"Friends called us Lennon and Yoko": Igor Talkov's widow recalls what a poet and musician was like

- Tatiana, how did you meet Igor? 

- We met in the Moscow cafe "Metelitsa".

I went there with my friends to drink coffee and listen to music, and Igor had dinner there with friends.

Later we recalled this meeting and confessed to each other that his love for me flared up at first sight, and mine - from the first word he said. 

His intelligence and erudition were mesmerizing.

I am an ordinary Moscow girl who recently graduated from school, was captivated by his downright noble manners, combined with an absolutely modern appearance: jeans, long hair, beard ...

He said that the musician, keeping silent out of modesty, that he is also a poet: he writes songs, sings and plays in a musical group.

Like many musicians, he was heavily influenced by Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Queen and of course The Beatles. 

He was "hooked" by my slightly oriental appearance.

Then friends compared us to John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

• Igor and Tatiana Talkov.

• © From personal archive

- How did your relationship develop?

How did he propose to you? 

- After we met, we began to meet.

Igor often went on tour, later I got used to it, but at first it was hard.

Then I lived with my mother and sister, worked and studied.

Igor was very warmly received by my relatives, and it could not be otherwise, his attitude towards me and his personal charm conquered my family.

They jokingly called him Beard.

At that time, Igor's family consisted of his mother, Olga Yulievna, and his brother Vladimir.

They lived in the city of Shchyokin, Tula region.

This story is known: his mother and father were serving sentences under the infamous 58th article as enemies of the people and had no right, after liberation, to settle closer than 200 km from Moscow.

Therefore, Igor - a hereditary nobleman and a Muscovite on his father's side - was born there in 1956.

It was there, in Shchekino, Igor brought me one day to meet his mother.

It was his "offer": "Mom, meet me - this is my Tanya."

In Shchekino we got married: we signed, bought champagne and went to the grave of Igor's father, Vladimir Maksimovich.

- Where did you live after the wedding?

- My aunt left me a tiny apartment in Moscow, but God, how glad we were: it seemed like a mansion to us!

We were young, dreamed of Igor's great musical future, were expecting our baby ...

- You named your son Igor.

Was that your decision?

How did Igor the father react to this?

- I immediately knew, felt: a son will be born and he will also be Igor.

Necessarily!

One goes on tour, and the other - a small part of him - stays with me.

How I felt that one day it would be forever.

Igor has a poem "Do not envy the wives of the artists", in which he very accurately and subtly found the image of my family life with him: "A birch without leaves at the apogee of the nature of flowering" ...

- How does it feel to be the wife of Igor Talkov?

- His life is creativity beyond any time and space frames!

It is hard to imagine that in his incomplete 35 years he wrote more than 250 songs, a huge number of poems, arrangements for his own and other people's songs, played two main roles in films, wrote the book "Monologue", produced and staged the play "Judgment".

And all this - except for concerts, tours.

And at any free moment he read books.

Books on history, philosophy, astrophysics, cultural history and religion, studied the Gospel.

Not a single free second without a book!

I always knew he was a genius.

When he could not get on stage through the "dense jungle of the law", I predicted him "take off" at the age of 27.

And so it happened.

When you realize that you live with a genius, you need to free him from everything that can prevent him from self-realization: everyday life, self-doubt, despair from failures, suffering from betrayal of friends ... Now I can already say that Igor was free as a creative person - I took over all of the above.

It is in his diaries ...

- 

Are there songs in Igor's work, the ideas of which he discussed with you?

- Did he consult with me when creating something new?

Yes, it happened.

He usually composed at night, when the house was quiet.

In the morning he wakes up: "Listen, how are you?"

You have to wake up, listen to it several times, give advice, but only very tactfully and delicately, so as not to offend - he was very vulnerable ...

But more often than not, the songs, poems, arrangements, the first listener of which I became, caused me sincere delight.

It was so strikingly unlike everything that sounded then from the stage.

After listening to a new song or recording in the studio, Igor fell asleep, and I sat down next to him and looked, looked, looked at him.

It would have been easy and interesting to shoot videos based on his songs, but at that time this art form was not yet popular. 

• Igor Talkov with his wife Tatyana on the set of the film "Prince Silver".

  1990 year

• © From personal archive

- How did he feel about money?

How did his relationship with partners develop?

- How did he feel about money?

Yes, practically he simply did not have them - neither in his barrack childhood, nor in his conscious age, while he was climbing to the top of his Parnassus.

Only in the last three or four years, when he became a megastar, did it feel better.

Igor bought a used foreign car and was happy as a child.

But still, there was no big money in the family: everything went to equipment, salaries for musicians, creative projects, and tours.

To make it completely clear: when Igor died, my son and I remained in the same Khrushchev, where our life together began, where in the bathroom, in the absence of his own corner, Igor created his masterpieces and where before the funeral I brought the coffin with his body.

Yes, we wanted to change it or buy a new one in order to expand the square footage, but housing prices grew faster than Igor managed to earn.

Ideally, Igor dreamed of a big house with a high fence, to have 80 cats and cats - so he jokingly said.

He loved cats very much.

- There are very few family photos of the Talkovs in the network.

Why?

- We actually have no photos with Igor.

He believed in the omen that taking pictures with loved ones meant separation, but he did not want that, of course.

Although he gave me the camera from the first fee.

We then went to Arbat and bought me a Zenit reflex camera.

I really loved taking pictures, I studied it and loved to show it myself.

But little Igor sneaked up to the films that were in the developer, and liked to play with them, moving up and down several times - and light up the film, so the photos often did not work.

- Did Igor Talkov change when he became popular?

- Having become popular, he, of course, changed, because the creative atmosphere around him changed: envy, gossip, intrigue.

Even now, 30 years after the murder, some freak characters are trying to cash in on this and assert themselves, they cannot overcome their inferiority complex against the background of such a phenomenon as Igor Talkov.

And then Igor's songs have headed all existing charts and soundtracks since 1987, every year they became laureates of the Song of the Year festival, and in the nominations Composer, Poet, Performer ...

The last diploma for "I'll be back" in January 1992 I received for Igor - in the rising and sobbing hall.

What was it like for everyone whom he constantly bypassed and overshadowed?

Igor was not ready for meanness, betrayal, or lies around his name.

He was too open, trusting and emotional.

But his star status did not affect our relationship in any way - we remained very close people.

“I had to start all over again.

One left.

Neither the group, nor the administration ... only the faithful and wonderful Tatiana this time helped me to lick my wounds and come to my senses. "

Entry from the diary of Igor Talkov, 29.06.1991.

- How did he interact with other artists?

- I do not want to talk about relations with colleagues in the shop at all.

Life has shown that there is every man for himself - and this is at best.

Some of them openly slander and insult Igor's memory.

On February 10, 2021, I won a court to protect the honor, dignity and business reputation of my husband against Channel One, Aziza and Gulnara Mukhamedov.

The press prefers to hush up this fact, although it is actively fanning any nonsense and slander about the life and death of Igor.

And after all, someone needs it?

- How did the son find out about the death of his father?

How did you help him get through it?

- Son ... On the ninth day after the death of his father, October 14, 1991, he was only ten years old.

Then he told me: "Mom, don't cry - now I am Igor Talkov - senior."

Then we agreed with him that dad left for a long, long tour.

For a boy his age it probably helped, but not for me.

Now he writes songs, became a musician, he has a family, and sons are growing up in it - our grandchildren with Igor.

Everything went by so quickly - a lifetime.

It is very difficult to become popular in our country, especially if you are the son of a famous musician who no longer exists.

A lot of negative things about Igor Jr. are pouring in from ill-wishers.

But Igoryok does not give up, he goes firmly and confidently in his own way and every day wins more and more fans.

I am very proud of him.

He, like his father, is very honest, kind, smart and talented! 

The other day he called me, we talked for a long time, and suddenly in a conversation he said to me: "Mom, now is the time when it is a shame to be decent."

Do you understand what the phrase is?

And it's true.

To what we have lived ...

- Igor died shortly before the collapse of the USSR.

Do you think he would have perceived this rift in the country?

- "Time does not love its heroes, it gives them free of charge to the future

. 

"

I think it is no coincidence that Igor was killed on the eve of the collapse of a country that no longer exists.

I will unequivocally say how Igor would react to this: how a normal healthy person would react to the ruin of his home. Do not confuse his attitude to the authorities, which he considered illegitimate since 1917, and the concept of "Motherland". It's not the same thing! His social songs about this: "My Motherland", "Russia", "Gentlemen Democrats", "Metamorphosis", "Globus", "Chistye Prudy - 2", "Uncle's Cap", "Semi-Glasnost", "Mr. President" ... Listen to them, and it will become clear how he felt about fooling the people with glasnost, perestroika, and pseudo-democracy. Just like communism! And it will become clear why, over the course of 30 years, these songs do not seem to exist at all in Talkov's work. Well, who wants to hear: "You can rebuild the face, but the soul - never!" Or: "My homeland is a beggarly bag ... My homeland, you've gone crazy!" And how he treated everything,easy to understand from a 1987 diary entry: “The roles are pre-assigned, the ending is known. Gorbachev is a scoundrel. Yeltsin is a traitor, a traitor to the hopes and faith in him of tens of millions of people. " He told all this during his speeches. In this I see the answer to all questions and do not believe in the accidental death of my husband. 

- Three years ago we spoke with you about the reopening of the investigation.

You then pinned hopes on the fact that thanks to the witnesses, an end would be put in the investigation of the murder of Igor?

This happened?

- On November 13, 2018 - after the resumption of the investigation - I got the opportunity to familiarize myself with part of the materials of the criminal case.

Accused of the murder of Igor Vladimirovich Talkov, his concert director Valery Shlyafman, who has been living in Israel all these years, has been recognized.

The law, which came into force in 2008, allows for the trial of those who have committed especially grave crimes in absentia.

It is clear that customers will never be found, and, probably, they will not be looking ...

An attempt to present the murder of Igor as a murder by negligence does not stand up to criticism, says too much about the opposite!

There is every reason to send a criminal case to court.

But for this it is necessary to carry out a series of investigative actions, which my lawyer stated in her petitions back in 2018.

I would like to appeal to the chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Ivanovich Bastrykin, with a request to take the case of my husband's murder under my control and to receive me personally with my lawyer.

I also want to ask the media to stop pressure on public opinion and the investigation so that the case is brought to court.

- What questions would you like to raise at a meeting with Bastrykin, if it happens?

- No one has ever answered me an important question: were they bought tickets to Sochi, where Igor's concerts were to begin on October 7, that is, the day after the murder?

The closing of the season in Sochi at the Festivalny Concert Hall.

Igor Talkov was expected there.

But for me it is important whether there were posters of his performance in the city and were tickets purchased for him and his group?

He really didn’t want to go to this concert, but Lis's insisted very much.

I have a feeling that Igor was invited one way.

And no one for 30 years has ever answered this question, although I asked it to everyone, including the representatives of the investigation. 

- In one of the articles they told the case when Igor said on the plane: “Do not be afraid.

As long as you are with me, you will not perish.

They will kill me in the presence of a large crowd of people, and they will never find my murderer. "

Do you know who he said this to?

Is this true or legend?

- As for the phrase attributed to Igor, that "he will be killed in the presence of a large crowd of people and the murderer will not be found" - this is from the evil one, and maybe someone needs it.

I know to whom and when he said that he would die a violent death.

And he prophesied.