Valentin Gaft: 1935-2020

I posted this today on Facebook. The sad litany of deaths among Russia’s great cultural figures just continues unabated. It must be that time of season, but it feels especially cruel. Of course it is especially cruel, too, because Coronavirus has taken so many – Ilya Epelbaum, Roman Viktyuk, Sergei Barkhin, Irina Antonova, Mikhail Zhvanetsky, Vladimir Andreev… I don’t believe that Gaft died of Covid, he had been seriously ill long before the plague hit us. But his loss leaves still another gaping hole in the fabric of Russian culture and art.

Valentin Gaft: 1935-2020
By John Freedman
On Facebook

It continues to be a year of deep sorrow for and in Russian culture. Valentin Gaft, seemingly forever one of Russia’s most beloved, most distinctive actors, left us this morning. He has been sick for a very long time. I do not know the official reason for death. His life, however, was an open book of character, personality, wit, honesty, believability and 100 more of the qualities that raise an individual to greatness. He had been famous and popular for seemingly ever when I arrived in Moscow in 1988. And his presence just continued to grow. He did not perform in all that many shows at the Sovremennik Theater, his home theater, but every one of his roles seemed to be etched in stone. I had the great privilege of sitting in large company with him several times thanks to Eldar Ryazanov, who always invited Oksana Mysina and me to backstage parties after bashes at the Eldar Club. Amidst collections of stars that would turn the heads of many, Gaft shone especially. He would stand, drink in hand, and knock off one of his famed satirical sketches impromptu, usually making at least one person at the table blush – at best – and everyone else howl with laughter. Indeed, his epigrams, which have been published in numerous collections, are a major contribution to Russian theater lore and, dare I say it, Russian literature. They are almost always brilliant and hard-hitting. He was also a master of the quip – dozens, if not hundreds, are repeated daily in Russia. He could make you hurt, or rejoice, for life if he found something in your character or behavior to single out. One of his most famous – “One doesn’t fear dying. One fears that they might make a film after you die, and Bezrukov will play you” («Умереть не страшно. Страшно, что после смерти могут снять фильм и тебя сыграет Безруков»). [Sergei Bezrukov being a popular actor who, for many years, played almost nothing but dead famous people in films.] They could not fit Valentin Gaft into a single film. This man was so much bigger than life, and he walked through life with a trust and reverence that made him even greater. He was 85.

Here is one of Gaft’s poems (as opposed to his epigrams) that is going around now:

Life is as short as the reading of a play, 
But if you believe, you live. 
Theater is a sweet attempt 
To go back and make a change.⠀ 

Stop the moment for a moment, 
Then fade like a flower,
And be reborn, inspired. 
Let’s play! God lets us do that!

(Жизнь коротка, как пьесы читка,
Но если веришь, будешь жить,
А театр — сладкая попытка
Вернуться, что-то изменить.⠀

Остановить на миг мгновенье,
Потом увянуть, как цветок,
И возродиться вдохновеньем.
Играем! Разрешает Бог!)

Pushkin House Brings Russian Culture to London

Reposting of Theater Plus blog No. 2014, another video blog. The Pushkin House is one of the key representatives of Russian culture outside Russia. Has been for decades and it probably will be for many decades to come. These days the Pushkin House is located in an 18th-century building on Bloomsbury Square in the center of London.

28 April 2013
By John Freedman

The Pushkin House in London began in 1954 as a club with a dual purpose — to teach the finer points of Russian to the children of emigre families, and to give their parents a place to congregate and share their love of Russian culture. Over the ensuing 59 years it emerged as a major cultural institution whose guest speakers in recent years have included rock musician Boris Grebenshchikov, the actor Valentin Gaft, and the filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky.

Alexander Tvardovsky, the great poet, who as editor of the so-called thick journal Novy Mir, published Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” put in an appearance at Pushkin House in the 1960s.

Ralph Fiennes, the popular British actor who has performed characters from Russian literature on stage and on the big screen, once took Russian lessons here. He also has performed readings of Russian literature in the house’s ongoing series of lectures, seminars, performances and art exhibits.

I happened to be there last week to share some of my thoughts on contemporary Russian theater, but before I did so I asked Helena Hendin, Friends of Pushkin House Liaison, to sit down and tell me more about the cultural institution’s history and mission.

“From the very beginning Pushkin House was the platform for people to come and exchange their ideas, regardless of their political affiliation,” Hendin told me, “and to this day this is what we do. I think it is very important that we exist.”

“Our audience doesn’t necessarily follow the general line, be it of the Kremlin or of the BBC,” she added.

Hendin, who was born and grew up in the Siberian cities of Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk, come to London to study in the 1990s. One thing led to another and she found herself a permanent resident of the city on the Thames.

Pushkin House is currently located in an 18th-century building on the southwest corner of Bloomsbury Square, just one block from the British Museum. But when it was founded, it was located on the street called Notting Hill Gate, west of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. This was at a time when, as Hendin puts it, “it wasn’t a prosperous territory at all.”

The original trustees were able to pay for Pushkin House by renting out upstairs rooms.

“About six or seven years ago the trustees of Pushkin House have decided to reinvent the place, and they sold the property in Notting Hill Gate, which by then became an extremely respectable area. So it was sold at a handsome profit and we were able to buy this building here. It gave us a new beginning.”

Pushkin House hosts up to four or five events each week, Hendin explained. Currently, through May 17, it is offering an exhibit of paintings by Russian artist Felix Lembersky in its upstairs meeting hall.

To see Hendin describe Pushkin House and its pursuits, view the video chat that I made in the center’s library.

The Perfect Fit of the Russian New Year and Eldar Ryazanov

Theater Plus blog No. 53. The name Eldar Ryazanov is one of the most respected and beloved names in my family. As is true of 150 million other Russian families, I might add. Oksana performed in Ryazanov’s last major film, “Anderson,” and the love affair has not ended. Not even Ryzanov’s death could affect that – but I’m jumping ahead of myself. Each topic in its own time… I took the photo above as Eldar Ryazanov autographed a book for my wife, Oksana Mysina, following a concert honoring the composer Andrei Petrov. Following the text I have added several more photos that I took at the banquet table after the concert.

14 January 2010
By John Freedman

It’s New Year’s time. That’s right, it still is New Year’s in Russia, where the holidays do not officially end until January 14 with the passing of what locally is known affectionately, I would even say wistfully, as the Old New Year. That all has to do with leftover dates from the old Julian calendar, about which you can learn more here, if you are so inclined.

But my real topic is Eldar Ryazanov.

You would be forgiven for believing that Eldar Ryazanov is the sole embodiment of the Russian New Year. His 1975 comedy “The Irony of Fate” is easily the most-showed, most-watched and most-loved New Year’s film in Russian cinema history. From the waning days of December through mid-January it plays hundreds of times on hundreds of channels throughout Russia.

If you thought no seasonal movie could be broadcast on television more often than “It’s a Wonderful Life,” you have never been to Russia. “The Irony of Fate” not only plays hundreds of times around the New Year, it plays with astonishing regularity throughout the year, too.

Ryazanov started out as an artist with an eye to the New Year. His 1956 feature debut “Carnival Night” made everlasting stars out of the director and his leading lady, Lyudmila Gurchenko. In fact, Ryazanov went back to the film in 2006 to make a special TV remake of that film 50 years after its premiere.

It so happens, however, that this director has made a dozen or more of Russia’s and the Soviet Union’s most beloved films. Here are just a few for starters: “The Girl Without an Address” (1957), “The Man from Nowhere” (1961), “The Hussar’s Ballad” (1962), “Beware: Automobile” (1966), “Zigzags of Fate” (1968), “Old Men Robbers” (1971), “Office Romance” (1977), “Garage” (1979), “Say a Word for the Poor Hussar” (1980), “Station for Two” (1982) and “Ruthless Romance” (1984).

If Russia had a cultural Mount Rushmore, Ryazanov’s face would be all over it.

My wife Oksana and I once crossed the street with this man and his wife Emma. It was just outside of St. Petersburg at the Gatchina film festival. Our meals were being served in a cafe on the opposite side of a very busy, four-lane thoroughfare from the cinema where the films were being shown. I wondered if we were going to go hungry. Who could possibly get across that highway which had no street lights to slow traffic down? Oh, me of little faith.

Eldar Ryazanov merely stepped out into the road, without even looking either way, as my mother used to insist that I do when I was a kid. He took one step, and without more than a split-second pause he just began to cross it. I gasped. Not because of the danger he put himself in, but because of the extraordinary sight that greeted me eyes. Dozens of automobiles slammed on their brakes and came to a stop, leaving a broad swath of clear road for us to pass through. For the first time in my life I had an inkling of what it must have been like for the Israelites to follow Moses across the Red Sea.

Ryazanov is 82 now and he doesn’t make films as often as he once did. He is, however, a restless and creative spirit. A few years ago he opened his own club, appropriately named Eldar, and he keeps the stage there busy with all kinds of events, including concerts, benefits, film and music festivals, and film showings. He is always in attendance and is always a participant in whatever is going on there.

In mid-December he hosted an evening honoring the memory of his great friend and colleague, the composer Andrei Petrov.

Petrov had already become a famous film composer for comedies by Georgy Daneliya and others by the time he began a lifelong collaboration with Ryazanov in the mid-1960s. Over the next 40 years they worked on more than a dozen films together.

On that December evening, nineteen performers, including Gurchenko and several of Petrov’s highly accomplished grandchildren, performed 21 of Petrov’s classic songs. This is very much the kind of thing Ryazanov does — using his influence and resources to keep alive the memory and work of people who have contributed so much to Russian culture.

During the concert Ryazanov told the story of one of his first meetings with Petrov. The director asked the composer to sit down at an upright piano and play some of the tunes he had worked up. What he didn’t know was that Petrov was a notoriously bad pianist.

“Well, when I heard him play that piano, I knew we were in for something,” Ryazanov quipped ironically.

There is also a great story about Daneliya’s reaction when he learned that Ryazanov had hired Petrov to score his new movie.

“Write some nice music for Ryazanov,” Daneliya reportedly said, “but make sure it’s worse than what you write for me.”

(Eldar Ryazanov autographs a book for Oksana Mysina, who played Hans Christian Anderson’s mother in Ryazanov’s film “Anderson.”)

(Left: Lyudmila Gurchenko.)

(Valentin Gaft.)

(Oksana Mysina and Svetlana Nemolyaeva.)

(Emma Ryazanova, the director’s wife and aide de camp.)

(The author with Emma Ryazanova.)