Ada Yakusheva, her first husband Vizbor dedicated the song “You are my only one”
60 years ago, the Yunost radio station broke into the air, which fell in love with young people and became not only the mouthpiece of the sixties, but also the next few generations of Soviet people. Callsigns with the melody “Songs of Anxious Youth” by Pakhmutova were known to almost everyone. 83-year-old Olga Kraeva, who worked there from 1968 until her retirement, shared her memories of her work at the legendary radio station with Express Gazeta. Olga Konstantinovna, in turn with the superstar of the author’s song Ada Yakusheva, was the author and host of the Hello, Comrade! program. And since 1990, she worked live on the Youth Channel.
– I, a graduate of the Faculty of Journalism of Sverdlovsk University, got me to “Youth” with my “hairy hand” then-husband Stas Samsonov. From the Urals, where we lived, he was sent to Moscow for promotion – to the Central Committee of the Komsomol.
On the next anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis, my Stas Ivanovich organized a rally with the Red Banner of Victory through all socialist countries from Poland to Bulgaria, which started from Red Square. Seeing my husband off there, I met my future boss, the deputy editor-in-chief of Yunost, Maxim Kusurgashev. He then just married my future colleague Ada Yakusheva, after Yuri Vizbor, one of the founders of our station, left her for actress Evgenia Uralova.
All three – Vizbor, Yakusheva and Kusurgashev – once studied together at the Pedagogical Institute and were friends. Maxim even became a witness at the wedding of Yura and Ada, and after their divorce, he fussed and took her to the registry office himself.
In order for me to get up to speed faster, Kusurgashev, leaving with a run, advised me to visit his Adele, in their apartment on Lyusinovskaya street. Yakusheva’s songs “My friend draws mountains”, “Evening wanders along the forest paths …” and many others have already thundered throughout the USSR.
When I was going to her, I put on a beautiful dress with a bow. And when she entered their one-room apartment with a tiny four-meter kitchen, she immediately buried herself in the piano, which occupied almost the entire room. Under it, right on the floor, were the sleeping places of the owners and daughter of Yakusheva Tanya from Vizbor. The girl at that moment was sitting at a closed instrument, and on the cover of the keyboard there was an aluminum pan, from where she ate noodles with appetite.
Looking with interest at Ada, unkempt and dressed in tights, I began to ask her about the intricacies of working on the radio.
“I don’t understand anything myself,” she waved her hand and added that her husband Kusurgashev knew everything.
“Didn’t give, bitch, to me then!”
On the radio, I quickly got up to speed. She began to work at the microphone, prepared programs for the broadcast, got to know her colleagues. They called Kusurgashev Mitrich or Tatar, although by his mother he was a mountain Shors (a native of the people living in the south of the Kemerovo region in the mountainous taiga area. – D. L.).
His mother once worked as a secretary for Maxim Gorky. And Kusurgashev obfuscated that he was the illegitimate son of the writer. I didn’t really believe, but Yakusheva’s husband carefully worked on this case and even named their children with Ada, like Gorky, Maxim and Daria. I really wanted everyone to suspect him of being closely related to the classic.
Once, the author Galya Yurkova, who moved from Belarus to Moscow, agreed to work with me. She brought short notes from the Moscow Film Festival, which I broadcast on the air in the Hello, Comrade! program. And she quickly fell in love with me. Paying attention to the fact that film director Georgy Danelia often appears in her news, I asked why. And she received an answer that she wants to marry him.
– Gal, well, he is married to actress Lyuba Sokolova, – I noticed.
– A wife is not a wall, you can move it, – Yurkova answered.
Once, when we were once again chatting in the office, it was raining outside. And Galka, who rented an apartment not far from the Gosteleradio building on Pyatnitskaya, offered to go to her:
– We’ll cook something, sit down, have a drink.
At the exit, we met the legendary announcer Yuri Borisovich Levitan. He got into his “Volga” and gallantly offered to take us, young girls, so as not to get wet.
The only room in Galkina’s apartment was covered with a closet. On one side of him, she put a bed and hung icons, building a bedroom. And on the other – by making a living room with a sofa. Hastily gathered on the table and were about to raise the first toast, as the doorbell rang.
The editor-in-chief of “Youth” handsome Volodya Fadeev and his deputy Kusurgashev came. The four of us had a great evening, talking, periodically shifting our glasses. At some point, Galka and Fadeev retired behind the closet. And Kusurgashev, like a wild animal, began to grab my breasts. I reared up, but, ignoring my screams and kicks, he threw me onto the sofa. In the heat of the fight, it suddenly dawned on me that the situation had been pre-arranged. The bosses decided to credit the new employee, having agreed on everything with Yurkova in advance.
This pissed me off even more. I was wearing stilettos, and with all my strength I was able to hit them in the closet. He could not resist and fell on Fadeev with Pebbles. Icons rained down on them from somewhere on the side. Mitrich was instantly chilled. I rushed to the front door, but it was locked.
– Where are the keys? I screamed.
Kusurgashev threw them in my face, and Fadeev ran after me, saying:
– Was it really a pity for you to give Mitrich? You arrived newly cut from Yekaterinburg. And we all live like this here, – but seeing that I didn’t react, he begged, – At least don’t say anything to your husband.
When I got home in tears and bruises, of course, I immediately told my Stas Ivanovich everything.
– Nehera wander around at night! – he waved his hand, lay down and fell asleep.
Galka Yurkova after some time married Danelia. And Kusurgashev harbored a grudge against me for life. When I brought another program for him to sign or just met him in the corridor, he constantly hissed: “I didn’t give it to me, bitch, then!”
Forever intoxicated company
A few years later, Kusurgashev and Yakusheva were given a three-room apartment on Mira Avenue. Conductor Yuri Silantiev lived in their house together with his beloved Olga, the ex-wife of Yuri Lyubimov.
Ada – a very decent, incredibly talented, but downtrodden woman, gradually stopped writing songs and appearing on the radio. Her job was replaced by an eternal intoxicated company that hung out in their kitchen. Drinking influenced the fact that from her romance of long journeys she went into everyday life. Although the hostess, alas, was no. At home, everything is heaped on them, the parquet stood upright, they didn’t cook anything special. If we came to visit her, she could only cut an onion and pour vinegar on it. That’s the whole snack.
And her Mitrich remained indestructible in terms of close communication with the female sex. All he did was look for someone to sleep with. He even had an illegitimate daughter from the typist who was sitting on our floor. Ada, of course, knew about it and closed her eyes. And she even said that her Max now has two Tanks – black (stepdaughter from Vizbor) and white (daughter from a typist).
Once Kusurgashev got hold of alcohol somewhere. I settled into the kitchen, poured myself a glass, and tried to light a cigarette. He was already very drunk and accidentally set fire to the alcohol. A fire started, in which Mitrich died. Sleeping Ada sensed something was wrong when half the kitchen burned out. She survived her husband by 10 years and died of cancer in 2012. She was buried next to him at the Troekurovsky cemetery.
