Yuri Shatunov.
Photo: Evgenia GUSEVA
In all cities of Russia now posters are posted saying “Yura was here!”. From them, smiling, the performer of the hit “White Roses” looks at passers-by. Yuri Shatunov died on June 22, 2022, he was 48 years old. But he continues to live: in the hearts of fans, in his children Dennis and Estella and in his songs, which will be performed in his memory at autumn concerts (ticket prices at the Crocus City Hall in the capital already reach 35 thousand rubles!) .
A year after Shatunov’s death, KP found out who inherited the artist’s estate and why producer Andrei Razin continues to sue Tender May’s hits.
From Germany – with love
In recent years, Yuri lived with his family in Germany. There he married the lawyer Svetlana, they had children. The singer had a mansion in the “city of millionaires” Bad Homburg in Hesse. This resort town got the nickname from him because of the respectable residents – it was chosen by highly paid lawyers, bankers and other specialists. The Shatunov family now lives in this house. In the same place, on Lake Constance, part of the artist’s ashes were scattered. The other part is buried in Moscow.
The city of Bad Homburg, where the singer lived, is located 20 kilometers from Frankfurt am Main.
Svetlana, Dennis (16 years old) and Estella (10 years old) will not move to Russia. Even at the singer’s memorial service, which took place on June 23 in Moscow, alas, there were no relatives. Fans filled Shatunov’s grave at the Troekurovsky cemetery with white roses, prayed for the repose of the artist’s soul, but never met his children and wife.
It is difficult to contact the wife of the Tender May soloist: she only occasionally appears spontaneously on social networks to answer some questions from Yura’s fans. She doesn’t go on TV. However, she does not completely disappear from the radar: on the day of the anniversary of her husband’s death, through the group of Shatunov fans, she addressed everyone who loves the artist.
The musician married the lawyer Svetlana in 2007.
Photo: SOCIAL NETWORKS
“Exactly one year ago, Yura entered eternity and gained eternal life,” Svetlana wrote. – Exactly one year ago, everything changed, and these changes were not easy to accept. Today I would like not only to remember Yura, but also to thank all of you, the millionth army of her fans, for being you, for being with us. She deserved it. After all, she was not only a great artist, a legend of four generations, but also a great person, a wonderful husband and father. He gave me and the children a lot, was a reliable support for the family and loved ones. He always helped and came to the aid of friends. And she gave you creativity with all her heart, with full dedication, because her songs carried love and warmth. And you felt it. Always optimistic, cheerful, happy, Yura knew how to encourage and give a smile just when it was needed. He will remain in our memory forever real, sincere, honest, kind… And the light of his soul will be with us forever.”
Sandwiches with chorizo and tiramisu
For a long time, the artist’s wife was silent and watched the mourning. But then she started the Shatunov Family Life youtube channel, where there are already more than 150 thousand subscribers. On the blog, Svetlana posts stock footage with her husband (fishing, her daughter’s baptism, son tests an inflatable boat) and recent videos with children. Estella she became interested in cooking: in a video blog, the girl she shows how she cooks hot sandwiches with sausages, lasagna, risotto and tiramisu – the Shatunovs’ favorite dishes.
Ten-year-old Estella loves to cook and share recipes on her family’s vlog.
Photo: SOCIAL NETWORKS
Son Dennis appears less frequently in commercials. In the general video, where the whole family walks around Moscow, it is clear that the guy is the spitting image of a father in his youth. Estella looks more like his mother, although she inherited her characteristic dimples from his father.
His son Yuri Dennis is 16 years old, he is very similar to his father.
Photo: SOCIAL NETWORKS
Shatunov’s children study in Germany at a bilingual school.
– We have a technical room in our house, a kind of construction mini-workshop. In it you can find a tool for any occasion, – said Svetlana Shatunova. -Yura and her son could disappear there for hours. Now Dennis is interested in technology. He is now interested in two professions: aircraft designer and pilot, but what he ultimately chooses, time will tell. I do not rule out that over the years he decides to try himself in creativity. Meanwhile, his immediate plans are to finish school.
From Sochi to European banks
As for the inheritance, for all the terms Svetlana should already have acquired rights. According to the law, six months should pass from the moment of her death, the widow was supposed to launch the paperwork mechanism in January 2023. What property and savings the artist left behind is a strict secret. And no wonder: the account amounts to hundreds of millions of rubles, and this is just real estate. And how much the rights to Yura’s songs will bring to the family, which can provide for the artist’s relatives for many years, is completely difficult to estimate. If, for example, Dennis Shatunov wants to sing the hits “Tender May” (“Grey Night”, “White Roses”, “Pink Evening”, etc.), which he inherited, he has the right to do so. How much can he earn at such concerts? Obviously a lot.
The cost of housing owned by Shatunov also continues to grow. The apartments donated by producer Andrei Razin at the Razin Hotel in Sochi – a 60-square-meter apartment with sea views and renovated by a designer – sold during the pandemic for 19 million rubles. But there was a two-story house in Baranovka (Khostinsky district of Sochi) worth at least 25 million rubles.
There was also an apartment in Moscow, which the artist, they wrote, received with the direct help of Yuri Luzhkov – a one-room apartment on Kantemirovskaya Street. Now it costs about 8-12 million rubles.
The same mansion with a recording studio in Germany, where the singer’s family lives, according to the most conservative estimates, is worth 4 million euros (375 million rubles). The fleet of vehicles and the accounts in foreign banks “round off” the fortune of Shatunov, and now his family, to 6 million euros (562 million rubles).
If Yuri Shatunov did not leave a will, his assets and debts (if any) will be received by the artist’s heirs in the order of legal priority: Svetlana, Dennis and Estella. The inheritance will be distributed among them in equal parts, one third of each.
“White Roses” under protection
As for the rights of the songs, the story is more complicated. Andrey Razin, the former producer of Tender May, continues the frantic fight for them. It does not stop flooding the courts with appeals against the sentence, which in 2022 approved the rights to the group’s songs for the Shatunov family. According to the law, the artist’s widow and children will be able to receive royalties for copyright for 70 years, and for execution – for 50 years immediately after the court decision and entry into the inheritance. But Razin insists that the name “Tender May” is registered in the United States with the World Media Alliance music label, and the Shatunov family will face big lawsuits if they try to use the group’s songs. So far, the producer, who is trying to return the rights to 27 songs by Tender May, has lost resoundingly in all the courts of cassation. He, by the way, lives in the United States.
AND AT THIS MOMENT
The monument on the grave will be erected on the artist’s 50th birthday.
Tender May director Arkady Kudryashov confirmed that on the day of Shatunov’s 50th birthday (September 6, 2023), a monument will finally appear on the singer’s grave. It will be a full-length figure of a smiling Yuri with a microphone in his hands. A two-meter bronze sculpture will be installed on a one-meter long pedestal.
A model of the monument, which will be installed at the Troekurovsky cemetery in September.
Photo: SOCIAL NETWORKS
Meanwhile, a square named after Yuri Shatunov may appear in Moscow. The initiative group is pushing this idea through the mayor’s office. The hitherto unnamed square is located on Trubnaya Street, near the Tsvetnoy Bulvar metro station, where the White Roses video was filmed. There is already an improvised popular monument – “the wall of the Jura”. The family approved the project.
In addition, in Orenburg, not far from the orphanage where Shatunov grew up, a monument to him and the composer Sergei Kuznetsov will be erected. The author of the hits “Tender May” died four months after the death of the group’s lead singer, on November 7, 2022. The monument will be made in the form of figures of musicians standing in an embrace.
BY THE WAY
Bags of money to tour the USSR
It is clear that it is impossible to restore all black accounting for the performances of mega-popular musicians in the Soviet Union. However, the chairman of the KGB of the USSR, Vladimir Kryuchkov, in 1989, in a memorandum to Mikhail Gorbachev, reported that Tender May’s teams (more than 10 members of the group toured the country at the same time) earn on average 6,721 rubles a year. day! The amount is unthinkable – it was possible to buy a personal car every day.
It got to the point where Razin kept cash in bags of sugar and they occupied several rooms. And most of the money, as he himself assured, allegedly had to be burned in an old house near Ryazan, so as not to fall under the article of execution for “theft of state property on an especially large scale.”
QUESTION – RIB
How much do the rights of the songs contribute?
Earlier, Andrey Razin assured that the income from deductions for the performance of Shatunov’s songs was about 5 million rubles per month, that is, 60 million rubles per year. It is impossible to make an exact calculation: RAO specialists, who are responsible for copyright, use special technology to individually calculate royalties for the use of songs based on their popularity, the size of the halls of concerts where they are going to perform, and so on.
