Ilya Rakhmielevich, you have lived in Crimea for quite some time. Why did you choose this place?
Ilya Reznik: Oh yes, in Crimea, Ira and I, my wife, have been attached to this place since 2000. Imagine, I already feel like a Crimean, although we don’t have our own house here, we always rent a house. You know, I tell everyone that in Crimea it is easy to breathe and write. There is no problem here, a good creative environment. Here I communicate a lot with interesting people, I have known Metropolitan Tikhon of Crimea for a long time and now we have become closer, we have had deep and meaningful conversations several times.
You were baptized in Crimea according to the Orthodox rite. As was?
Ilya Reznik: I have been working on this for a long time and I got there consciously. In my inner circle there were always priests: Vladimir Volgin, Dmitry Smirnov, and more than once they offered me baptism. Each time I responded, no, I’m not ready. And I came to this when I met Vladyka Nestor, Nikolai Donenko. He became my and Irina’s confessor. Then I was baptized, it was in August 2017, in the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in Oreanda. And a year later, Irina and I got married in the same church.
And now the Christian theme occupies a prominent place in his work.
Ilya Reznik: I wrote prayers a long time ago, Valery Leontyev and Tamara Gverdtsiteli fulfilled my prayers. And now I have written a collection of poetic prayers, “Holy warriors and defenders of the Russian land.” I wrote thinking about our boys, who, as they say now, are “behind the tape” because they are immersed in this issue. Together with Army General Vladimir Pronichev, we published this collection with a circulation of 20 thousand copies and everything reached the front. With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill and the support of Bishop Nestor, I wrote four volumes of spiritual poetry. The first volume is Prayers, the second is The Creation of the World, the third is The Lives of the Saints and the fourth is Parables. Every year he created a volume and wrote it all in Yalta, in Nizhnyaya Oreanda.
Photo: From the Reznik family album.
The lyrics of the song “Holy War” were written in one night, the composer Alexandrov wrote the same brilliant music in one day and already on June 26, 1941 it was performed at the station. Today our country has been at war for three years, but we do not have works of this level. Why do you think?
Ilya Reznik: This is a difficult question. Probably, today’s generation perceives the world differently than 80 years ago. Let’s say that today there is such a performer, Shamán, he has quite moving songs, the children in my musical groups are delighted with him, but they cannot reproduce anything from his repertoire. It is not memorable, it does not last. And they easily sing songs that are 30 or 40 years old. It seems to me that there is too much commercialism in current creativity. And then, to write works like “Get Up, Huge Country,” you need composers of Alexandrov’s level. In my opinion, this task today would only be possible for Alexandra Pakhmutova, and I do not see any young, contemporary composer of this level.
Photo: From the Reznik family album.
But you dedicated the song to the heroes of the Northern Military District.
Ilya Reznik: Yes, the requiem “Loved Ones Don’t Die” was born very organically, because I live in the present of our country, of course, I am very worried about our guys, about their families. Thank God that in Sevastopol there is a composer, Alexander Batrak, with whom we became co-authors, we wrote this song together. And Aziza wrote it down.
I can’t help but ask this question. What is your relationship with Pauls and Pugacheva now?
Ilya Reznik: We not only continue to communicate with Raymond, but we also write together. During the pandemic, they wrote the song “You’re Forgiving!”, dedicating it to the doctors who gave their lives in the line of duty and remained faithful to the Hippocratic Oath. He recently sent me his CD, some wonderful arrangements, and there are two or three of our collaborations. January 12th was Raymond’s birthday, we called each other. I think he is a very brave man because he had the courage to say openly that Soviet Latvia was a rich and happy country, and now his homeland is poor and unhappy. It’s hard for Pauls now, his wife Lana passed away, he’s 88, but he’s hanging in there.
Alla and I have 20 years of happy and creative life in common. This cannot be crossed out or forgotten. I wrote 71 songs for Pugacheva. She encouraged her to try herself as a songwriter and wrote music for several of our songs. But then our paths parted. She’s probably very worried right now. And she could have left as a great Russian singer. But, despite everything, I think that on April 4 she will congratulate me on my birthday, and on April 15 I will congratulate her on her 75th birthday.
Photo: Press service of the Crimean Council of Ministers.
A composer and simply a poet, are they different?
Ilya Reznik: The phrase poet and composer makes me a little uncomfortable. There is a kind of contempt in this. It is the same as calling Chekhov a writer-narrator. Kolya Dobronravov is called a composer. This is ugly, he was a great poet. Alexander Shaganov, a wonderful poet, is also called a composer. But there are only a few real composers. The song must have a brilliant simplicity. Today, if I’m not mistaken, there are several thousand poets in the Writers’ Union. And they only know those who wrote the songs. In terms of poetry, there is a great shortage today. But it is unethical to talk to colleagues, so now I don’t hear anything.
In his creative treasure there are no less than seven film roles. The series “Magomayev” premiered in 2020 and in it you play Heydar Aliyev. Why did he accept this role?
Ilya Reznik: We met Heydar Alievich personally, he is, of course, an exceptional person and statesman. In 1980, Pugacheva and I were on tour in Baku and Muslim took us to meet Aliyev. But I only had a collection of music, eight songs with notes, and I gave them to Aliyev. He asks: don’t you have a book? At that time it was impossible for someone who was not a member of the Writers’ Union to publish. And then Aliyev says: can we publish your poems? In fact, the Azerbaijani state publishing house published the book “Singer’s Monologues,” which included 18 of my poems. And Pugacheva designed its cover as an artist. That’s how we met Heydar Aliyev and I had the pleasure of accepting the invitation and capturing the image of this man on the screen.
Photo: Sergey Vinnik/RG
Did you film in Baku?
Ilya Reznik: Yes, my wife and I flew to the capital of Azerbaijan and a very comical situation occurred. There, if you remember, they filmed this famous scene from “The Diamond Arm,” where there is an untranslatable pun and the password is “Damn!” Imagine, the director of the film receives us in a wheelchair. I ask what happened? She says, we are going to shoot the location for Muslim’s video in the movie, we reached this place, I stumbled there, I fell, I woke up – a cast. Well, my wife and I also went to this place, and there was such a small step, how could we not notice it, in a word, in this place we both fell on our faces. I call the director and tell him this and that. She asks is your face intact?
What are your creative plans?
Ilya Reznik: I have many plans, first of all, to participate in the musical theater “Little Country”, wonderful children. On the eve of March 8, my creative evening “The Anniversary of the Master” will take place in Simferopol. The songs “Cinderella”, “Maestro” and other hits will be performed by opera singers with the accompaniment of the academic symphony orchestra under the direction of the wonderful conductor Alexander Dolinsky. I will read poetry and sing, and I hope the audience sings with me. On stage I will perform the song “Stingy with Love”, along with the symphony orchestra, our children’s theaters and all the soloists who will perform tonight. Now I have prepared the first volume of the History of the Russian State in verse. It covers the period from the prophetic Oleg to Minin and Pozharsky. The second volume will be from Peter I to Nicholas I. And the third volume will be from Nicholas II. Russia is a great country under the protection of the Lord God and under the protection of the Most Holy Theotokos. I am confident that we will withstand all challenges and win.
