Son of Eduard Khil: there were many strange circumstances in the death of his father. Video: Anastasia Yampol considers herself the daughter of Eduard Khil The artist’s son wrote a book about him

I saved my daily allowance - 2.5 dollars to buy hotels. He brought me foreign toys: figurines of Indians, cars on springs, which we didn’t have yet. The children were gossiping behind my back: “Dimka Khil has a whole cupboard of chewing gum at home!” Dad also took Russian souvenirs there - nesting dolls and small painted samovars. He even managed to exchange one of them for a good suit.

By the way, Eduard Anatolyevich often designed and sewed stage outfits for himself. And having arrived in Brazil, he became the first Soviet artist to move away from formal suit- It’s hot there, and he arbitrarily put on a light T-shirt on stage. Of course, at first I received a reprimand from a party worker - but then it stuck.

Dad brought boots from Sweden and only at home noticed that both were on his left foot.

My mother then jokingly even called my father Trollemon... At the age of 78, Eduard Khil began to be invited even more often to give concerts in youth clubs - the new generation was eager to personally meet Mr. Trololo, whose song 45 years ago received 2 million views on the Internet all over the world. to the world. Glory in last time smiled at him - from virtual space. Not everyone can leave at the peak of popularity...

(Eduard Khil. Alder earring).

My father did not use a computer or the Internet, so he did not immediately understand why there was such interest in his person in 2010: they again began to invite him to appear on television, to do interviews for newspapers and magazines. My son Edik and I decided to enlighten our “Trololo”. The grandson ran into his grandfather’s kitchen: “While you’re peeling potatoes here, the Americans have made a parody of you!” Let’s go show you!”

In the popular animated series “Family Guy,” a waiter, based on Eduard Khil, serves beer while singing “Vocalise,” and all the bar’s visitors unanimously pick up the cheerful melody. In fact, the composition “I am very glad, because I am finally returning home,” written back in 1966, has always been liked by foreigners. Dad even joked at concerts in different countries: “And now I will sing a song that will be understandable in your language.” And in the process it turned out that the words there were only interjections, understandable to everyone: “Tro-lo-lo!” yes "Ho-ho-ho!"

In addition to the cartoon, we found several more videos where dad’s style was parodied. He laughed at how “the song goes around in circles because round earth"...And when we turned off the computer, I noticed: “I don’t understand where this Internet of yours is,” I pressed a button, and it’s not there!” And he returned to the kitchen to continue peeling potatoes.

Eduard Anatolyevich treated both fame and creative failures with irony: “To me, all this is like a mosquito bite - I am a child of war.” I only realized what he meant when I read my father's diaries.

One day my dad showed me a thick notebook and said with a thoughtful smile: “When I’m gone, maybe you can write a book from it.” I myself was still in school at the time, but I remembered his words. And last year I came across that diary... Dad kept notes all his life: individual leaves were even hidden among the notes. And I presented these diaries in my book of memoirs about Eduard Khil, which will be published soon.

...The general carriage was filled with crying children. Little Edik repeated to the beat of the wheels: “Ma-ma, ma-ma, ma-ma...” When the Germans approached Smolensk, he and all the pupils kindergarten evacuated. But no one told the parents where, these kids were orphaned at once. That's how dad got into Orphanage. First I ended up in Penza, then near Ufa. Began hard times- bombings, famine. My father remembered how one soldier turned over a tray of seeds that she was selling at

Grandma station - the children rushed to peck them like birds. (“I have never experienced greater happiness in my life!”) The guys ate everything they could get their hands on—roots, quinoa, berries... And when someone died, they themselves wrapped him in a sheet and buried him.

And, as expected, Edik had a hard time in the orphanage. For some reason, the teacher skeptically noted that the surname “Hil” is similar to the German one, and therefore: “You will play Hitler in school play! Dad, of course, was offended and refused. But he never refused to sing! Children from the orphanage came to the local hospital, where in thin voices they called on the dying cripples: “Get up, huge country!” It was there that he once and for all became imbued with compassion for people. So when my mother miraculously found him in 1943, the first question

Edika said: “Did you bring bread? Divide into 15 parts” - that’s how many guys were in their group. He remembered about others, although he himself already had dystrophy. The mother had to carry her son in her arms - he did not even have the strength to walk.

It happened that another journalist carefully looked at my father’s face and asked the question: “Eduard Anatolyevich, do you still have a mark on your nose from the war?” “And then! The bullets were whistling in front of him!” — Khil readily agreed. In fact, this was a trace from another childhood trauma: Edik had not yet reached the table when he reached for borscht and knocked over the hot pan on himself. Almost died from burns... But don’t disappoint the reporters!

— How did Eduard Anatolyevich get to Leningrad? After all, that’s where your parents met?

“Dad had a vivid imagination—he also drew beautifully. I compare: my son Edik, whom we named after his grandfather, is now 15 years old. And my father left Smolensk at this age and went to enter the Mukhinsky School. I wanted to become an artist. But he’s still just a child! Uncle Shura lived with him in Leningrad. He accepted his nephew, but when he heard that he needed to study for 7 years, he objected: “I won’t last you that long - go to a printing college!”

Judging by the concert programs that dad saved, in Leningrad he led an eventful cultural life: theater, opera, ballet... “I looked with all my eyes and ears and imagined myself in the place of a baritone, and sometimes even a bass,” said Eduard Anatolyevich about that period. At home, of course, I was already rehearsing - to Chaliapin's records. So after college

entered the preparatory department of the conservatory. Here he studied for two years and then was transferred to the first year of the Leningrad Conservatory without exams.

Shortly before this, he went to the Smolensk cemetery - he knew that there was a dilapidated chapel with an icon of the Blessed Xenia. “I asked Ksenyushka for admission, because the competition was huge. It turns out she responded,” said the father.

“Without love, there are no songs, no children,” Dad derived a formula for himself. And try to disagree with him: more than half a century on stage - and all these years next to his beloved wife!

In the opera Black Domino, dad played the role of the old Lord Elfort; a shaggy beard and bald head added to the student’s age. On the stage there is a ball where he shone future wife. The young ballerina Zoya Pravdina was given the task: to grab Gil by the ear and lead him around so that he would feel dizzy. “He took it, twisted it, and didn’t let go for the rest of his life,” Dad laughed later.

So my parents’ first contact took place in the opera studio, where conservatory students were practicing. Then they went on tour to Kursk, and in their free time they both ended up on the city beach. Mom sat on a pebble, turning her face to the sun and closing her eyes in pleasure. And she woke up from a kiss - it was dad who plucked up courage and pressed his lips to hers. As a decent girl, my mother immediately exclaimed: “What are you allowing yourself to do!” However, just six months later they got married.

Dad lived in a student dormitory, he was from a simple family - his mother was an accountant, he did not know his father and was raised by his stepfather. And Zoya turned out to be from the generation of St. Petersburg intellectuals: her mother’s grandfather was the manager of the Imperial Nikolaev Railway, and her father had his own theater studio. Before the revolution, my grandmother lived on an estate in Velsk, where they had servants, tutors, gardeners, nannies... “Bring me some ragged student,” she predicted to her daughter. And one day he comes home, and a student is sitting on the bed with a suitcase, the things in which are a towel and three books.

Mom remembers well how she picked up my father from the dormitory. In the boys' room there was a huge saucepan on the windowsill. I looked in: there was some kind of incomprehensible mess in it. There are cereals, potatoes, and peas... There is an aluminum spoon sticking out in the middle - you can’t turn it around. “Are you eating this?” “If you warm it up, it’s even delicious,” Edik became embarrassed.

The once family apartment on Stremyannaya Street had already turned into a communal apartment by that time—my mother’s family had only two rooms left after the war. My parents bought a bed frame to put the mattress on. There weren’t even legs - dad had to cut out the buns and nail them on. They rented a piano for practicing... But for the dear ones, it’s heaven in a communal apartment!

There was also no money for the wedding, so the parents signed up on December 1, 1958, then saved money for a month - and only went out for New Year. The registry office was an absurd sight: in the middle of the empty hall stood

a table on which lay three huge piles of papers - separately divorces, funerals and weddings. Suddenly a woman looked out from behind them: “Well, shall we sign? Whose last name do you want to take? Mom refused: “I won’t be Gil!” “And I won’t be Pravdin,” the father responded. Then the wise worker persuaded my mother to give in: “You are a woman... The family should go under the same last name - who will you register the children with later, have you thought?”

“You don’t understand how much we have grown together over 53 years—into one whole,” my mother tells me. That’s why he doesn’t give interviews - he simply can’t, only a year has passed since his father passed away.

Things have happened to my parents over so many years. Of course, they quarreled and argued, defending different points of view. But more often they joked, lovingly.

Dad knew how to do a lot in everyday life. And since my student days I even learned to cook well. Although he remained an entertainer in this matter: “Sit down, I’ll treat you different types horseradish” - he grew it and grated it himself. Or somehow he came up with “Turkey with El Bufrai sauce” - poured wine over it, rubbed it with secret ingredients, without which no “Elbufrai” would be possible... While tasting, my mother only praised: “Extraordinary!” After all, one must also be able to evaluate such creativity. Another woman might have been indignant: they say, he came up with something incomprehensible - eat it yourself!

When dad became the soloist of Lenconcert, endless tours began. Mom decided to leave ballet and heeded the advice of her elders: “If you want a family, stop doing your personal things and do something common.” And she began to act as an entertainer at her father’s concerts. As a ballerina, she even suggested dance steps to her husband... On tour, it is customary for artists to lead a riotous life; my dad joked about this: “You will be my wife and mistress rolled into one.”

This way of putting the question, of course, didn’t really please my dad’s fans. Many dreamed of getting it at least for a while. Then all the pop fans gathered near Bolshoi Theater, at the entrance to the Cheese store - this name stuck to the party. At the first concert in Moscow, the dad was represented by Leonid Utesov himself, whom they met at one of the song competitions. Syrikhs decided to confuse young performer, and when Eduard Khil came out and sang, a cat was launched onto the stage after him. Dad sings and understands that all the public’s attention is now given to the tailed competitor. "Then I sat down to this

Mom tried not to show that she was dad’s wife - she pretended that they only had a working relationship. And if one fan called Khil “Dick”, another “Edulya”, a third “Edvardissimo”, then my mother could loudly say: “Eduard Anatolyevich!” As if putting the girls in their place: they say, don’t forget too much!

But is anything hidden from fans? Of course, they were jealous of mom and tried to separate them from dad. One day, after a performance, they crowded into his car: balloons, flowers, cheesecakes... They set off, dad looked around: but in the chaos he had forgotten his beloved wife!

It got to the point that dad somehow returned from a tour abroad, and his pale mother ran out to meet him: “Go into the bedroom and look at the window.” There is a neat round hole in the outer glass: they were aiming at the bed, but the bullet lodged in the frame... Before this, my mother received threatening letters... They called a policeman, but what can he do?

“The cast bullet is homemade, they are used to make it more difficult to identify the criminal. They shot from the roof of the transformer booth opposite the window, at first they trained on champagne corks...” - that’s all the results of the investigation.

— It seems that Edward Gil was quickly accepted into their ranks by pop luminaries...

— Rank people's artist Eduard Khil received only at the age of forty, but by this time his songs flowed from every open window in the Union. Dad sang a duet with Lyudmila Senchina, Alla Pugacheva, Edita Piekha, Maria Pakhomenko, Maya Kristalinskaya, Valentina Tolkunova... And Klavdiya Shulzhenko became, in a sense, his mentor... When Khil was still studying at the conservatory, Klavdiya Ivanovna gave a concert in their Opera House studios. Dad managed to arrange to watch the performance directly from the prompter's booth. “I didn’t see the audience - and it seemed that she was singing for me alone,” my father recalled. “And at some point she came so close that I reached out my hand and reverently touched the hem of her dress.” After a while, they already met on the same stage, and Eduard Anatolyevich greatly amused Shulzhenko with this story... But at that moment, the father realized the main thing for himself: “She didn’t sing so much

National fame came to my father after performing at international competition in Sopot in 1965. Since then, many venerable composers trusted him with their songs. In the early 70s, dad performed the hit “The ceiling is icy, the door is creaky...” And not a single “Blue Light” could do without Eduard Khil - the main indicator of the rating of a Soviet artist in those years.

It’s interesting that for another popular song, “How Steamships See Off,” my father himself came up with the chorus - on the train, while he was traveling to Moscow for recording. Composer Arkady Ostrovsky asked him: “There’s a gap between the verses, maybe you can add something of your own?” And dad said: “Water, water, water all around.” The author of the words, Vanshenkin, hearing such freedom, was at first indignant, but when he received his first fees and recognition from his colleagues, he quickly came to terms with it.

Back in Soviet times, dad set a kind of record in glorification different professions: he sang about pilots, and about sailors, and about lumberjacks... Some songs were written to order for a specific event - the anniversary of some plant... And they were never heard anywhere else. I recently found a disk with such rare music and played it for my father. He didn’t remember the melody, he hardly recognized himself in it, but the name of the song was typical of Soviet lyrics - “March of the Leningrad Crane Builders.”

I didn't notice that dad was suffering star fever. He didn’t compete with anyone: “There’s enough room for everyone on stage!” An artist I know painted a portrait of him: his father is standing at the bureau, and he has such a lively smile... We decided to hang the picture in the living room. Dad said about this: “Do we have a cult of personality in our house? That I will, like Lenin, look from the wall..."

Dad could easily talk to any passerby. Or even have a chat humorous phrases with local homeless people who also recognized Khil and always smiled at him. "Hello! How are you? What are you drinking, guys? - “Try it yourself!” - “I can’t - it’s work.” - “Well, it’s always like this...” By the way, Eduard Anatolyevich had another legend for journalists: they say, I don’t drink because alcohol harms my voice... But this is not about that now: he saw everyone as just people, even at government concerts in Khil was not at all worried about the Kremlin.

However the mighty of the world This required special treatment. Furtseva twice deprived her father of his salary because he did not accept her invitation to speak at the Palace of Congresses, and removed Khil from all broadcasts for a year.

Yuri Gagarin was very fond of Eduard Anatolyevich and once at a military concert he asked him to perform the song “How good it is to be a general.” The father sings and sees: people in uniform are leaving the hall - they took those verses personally. And then he was summoned to the Army Political Directorate: “You’re taking a year off from radio and television.” But no one forbade singing! Khil traveled around the country with concerts and did not feel deprived... Then at one reception he ran into Gagarin and told him how much trouble his request had caused. The cosmonaut stood up for his favorite performer and personally explained to the Political Directorate: “This song makes fun of Italian generals, not Russians.” And Eduard

Khil was rehabilitated. Brezhnev even came to the next concert, sang along all the way, and after the performance he said: “We need to reward Khil.” Dad told this story to Dmitry Medvedev when he presented him with the Order of Merit for the Fatherland - only in 2009 did the award find its hero.

Dad told how he was once forbidden to sing Bulat Okudzhava’s song “Take your overcoat, let’s go home”: they say, what does “let’s go home” mean? From the war? This is propaganda of desertion!

At home, dad also sang constantly, but in the mid-70s, an unusual silence suddenly settled in our apartment: Eduard Anatolyevich arrived from Yugoslavia with a sore throat, nodules formed on the ligaments - there was a lack of closure. And my father had to undergo an operation, after which he spent a long time recovering. He didn’t speak, didn’t sing, and didn’t even listen to music - after all, a singer’s “instrument” is mobilized with any melody. It was not clear how soon he would be able to go on stage... But he still smiled and explained himself to us with gestures. I was only 10 years old, and I couldn’t even imagine what was really going on in his soul.

“Life is striped: now you go to the fair, then back from the fair,” - this is how my father spoke philosophically about failures.

— During Soviet times, did foreign business trips improve your family’s financial situation?

— For a Soviet person, a one-time trip abroad was already happiness, and dad traveled almost the whole world. He talked about foreign tours and invariably exaggerated everything: “This is just fantastic! Colossal! The steak was enormous! Huge! On a huge plate! This can never be eaten by one person!” Each time his stories acquired new details.

The flight attendants always had some imported items on board... And one day dad won five bottles of perfume on a bet. She and the composer Solovyov-Sedy flew to a festival in Brazil. And the subject of the dispute was precisely his companion. “You definitely know this man,” Gil said about him to the flight attendant. She didn’t believe it, and then dad sang his composition: “Not even a rustle can be heard in the garden...”

Dad usually went on tours abroad with a suitcase of his food:

soup in bags, canned food, a boiler... I saved my daily allowance - 2.5 dollars to buy gifts. He brought me foreign toys: figurines of Indians, cars on springs, which we didn’t have yet. The children were gossiping behind my back: “Dimka Khil has a whole cupboard of chewing gum at home!” Dad also took Russian souvenirs there - nesting dolls and small painted samovars. He even managed to exchange one of them for a good suit.

By the way, Eduard Anatolyevich often designed and sewed stage outfits for himself. And when he arrived in Brazil, he became the first Soviet artist to move away from a formal suit - it was hot there, and he willfully put on a light T-shirt on stage. Of course, at first I received a reprimand from a party worker - but then it stuck.

Dad brought boots from Sweden and only at home noticed that both were on his left foot.

Six months later he returned to Stockholm, and the store not only exchanged his shoes, but also gave him shoes for his wife as compensation. And one of the musicians decided to save money - he bought white summer boots for $2, which instantly fell apart when walking... “It turned out that the boots were for the dead!” - the father burst into laughter. Of course, many things amazed him abroad: in Sweden he saw a man who had been released from prison on a week's vacation. And one day one of the musicians bought canned food with cats and dogs painted on it, and they all tasted it, noting that “here the animals are fed better than sometimes our people.” We even went to a striptease in Paris. The Russian group sat in the first row, and Khil hid behind a column and, pretending to be a KGB officer, barked from the darkness in an iron voice: “Russians, get out!” And he had fun watching how our people jumped up and ran around... Only the next day he admitted to the musicians that it was he who had played a prank on them. There was also a funny incident: “I saw two women fighting right in the middle of the street. I take a closer look: wow, the girls - huge heels, short skirts, disheveled hair... I come closer - and these are men!” — Khil described his meeting with transvestites.

In Colombia, he almost died untimely... The small plane with passengers began to shake - it began to lose altitude, the cabin was filled with smoke... They did not stand on ceremony with the passengers: the steward shouted that there was a fire in the tail. The nuns in the chairs next to their father began to pray loudly. It turned out that among the travelers there were two

French pilot: one rushed into the cockpit to bring the plane out of a dive, the other to the source of the fire... They say that at such moments your whole life flashes before your eyes. “The earth was approaching... And I had the feeling that I was watching an adventure film,” my dad said. On the way back, Eduard Anatolyevich accidentally met his rescuers at the Paris airport and took a photo with the French crew as a souvenir.

— There is a well-known story about how in the early 90s Eduard Khil went to work in Paris and was almost planning to emigrate there... Did you visit him there?

“Eduard Khil didn’t even have the thought of emigrating. At one time he was invited to both Australia and America to live and work - his father did not need this. A visa to France was only given for a couple of months. Dad went there several times. One summer, my mother and I decided to visit him... We were walking around the city: there was garbage everywhere... “Yes, if you come to Paris, you’ll go crazy!” - we look at each other. It turned out that our visit coincided with a garbage workers' strike. What about Versailles? Is it possible to compare it with Petrodvorets? It happens that a copy is better than the original. Mom went down to the subway: only Arabs. “Where are the chic French men in fashionable scarves?” - she asked her father. “And they’re all in cars!” - he explained.

Dad rented a studio apartment quite far from the center of Paris. It was strange for us that the bathroom, toilet, and kitchen all fit in one tiny room. “Like being in a prison cell!” - Mom clasped her hands. And my father sometimes returned here already in the morning: he worked at night, saved money on a taxi, and after the performance he walked through the whole city.

The popular emigrant restaurant “Rasputin” turned out to be made in the best traditions of the red light street: burgundy curtains, low ceilings... At the entrance, the face of a historical character seems to warn: “If you go in, you won’t leave!” There are cobwebs in the corners. Nevertheless known fact: Charles Aznavour, Gilbert Becaud, Mireille Mathieu and even Francois Mitterrand came there to listen to dad. By the way, my father said that Mireille Mathieu approached him and asked the question: “What are you doing here?” It’s one thing to see crowds of thousands, and quite another to sing while people eat. Mathieu could not understand why a world-famous artist was not so appreciated in his homeland.

And he failed to earn any fabulous fees in France. The owner of the restaurant, Elena Afanasyevna Martini, was disingenuous, as if she was not aware that she was hosting a legend. Soviet stage. “So you are in the Union famous singer? If I knew, I would pay you more,” she told dad when he was leaving.

In France, someone warned Eduard Khil that in just a week all Soviet money would turn into paper. And he and his mother had good savings in their savings books - they could buy a Zhiguli... Dad called us: “There will be a collapse, hurry up and buy anything, even nails!” But we didn’t believe him - we thought someone was playing a prank on him. And they lost everything... Another person would have raised such a cry that they did not listen to him. And dad just sighed sadly: “Eh, but I told you...”

I rarely saw my dad truly angry. I remember when I was a boy, I didn’t want to eat porridge - I sat and picked at the plate. Maybe my father remembered the hungry war years, but he suddenly shouted: “Are you going to eat or not?” - and slammed his fist on the pull-out shelf of the buffet so that it crumpled. I had to repair it later.

- IN last decade Eduard Khil went on stage with you and your grandson - was he involved in educating the shift? You also wrote music for him as a composer - one might say, you opened a family business?

“Dad was on the road all the time, my parents left me with my grandmother. But musical abilities noticed in time... I started performing with my dad at the age of 10 - if you remember, there was such a song “Tic Tac Toe”, and my son

Edik went on stage with him at the age of 6 and sang “I want to become a captain.” Both Edik Jr. and I grew up in musical family. I sang purely and was sent to a boys' choir school. The same story repeated itself with his son - now Edik sings in the choir, plays the piano, and conducts serious works.

When my dad recorded my songs, sometimes I had to argue with him if our views on the manner of performance did not coincide. Sometimes he agreed, sometimes he did it his way. But if he got angry, he quickly walked away.

We didn't like to sing along to a soundtrack. But there were events where it was impossible otherwise. And so at one fair I go on stage, and a careless sound engineer puts on a recording not with my voice, but with my father’s... There is nowhere to go - I sing. At the same time, out of the corner of my eye

I see: the older and younger Ediki are dying of laughter near the stage. And once, for my dad, the Beatles were played as a soundtrack. They mixed up the recording... “Country of phonogram!” - he made a diagnosis in such cases.

As for the “family business,” you can now earn more for one performance than for several concerts during the Soviet era. But we still made large acquisitions infrequently...

Dad loved to be in nature, at the dacha. He dreamed of his own plot for a long time. When I was little, every summer we rented a house on the Gulf of Finland, then my dad was given a state cottage to use. And here is also the paradox of that time: there was money, but my father was not allowed to buy a dacha. And when the government changed and they finally offered to buy that same cottage, we were already building our own dacha, in a real village.

Dad enthusiastically began planting trees, finding out what was crossed and how...

The villagers adored him. Dad playfully scared the little one, pretending to be Barmaley: the children ran away screaming. And then the same guys went for a walk with huge dog- and the father was already running away from them into the house: “What if he bites?” — was afraid of big dogs.

In a dilapidated hut across the street lived a woman with a sick son. Yura was already approaching forty, and he behaved like a child - a real holy fool. And no one took care of him: the dirty, overgrown guy hardly spoke - he just mumbled. But Eduard Anatolyevich felt sorry for him, and Yura felt it: when he saw him on the path, he ran to him with a wheelbarrow to bring his bags. One day dad brought this Yura to our site and said to mom: “Bring a basin of water, soap, scissors...” He washed him and cut his hair. “Take off your rubber boots!” - “Bo-bo!” - Yura shook his head. It turned out that the legs were worn down to wounds - so the father also disinfected them!

— It seems that Eduard Anatolyevich was always cheerful and cheerful. Did anything foretell trouble last June?

“The disease took him suddenly... No one could have imagined it - after all, Eduard Khil was gushing with energy. And as Mister Trololo, he was again invited to England, Brazil and other countries. Two days before the stroke, my father spoke with enthusiasm about the upcoming trip to Baden-Baden... Hope glimmered until the last.

...One day Khil forgot the words on stage, then Mark Bernes came up to him and advised: “If you don’t know what to sing, whistle.” And for a long time creative life Dad learned to whistle artistically... And in our village we have a lot of nightingales - they fly to the branches of a tall elm and sing. My father called that tree “a hotel for nightingales.” As soon as he heard their trills, he immediately picked it up, you couldn’t tell the difference... And a whole flock of nightingales flocked to his funeral. She sang for a long, long time.

source-http://7days.ru

The son of singer Eduard Khil told the site why he ended up in an orphanage as a child and how he lived his last days.

On June 4, 2012, the People's Artist of Russia, opera and pop singer Eduard Anatolyevich Khil. His famous hits “Winter”, “The Sailor Came Ashore”, “Lumberjacks” and many others sounded from almost every window. Not a single concert was complete without this artist. His voice, constant smile and easy performance could not be confused with anyone else. He sincerely worried about his fatherland, about the people, but tried to perceive all adversities with irony. the site talked to the singer’s son Dmitry Eduardovich and found out why his famous father ended up in an orphanage, how he survived the war and how he spent his last days...

Khil, according to official sources, was born on September 4, 1934 in Smolensk. However, according to his mother, he was born a year earlier. Mom Elena Pavlovna worked as an accountant. The father of the future singer Anatoly Vasilyevich was a mechanic.

“When dad was still very young, Elena Pavlovna separated from Anatoly Vasilyevich and got married a second time,” the son of the People’s Artist Dmitry Khil, who, like dad, became a musician, initiates us into family nuances.

A difficult childhood hardened Eduard Anatolyevich. From an early age he learned what humanity is / family archive

Eduard Anatolyevich's childhood occurred during the Great Patriotic War.

– When the bombing of Smolensk began in the summer of 1941, kindergartens were very quickly evacuated. My father ended up in an orphanage in the village of Raevka near Ufa, where the wounded were brought. All the children from the orphanage came to the infirmaries and sang for them. Two years later, when the city of Smolensk was liberated from the German occupation, dad was found by his stepfather, and then his mother took him. When my grandmother saw him, she was stunned: he was so thin that he couldn’t even walk.

In one of the programs, Eduard Anatolyevich himself said: “When my mother came to me, she brought a lot of delicious things: chocolate, cookies, candies, and I asked: “Do you have bread?” The guys and I divided a small piece among ourselves. I have never eaten anything tastier than this bread.”

Dad, as a 7-year-old boy, tried to escape to the front with his friend Misha Khaikin. But they were caught and returned back. It so happened that at one of the programs many decades later he met Misha. This touched my dad so much that I saw tears in his eyes.

Dmitry Khil / family archive

Since childhood, Eduard Anatolyevich had good hearing and artistic abilities, so he took part in dramatic productions.

– In a school play at the orphanage, dad was forced to play the role of Hitler. He refused and cried, wondering: why exactly did he get this character? In the school magazine, where he was graded, next to his last name it was written: “Hil is a German.” This magazine is still kept in the local school museum village of Raevka. Soon I will release a book with memories of my father, it will be published rare photographs, including the war period.

When the time to get an education was approaching, his mother sent 15-year-old Eduard to his brother in Leningrad.

– The fact is that my stepfather liked to drink. He had frequent disagreements with Elena Pavlovna; dad didn’t like it all. He always tried to protect his mother and hated his stepfather. I even wanted to watch for him with a knife and sort it out, so to prevent anything from happening, Elena Pavlovna sent him to Uncle Shura.

“He lived in Leningrad with his grandmother’s brother and his family,” continues Dmitry. – Once, my father’s relative, Aunt Manya, gave me a single duvet for my father and mother’s wedding. A month later, Aunt Manya hurried to visit the newlyweds: “How’s the blanket? Are you using it? Dad answered in the affirmative, and she: “Look, if you don’t like it, I’ll take it away.” So several times a week Aunt Manya came and asked about the blanket. In general, my mother could not stand it and returned the gift (laughs). So my dad’s relatives were cheerful.

Eduard Khil was fond of painting, won a competition for young artists in Smolensk, and wanted to enter the famous Mukhinsky School.

“He sent the drawings to his uncle, who showed them to an artist he knew. They decided to let him go to Mukhinka, but it turned out that he had to study there for seven years. Uncle Shura said that “Edik won’t last that long,” that is, he won’t be able to support him, and advised him to enter the Leningrad Printing College.

Eduard Khil received from the hands of Dmitry Medvedev the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree / Global Look Press

After graduation, Khil got a job at an offset factory. He began studying vocals in the studio of the Palace of Culture. S. M. Kirov, I realized that he has a voice. One day one of his peers asked: “Could you go to the conservatory?”, Dad replied: “Yes, it’s easy!” And so it happened.

After graduating from the Leningrad Conservatory and working for many years in the opera studio, Eduard Khil began performing as a soloist at the Lenconcert, where he worked for over 50 years. At the end of the eighties, the country was experiencing Time of Troubles, more than half of the artists were laid off. Some journalists wrote that Eduard Khil went to work in Paris and that with the money he earned he allegedly bought an apartment in the center of Moscow and another one on the Champs Elysees.

– For some reason, the media formed the opinion that my father did not have a job in the 90s. This is wrong! He was always in great demand, with his level of popularity and rich repertoire it could not be otherwise. Dad loved Paris very much, but he never dreamed of staying in France forever; his homeland was everything to him. You know, you can write refutations that no one needs and prove something, or you can smile back - this is, in fact, what my father did. He always said: “Dima, don’t you understand what country you live in?!”

Zoya Alexandrovna still feels the presence of her husband / Zamir Usmanov / Global Look Press

The singer's son Dmitry often went on tour with his father.

– One day dad met a man near concert hall. Either he was a little drunk, or he was out of his mind. In general, he was delighted with his father: “Oh, and you’re what’s his name, Eduard Khil!” And dad decided to joke: “No, it’s not me.” The man insisted: “It’s definitely you. I can see". He even tried to grab dad by the nose: “Here, you have a mark on your nose.” My father pulled away a little, and I almost rushed at the man. Dad actually had a mark on his nose. When he was little, he knocked over a hot pan on himself. In general, this is what left him with a scar, but it can only be seen in large photographs. After such meetings with fans, dad always made a stupid face, portraying another tipsy admirer. You know, now everyone is used to the fact that artists have a lot of security guards, they drive cool cars, make unimaginable demands in the so-called rider, such as “papaya-scented toilet paper and exotic shark fin soup” and stuff like that. My father never asked for anything special for himself.

Eduard Khil treated his audience with reverence and respect, but sometimes among his fans there were people with oddities.

“One lady from the attic of a neighboring house was aiming straight at her parents’ bedroom. It was lucky that the bullet got stuck in the frame and didn't hit the bed. It’s good that the lady had a homemade gun in her hands. It is necessary to mention the letters that dad’s fans wrote. As soon as they called Khil in letters: “Edyulya! Edwardissimo! Dikushko! or “Oh my Edelweiss!” One woman wrote that she wanted to meet him at the cemetery at night. You can’t imagine how many flowers they gave him! After each concert in Crimea there was a full bath of bouquets. Dad joked, they say, let’s take it to the market now and earn some money.

Eduard Khil Jr. followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather / PhotoXpress

In 2010 one American student posted on the Internet a shortened version of Eduard Khil’s performance, where he performed “I’m very glad, because I’m finally returning home.” The video received a record number of views in one day. Popularly, the name of the song was shortened to “Ololo-trololo”, and the singer was nicknamed “Mr. Trololo”.

“After this incident, the phone in the apartment did not stop talking. They called from different parts of the world. Dad was incredibly in demand and loved. They began to invite him everywhere. He treated the video with humor. I thought that such promotion on the Internet was necessary only for beginning artists, but he had already proven everything with his songs.

- In general, dad was sometimes very strange man, continues Dmitry, “he might not have gone to a well-paid concert, but performed at a charity one.” He had fun and joked around at important government concerts, for example at the Palace of Congresses. And before minor performances at small venues, he could get nervous and spend a long time preparing for the performance.

You know, sometimes it’s puzzling that my father is known as the man who sang “Trololo”, “Ice Ceiling...” and “Waddle Sailor...”. He performed classics, arias, and romances. Dad was always in favor of the singer having a special musical education. Yes, there are self-taught people with beautiful voices, they are like diamonds without facets, which are incredibly difficult to turn into a diamond. You know what should be in a real teacher - he does not just train the student, but tries to pull out from the depths of human nature something characteristic and peculiar only to this student, directing him to the true path that reveals the unique traits of individuality.

Dmitry complains that real artists are passing away, and they are being replaced by a generation brought up on mass media, those who have neither a voice nor deep knowledge, no taste.

Thousands of people came to say goodbye to their favorite artist /

– Sorry, but there are absolutely no songs or music right now. Many young artists don’t know how to sing; now they don’t have the foundation to go out to people and appear on the stage. Previously, proven people appeared on stage, who did not win various competitions for money or through acquaintances, but went through a strict selection process. And now almost anyone can come out. Moreover, everyone sings to a soundtrack, and dad was always against this. Nowadays, artists care about how they look, not how or what they sing. I am a supporter of the artist singing on stage without decorations and smoke that obscure the song, against a gray curtain. After all, the singer will need to attract the viewer’s gaze only through his efforts. Then it will be clear what the performer is capable of.

Despite his passion for work, Eduard Khil’s family was at the forefront. He tried to devote as much time as possible to his family. Usually behind a successful and accomplished man there is Strong woman. The singer was married to his wife Zoya Alexandrovna for 53 years.

– My parents met at the Opera Studio in 1958: dad was a singer, and mom was a ballerina. They performed in plays. We communicated like ordinary colleagues. But on tour in Kursk everything changed. It was summer then, dad came to the beach, saw mom and kissed her. She did not expect such a turn of events, she was indignant, and so they began a whirlwind romance.

On June 2, 1963, son Dmitry was born. He graduated from the choir school. M.I. Glinka, Leningrad Conservatory, worked as a musician at the Petersburg Concert, composed music for performances, songs and romances. Dmitry has a 19-year-old son, Edward, he also graduated from the choir school. M.I. Glinka and the Conservatory, now actively performs at concerts.

grave legendary singer/ Global Look Press

Eduard Anatolyevich gave many concerts, despite his age. He had a pension of 11,000 rubles, he needed to live on something. He never complained about anything and was a man of incredible kindness. Many people were drawn to him. It was as if he had the sun inside him. He's up to last days was true to the music. In 2010, his heart began to bother him and hypertension developed. On April 8, 2012, everyone’s favorite artist was hospitalized in one of the hospitals in St. Petersburg.

– Dad went to the hairdresser before his trip to Germany. There he felt bad. He had a stroke. In the hospital he was completely entangled in tubes and could not speak. We constantly showed him something and told him something. Every day we came to see him in the intensive care unit, the feeling of helplessness did not leave us. Due to improper functioning of the brain, organs began to function poorly. My father understood perfectly well what was happening. I remember him lying in bed, looking at the green trees in the window, and tears dripping from his eyes. On May 15, I already realized that there was no turning back. One day I played him the song “I’m Going to the Stars,” and he suddenly opened his eyes. It is very painful to see a person who can neither continue to live nor die. He passed away on June 4th.

We can talk about Eduard Khil for a long time. After all, he was a man and an artist with a capital “A”; he sincerely cared about his country, about the music to which he devoted his whole life. Unfortunately, there are very few artists on our stage who would be extremely honest with the audience, like Eduard Anatolyevich. In one of his last television interviews, he said partingly: “The greatest pleasure is not taking, but giving! Bring your feelings, give people everything that is good in you.”