t choose like that.
I’m a person of nuance.
For me it’s very important,
as an artist, Luiza Elber,
I always said I am not singer
Alla Pugacheva,
I am artist Luiza Elber,
avant-garde artist
from Champagne province.
It came to me like a vision,
many know this,
fans know this.
When’s the exhibition?
For it to happen, it needs to start.
Garik and I have already agreed,
he’ll try everything in the club.
Truth or safety?
Again this danger, not danger,
everything is danger.
Everything right — justice,
happiness, and
safety — are things to strive for,
not choices to make.
How can you choose?
That’s the scariest question.
Homeland or truth?
Homeland.
And where there’s homeland,
there must be truth,
so it’s not forbidden.
You see?
That’s important.
Where can you hide from truth?
So homeland can wait, of course.
Even if it doesn’t wait for me,
let it know
that I loved Russia with all my heart.
I love it.
Well, I’ll say it later.
It’s just a mood.
When I’m sad, then I’m sad.
It flows out by itself, you see?
No need to play anything by the notes.
I loved everyone.
I liked everything so much.
And I can’t keep in my heart
any vengeance or hatred,
because it’s very
bad for your health, for your mind.
So I don’t recommend it to anyone.
You need to rejoice, rejoice.
Every moment of this life.
Who knows what you’ll see tomorrow.
And of course, over these years,
if at least
something remains in your hearts,
then I wish for no greater
reward for myself.
Don’t worry about me.
I am calmer than ever.
I just dreamed of a battle.
In it, you carried me out of the fire.
Don’t worry about me.
I am ready for any fate.
What is given by God cannot be changed.
And you cannot betray yourself.
Do you see the wings behind my back?
I always fly toward the light.
Because, because I have no other path.
Do you see the wings behind my back?
I will not throw myself down like a stone.
Because, because I live for an encore.
Don’t worry.
I live for an encore.
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