Bella Akhmadulina: biography, personal life, family, husband, children - photo. Bella Akhmadulina raised adopted children Bella Akhmadulina's daughter Anna Nagibina
Bella Akhmadulina is a Russian poetess, writer and translator, one of the greatest lyric poets of the 20th century. Her poems have become a kind of anthem of the Soviet era, the difficult life in this period, and some kind of soul-crushing loneliness.
Akhmadullina's rhymes were heard even by those who never picked up collections of her poems, because the best Soviet films are saturated with them. For example, the poem “On my street that year ..” became a romance performed by Alla Pugacheva in everything known, and one of the most beloved films of the Soviet era, “Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath!”.
Height, weight, age. How old is Bella Akhmadulina
She began writing her first poems back in 1955, but even then her naive and touching lines attracted the attention of the public and other, more eminent authors. At that time, nothing was known about the young poetess, but today she is famous in all countries of the former USSR, so you can find out everything about the writer, even such trifles as height, weight, age. How old Bella Akhmadulina was at the time of her death is also not a universal secret.
The poetess died in 2010, at the age of 73, leaving behind an invaluable contribution to an entire era.
Biography of Bella Akhmadulina
The biography of Bella Akhmadulina originates in 1937 in Moscow. The girl began to write her first timid poems, filled with youthful experiences, quite early, and already at the age of 15, as literary experts say today, she found her own style. Bella was a member of the Literary Association and after school she really wanted to enter the faculty of the Literary Institute. The girl's parents dreamed that she would enter the faculty of journalism, but Akhmadullina failed her exams, after which she went to work for the Metrostroyevets newspaper, entering the institute only the following year. That time knows many tragedies, Bella saw them too. As a university student, she refused to sign Boris Pasternak's letter of accusation, after which she was expelled. Of course, the official reason is that she did not pass the exam. But Akhmadullina still graduated from the institute, later she was restored.
In 1962, she released her first collection, and then another, and another. In total, the poetess published 8 collections of poems in Soviet times, and Akhmadullina herself spoke out more than once in support of writers who were unreasonably accused of anti-Sovietism. In 1993, she signed the Letter of Forty-Two.
On November 29, 2010, Bella Akhmadulina died. The grave, the photo of which is on the poet's Wikipedia page, is located at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Bella Akhmadulina's personal life
The personal life of Bella Akhmadulina, like her poems and rhymes, is full of tragedies.
The poetess was officially married four times, and between these cliches in her life there were other men. She was loved, admired, she was literally carried in her arms, but as in the lives of other great and famous women, Bella always faced the fact that each of her husbands lived with a poetess, and not with a woman. It just so happened that every love of Akhmadullina broke her heart, and being the wife of public people and writers, who, it would seem, should understand the essence of her life and existence like no one else, were not ready for the fact that Bella had her own opinion and vision. Everyone tried to remake her, but you just had to love.
Bella Akhmadulina's family
The writer was born in a difficult time, all her childhood is closely connected with the war. Her father, Akhat Valeevich, was a party and Komsomol worker, and when the girl was only two years old, he was called to the war, where he served as a major of the guard.
The mother of the poetess, Nadezhda Makarovna, was a translator in the state security agencies, as well as the niece of the revolutionary Alexander Stopani. During the war, Bella, along with her maternal grandmother, was evacuated to Kazan, and returned home only after the end of the war. The family of Bella Akhmadulina saw that the girl was going through the consequences and sorrows of the war, she was more comfortable alone, and she devoted all her free time to writing poetry, but at that time they could not even suspect that soon everyone, young and old, would recognize her name .
Children of Bella Akhmadulina
They say that creative people are completely unsuited to everyday life, and even more so to raising children. This has already been said more than once by those who themselves are a creative person, and by those who were brought up in a family of people of art.
The poetess has one daughter, Elizabeth, who was born in the third marriage of the writer. But before that, Akhmadullina took up a girl from an orphanage, Anna, who, in other respects, did not become native to the poetess. The children of Bella Akhmadulina, after she married for the fourth time, stayed with the mother and father of the poetess, and were brought up by them to the end.
Bella Akhmadulina's daughter - Elizaveta Kulieva
The daughter of Bella Akhmadulina, Elizaveta Kulieva, is the only daughter of the great poetess, she was born in 1973. The girl lived with her mother for some time, and then was raised by her grandmother. Despite the fact that the daughter of the poetess was left to herself for most of her childhood, the woman has no offense at her mother, she always understood her subtle mental organization and once said that her mother "was an elf."
Last year, the daughter of the famous writer presented a book about her mother, Bella. Meetings after” in the presidential center of Boris Yeltsin. The woman told the main milestones in the life of Akhmadulina.
Former Husband of Bella Akhmadulina - Evgeny Yevtushenko
Bella Akhmadulina's ex-husband, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, became her first love. She was 25 years old, and the two poets were attracted to each other, as if different poles of magnets. Yevtushenko was the first to appreciate her poetry ten years ago, and their romance began much later. They met at the institute and then their relationship was only friendly, until Eugene timidly confessed his love to the girl.
They lived in perfect harmony, the husband literally looked into his wife's mouth, writing down his words of love in poetry. Soon Bella became pregnant, but despite the love, Yevtushenko was not ready for this. He forced his wife to have an abortion, this was the beginning of the end of their marriage.
Former Husband of Bella Akhmadulina - Yuri Nagibin
The ex-husband of Bella Akhmadulina - Yuri Nagibin is a Russian journalist, writer, screenwriter. Immediately after the divorce, the poetess met her second husband, with whom she went down the aisle in 1959. He was a famous womanizer, and women fell right at his feet. Bella became the fifth wife of the prose writer, but not the last.
They lived in marriage for 9 years, and then, as Nagibin's next wife later said, Yuri found his wife in bed with a woman. Whether the sexual experiments of the poetess were true or a blatant lie of the new wife of a genius, no one will know, only the fact remains: Akhmadulina did not want to leave her husband, it was he who filed for divorce after 9 years of marriage. After that, Bella adopted a girl, Anna, from an orphanage, who later lived with her mother.
Former Husband of Bella Akhmadulina - Eldar Kuliev
The ex-husband of Bella Akhmadulina, Eldar Kuliev, became her salvation after the second divorce. At that time, Bella was very disappointed in the institution of marriage, regretted that she had an abortion from Yevtushenko and was in the wildest depression. Where did this young man come from, 17 years younger than the poetess, none of Akhmadulina's entourage knew, but they became friends and for some time simply maintained friendly relations, and soon Bella became pregnant, so their romance was revealed.
Evil tongues say that Bella and Eldar often got drunk, and even the birth of their daughter did not affect their lifestyle, which is why the girl was sent to her grandmother. The relationship of this couple ended immediately after the birth of their daughter, and a year later Bella was married for the fourth time.
Bella Akhmadulina's husband - Boris Messerer
Bella Akhmadulina's husband, Boris Messerer, became her last man, with whom the poetess lived until her death. She probably really loved him, since she had been married for so many years, although witnesses of their lives say that Boris was always a more loving and caring husband than Akhmadulin's wife. But next to him she was a hospitable hostess, although a housekeeper had already appeared in the house at that time, so her husband protected the poetess from her unnecessary life.
The love of Akhmadulina's wife manifested itself even after her death. The man created a monument to his wife and the great poetess, which was installed in Tarusa in 2013.
Bella Akhmadulina love poems best read online
During her life, the poetess wrote many touching poems, which can still be heard today in various Soviet films. "Office Romance", "Irony of Fate", "Cruel Romance" ... this is not a complete list of everyone's favorite films in which lines from Akhmadulina's poems are set to music.
Repeatedly the poetess wrote poetry to her beloved, for example, Yevtushenko. And although in the collections of poems of the poetess there are completely different topics, from loneliness to the country, many believe that the best of the works written by Bella Akhmadulina are poems about love. You can read the best online directly on the Internet, where today you can find many works of the deceased poetess.
Instagram and Wikipedia Bella Akhmadulina
The poetess was repeatedly criticized by the Soviet government for her bold poems and rhymes, but the poetess did not stop writing.
The writer was a man of the old school, and even though she loved to communicate with readers at one time, even in the 2000s, when many online resources had already appeared, she did not use the Internet, so her pages are neither on social networks nor on Instagram. Both Bella Akhmadulina's Wikipedia and the site about the life of the famous poetess www.abella.in/ will tell a lot of interesting things to admirers of her talent and lines.
Bella Akhmadulina is a Russian poetess, writer and translator, one of the greatest lyric poets of the 20th century. Her poems have become a kind of anthem of the Soviet era, the difficult life in this period, and some kind of soul-crushing loneliness.
Akhmadullina's rhymes were heard even by those who never picked up collections of her poems, because the best Soviet films are saturated with them. For example, the poem “On my street that year ..” became a romance performed by Alla Pugacheva in everything known, and one of the most beloved films of the Soviet era, “Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath!”.
Height, weight, age. How old is Bella Akhmadulina
She began writing her first poems back in 1955, but even then her naive and touching lines attracted the attention of the public and other, more eminent authors. At that time, nothing was known about the young poetess, but today she is famous in all countries of the former USSR, so you can find out everything about the writer, even such trifles as height, weight, age. How old Bella Akhmadulina was at the time of her death is also not a universal secret.
The poetess died in 2010, at the age of 73, leaving behind an invaluable contribution to an entire era.
Biography of Bella Akhmadulina
The biography of Bella Akhmadulina originates in 1937 in Moscow. The girl began to write her first timid poems, filled with youthful experiences, quite early, and already at the age of 15, as literary experts say today, she found her own style. Bella was a member of the Literary Association and after school she really wanted to enter the faculty of the Literary Institute. The girl's parents dreamed that she would enter the faculty of journalism, but Akhmadullina failed her exams, after which she went to work for the Metrostroyevets newspaper, entering the institute only the following year. That time knows many tragedies, Bella saw them too. As a university student, she refused to sign Boris Pasternak's letter of accusation, after which she was expelled. Of course, the official reason is that she did not pass the exam. But Akhmadullina still graduated from the institute, later she was restored.
In 1962, she released her first collection, and then another, and another. In total, the poetess published 8 collections of poems in Soviet times, and Akhmadullina herself spoke out more than once in support of writers who were unreasonably accused of anti-Sovietism. In 1993, she signed the Letter of Forty-Two.
On November 29, 2010, Bella Akhmadulina died. The grave, the photo of which is on the poet's Wikipedia page, is located at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Bella Akhmadulina's personal life
The personal life of Bella Akhmadulina, like her poems and rhymes, is full of tragedies.
The poetess was officially married four times, and between these cliches in her life there were other men. She was loved, admired, she was literally carried in her arms, but as in the lives of other great and famous women, Bella always faced the fact that each of her husbands lived with a poetess, and not with a woman. It just so happened that every love of Akhmadullina broke her heart, and being the wife of public people and writers, who, it would seem, should understand the essence of her life and existence like no one else, were not ready for the fact that Bella had her own opinion and vision. Everyone tried to remake her, but you just had to love.
Bella Akhmadulina's family
The writer was born in a difficult time, all her childhood is closely connected with the war. Her father, Akhat Valeevich, was a party and Komsomol worker, and when the girl was only two years old, he was called to the war, where he served as a major of the guard.
The mother of the poetess, Nadezhda Makarovna, was a translator in the state security agencies, as well as the niece of the revolutionary Alexander Stopani. During the war, Bella, along with her maternal grandmother, was evacuated to Kazan, and returned home only after the end of the war. The family of Bella Akhmadulina saw that the girl was going through the consequences and sorrows of the war, she was more comfortable alone, and she devoted all her free time to writing poetry, but at that time they could not even suspect that soon everyone, young and old, would recognize her name .
Children of Bella Akhmadulina
They say that creative people are completely unsuited to everyday life, and even more so to raising children. This has already been said more than once by those who themselves are a creative person, and by those who were brought up in a family of people of art.
The poetess has one daughter, Elizabeth, who was born in the third marriage of the writer. But before that, Akhmadullina took up a girl from an orphanage, Anna, who, in other respects, did not become native to the poetess. The children of Bella Akhmadulina, after she married for the fourth time, stayed with the mother and father of the poetess, and were brought up by them to the end.
Bella Akhmadulina's daughter - Elizaveta Kulieva
The daughter of Bella Akhmadulina, Elizaveta Kulieva, is the only daughter of the great poetess, she was born in 1973. The girl lived with her mother for some time, and then was raised by her grandmother. Despite the fact that the daughter of the poetess was left to herself for most of her childhood, the woman has no offense at her mother, she always understood her subtle mental organization and once said that her mother "was an elf."
Last year, the daughter of the famous writer presented a book about her mother, Bella. Meetings after” in the presidential center of Boris Yeltsin. The woman told the main milestones in the life of Akhmadulina.
Former Husband of Bella Akhmadulina - Evgeny Yevtushenko
Bella Akhmadulina's ex-husband, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, became her first love. She was 25 years old, and the two poets were attracted to each other, as if different poles of magnets. Yevtushenko was the first to appreciate her poetry ten years ago, and their romance began much later. They met at the institute and then their relationship was only friendly, until Eugene timidly confessed his love to the girl.
They lived in perfect harmony, the husband literally looked into his wife's mouth, writing down his words of love in poetry. Soon Bella became pregnant, but despite the love, Yevtushenko was not ready for this. He forced his wife to have an abortion, this was the beginning of the end of their marriage.
Former Husband of Bella Akhmadulina - Yuri Nagibin
The ex-husband of Bella Akhmadulina - Yuri Nagibin is a Russian journalist, writer, screenwriter. Immediately after the divorce, the poetess met her second husband, with whom she went down the aisle in 1959. He was a famous womanizer, and women fell right at his feet. Bella became the fifth wife of the prose writer, but not the last.
They lived in marriage for 9 years, and then, as Nagibin's next wife later said, Yuri found his wife in bed with a woman. Whether the sexual experiments of the poetess were true or a blatant lie of the new wife of a genius, no one will know, only the fact remains: Akhmadulina did not want to leave her husband, it was he who filed for divorce after 9 years of marriage. After that, Bella adopted a girl, Anna, from an orphanage, who later lived with her mother.
Former Husband of Bella Akhmadulina - Eldar Kuliev
The ex-husband of Bella Akhmadulina, Eldar Kuliev, became her salvation after the second divorce. At that time, Bella was very disappointed in the institution of marriage, regretted that she had an abortion from Yevtushenko and was in the wildest depression. Where did this young man come from, 17 years younger than the poetess, none of Akhmadulina's entourage knew, but they became friends and for some time simply maintained friendly relations, and soon Bella became pregnant, so their romance was revealed.
Evil tongues say that Bella and Eldar often got drunk, and even the birth of their daughter did not affect their lifestyle, which is why the girl was sent to her grandmother. The relationship of this couple ended immediately after the birth of their daughter, and a year later Bella was married for the fourth time.
Bella Akhmadulina's husband - Boris Messerer
Bella Akhmadulina's husband, Boris Messerer, became her last man, with whom the poetess lived until her death. She probably really loved him, since she had been married for so many years, although witnesses of their lives say that Boris was always a more loving and caring husband than Akhmadulin's wife. But next to him she was a hospitable hostess, although a housekeeper had already appeared in the house at that time, so her husband protected the poetess from her unnecessary life.
The love of Akhmadulina's wife manifested itself even after her death. The man created a monument to his wife and the great poetess, which was installed in Tarusa in 2013.
Bella Akhmadulina love poems best read online
During her life, the poetess wrote many touching poems, which can still be heard today in various Soviet films. "Office Romance", "Irony of Fate", "Cruel Romance" ... this is not a complete list of everyone's favorite films in which lines from Akhmadulina's poems are set to music.
Repeatedly the poetess wrote poetry to her beloved, for example, Yevtushenko. And although in the collections of poems of the poetess there are completely different topics, from loneliness to the country, many believe that the best of the works written by Bella Akhmadulina are poems about love. You can read the best online directly on the Internet, where today you can find many works of the deceased poetess.
Instagram and Wikipedia Bella Akhmadulina
The poetess was repeatedly criticized by the Soviet government for her bold poems and rhymes, but the poetess did not stop writing.
On April 10, Bella Akhmadulina would have turned 75 years old. This is the first anniversary without her. She left in the fall of 2010. On the eve of the birthday of the poetess, our correspondent met with close people of Bella Akhatovna and found out many details of her biography, which until now only the closest knew about.
First of all, I decided to call the daughters of Bella Akhatovna - the eldest, 43-year-old Anna, and the youngest, 38-year-old Liza. It seemed to me that it was they who could best tell what their wonderful mother was like.
- Call your mother's husband - Boris Asafovich Messerer. He is an excellent storyteller, - answered the eldest daughter of the poetess Anna and, referring to employment, said goodbye.
And here I am at Povarskaya, 20, in the very workshop where the love of the poetess and the artist was born. Around are antiques, gramophones, typewriters, cabinets, the skin of a polar bear, which has turned brown from time to time. There are books on the huge table, there are jars of tea, coffee, mugs, a bottle of cognac - a creative mess.
“Sit down, but nothing good will come of our conversation,” the owner warned. - Now people will come to me, and I will also have to devote time to them.
- Boris Asafovich, how do you live? I asked.
“Like a city madman,” the widower replied. “A year and a half without Bella, that’s what I live with,” he said in a whisper, picking up an unopened bottle of cognac.
The workshop quickly began to fill with people. While the owner was busy with other guests, I looked around. My eyes fell on the handwritten text. A yellowed leaf, covered with flies, is pinned to the ceiling with huge nails. These are the very verses that Akhmadulina, having been here for the first time, dedicated to this place and its owner.
Messerer's phone rang incessantly.
- Boris Asafovich, if Bella Akhatovna saw all this excitement before her birthday, how would she react?
“Bella would take this bottle of cognac, drink it faster than me, and run away from everyone,” Messerer said. She didn't like celebrating birthdays. I always ran for groceries myself, invited guests, set the table. Bella also treated gifts quite calmly. She had such an attitude not only to her holiday. She didn't like going to friends' birthday parties. The wife made gifts only to two or three loved ones, and even then not always.
- Did you spoil her?
- Deservedly pampered. I wanted Bella to be beautiful, I bought her very expensive things and jewelry.
Our dialogue with the owner was interrupted by another visitor. A man of oriental appearance appeared on the threshold. The stranger called himself Igor. Meanwhile, Boris Asafovich was distracted by a phone call.
An elderly lady, a literary critic, as Messerer introduced her, who was sitting next to me, immediately asked Igor a question that, frankly, stunned me:
- You, an assistant and friend of Boris Asafovich, are probably aware of when Bella took up her daughters?
“What does it matter now,” Igor replied in an unhappy tone. “Did you come here to find out about this?”
- Aren't Anya and Liza her own children? I asked.
“Well, dear, Bella never gave birth,” said the interlocutor, rounding her eyes. - She had an abortion from her first husband, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and after that she could not get pregnant. She adopted her daughter Anya when she married Yuri Nagibin, and Liza appeared five years later. The girls were brought up by the nanny Anna Vasilievna. Bella was not adapted to everyday life.
- But in the official biographies, - I tried to object, - it is said that from the son of the Balkar classic Kaisyn Kuliev - Eldar Kuliev - in 1973 she gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. The first daughter, Anna, was born in 1968, at the very time when Bella Akhatovna was married to the writer Yuri Nagibin.
“You never know what is written,” the interlocutor interrupted me, “there are Muscovites who have known Bella for a long time and are aware of her dramas that happened in her personal life. Have you ever asked yourself why Messerer hardly communicates with Bella's daughters? Yes, because these are not her girls. Conversely, he has a great relationship with his son Alexander from his first marriage.
Our entire conversation did not go unnoticed by Messerer, but he pretended not to hear anything.
“I know why he called us here,” my interlocutor expressed her opinion. Boris wants to show how busy he is. The life philosophies of Messerer and Akhmadulina were very different, - the lady said with a sigh. Bella had friction with colleagues. In that garbage heap, which is now called the cultural environment, it is impossible to do without conflicts. But Bella never allowed herself to offend a simple person, to show her advantage over others. Messerer, on the other hand, does not shun redneck behavior with people. He is spoiled by the powers that be. I heard that Yeltsin gave him a luxurious apartment. I was in this apartment on the eve of Bella's 70th birthday. Journalists received Messerer. The bedroom door was open. Akhmadulina was sleeping in her clothes, her arms dangling on both sides of the bed. I think she was drunk. She often drank. In 1974, the year she met Messerer, she lost Vasily Shukshin. I heard that she loved Vasily. Once I dared and asked if they were really lovers with Shukshin. Bella, after a pause, said that everything about her relationship with men is written in her poems.
Our conversation with the lady was interrupted by Boris Asafovich. He announced that it was time for him to leave, and we also left the workshop.
I decided to ask Anna directly whether Bella Akhatovna really adopted her. Anya listened to me very calmly.
“Everyone is free to write whatever they want, I won’t comment on it,” Anna Yuryevna answered without a shadow of embarrassment. “Let this information remain on the conscience of those people who spread it,” she said slowly, as if weighing every word. And again she advised me to turn to Boris Asafovich: they say, he knows everything better than anyone. “But don’t flatter yourself about Boris Asafovich,” Anya said, changing her tone. He will certainly give you an interview. Communicate with him, please, if you are ready to become his biographer and writer of everyday life. But keep in mind, this is a person who does not know how to be friends and treat people well. He only makes friends with the people he needs. But I can’t say that at this moment he loves them very much. He does not have that instrument in his soul that people love. This is not given to man!
- Anna, they say that your mother and Boris Asafovich had a different philosophy of life - for example, in relation to people?
- It's true. But my mother had character. She did not tolerate betrayal. Mom was really kind, but not kind.
- Anya, why is Boris Asafovich against me talking to you? Are you on bad terms with him?
- That's not the point. God be his judge. He will tell better than us. But it will be difficult for you to communicate with him if you do not accept that your mother, apart from him, had nothing in her life. Everyone must accept that mom was happy only with him and became what she became only thanks to Messerer. And the fact that Akhmadulina wrote beautiful poems before him, it is better not to mention this in his presence. Tell me, did you ask Boris Asafovich questions about your mother's or his work?
- I asked if the work of Bella Akhmadulina influenced his creative destiny. "Started! These stamps again," Messerer shouted. He turned around and went to the toilet.
- Here you go! This is his typical behavior,” Anya said. And yet he's still smiling. Smiling for others is the main thing. Understand that if your questions deviate from the plot built by him, he is unlikely to be satisfied with this. He has his own version of their life, and everything that does not confirm it, he excludes. This is mythmaking. He drew his own model of his mother's fate in his head. And he continues to draw it to everyone else. It is clear that when my mother was alive, they interviewed her, and not him. Now she is gone. Messerer got access to the media, which is terribly happy. He will tell you about how badly he lives without his beloved, how he suffers, misses Bella. But this situation is very good for him!
- Anna, Boris Asafovich wrote the book "Bella's Flash" in memory of his muse Bella. How do you rate it?
He approached the writing of the book in a very pragmatic way. I was struck by how correctly he gave the title to his work. There is a phrase - "Freudian slips". The title of the book comes from a series of reservations. It was Bella's glimpse there ... In addition, he incorrectly indicated the name of his mother's grandmother. Her last name was Baramova. He wrote - Baranova. “It’s all nonsense that doesn’t matter,” he fumed when I asked him why he wrote that.
Mom has a poem "Coast". She dedicated it to Lev Kopelev. Boris Asafovich took it and changed it. He wrote that it was dedicated to Gumilyov. Mom never dedicated poems to Gumilyov, moreover, she did not treat him as reverently as, say, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Blok, Mandelstam. Boris Asafovich published his book of illustrations about St. Petersburg a year ago, there was a dedication to poets, only there was no Gumilyov. Here he is from his mother's name and "dedicated". "How so?" I asked him. He began to scream. “Why all this pedantry of yours?” It is useless to prove something to him, but in legal language this is called falsification.
- People who knew a couple Messerer - Akhmadulin say that he treated her like a crystal vase?
- Yes! He really bought his mother expensive outfits. But only my mother was a living person, not a vase. It's good when a loving man makes an effort to make his beloved beautiful. But it's better when he makes sure that his woman is happy! For Messerer, the main thing is that everything looks beautiful on the outside.
P.S. The story I heard in the workshop about Akhmadulina's adopted children haunted me. And so I found the literary magazine "Time and Us" No. 140 for 1998. And in it I read an interesting article under the heading “How insignificantly the era ends ...” It contains the diaries of Pavel Antokolsky, a famous Soviet poet and translator who was friends with Bella Akhmadulina. They have such an entry dated April 14, 1968. Bella really took the baby and has already settled in her new apartment on Aeroportovskaya. Added in the comments to this article: "B. Akhmadulina adopted a girl, Anya.
This was the period of her life together with the writer Yuri Nagibin. That is why Anna wears the patronymic "Yurievna". It turns out that in August she took Anya, and in November she divorced Nagibin.
And one more piece of evidence from that time. This is a response to one of the Internet forums dedicated to family issues. Now she is writing an adult woman who, as a child, lived in a dacha in Peredelkino next door to Akhmadulina. As a girl, she was visiting the poetess - at the birthday party of her daughter Liza, she came with a gift. Lisa was upset because of the gift, she did not like it. “But Bella's eldest daughter, Anya, was very happy with us. And Bella was happy with us. She was very kind to us. She played, entertained the kids, arranged quizzes, gave prizes and sweets. Then I learned from a conversation between adults that Anya was adopted, Bella took her from an orphanage, at that time it was a rarity, ”she writes on the forum.
Therefore, in a narrow circle of writers that Akhmadulina raised an adopted girl, they knew for a long time. It's just that this information has not yet gone beyond it. But as for Lisa, is she her own daughter or also adopted, as the lady assures me that she met me in Messerer's workshop, this remains a family secret for now.
Marina Frolova
... Being a guest of Kashif Elgarov, a living legend of our literature, looking at numerous photographs in which the aksakal has been captured for more than six decades, he drew attention to three almost identical photographs taken in the autumn of 1956 on the Red Square of the capital. On them, Kashif, a student of the Literary Institute, is depicted with his teacher, songwriter Alexander Kovalenkov, the author of the lines popular in those years, “The sun hid behind the mountain, / The river rifts were clouded, / And along the steppe road / Soviet soldiers went home from the war”, his wife Elizabeth and classmates - Stas Valis, about whom I did not find any information even on the all-knowing Internet, and Bella Akhmadulina (1937-2010), whose name speaks for itself.
Along with these photographs lay another one taken in the same year, but not in the capital, but in Nalchik. On it next to Kashif (with a stack of books in his hands) are two young guys. These are the Mullaev brothers - Zuber and Boris. The latter is better known as Barasbi, in whose filmography the films Avalanche from the Mountains, Hero of Our Time, Horseman with Lightning in His Hand, Camp Goes to the Sky, Wild Terek, Peaks Don’t Sleep, Wounded stones", "Let's part - while good", "Road to the edge of life" and a number of others.
And who is the boy? I asked more out of curiosity than any interest.
- This is Eldar Kuliev, - answered Kashif.
And the photographs that happened to be nearby formed a mosaic of human fate.
Wikipedia on the personal life of Bella Akhmadulina reports as follows: “From 1955 to 1958, Akhmadulina was the first wife of Yevgeny Yevtushenko. From 1959 to November 1, 1968 - the fifth wife of Yuri Nagibin. This marriage collapsed, according to Nagibin himself in his published "Diary" and Vasily Aksyonov's fictionalized memoirs "Mysterious Passion", because of the bold ... experiments of the poetess. In 1968, while divorcing Nagibin, Akhmadulina took care of her adopted daughter Anna. From the son of the Balkar classic Kaysyn Kuliev - Eldar Kuliev (1951-2017) in 1973, Akhmadulina gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. In 1974 she married for the fourth and last time - to the theater designer Boris Messerer ... The first daughter, Anna, graduated from the Polygraphic Institute, draws up books as an illustrator. Daughter Elizabeth, like her mother, graduated from the Literary Institute.
The site http://sobesednik.ru contains an interview with Alla Grigoryevna Nagibina, the widow of the famous writer Yuri Nagibin. It is full of the most juicy details, which we will omit, and reproduce only the main thing: “In 1967, passions were seething in the company of those whom we now call the “sixties”. Yuri Nagibin put his wife, Bella Akhmadulina, out on the street, firmly declaring: “I will no longer live with you!” - Bella didn't want to leave Yuri. For eight years of marriage, they often parted, once a break in relations reached a year. Therefore, everyone thought: they will rage, rage and reconcile. But Nagibin said: "That's it!"
... Why Nagibin was adamant, it becomes clear if you read a scene from Vasily Aksenov's novel "Mysterious Passion". In it, he described the separation of Yuri Nagibin and Bella Akhmadulina, in the novel he calls her Ahho or Nella: “He opened the door with his key, stepped inside and immediately flew back to the stairwell ... Excessive perfume, excessive coffee, excessive nicotine, excessive cognac ... He reached the living room and playfully called, "Ahho!" The answer was silence, slightly broken by the disturbing female snorer. He stepped into the bedroom and was dumbfounded ... "
Alla Nagibina continues: “Marriage with the son of the Balkar classic Kaysyn Kuliev, Eldar, is the most mysterious in Akhmadulina’s biography. Where this man came from, no one in Bella's company understood. For example, Nagibin writes that he met him in a restaurant, where ... he stood up for a young man. Eldar was 17 years younger than Bella, but they became friends. Maybe that's why, having filed an official divorce from Akhmadulina, Nagibin relented towards her and bought an apartment for her and her husband. - They lived in the same house, on Chernyakhovsky Street, as Yuri and I did.
... Bella did not live long with him.
But it was not the details of the personal life of Bella Akhmadulina and Eldar Kuliev, which, unfortunately, are available to everyone on the Internet, that prompted us to turn to this story, but the interconnection of random, at first glance, episodes that formed its basis.
... Literally a couple of days after the meeting with Kashif, it became known about the death of Eldar Kuliyev on January 14 of this year. The obituary, which was placed by the republican newspapers, said that Kaysyn's son “made a three-episode television film at the Dovzhenko film studio according to his script “Wounded Stones”; his story "Farewell Look" "received recognition in the literary and reader's environment."
On the same day, Sergey Kasyanov, a former resident of Nalchik, who now lives in Moscow and works as a concert director, came to the publishing house. Sergey is a very famous person in pop circles. What he does and who he is is revealed by the information posted on the Center for the Revival of Operetta website: “This man accompanied Alla Bayanova on her creative path for 20 years, helping her organize concerts and creative meetings. With his help, Vladimir Zeldin, Lyudmila Lyadova, Rimma Markova and many other idols of the Soviet era, who found it difficult to adapt to the market realities of the changed country, gathered full houses. He managed to remind the general public of the still talented "old men".
Sergey is responsible for organizational work with creative teams, including tours around the country.”
We have known Sergei for a long time, he took part in a number of our expeditions around the republic, and when he comes to Nalchik he makes himself felt. It was during this visit that he saw the photographs taken from Kashif Elgarov lying on the table and prepared for scanning. He peered and said inquiringly: “Bella Akhmadulina?” A, having received an affirmative answer, continued: “Surprisingly, we just remembered her. The fact is that I brought from Moscow the icon of Bella, which Volodya Mokaev gave her, but it so happened that she could not pick it up. And the icon returned to Volodya again.
But in order for the reader to understand everything in this story, it must be told first.
And it was like that. In 1970, Eldar and Bella arrived in Nalchik. At first they lived in Kaysyn's apartment, but then Akhmadulina (for well-known reasons) moved to the Rossiya Hotel; their room was on the top floor. Young people led a riotous life, and she demanded money. One day, Eldar called Volodya Mokaev, now a well-known artist, poet, musician, museum worker, in a word, a person who was comprehensively developed and creatively accomplished. Volodya and Eldar had known each other since childhood, as they lived in neighboring houses along Lenin Avenue. Mokaev responded to a request to help out financially - he came to the Rossiya Hotel, giving the last triplet. At that time, the amount was quite substantial. Volodya recalls how Bella, standing on the balcony, looked at the mountains, read poetry, ending them with the words: “Pushkin, Lermontov, and now I saw them.”
This was not their only meeting. Unfortunately, the cheerful life continued and the icon that Akhmadulina brought with her went to ensure it. Volodya was asked to sell it. But there was no buyer for this unusual thing, and it so happened that it was left to Mokaev on account of the amounts received from him.
This icon is unusual - from the Russian North, they are called “Northern Letters”. North Russian icon painting is characterized by simplicity of images, brightness and purity of colors. The Akhmadulinsky one depicts Nil Stolobensky (end of the 15th century - 1555), who founded the Nilo-Stolobensky hermitage and canonized as a saint. Neil's asceticism reached the point that he even refused to sleep lying down and, in order not to take a horizontal position, drove stakes into the wall of the cell; leaning on them, and rested. That's why they called him the Stylite. These pegs are also on the icon.
In short, the icon remained in the collection of Vladimir Mokaev. In subsequent years, Bella repeatedly came to Kabardino-Balkaria, they saw each other. At one time there was even talk of publishing his book, which Akhmadulina promised to attach to one of the foreign publishing houses. But this has not yet come to pass.
And then this is what happened. According to Volodya, one night in 2010, in a dream, he heard a voice telling him to return the icon to Akhmadulina. Mokaev told his wife about this, and they both decided that such a dream most likely portends an imminent departure.
Volodya did not even have to think about how to transfer the icon. On the same day at the exhibition in the Republican Museum of Fine Arts in Nalchik. where Mokaev works as the chief custodian, he met a young man who introduced himself as Sergei Kasyanov. During the conversation, it turned out that the concert director is now organizing a creative evening for Bella Akhmadulina. Sergei agreed to hand over the icon.
But this never happened. November 10, 2010 ended the life of one of the most brilliant poets of our country. The icon of Nile the Stylite never returned to her. After the death of Bella, Kasyanov called Mokaev and asked what to do next. Volodya asked to give the icon to his daughter Bella, but she refused to take it, saying that her mother had not told her anything about it.
Neil the Stylite has returned to our city...
... Volodya brought the icon to the publishing house. I held in my hands this small board, blackened from time to time, and tried to understand what was behind this cycle of events: from Moscow to Nalchik, then to Moscow and back to Nalchik; who this shrine was for the one to whom it belonged, why it left her hands and never returned, although circumstances seemed to favor this.
Neil the Stylite could answer my questions, but he was silent: icons do not speak, they only look...
Shortly after the death of Bella Akhmadulina, an interview with her daughter, Elizaveta Kulieva, was published on the Sobesednik.ru website. Here are some snippets from it:
“... Mom was afraid for her insight. It was believed that she, like an x-ray, sees people through. Mom had a definition: "a benign person."
She cracked through the “poor quality” like a clairvoyant. I have always been surprised that vigilance, flair in it in an incomprehensible way are combined with innocence. I did not suspect only its scale. In recent months, when we were in close contact, my mother's disarming credulity downright slayed me at every step.
Usually it all depended on her relationship to the person. If she was disposed towards him, then she trusted him enthusiastically, boundlessly. If a negative attitude arose (and often biased, inexplicable), then - absolute hostility. She was not rude - although she allowed herself to be harsh when confronted with scoundrels. But mother made an aloof, gloomy face, as if expressing: I am so bored with you. The word "boring" was defining in her attitude to a large part of humanity. This does not mean that she despised anyone. I just couldn't find common ground...
... So I'm thinking: what unites the three of us? We are all different - mom, Anya, me. However, there is a family trait, it is not ... bam, genetically transmitted, our mother raised us in such a way that we are not capable of meanness. Both my sister and I do not know how to weave intrigues, to slander. At work, it’s easier for me to directly embed than to act on the sly ... It wasn’t that my mother, for example, said: “Sit down, girls, I will explain to you what is good and what is bad.” Never - in an edifying form, never - notations, but everything she said was about this: a person must be honest, generous; greed, cowardice, vanity are disgusting. By "good quality" was meant openness, inability to betray, the ability to sympathize. I mean, she raised us. Including mentioning situations and her own actions when she showed these traits.
… Only a few months have passed since my mother passed away, and now we just feel a gaping hole in the place of the heart. It seems to me that another six months or a year will pass and I will understand: my mother is in everything that is in the world, around. I will feel it flowing into me, into Anya, into every surrounding thing ... It will be so. In the meantime, her physical absence is a failure, a huge emptiness. And the fact that my mother is a great poet, so from childhood we learned well to separate one from the other. Anya and I do not feel like the children of the great poet, but the children of our mother. And at the same time we know that she is a great poet. For us, it's completely unwoven."
... Bella Akhmadulina left. Gone forever. But they remained, and remained forever, her poems, her unique voice. And an icon that remembers the warmth of her hands.
April 10 is the first birthday of Bella Akhmadulina, celebrated without her. After her departure. The poet, to whom “the task was dictated from heaven,” would have turned 74. A year ago, at about the same time, we agreed with Bella Akhatovna to make a book of conversations. Because of problems with her eyes, Akhmadulina did not write for a long time, but to tell - oh, there was something to tell! She was full of enthusiasm, in great shape. Impatiently, on the phone, she began to talk about what was intended for the book. Then she fell ill ... Now everything connected with the name of Akhmadulina seems especially precious. In Liza Kulieva, the bland resemblance to her mother is not immediately evident. But - some kind of turn of the head, suddenly the same inflection of voice, laughter - and for a moment it’s like Bella in front of you, not repeated (who would dare to encroach on this!), But passing on to the youngest daughter what she herself called "the mark of our unity" . Today, Elizaveta Kulieva, in an exclusive interview with NG, tells what her mother and her sister Anna were like in life.
- A few years ago, in an interview with a magazine that we published, Bella Akhatovna called her love for you meek and added that, apart from this feeling, she does not help you in anything else. How much is Bella Akhmadulina's meek love?
- I will try to explain what, according to my feelings, meek love in my mother's understanding. As a child, she herself suffered from suffocating love, which is characteristic of many parents. This is such an overabundance of feelings, overwhelming with excessive guardianship. Grandmother was a very energetic, strong-willed person. Probably, her desire to penetrate into all the nooks and crannies of her daughter's existence frightened her mother, especially considering the unusual nature of her nature, the subtlety of the psyche, the need to be alone with her thoughts.
Mom lacked personal space, she felt increased care as evil. Therefore, she was always afraid to press on us with her love, she tried to give the children more air. In her case, gentle love meant very strong feelings, but with a minimum of obvious supervision. Mom quite consciously, clearly formulating for herself, gave us considerable freedom.
And did you say it out loud?
- Directly, no. I never complained: as a child I was pressed ... But by her behavior, habits, by the way she valued her own solitude, respected ours, in general, any person, this could be understood.
And "contributed - did not contribute" - a separate issue. Anya, my sister, and I grew up in a specific atmosphere. A dacha in the writers' village, a literary house near the Aeroport metro station ... Everywhere we were surrounded by whimpering, spoiled, dependent "writer's kids". As a child, with adult sarcasm, I called them that, picking up an expression from my mother. This is the rejection of any cronyism, connections, the use of parents' fame - she articulated more than once. It seemed to her ashamed to "enter" the children in the institute, somehow attach them. Can't, can't, can't. Mom was absolutely right. We ourselves decided who we would be, we dealt with our institutions ourselves. Now I'm even proud that I never clung to my mother's name.
- The idea of "heaven's watch" for oneself arose more than once in Bella Akhmadulina's poems. What do you think, now she herself from heaven is guarding you? Protects from various misfortunes "two girls soiled with raspberries"?
– My sister and I are both believers, although in different ways. Anya is inclined towards Orthodoxy, Hinduism is closer to me. I would rather believe in reincarnation than that my mother is watching us from heaven. No, I can't imagine that she is sitting somewhere on a cloud. In my opinion, after death a person ceases to be himself, but his energy remains. Everything, probably, remains, flowing into some other quality.
- What does the physical absence of your mother mean to you - regardless of the fact that she is a great poet? Or is everything so intertwined that even for you one cannot be separated from the other?
– Only a few months have passed since my mother passed away, and now we just feel a gaping hole in the place of the heart. It seems to me that another six months or a year will pass and I will understand: my mother is in everything that is in the world, around. I will feel it flowing into me, into Anya, into every surrounding thing ... It will be so. In the meantime, her physical absence is a failure, a huge emptiness. And the fact that my mother is a great poet, so from childhood we learned well to separate one from the other. Anya and I do not feel like the children of the great poet, but the children of our mother. And at the same time we know that she is a great poet. For us, it's completely unrelated. Yes, and it would be stupid to live, constantly keeping in mind that you are like ... the crown prince.
I was little (six or seven years old) when, after a poetry evening in a huge hall, an unfamiliar woman with bulging eyes ran up to me and shouted: “Do you know that your mother is great ?!” I did not understand what she wanted from me, but I instinctively caught a certain mystery here, even drama. For the first time, people indirectly conveyed to my mind: my mother belongs not only to Anya and me. Of course, I saw: she was standing on the stage, uttering beautiful, incomprehensible words, heard admiring applause, but she did not know how to combine all this with someone else's aunt who jumped out from somewhere. She didn’t know how, and yet she was frightened: something could steal our mother from us.
A kind of confirmation is the story that Anya Feigina, the daughter of the artist Moses Feigin, reminded me the other day. She is like a close relative to us - in childhood we often left her with her. At about the same time, I asked Anya: “Are you famous?” She decided that the loud Akhmadulin glory had managed to spoil me. She replied: “Do you know me? And Anechka? And Bella? I nodded. "Well, that means it's famous." That is, she took my curiosity as wrong, offensive. But now I understand that I meant something else. Apparently, she was worried, suspecting: what if Anya Feigina is also famous? Then she, too, can be stolen?
Your question, if you delve into it, is both conceptual and very personal. My sister and I were just discussing something similar at night. I don't know about the children of other celebrities; We definitely have a mother in the first place. On the day of the funeral, some people, approaching me, said: “Lizochka, we are sorry. The great poet is gone. Why is the poet here? I lost my mother. Bella Akhmadulina will remain in Russian literature. And mom is no more.
- Bella Akhatovna spent her last months with you in Peredelkino at the old writer's dacha. Did you learn something about her that you didn't know before? Have you made little belated discoveries about her character, nature, which is generally not cryptic?
– There were no special discoveries, perhaps. Still, my mother and I have known each other for 37 years. (Laughs.) At the beginning of summer, my mother did not feel well. After the hospital, we decided that it would be best for her in the country. Mom spent the whole day with Katya, the woman who helped in the house. Uncle Borya (Boris Messerer. - "NG") and Anya came from Moscow every day. Volodya, my husband, and I were returning from work at nine o'clock. Mom patiently waited for the evening. The moment when everyone gathers on the veranda at the table. Her voice sounds in my ears, the way she ceremoniously says: “Are we going to have dinner?”, “What are we having for dinner?” In fact, Volodya and I ate meat, some kind of salad, drank wine ... And my mother looked at us and, at best, sipped pioneer jelly. She was on a diet.
Of course, the ritual was observed during a short happy period when her health seemed to be on the mend. Mom joked, fooled around at the table, gently suggested: "Let's tease Volodya." You know, she was largely an artist, she believed that a person is a theater for others, and now - two hours before lights out at 23.00 - she performed with inspiration from the stage, enjoyed being in the spotlight again. She lived in the artistic world, the cultural context was her reality, her habitat, and we, sitting at the table, were more people of a different, modern style. Mom's indescribable monologues in such a rich, concentrated form were almost an overdose. Even I, who had heard a lot about it before, was amazed by these tons of information.
The last one she talked about two days before her death was Cyril Laskari, a famous St. Petersburg choreographer. I briefly dropped that the day before I saw his son, also Kira. We are friends. Mom suddenly came to life, began to remember how Kira was small, how she and Uncle Borey visited Laskari in Leningrad. This city constantly appeared in my mother's conversations. They have a lot of friends in St. Petersburg. In one - the otolaryngologist Alik Levin - we were all directly in love. Such an elegant gentleman with a pipe. Mom called him "doctor ear-throat-legs", because Alik adored the music hall, and his wife Natasha danced in it. And the Lenin hospital, where Alik worked, was ridiculously called the Levin Hospital.
You asked about the discoveries that I made for myself. I don't know what to call this feature... Immediacy? Comradely responsiveness? Cheerfulness? It seems that all this was not news to me. But I was almost confused when I heard how my mother, already completely weak, was talking on the phone with Azarik (Azary Plisetsky is Maya Plisetskaya’s brother and Boris Messerer’s cousin. - “NG”). Azarik works at Bejart's studio school in Lausanne. During his mother's illness, he and Mikhail Baryshnikov made a tour of South America and literally called every other day. Mom loved Azarik very much, his peppy calls with detailed reports on the trip simply extended her life. Shortly before his mother’s death, Azarik called and began to describe: he is now in white pants, sitting under a palm tree, the sun is beating in his eyes, they are drinking coffee ... And my mother, who is ill, cheered up, rejoiced, as if she were enjoying this exotic ... Arriving at the funeral, Azariy remarked: "Bella allowed us to pretend that she did not know ..." Obviously, it was.
Once Azarik told his mother that Baryshnikov was sending her greetings and words of admiration. She reacted so funny: "It's amazing, I thought he didn't remember me." Strange as it may seem, at some stage she really began to feel a little forgotten. Due to vision problems, she did not write: she did not know how to compose "in her mind" - the creative process was firmly connected with her hand, a fountain pen. Mom did not complain, but from the snippets of phrases it was impossible not to understand that she was sad about publicity, from which she had tired before. And he seriously reflects on his significance in literature.
More about discoveries. Or no discoveries? Mom was feared for her insight. It was believed that she, like an x-ray, sees people through. Mom had a definition: "a benign person." She cracked through the “poor quality” like a clairvoyant. I have always been surprised that vigilance, flair in it in an incomprehensible way are combined with innocence. I did not suspect only its scale. In recent months, when we were in close contact, my mother's disarming credulity downright struck me at every step.
Usually it all depended on her relationship to the person. If she was disposed towards him, then she trusted him enthusiastically, boundlessly. If there was a negative attitude (and often biased, inexplicable), then - absolute hostility. She was not rude - although she allowed herself to be harsh when confronted with scoundrels. But mother made an aloof, gloomy face, as if expressing: I am so bored with you. The word "boring" was defining in her attitude to a large part of humanity. This does not mean that she despised anyone. I just couldn't find common ground...
- It is unlikely that you were shy in front of your mother's famous friends, next to whom you grew up. But Bella Akhatovna herself, shyly (or arrogantly) preferring the "distant adoration" of the greats - Pasternak, Akhmatova, perhaps believed that children were supposed to sit quietly and absorb. Did your mother encourage you to be present when the regulars at home were talking?
- We were not specially invited with Anka: let's stay with adults. But there was no “quiet” from my mother’s side either. Huge meetings were held in the room where we are talking. Aksenov, Voinovich, Voznesensky, Rein, Okudzhava… The smoke stood like a yoke. Mom sometimes drove him away with her hand: bad for children ... We were not forced to listen, to sit. When someone paid attention to us, wanted to entertain, play, my mother was pleased. When Anka and I got bored, we got up and went for a walk ...
In Peredelkino, as a rule, they came on weekends and on vacation. And they lived on Chernyakhovsky. With a nanny who was treated like a grandmother. Mom spent most of her time with Uncle Borya on Povarskaya. Clearly, we missed you, we wanted to be together more often, but it happened. The contact still remained constant. We got stuck in the famous workshop for a long time. With us, members of the Metropol gathered there. Of course, we really didn’t understand much, but we noticed the pleasure of adults from work, their enthusiasm. They also observed what happened after the release of the magazine. More precisely, they did not even observe - they felt it for themselves. The people I liked and their children, with whom I was inseparable water, disappeared, evaporated. Voinovich was thrown out of the country, Aksyonov was forced not to return. For me, what happened was a real childhood trauma. I was very friendly with Olya Voinovich and Vanya, the grandson of Maya Aksenova. I will not forget the feeling of terrible loss. I couldn’t fit in my head: why aren’t they there, why won’t they come again, why will I never see them, why can’t I communicate, call?
How was everything explained to us? I don't represent. I felt that my mother had a fear for Anka and me. After all, as they later found out, those who left were threatened, they were blackmailed: be afraid for the children ... Mom diligently protected us from straightforward formulations. I did not want to be drawn into an early conflict with society. I've never heard from her, for example, that the pioneers - g...but. But for some reason we had no doubt: that's exactly what he thinks. In the early 80s, her warning sounded: "Don't, don't with children." Apparently, she was afraid for the child's psyche, she was afraid of splitting: what is it like when they say one thing about the USSR at school, but in real life something else happens - wonderful people are pushed out of the country?
- Did Bella Akhatovna follow how you study? What do you do?
– She even occasionally (laughs) signed my diary. I preferred not to demonstrate it, because I studied poorly. But sister is fine. She was set as an example to me at school, and it terribly angered me. I grew up terribly disheveled, skipped classes, did not do my homework, and treated school ugly. But my mother not only did not scold me - one might say, she deliberately condoned. How many times have I come to the dacha on weekends and stayed until Tuesday. Mom wrote notes to the class teacher that I was ill. She wanted us to stay longer with her, take a walk. She had no doubt that such an innocent lie would not spoil us.
The only one in the family who could be strict was Uncle Borya. As a child, he was an authority for us. Under his influence, I attended art school, he studied with me, dangled in exams. But I'm too lazy to work monotonously, get dirty in clay and paint day after day. I was drawn to writing and drawing. Now is that good period in my life when I can do both at the same time. I am an art director at the oldest Russian advertising agency Begemot, I manage the creative process: together with copywriters and designers, we come up with advertising. And after school, Anka entered the Polygraphic Institute - the art department. So we both kind of followed in the footsteps of our stepfather. Uncle Borya constantly tried to make us disciplined, from the age of three (thanks to him) he forced us to eat with a knife and fork. He just inspired us not to interfere in the conversations of the guests, not to interrupt the adults, in short, to behave sanely.
One summer my parents left for Leningrad. I was nine, my sister was fourteen. We were left with Anel Alekseevna, Uncle Borya's mother. There was a violent clash of two realities: desperately free and another - when children are fed on schedule and put to bed on time. Anel Alekseevna, an exemplary mother and an extremely organized person, sounded the alarm because we did not come home at nine o'clock. We couldn't figure out what the problem was. Mom very early explained to us that you can’t stick your fingers into the socket, run across the road in front of a car and an electric train. We've got it all figured out. Why the extra control? In protest, they poured a pack of salt into the soup that Anel Alekseevna had cooked. Now I realize that we were cruel children: Anel took care of us, tried her best. The offense had no consequences, although my mother probably found out.
Her position that one should not torture children, that any coercion is inhumane, remained unshakable. On the eve of the cold weather, my mother and I went to the commission shop near the Aeroport metro station in search of scarce boots. The high degree of freedom led to a comical situation. I chose the oversized boots. They were amazingly beautiful. But so big! Mom, who always dressed elegantly, tried to dissuade me from a wild purchase, but I insisted, and she gave up, did not pressurize. (Laughs.)
Mom gave us freedom not because of her carelessness or busyness - intentionally. We were very lucky with her, more than anyone in the world. She was a good educator, guiding us in ways that may not be quite traditional, but I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of someone who was brought up traditionally. Yes, my mother was not interested in my grades, did not help with the lessons. She didn't insist: one must definitely read this and that... But she gave the right attitude to literature. I started writing poetry as soon as I recognized the letters - I had not yet gone to school. From the fourth grade she began to study in a literary studio, won children's competitions. Everything happened as if in addition to mom. But who would doubt: clearly under her influence. It seems to me that when I was born, I already knew: literature is great. Names floated in the air: Tsvetaeva, Pushkin, Akhmatova... At the age of ten I was in a hurry: I urgently needed to read Gogol, it was extremely interesting.
By the way, about Gogol. When my classmate at the Literary Institute and close friend Tanya Semilyakina and I contracted to compose stories for girls at the Rosmen publishing house and took the pseudonym Sister Sparrow, I was tormented for a long time: it was spinning in my head - Elizabeth Sparrow, Elizabeth Sparrow ... Where does this name come from? I went to my mother and asked her. Instant reaction! “Not Elizabeth, but Elizabeth. Have you forgotten how Sobakevich wanted to foist Elizaveta Sparrow on Chichikov, passing off a serf as a man? But my mother re-read Gogol many years before me. She had a powerful memory. No wonder I read my poems by heart for miles.
And the fact that you can not learn mathematics, practically - is allowed, was also in the air. Unpedagogical? Irresponsible? But, on the other hand, what did I lose from this? Mom herself complained more than once that she could not count the change in the store, deal with the change. But I know that her thoughts were occupied with other things, she did not want to delve into nonsense, focus on pennies. Mom was a rational person, with a mathematical, paradoxically, mindset. Intelligence quite allowed her to do higher mathematics.
Despite seeming detachment, she was very, very reasonable and positive. Some acquaintances suggested that she would not like my decision to enter the Literary Institute, from which she was expelled for refusing to fit into the persecution of Pasternak. But my mother was always ironic about people who experience the power of the past. She argued that it was stupid to live in memories when you can live today. Settling scores with the Literary Institute, which once had a suffocating atmosphere or, as she called it, "communist nonsense"? What for?
- In general, the educational process, whether or not allowed to take its course, took place. What else did you learn from your mom?
- I suffer from pathological accuracy - definitely in my mother. And Anka does not tolerate a mess. Mom loved order. Perfect order. On the table there were never blockages, a pile of papers. Only a lamp or a candle, a pen and a stack of pages written on one side. Mom wrote on A4 sheets. It was an indispensable requirement for life. In the late 80s, when not only good paper - panties and soap were gone, friends ordered a large thick hardcover book with blank pages for mom from the binder. As a result, anyone began to use it, but not her. First, I composed my first fairy tale and drew illustrations. Then several of our common funny poems with my mother appeared in the notebook. One autumn night at the dacha, she and I came up with a story about the Shy Scarecrow. Mom told her to Evgeny Popov. He decided to continue the tale and wrote it down in a book. A tradition was born: everyone who came to the house began to write in the book - Andrey Bitov, Viktor Erofeev, someone else ...
So I'm thinking: what unites the three of us? We are all different - mom, Anya, me. However, there is a family trait, it is not ... bam, genetically transmitted, our mother raised us in such a way that we are not capable of meanness. Both my sister and I do not know how to weave intrigues, to slander. At work, it’s easier for me to directly embed than to act on the sly ... It wasn’t that my mother, for example, said: “Sit down, girls, I will explain to you what is good and what is bad.” Never - in an edifying form, never - lectures, but everything she said was about this: a person must be honest, generous; greed, cowardice, vanity are disgusting. By "good quality" was meant openness, inability to betray, the ability to sympathize. I mean, she raised us. Including mentioning situations and her own actions when she showed these traits.
What else we definitely took from mom was a good attitude towards dogs. Once upon a time in the winter at the dacha, she cooked a huge tub every day or every other day, throwing everything that was at hand into it: bones, bread, cereals. A giant vat was mounted on a sled, she dragged them, and we, little ones, with bowls, trudged along in the frost from Dovzhenko Street to Lenin Street, where stray dogs were found. Anya took her mother's non-verbalized order as a call to action: go and save! She has her own two dogs, while she takes some strangers to the veterinary clinic, attaches them to acquaintances. I also feel sorry for animals, but now I only have a cat. During her mother's illness, she was nicknamed (mother was amused by this) "mama's cat" because she fawned, sucked up to her and just ran to complain.
Feeling weak, mother did not let go of her old teddy bear. For as long as I know myself, it has existed. As a child, his mother played with him, even took him to the evacuation and brought him back. When we arrived, we got the bear. Seeing him at the dacha, my mother was delighted, she began to feel. It is quite safe, only everything rustles inside. Mom now and then affectionately stroked the glass buttons and said in her indescribable voice: “Oh, how I remember those eyes!”
- Have you ever seen Bella Akhatovna write?
- Mom did not write, being in the same room with us. It would be unnatural. But it happened only once. The two of us rested for more than a month in Olgin near Leningrad. There were no other rooms in the motel, they gave us a double room. Then I saw: my mother sat at the table in the evening and worked all night. I fell asleep - she writes, woke up - she also writes ... However, I was the least bothered by the fact that I was a witness to the sacrament. I was 11, they had a stable at the motel, and horses were all that interested me that summer.
- Bella Akhatovna was distinguished by carelessness in financial matters, littered with fees when they appeared. Of course, during periods of lack of money, “a marvelous selection of divine bounties: iambic, trochee, amphibrach, anapaest and dactyl” rescued her. But was this set enough for a prosaic soup?
- Mom, however, had bad times: they prevented her from working, they did not allow her to publish. She faced great financial difficulties. However, my sister and I rather had nothing to wear - we grew up quickly. The refrigerator has never been empty. Here, my mother somehow contrived to provide us with a well-fed childhood ... But in general, she even cultivated domestic unsuitability in herself. Such a requirement was presented to her by talent. At the first opportunity, mother freed herself from solving material problems, clearing the territory for an intense inner life. Refused the burdensome "option".
- There is a proverb in the East: “Even a black crow says to a crow:“ You are my white one. In your family, it's the other way around. Conscious of her dissimilarity, Bella Akhatovna associated herself with the white crow and grieved that the children were in her. "Irreparable and incredible / in their faces is the meta of our unity." Do you also think that there are “others” in your mother, and this is difficult, you have to live with it?
– The fact that as a child I tried desperately to prove that I was no different from my peers is – in part – an affirmative answer. For a long time, the authorities treated my mother almost as an enemy of the people. We were not initiated into this, but we were not blind. They caught my mother's strangeness, detachment, unsuitability, they knew that she was projecting this onto us with a certain degree of tragedy. Such soil could not be unfavorable for complexes. Stupidity: because of them, I was even embarrassed by my mother's deafening fame, a loud surname. The question "Is it true that your mother is Bella Akhmadulina?" stressed me out. Mom owns the lines: "The one who is alone cannot be counted." She dedicated them to Pavel Antokolsky, but this, of course, is also about herself. However, you understand the pricelessness of singularity when you grow up. A teenager wants to be like everyone else. When I went to school, I envied other children: they are so simple, cool, they won’t want to be friends with me. But they all wanted to. Apparently, only we noticed our dissimilarity.
All this is in the past. If a person does not get rid of childish (overestimated or underestimated) self-esteem in time, he cannot grow up. We were growing up fast. It is common knowledge that all geniuses are children. And since your mother is a child, you become his parents, who have no right to be “other”. They must be firmly on their feet. Probably, at one time we were also unadapted, let climbers through without a queue, could not stand up for ourselves. But life has made its demands on us, and now, I think, we are not lost in the face of challenges. We are earthly. At the same time - smart, cool, perhaps talented ... But we are not a mother. We don't have a gift as stunning as hers. She is a completely different person. Genius. And it would be absurd, not having a mother's gift, to be "other."
- The famous “More and more I am sinless before people, / more and more I am guilty before children”, written when you were very small, did Bella Akhatovna somehow explain to you, who have matured?
- Mom in various forms let us know that she felt guilty. She sighed sadly, then jokingly: “Poor, poor children!” (Laughs.) It happened when we became big, independent ... Somewhere deep in her lived the installation that motherhood is more important than anything in the world. And since the gift insatiably demanded her undividedly, ordered not to be distracted, she reproached herself for depriving us of attention.
I don't think Mom's guilt is justified. She cannot be approached with conventional standards, as if she were a teacher or an accountant. As far as she could, my mother delved into our lives, followed the successes. She admired that I worked hard and hard. When, unable to withstand the marathon at the Rosmen publishing house, I left the race, she began to timidly hope that I would take up serious poetry. She asked: “But you write? Are you writing? Here you need to understand the subtext. Writing was the highest blessing for my mother, just like eating delicious food and drinking excellent wine for a gourmet. Her "do you write?" is equivalent to the concern of an ordinary mother: “Are you full? Have you eaten? However, here, too, my mother did not show "burning guardianship." Meekly - returning to the beginning of the conversation - she hoped that I had the same need to write as she did. But now I hardly write poetry. I understand everything about myself. (Laughs.) I took up prose.
Was there trust between us, which often arises between mother and girls? No. Anya and I protected her from unnecessary details, did not burden her with our problems. Of course, while my mother was relatively healthy, we were not too quivering, caring children. But we always took care of her. So it was accepted in the family. However, my mother saw right through ... In the midst of the last economic crisis, the advertising industry suffered greatly. It has been a difficult period for those working there. And then my mother's call: "You have no money, I know." - "What you? There is. Everything is fine". “You don't have to cheat. Come and take it." How did she learn? Obviously, she was not guided by the fact that the advertising business was almost covered with a copper basin ...
- For some reason, it seems that no matter how many different nuances there are in your life, one poem “Waiting for the Christmas tree” with its endearingly tender refrain “sister and sister”, “daughters Elizabeth and Anna” is able to flood with love all the involuntary gaps that arose in relationship with mom. And you can't stop feeling it. Right?
- Yes. And let everyone envy that my mother wrote us such a poem. This is not only a poem - a moment of celebration. Mom confessed her love to us in her own way. Making fun of the Americans with their invariable in the films: "I love you." - "And I love you". She said: “I don’t want to look stupid like them, but still I love you very much.”
She knew how to celebrate. On New Year's Eve we came to the country. A magnificent spruce was brought into a large room and placed in a corner. It was an obligatory event - until a small Christmas tree was planted under the window. Her mother was presented to her by the worker Zhenya, who, in our absence, looked after the house and the gas boiler. First, my mother put a tip on the Christmas tree from the ground, later she stood on a stool, we climbed onto the chairs. A wire with light bulbs was stretched through the window. We always had felt boots, a lot of pairs. We climbed into them and, falling into the snowdrifts, pulled a wire to the Christmas tree. We tried hard. Although what we were experts in electricity. Considering that we are children, and mother is a poet.
She hasn't been celebrating the New Year with us lately. Became less and less frequent in Peredelkino. We decorated the Christmas tree without mom. See which one is out? Balls can only be hung on the lower branches. This year, for the first time after a long break, they put up a Christmas tree in the room. In memory of my mother. We have two spruce trees growing on the site, interfering with each other. One was damaged. It dawned on me: to die anyway, so let him die beautifully. We carefully sawed it down, brought it into the house, decorated it with toys, colored light bulbs. I had a feeling that my mother was somewhere nearby. Because, except for her, no one in my life dressed up a living Christmas tree.
Information
Visitors in a group Guests can't comment on this post.
