The life and work of Viktor Tartanov is an example of the resilience and courage of a person deprived by fate of the opportunity to see the world around him. Having lost his sight in his youth, Victor was able to overcome despair and a sense of doom and began to work long and hard to his dream - to become a musician. Today he is a very famous performer of chanson songs in Russia, a public figure, as well as the first and only blind TV presenter in the country.
Biography and musical career
Victor Nikolaevich Tartanov was born in 1974 in the city of Shakhty, which is 70 kilometers from Rostov-on-Don. By a tragic coincidence, his birthday - November 13 - is the International Day of the Blind. The boy was born with a congenital disease, because of which he saw almost nothing. The parents did everything possible to cure their son: they consulted with leading specialists, agreed to carry out numerous eye surgeries, including in Moscow clinics, but the child was not able to restore his vision: by the age of 16, the boy was completely blind. Despite his illness, Victor studied at an ordinary Shakhty school №37, among healthy children who treated a blind classmate with understanding and compassion, supported and helped him in everything. Victor is especially grateful to his parents - Lyudmila and Nikolai Tartanov, who made great efforts so that their son does not feel like an inferior person and take place as a person. They are also for him the standard of strong marital relations, maintaining love and respect for each other for almost half a century.
After graduating from high school in 1991, Tartanov decided to get an education at the music school. Rachmaninov. There were difficulties in learning, and Victor decided to take private lessons: under the guidance of teacher Valentin Manuilov, the young man mastered playing two musical instruments at once - the guitar and the accordion. He performed a lot at various concerts, performing songs and accompanying himself on the guitar. Soon he was invited to the local radio and television, where he not only sang and played, but also said that you can live a full life even when you are disabled. Victor urged healthy people to be more kind and tolerant towards people with disabilities. He went with concerts to orphanages and orphanages, homes for the elderly and disabled, where, by his personal example, he persuaded people not to give up and act, look for themselves and not succumb to despondency. Tartanov also performed at several bard song festivals, where he received diplomas and laureate titles, and sang at the Philanthropist International Creative Competition.
Music has become for Viktor Tartanov not only a hobby and an outlet, but also a profession. In a small mining town with a dilapidated economy and high unemployment, where even many healthy people could hardly find a job, the blind musician was able to realize his creative potential and financially support himself and his family.
TV presenter career
In an effort to expand the boundaries of his activities, Viktor Tartanov began working on television: at first he simply appeared in various programs, where he talked about the problems of people with disabilities, and soon he had the idea of an author's program. And so on the TV channel "South Region Don" in April 2014, the project "In spite of everything" appeared, where the presenter Viktor Tartanov presented to viewers the stories of special people - disabled people who have achieved some significant results in business, sports, science or art. The program was directed by Oleg Zhuravlev. The program was a great success, and its author became famous throughout the Don region. In the first issue of "Against Everything", the authors presented a wheelchair user from the Rostov region who carves two-meter figures out of wood. In the next program, Tartanov communicated with an amazing woman - the director of the theater for the deaf and dumb, and it was, in the full sense of the word, a conversation between a blind man and a deaf person, which occurs not with the help of words or gestures, but through clapping hands.
The author's program "In spite of everything" brought Viktor Tartanov not only love and popularity in his native land and beyond. In 2014, he became the holder of a certificate from the Interrecord International Agency as the first and only blind Russian TV presenter, and this achievement is recorded in the Russian Book of Records.
Personal life and creativity
In the fate of Viktor Tartanov, creativity and personal life are closely intertwined. The musician's wife Anna Tartanova is the author of the lyrics and music for most of the songs he performs, and also takes part in the filming of video clips, is a producer, director and personal assistant of her husband.
Victor and Anna met in the summer of 2005. Anna was then only 17 years old, she was fond of singing and playing the guitar, was a rebel and "informal". And the 29-year-old Victor by that time was already a famous person in the city and region - a musician, TV presenter and public figure. Fate pushed young people together quite by accident: each of them with his company and guitars went to spend a day off at the lake. Coming out of the car, Victor stumbled and fell - he didn't even hurt himself, but he broke his guitar thoroughly. The day was almost ruined, but then friends noticed a group of girls with a guitar and asked them to share the instrument, and at the same time to join the company. Anna's friend immediately recognized the local celebrity, but Anna had never heard of Victor before. On that day, young people sang, played, talked a lot. In the evening, Anna and Victor exchanged phone numbers, and from that moment their close communication began. According to Anna, she has never met a person so interesting, versatile and purposeful. Mutual interest very quickly grew into love, and nothing stopped the young people - neither the age difference of 12 years, nor Victor's blindness. 4 months after they met, on October 1, 2005, they got married. Soon the young family began to actively grow: one after the other, three sons of the Tartanovs were born, one after the other, with a difference of two years: Timofey, Platon and Nikolai. After years of living together, Victor and Anna still treat each other tenderly and carefully, always do everything together and go hand in hand through life - literally and figuratively.
The creative union of the Tartanovs is also very fruitful: they perform a lot, give interviews, maintain pages on social networks, where they talk about their lives, share the secrets of family happiness. But the main thing is music: the Tartanovs released several song albums, the music and lyrics to which were written by the wife, and performed by the husband, sometimes together with some famous performers of the national stage. In 2014, the album "Test of Golden Silence" was released, and in 2017 - the album "In Rostov-on-Don", which brought Viktor even more popularity. The listeners especially liked the song "Ruby Heart", which became a hit of the pop chanson. The following year, the album "Triumph of Love" appeared, giving fans even more wonderful songs. In collaboration with Tatyana Bulanova, a song was recorded that gave the name to the album: a kind of hymn of love, telling about the relationship between Victor and Anna. And the song "I love life", sung together with Evelina Bledans, is the life and creative credo of both the Tartanovs and Bledans, who brings up a son with Down syndrome, a call to people never to give up and go forward, no matter how hard it is.
Undoubted hits are also the songs "Mama", written for Mother's Day, "Next to you", "Swallow", "For Russia", and many others. Some songs of the Tartanovs are performed together - for example, "We will blow up this night." Work continues on new albums.
