Charming, with a long, blond braid, slender body, with a western taste in clothes and manners – so atypical for the Soviet times and spirit was pop singer, mezzo-soprano Maria Pakhomenko (25.03.1937 – 08.03.2013). Her appearance on stage was an event, but when Maria began to sing, the audience gasped. A clear, powerful voice cultivated almost to perfection. One of the most significant successes for the artist was the “Grand Prix” at the international competition “Golden Orpheus” in Bulgaria. It can be argued that due to talent, the golden Orpheus was Maria Pakhomenko herself.
Furtseva’s choice
In June 1971, the international song festival “Golden Orpheus” (1967-1993) was held on the shores of the Black Sea, Bulgaria. For a long time it was decided which of the Soviet executioners to send there; more than enough candidates. Maria Pakhomenko was among the applicants. Many did not like it, so the singer was called from Moscow and advised to withdraw her candidacy, but she did not agree. The last name belonged to the Minister of Culture of the USSR Yekaterina Furtseva. She chose Pakhomenko – a talent endowed with absolute musical hearing. In the 1960s and early 1970s, Leningrad was enthralled by her songs “Swing, swing…” (“Качает, качает…”), “Standing Girls” (“Стоят девчонки”), “Wonder Horses” (“Чудо кони” ) and others. The minister chose and was not wrong.
Where is the first place?
Maria Pakhomenko arrived in Bulgaria with a small amount of travel money in her pocket. No one cared that the stage costumes had to be sewn at their own expense. Also, no one helped to fix the hairstyle before going on stage. While combing her hair before the performance, the singer’s hands were shaking so much that nothing worked. She also went on stage with her hair flowing freely.
Two competitions were held during the festival – the final of Bulgarian new songs and the competition of singers of pop songs. The members of the jury were professionals in their field: conductors, composers, light and dance music specialists. The performance of the artists took place on the stage of the Summer Theater. For the Bulgarian song contest, Maria Pahomenko had chosen “Don Quixote” composed by Viktor Raichev with lyrics by Ivan Teofil. In the second competition, she performed the song «My longing» («Ненаглядный мой») composed by Aleksandra Pakhmutova.
The results of the competition were announced on June 7. From the repertoire of Bulgarian songs, the song “Don Quixote” was recognized as the best. This is followed by the announcement of the names of the third, second and first place winners. After that, the announcement that the «Grand Prix» will also be presented, which the representatives of the jury have decided to award to Marija Pahomenko, is surprising.
When the artist called the Ministry of Culture of the USSR and shouted into the receiver: “Grand Prix! Grand Prix!”, the official, who was unfamiliar with this combination of words, asked: “But where is the first place?” Minister Furtseva wanted to get the statuette, which Pahomenko brought from Bulgaria, but the singer did not return it.
A dizzying success
Marija Pahomenko was one of the lucky ones, whose sound records were released by the company “Melodija” and sold more than 2.5 million copies in record stores. For this, in 1968, the international sound recording festival in Cannes awarded the award “Platinum disk”. Many of the songs were composed by Alexander Kolker. Although several sources claim that her husband allowed her to perform only his own songs, this is not true. The singer has performed compositions by Aleksandra Pakhmutova, Oskar Feľcman, Vadim Shpavalov and others. She has sung in a duet with her stage colleague Eduardas Hill and for 10 years with her daughter Natalia Pakhomenko. Several concert films have been shot about the artist: «People need a song», «Mariya Pakhomenko sings», the Leningrad television studio concert film «Love remains».
Later, her new colleagues – Valentina Tolkunova and Lyudmila Senchina – appeared on the stage in an identical form as Maria Pakhomenko. The same long, blond braid, the same style of beads, and the clothes and mannerisms were so similar to those of Pahomenko.
Tandem in music, but in life?
The singer’s daughter Nataliya Pakhomenko, when I revealed my intention to write about her mother, warned me to be careful, because even prestigious information sources wrote complete nonsense about the artist. First of all, Maria was born in Leningrad, not in Belarus, as it is read in many places. “My mother was a child of the blockade from a large family. Every day, she walked five long tram stops to the music school, where she listened to her peers learn music from behind the door,” Natalija says. “He sat at the radio for hours, listening to all the musical programs in a row. As a child, she could sing all opera arias by heart, songs performed in French and Italian. That’s how she learned to sing. Passing the competition, where the other applicants had a conservatory education and serious experience, mom joined the quartet of the musician Valentin Akulshin.» Natalia was last in Latvia many years ago. “I was still a child then, my mother took me to see Raymond Paul.”
Maria Pakhomenko used to be called a Russian beauty, but her daughter discovers that she did not have a drop of Russian blood in her veins. “My mother’s family was half Polish. Our closest relatives live in Krakow, Łódź, Transcarpathia. Mom knew both Polish and French.”
The singer met the composer Alexander Kolker in her youth and got married after two years of friendship. In 1960, Natalia was born. Kolker and Pahomenko seemed like a perfect couple – a successful tandem both in music and in private life. They lived very close to the place of Pushkin’s duel, by the Black River. The title of the Meritorious Artist of the USSR, later the Meritorious Artist of the Russian Federation and still is, so the news that Kolker treated Pahomenko disrespectfully to a man when he did not have to pose for editorial photographers or television cameras seemed like a bolt from a clear sky to fans of Maria’s talent.
The last years of Maria Pakhomenko’s life were hell; the singer fell ill with Alzheimer’s disease. In 2012, the Russian press reported that the former star left the house and disappeared. He was found by mall security guards. Pahomenko could not say where she had been and what she had done. The singer died on March 8, 2013. Kolker and his daughter became enemies and even had a lawsuit. On the other hand, her granddaughter, also Maria Pakhomenko, is very similar to her grandmother – the golden Orpheus.
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