Bulat Okudzhava - Soviet and Russian poet, prose writer, screenwriter, founder of the direction of the author's song. One of his prose works is the story "Be healthy, schoolboy!" - "Arbat singer" and "inspirer of the intelligentsia" dedicated to his sons.
Poetic lines “on the street of my destiny, not everything is sublime and smooth” refers not only to creativity, but also to Okudzhava's personal life. Bulat Shalvovich was officially married twice. The fates of the children born in these marriages have developed in different ways.
Eldest son Igor
In the first family of Okudzhava, the son was born on January 2, 1954 in Kaluga. He and his wife Galina Smolyaninova moved here from the village where they taught after graduating from the philological faculty. Four years earlier, their first daughter died in childbirth, and the couple did not want to stay in Tbilisi, where everything reminded of the tragedy. When, after the XX Congress of the CPSU, the poet's mother was rehabilitated, she returned to Moscow and took both her sons: Viktor and Bulat with her family.
Igor grew up in a creative atmosphere, read a lot, was a musically gifted and well-bred boy. He studied at the 152nd Moscow school, went to the film circle of the House of Pioneers. He was 11 years old when his mother suddenly died, which the relatives hid from the child for a very long time. Galina Vasilievna died at the age of 39, exactly one year after her divorce from Bulat Shalvovich. The wife and son deeply experienced the poet's many romantic adventures "on the side" that destroyed their family.
In the fall of 1965, the boy was taken to Vladivostok, where her husband, mother's sister Irina served. But Okudzhava considered it unacceptable for a child to live in such a distance. Igor's grandparents moved from Voronezh to Moscow to look after him. Bulat did not dare to take the guy into a new family, where another son was born two months ago. And Galina's relatives did not give up the orphan, accusing her father of the tragedy.
In 1972, Igor, together with his school friend Andrei Davidyan, created a VIA, in which the guys performed hits of those years and cover versions of the songs of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple. Then he served in the army on Tiksi, from where he returned home with the profession of "cook". In the rapidly gaining popularity rock group of Alexander Sitkovetskiy "Leap Summer" he did not find a place as a guitarist. Formal reason for refusal: lack of musical education. The failed musician tried different professions: he worked in the Krasnopresnensky department store, at the research institute on the Volokolamsk highway. Beloved Alena appeared, but her personal life took shape. Often, the girls he met would get close to him to see his famous father.
By nature, a kind and soft-hearted guy was weak-willed and easily led, which influenced his future fate. Igor lived in an apartment abandoned by his father during his divorce in the Sovetsky Writer ZhKK on Krasnoarmeyskaya (Aeroport metro station). And the charming handsome man was called the "King of the Airport". The grandfather could not cope with the broken grandson and left Moscow. The guy, left to himself, began to live "on a grand scale", gather noisy companies at home, became carried away by the philosophy of hippies. Due to his addiction to drugs, he was arrested on charges of running a drug den. His father's efforts helped to avoid prison: the punishment was replaced by correctional labor at a tractor plant near Moscow.
In 1984, 30-year-old Igor Bulatovich, who had returned from "chemistry", was given a job by a friend at the Sfera theater as a sound engineer. But there was no prosperity: he got married unsuccessfully, began to abuse alcohol, became seriously ill with diabetes. According to Irina, his mother's sister, for 15 years a curly, black-haired handsome man turned into a gray-haired old man on crutches, with shaking hands and a dull look (due to the onset of gangrene, the leg was amputated above the knee).
The father spent huge amounts of money on the treatment of his son, often took Igor to his place in Peredelkino, but due to his eternal enthusiasm for work, he did not pay due attention to him. The feeling of guilt for this, as well as for the tragedy with his first wife, did not leave Bulat until his death. Igor, who had celebrated his 43rd birthday a week before, passed away on January 11, 1997, five months before the death of Okudzhava. A 1964 poem tells about their uneasy relationship, in which the poet means the eldest son by a toy staunch tin soldier.
Youngest son Anton
The boy, who was named Bulat in honor of his famous father, was born on September 15, 1964, in the then extramarital relationship of Okudzhava with Olga Artsimovich, a strong-willed blonde beauty, the niece of a famous physicist and a fan of the poet. When Bulya grew up, he ironically called himself a bastard and "the fruit of unlawful love", although he was such only 1, 5 months. The birth of a child pushed Okudzhava to part with his first wife. Artsimovich became his life partner for 35 years.
When the son was born, the father was abroad and did not have time to argue to Olga that Bulat Bulatovich was bad taste. Not to mention the author's egocentrism, which she did not take into account. The boy was given the name Anton, which was at first the second, but in adulthood, by his decision, it became final in order to avoid confusion with the famous parent.
In the 1990s, when Okudzhava wrote little, his son created piano versions of his songs, with which they performed together at concerts. The poet loved to go on stage with Anton. He was very proud of the fact that Okudzhava Jr. did not take advantage of either his position or the glory of his father. Sometimes only with irony he complained about the "charming frivolity" inherited from him.
The son grew up as a healthy, tall, handsome Caucasian boy. He became interested in music early, received a special education and became a professional composer. Among his works:
- Track to the first social advertising video of the 90s "Call your parents" by producer Igor Burenkov;
- CD "When Paris is empty" (The last concert of Bulat Okudzhava), 1998;
- Music for the 2001 Russian-Lithuanian film "Lady with glasses, with a gun, in a car";
- Composing, together with Sergei Minaev, songs to the poems of Maylen Konstantinovsky for the audio play "KOAPP", 2008;
- album "Song of Pierrot" (Tribute to the 95th anniversary of Bulat Okudzhava).
Anton Bulatovich Okudzhava is not a public person: he hides his personal life from outsiders, does not participate in large-scale events dedicated to the memory of his father. At the same time, she actively helps her mother in arranging a museum in Peredelkino, writes music to Okudzhava's poems for theatrical performances. He took part in the filming of documentaries about the "sixties": "From Arbat to the first record" (1983, Finland), "My Contemporaries" (1984, director Vladislav Vinogradov), "I am a frivolous Georgian!" (1992), "The Steadfast Tin Soldier of Bulat Okudzhava" (2005).
Poetic dedications to Anton - the father's poems "Soul Conversation with the Son" (1969) and "Arbat Inspiration, or Memories of Childhood" (1980). And the famous story "Be healthy, schoolboy!" addressed to both children of Bulat Okudzhava.
