For us, difficult Soviet hippies of the 70s, the name Joseph Kobzon meant nothing. We didn’t watch TV, and we wouldn’t listen to Komsomol songs even under torture. Even now I shudder. Nevertheless, the main performer of this repertoire (there was also the “Chorus of Boys and Bunchikov”) somehow crept, bitch, into my life. For the first and last time - I swear! - in my biography I saw Joseph K. alive and in 3D (reminds me of Kafka to anyone?) under the following circumstances: one girl of non-Russian and even non-Jewish blood (Kafkaz, like) who clung to me dragged me late in the evening to a raspberry tree on Gorky Street. There, in the darkness, the light of a projector and heavy clouds of tobacco (Marlboro!) smoke, a pornographic film of foreign production was shown on an antediluvian domestic unit (“Krasnogorsk”, or what?). Tits, fuck, that's all. The sound was very bad, and then someone smart from those present completely turned it off and put on a record with songs from Soviet children's cartoons instead - which greatly relieved the sweaty, tense atmosphere. When everyone had finished and it was all over, the lights came on, and people—guild workers, judging by their faces and what they were wearing—began to chat cheerfully. It was then that my friend pointed her finger at the small, boringly dressed guy and whispered: “This is Joseph Kobzon.” Yeah. Somehow it got delayed.
Then I had an unearthly beauty beloved, Natasha N. (She, unfortunately, did not live very long). Her dad, a charming man, was a professional skater. In general, I must say that, despite the complete bullshit set out in the film "Assa", there were warm friendly relations between the Soviet underground ("underground bohemia") and the Soviet underworld ("underworld") - we all fiercely despised the scoop, respected completely different values and they didn't touch each other. In short, Natasha’s dad became the second person from whom I heard the name “Joseph Kobzon” - it turns out that they played together in underground dens and won/lost some cosmic, in my opinion, sums. So when I heard this name for the third time, I was not at all surprised. And this was connected with a very famous (in narrow circles) scandal, when the said Kobzon, having cheerfully performed patriotic songs in front of a limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, brought from there a carload (or even more) of local sheepskin coats for sale on the black market. We loved embroidered sheepskin coats, and I liked the whole story - you have to love your Motherland with passion! And then I also thought that it was cool and even honorable: during the day to trade in deficit, in the evening to sing in the Palace, damn it, about Lenin and the Party, and at night to sit with thieves on katrans. Cool. With this thought, I said goodbye to Joseph Kobzon for ten years. Not a sound, not a breath. Singing about the Ilyichs has become catastrophically irrelevant; He probably became a cooperator.
Joseph Kobzon and Sergei Mikhailov (Mikhas)
The next and, fortunately, last round of my virtual relationship with Joseph (can I call you that?) almost ended in my complete destruction. This is interesting! In the early 90s, Lenya Parfenov filmed a series of programs called “Portrait with a Background,” and I sometimes helped him. One of the “Portraits” was dedicated to Lyudmila Zykina, and there, without any hesitation, I said something like this to the camera: “In the Soviet pop elite there was a funny division of labor: Zykina, as a purely Russian woman, sang songs about her native land, about Russia, about Volga and birch trees - while Kobzon, being a Jew, specialized in works of a “supranational” nature - about Lenin, the Party, communism...” Calmly, objectively - isn’t it? But the internationalist singer was so offended by this that he... “What” process Joseph K. launched, I found out a couple of years later, when I was the editor-in-chief of Playboy. We held one of our parties with bunnies at the Peking restaurant, where I met the director - a huge man of southern appearance... Omitting the touching details of the conversation, I will briefly summarize: this nice man, as part of a team of killers, was waiting for me at the entrance of my house for three days at home in Zyuzino, until he was transferred to a more important matter. And I, almost a corpse, was blithely playing around somewhere on the side all this time... Fortune smiled and winked. “I’m very glad that we didn’t meet then,” he sincerely told me at parting, shaking my hand firmly. A few years later he himself was shot. Yes, the main thing: Arthur (I’ll call him that) told me that he received the order for my murder directly from the head of the Moscow mafia, Otari Kvantrishvili, and that it came from - surprise, surprise - Joseph Kobzon. With an explanation - “for the film about Zykina.” (I must say that after this story I was not afraid of Kobzon and told it many times - including on TV. It’s interesting that no one in the so-called law enforcement agencies was interested in it. Didn’t they really believe it?!).
To the right of Kobzon - Otari Kvantrishvili
After the revelations of a sincere man with a dramatic past, my sympathy for Joseph Kobzon somehow faded. I don't know why. Therefore, when I heard this name once again - in connection with the entry of the chosen one of the Tuvan (it seems) people into a dangerous and difficult service in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, I took it for granted. I thought: that’s where he belongs. Immunity, besides... Well, as for the repertoire, voice and stage manner - I don’t know, I didn’t listen closely. I think it would be better if he voiced porn. Or cartoons. For the slaves of the Supreme Box, Joseph Kobzon personified, or symbolized there, “a whole era.” For me, this era was symbolized by completely different people. And, as one of them sang, “... and since silence is golden, then we are undoubtedly prospectors.” *
Joseph Kobzon tried very hard, although he sang loudly.
____________________
* Alexander Galich, “Prospector’s Waltz.”
For us, difficult Soviet hippies of the 70s, the name Joseph Kobzon meant nothing. We didn’t watch TV, and we wouldn’t listen to Komsomol songs even under torture. Even now I shudder. Nevertheless, the main performer of this repertoire (there was also the “Chorus of Boys and Bunchikov”) somehow crept into my life.
(
For the first and last time - I swear! — in my biography, I saw Joseph K. alive and in 3D (reminds me of Kafka to anyone?) under the following circumstances: one girl of non-Russian and non-Jewish blood (Kafkaz, like) who clung to me dragged me late in the evening to a raspberry tree on Gorky Street. There, in the darkness, the light of a projector and heavy clouds of tobacco (Marlboro!) smoke, a pornographic film of foreign production was shown on an antediluvian domestic unit (“Krasnogorsk”, or what?). Boobs, f..., that's all. The sound was very bad, and then someone smart from those present turned it off completely and put on a record with songs from Soviet children's cartoons instead - which greatly relieved the sweaty, tense atmosphere. When everyone had finished and it was all over, the lights came on, and people—guild workers, judging by their faces and what they were wearing—began to chat cheerfully. It was then that my friend pointed her finger at the small, boringly dressed guy and whispered: “This is Joseph Kobzon.” Yeah. Somehow it got delayed.
Then I had an unearthly beauty beloved, Natasha N. (She, unfortunately, did not live very long). Her dad, a charming man, was a professional skater. In general, I must say that, despite the complete garbage set out in the film “Assa,” there were warm friendly relations between the Soviet underground (“underground bohemia”) and the Soviet underworld (“underworld”) - we all fiercely despised the scoop, respected completely different values and they didn't touch each other.
In short, Natasha’s dad became the second person from whom I heard the name “Joseph Kobzon” - it turns out that they played together in underground dens and won/lost some cosmic, in my opinion, amounts. So when I heard this name for the third time, I was not at all surprised. And this was connected with a very famous (in narrow circles) scandal, when the said Kobzon, having cheerfully performed patriotic songs in front of a limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, brought from there a carload (or even more) of local sheepskin coats for sale on the black market.
We loved embroidered sheepskin coats, and I liked the whole story - you have to love your Motherland with passion!
And then I also thought that it was cool and even honorable: to trade deficits during the day, to sing in the Palace of Congresses about Lenin and the Party in the evening, and to sit around with thieves at night. Cool.
With this thought, I said goodbye to Joseph Kobzon for ten years. Not a sound, not a breath. Singing about the Ilyichs has become catastrophically irrelevant; He probably became a cooperator.
The next and, fortunately, last round of my virtual relationship with Joseph (can I call you that?) almost ended in my complete destruction. This is interesting! In the early 90s, Lenya Parfenov filmed a series of programs called “Portrait with a Background,” and I sometimes helped him. One of the “Portraits” was dedicated to Lyudmila Zykina, and there, without any hesitation, I said something like this to the camera: “In the Soviet pop elite there was a funny division of labor: Zykina, as a purely Russian woman, sang songs about her native land, about Russia, about Volga and birch trees - while Kobzon, being a Jew, specialized in works of a “supranational” nature - about Lenin, the Party, communism...” Calmly, objectively - isn’t it?
But the internationalist singer was so offended by this that he... “What” process Joseph K. launched, I found out a couple of years later, when I was the editor-in-chief of Playboy. We held one of our parties with bunnies at the Beijing restaurant, where I met the director - a huge man of southern appearance...
Omitting the touching details of the conversation, I will briefly summarize: this nice man, as part of a team of killers, waited for me for three days at the entrance of my house in Zyuzino, until he was transferred to a more important matter. And I, almost a corpse, was blithely playing around somewhere on the side all this time...
Fortune smiled and winked. “I’m very glad that we didn’t meet then,” he sincerely told me at parting, shaking my hand firmly. A few years later he himself was shot. Yes, the main thing: Arthur (I’ll call him that) told me that he received the order for my murder directly from the head of the Moscow mafia, Otari Kvantrishvili, and that it came from - surprise, surprise - Joseph Kobzon.
With an explanation - “for the film about Zykina.” (I must say that after this story I was not afraid of Kobzon and told it many times - including on TV. It’s interesting that no one in the so-called law enforcement agencies was interested in it. Didn’t they really believe it?!).
After the revelations of a sincere man with a dramatic past, my sympathy for Joseph Kobzon somehow faded. I don't know why. Therefore, when I heard this name once again - in connection with the entry of the chosen one of the Tuvan (it seems) people into a dangerous and difficult service in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, I took it for granted. I thought: that’s where he belongs. Immunity, besides...
Well, as for the repertoire, voice and stage manner - I don’t know, I didn’t listen closely. I think it would be better if he voiced porn. Or cartoons. For the slaves of the Supreme Box, Joseph Kobzon personified, or symbolized there, “a whole era.” For me, this era was symbolized by completely different people. And, as one of them sang, “... and since silence is golden, then we, undoubtedly, are prospectors.”
Joseph Kobzon tried very hard, although he sang loudly.
(in the photo: Joseph Kobzon and Sergei Mikhailov - Mikhas)
*************************************************
Nikolay Mitrokhin
I had no illusions about the late Kobzon since 1995, when I was actively interested in publications on Russian organized crime. His connections with Yaponchik, Sliva and Shabtai Kalmanovich were already more than obvious then. It was not for nothing that the US banned him from entering the country a little later.
But in 2006, during a conversation with another Moscow taxi driver, a native of Dnepropetrovsk, a shadow entrepreneur in the 1980s, I wrote down the following story, which readers of this blog from Dnepr may be able to add details or somehow confirm:
"There was an article about Dnepropetrovsk bandits from the Amur region (who controlled racketeering in the city in relation to shop workers) in the early 1980s with a leader named Sasha Sailor: “Amur Wars” (Crocodile) 1984-1987. The sailor was friends with Kobzon and the singer I visited him in the early 1980s."
The texts of the articles are available on the Internet, I provide links to them below.