The group "Laskoviy May" is well known to fans of the national stage of the 1980s-90s. Many songs from the repertoire of "Tender May" are popular today. The names of the group members - such as Yuri Shatunov, Andrei Razin, are known to everyone. But Andrei Gurov - a member of the very first composition of the group and its youngest soloist - was somewhat forgotten. Meanwhile, Andrei Gurov is a talented singer, composer and a very charming person. Fate was merciless to him: at 33, he ended up in prison for manslaughter. But the musician was able to overcome all adversity with dignity.
Childhood and youth
Andrey Alexandrovich Gurov was born on October 27, 1975 in the Stavropol Territory, in the village of Privolnoye. Andrey was the youngest child in the family, his brother Yuri was born four years earlier. The Gurov brothers are one of the few participants in Affectionate May who grew up in their own family, and not in an orphanage.
The Gurovs' father was a football player, in his youth he played in the Dynamo-Stavropol team, then worked as a physical education teacher, and introduced his sons to sports from childhood. Andrei also played football very seriously, played in a team at fairly high-level competitions and even thought about a professional sports career. Later, he also began to engage in martial arts, in particular - classical wrestling.
Music was another hobby of Andrey Gurov. His cousin uncle was a musician, played in the Altair group, and the boy wanted to be like him. Andrey enjoyed visiting the local Sverdlov House of Culture, where he mastered playing such musical instruments as balalaika, piano, guitar. In addition, he attended a drama club, an amateur art circle and performed as a vocalist at discos.
The famous Andrei Razin, the head of Tender May, later worked in the same House of Culture. In those years, he was still a student at the Stavropol cultural enlightenment school and did an internship in Privolnoye, in that very club, and was also the deputy chairman of the local collective farm for supply. Razin met Yuri Gurov, Andrey's older brother, and invited him to play drums as part of the Laskoviy May group, which was just being formed at that time. Later, Razin also invited 12-year-old Andrei Gurov to become the keyboardist and vocalist of the group instead of the departed Konstantin Pakhomov. So the young man ended up in Moscow and overnight became rich and famous.
Tender May
Since 1988, Andrei Gurov's dizzying career began as a member of the "Tender May" group. At first, he only played keyboards, and then began to sing. The fans of the group especially fell in love with the songs "You, Me and the Sea", "Telephone Romance" and others performed by Gurov Jr. The group's popularity grew rapidly, and a boy from a small village had to immediately get used to performing at such huge venues as the Olympic sports complex, the Rossiya concert hall, the Moscow Variety Theater, etc. Andrei recalled that he was very worried, unexpectedly finding himself in front of thousands of fans and female fans.
For four years of work in the group (from 1988 to 1991) Andrey took part in more than 1200 concerts. Constant tours, crazy popularity, crowds of fans, huge money - all this was in the biography of Gurov, then a teenager. In 1991, life in the country began to change dramatically, the popularity of "Tender May" also began to decline. Andrey Gurov left the group to pursue education and get a profession for the future. And in 1992, Andrei Razin at one of the concerts announced the end of the activities of "LM".
After "Tender May"
Since most of the "Mayevs" were still schoolchildren, they were listed as assigned to the Moscow boarding school number 24 on Kakhovskaya, and on tour they were accompanied by teachers who studied with the children according to the school curriculum. So Andrei did not lag behind in his studies, and after leaving the group, he returned to Privolnoye and completed his secondary education. Then he entered the Stavropol Institute named after V. D. Chursin to the Faculty of Law, and a year later he transferred to the newly opened Faculty of Arts at the same university. After graduation, the young man went to serve in the army in the 12th Moscow Air Defense Corps in Rostov-on-Don; in the army, he also played music in a soldier's ensemble.
The money earned in "Tender May", Gurov invested in bank savings, but as a result of default and inflation, all the money depreciated. Returning from the army, the young man found that nothing remained of his former material well-being. But Andrey is not one of those who are discouraged: he tried to work in different places - even as a laborer at a construction site; his dream was to organize his own agribusiness. In addition, he was eager to continue to sing, perform with solo projects.
A tragic turn in biography
In 2000, Andrei moved to Moscow, got married, his wife's name was Aliya. The couple rented apartments in different areas, for some time they lived with their mother-in-law. And suddenly Aliya inherited a room in a communal apartment from her grandmother. It would seem that the ordeal has finally ended and a normal life will begin, the spouses dreamed of a child. But in 2008, a tragic turn took place in Andrey's biography.
The Gurovs' neighbors in a communal apartment - an elderly married couple - turned out to be conflict people, prone to alcoholism, constantly starting quarrels and scandals. In the absence of Andrei, a neighbor started a skirmish with his wife Aliya and beat her. Andrey, having returned home, decided to deal with the neighbor "like a man", a fight ensued, as a result of which the neighbor died. Gurov tried to save the man - he did artificial respiration, called an ambulance, but the tragedy had already happened. The matter was aggravated by the fact that after a while a neighbor, the victim's wife, died - she also abused alcohol and suffered from dementia.
Andrei Gurov was convicted and received six years in a strict regime colony, despite the fact that the amount of alcohol in the blood of the deceased was off scale. Colony No. 11 was located in Stavropol, Gurov's homeland. Prisoners were allowed to receive parcels weighing up to 20 kilograms four times a year. Andrey's wife Aliya visited her husband, brought food, told the news. Andrey Razin and other former members of Tender May also helped with food.
None of the prisoners serving sentences with Andrei knew that he was a former lead singer of a mega-popular group. And when it turned out, Gurov was invited as a soloist to the Vinyl Inter group, which was created at the colony and consisted of prisoners. As part of this group, Andrei constantly played music, began to write and perform his own songs in the style of chanson - for example, "Father, Forgive me", "Prisoner", etc. The songs were forwarded "free", where friends and family posted them on the Internet; Gurov's work began to gain popularity. When several members of the Vinyl Inter group were transferred to other colonies, Gurov, together with his friend Dmitry Bortsov, created a new group, AvanPost. The creative activity of this group for some time continued after the release from the colony, first Gurov, and then Bortsov.
After liberation
In 2011, after serving half of his sentence, Andrei Gurov was released on parole. A great help in this was provided by Andrei Razin, who found and paid for the services of intelligent lawyers who were able to prove that the accusation and the term of Gurov's conviction were not substantiated.
Returning to freedom, Andrei finally took up agribusiness: he began to travel to the regions, conclude contracts and transactions for the supply of grain agricultural products abroad. He currently lives in Rostov-on-Don.
At the same time, Gurov is engaged in creative work: he records albums, performs at various venues with the performance of songs both of his own composition and of other authors.
He also sings songs of the group "Laskoviy May". Sometimes some famous "Mayo" people gather to give a concert - for example, in honor of the band's anniversary, or to perform at the "Disco 80s" festival and other retro events.
Gurov several times came on tour to Donbass - to the DPR and LPR.
Personal life
With his first wife - Aliya - Andrei Gurov divorced. After some time, he created a new family. At the end of 2014, a son was born to Andrei Gurov. According to his father, the boy grows up very musical and sonorous, he loves to sing along with his dad.
Andrey's older brother, Yuri Gurov, also an ex-member of Tender May, died tragically in a car accident in 2012 at the age of 41.
