People's Artist of Russia Alexander Rosenbaum celebrates his 75th birthday on September 13. Most people know him as a stage legend, songwriter and composer, but the singer himself says that to this day he looks longingly at ambulances because there are no former doctors. In an interview with RIA Novosti, he explained what medicine and creativity have in common, why he loves original rap, and why potatoes and stew are forever. Interviewed by Daria Medvedeva.
– Alexander Yakovlevich, today you are celebrating your 75th anniversary. Usually such dates force people to sum up certain results. What main achievements can you name?
– Seventy-five years is not a small number, of course, but, as your humble servant said many years ago, age is a state of mind that sometimes conflicts with the body. Therefore, 75 years is a long time, but this is not the limit: you have to work, because a person’s life is only in work. Everything else can be good, great, better or worse. But the main thing in a person’s life is work, so it is advisable to work until the grave - then you will live longer. All my thoughts today are connected not with results, but with creative and life plans. Of course, a very important thing now is to have a good time at the upcoming concerts that are coming up in the new season.
– You will celebrate the anniversary in St. Petersburg – concerts are planned for September 13 and 14 in the large Oktyabrsky concert hall.
- Come, listen, look. There are two concerts at Oktyabrsky, but before them there are still tours in Nizhny Novgorod, and then the Caucasus and Moscow.
– How many concerts are planned in Moscow?
– 20 concerts are planned. As long as I’m healthy, strong, and seemingly alive. Now it’s difficult to give a 100 percent guarantee, sometimes even at a young age there is no guarantee, but so far there are no prerequisites for canceling the concert season.
– Do you plan to invite any of your artist friends to the anniversary concerts?
– No, I don’t want to do this “celebrant of the day among friends” story that has stuck in my mind. I think that I and many people are already pretty tired of it. If I invite someone, it will be one of the most, dearest and closest people who are pleasant not to the television audience, but to me.
– How do you plan to celebrate off stage?
– Of course, we will sit with our loved ones and relatives, but there will be no big celebrations. This is not the time, comrade! Do you understand? This is not the time, comrade! That's it.
– You were born on September 13th. How do you feel about the number 13? There is mysticism in it, do you feel it?
– I love this number. For me, everything is connected with the number 13: all car numbers, if possible, I buy 13th seats, tickets, and so on. Thirteen is my favorite number.
– Are you generally a superstitious person?
– I am superstitious in the everyday sense. I always spit when a black cat crosses my path. But I have no prejudices towards the number 13.
– It is known that you experienced clinical death. How did your worldview change after that?
- It happened. My attitude did not change; it affected me only from the point of view that I became convinced that there is a higher mind. Some call him Lord, others call him differently. I call it the higher mind. He exists, gives everyone what they deserve, reminds, guides and warns.
– You have been going through life with music since the age of five. Where does this love for music and creativity come from?
– You know, I was raised, of course, by both my mother and father. My dad is a very musical person, he sang well. But, first of all, in this respect I was raised by my grandmother. She played along with me on the piano very sourly. She believed that I would be a creative person. Although I, naturally, graduated from music school under pressure. But in 1962-1963 the Beatles came, and all my doubts and the period of abuse ended. I began to really love music. Music was always played at home, we lived in communal apartments, the entire communal apartment sang and walked at certain times, and worked when necessary.
– Despite this, you entered medical university and worked in an ambulance. Why?
“I went to medical school because my legs carried me there. I always say: “I was born in a robe.” I was born to graduate students of the First Leningrad Medical Institute (LMI) in the obstetrics and gynecology clinic of the First Leningrad Medical Institute. My whole life is connected with medicine, and I probably had no other choice. Although at one time I wanted to become a geologist, a sailor - romance, guitar, fires. But when I finished tenth grade, I went to the admissions office of the First LMI.
– Don’t you regret it?
“I can’t see the ambulance calmly until today and watch it with a longing gaze. There are no former doctors, so I remain a doctor. My colleagues are doctors and physicians, not artists. They will forgive me for this, it is not out of malice. My colleagues are doctors, and I continue to live this inner life.
I started writing songs and being actively involved in creativity while still a student, participated in amateur performances at the institute - everything is brewed from a young age. Then all this was cleared of the chaff, and the formation of a creative character took place. This is a large and long process that took half a century - at least, and if we take the age of five years as a starting point, then the process took all of 70 years.
– At what point did you feel that music ceased to be a hobby?
– Exactly at that moment I left medicine.
- What happened? Was there some kind of turning point?
- No, there was no turning point - that’s what the Lord decided and sent me Albert Nurullovich Asadullin, who asked me to record a couple of songs for his band, which he recruited after leaving “Singing Guitars”. I came to the rehearsal and recorded several songs for him. He called and said: “Come work for me.” I was a very famous rock musician in Leningrad - and that very moment came. I am a maximalist and a perfectionist, I don’t like amateurs and I can’t stand amateurism. By the way, my zodiac sign is Virgo. The worst thing is that he is the best doctor among artists and the best artist among doctors. This is a terrible story, and I didn’t want to be like that, so I left medicine. It wasn’t easy – at 30, with a family and a child, to leave everything and go to God knows where. Only idiots thought I went for the money. The rate was five rubles per concert, I didn’t have my own car, and a round-trip taxi from the Komendantsky airfield cost six rubles, so I lost a ruble after each performance. I pursued what I chose to serve.
I knew that I would be useful, I had such a wolf sense. This is not overconfidence, it is a very fine line between confidence and overconfidence. I was sure, I felt in my nostrils, that I would be useful not only to my comrades in the narrow circle sitting in the kitchen. I saw how people listened to me, how they wanted to hear me. It’s not easy to just leave your established profession at the age of 30.
– By the way, among doctors there are very often creative people: Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Vasily Aksenov and others. How to explain this phenomenon?
– These areas are, first of all, connected by serving people. Secondly, you know, doctors are no smarter than physicists, but they communicate much more with human material, excuse the official language. We understand the psychotype of the human body much more.
– After 70 years, you planned to write a book about the period of working in an ambulance. Are you working on a book?
– These are plans at the moment, but they are close to implementation. I have assistants. I think that we will publish a prose book.
- A collection of stories?
– We are now thinking about the form. Of course, these will be my thoughts, and not some kind of fiction.
– Nowadays many artists want to make a biopic about their lives. Have you received such offers?
- No. Moreover, I will refuse.
- Why?
– Why am I more interesting than Vanya Ivanov, a milling machine operator? Why am I more needed by society? Let them film something about me in 30-40 years, if I deserve it. They will take it off - thank you very much. It’s somehow funny, especially if you want it yourself. You say that many artists want - if they have nothing else to give themselves to people, let them make films about themselves.
In the coffin I saw fashion, popularity and everything else. A person must live his life, do good to people. If you stand at a machine, sharpen parts competently, if you make spaceships, do it better than anyone else, if you sing songs, sing. Whether they film something about you or not, people will figure it out. If every milling machine operator, agronomist or doctor strives to make a movie about himself, it’s funny, really. Why do we allow underage artists to think about such things? Guys, get down to business, stop singing to plywood and learn to sing live. It's much better than making a movie about yourself.
– Your musical “Boston Waltz” has been running successfully at the Variety Theater for a year now. The shows are scheduled until the end of October. Will audiences be able to see it next year?
– Yes, now we have moved back to the Variety Theater. Since September 6, it has been on the stage of the theater and will run as long as people go to see it. I like this performance, not as the author, but as a spectator. Thanks to the guys for this from me, as the author. How long will the shows last? It’s clear until the New Year, and then – as people say. You and I don’t decide, but the viewer who buys tickets decides.
– Do you have any new theatrical ideas?
– There are no serious ideas yet, but we’ll see.
– Half of the audience at your concerts are young people or, as it is now fashionable to say, zoomers. How can you characterize the current generation, what is the reason for the interest of young people in your work?
– I think that the interest of young people in my work is due to the fact that I sing and talk about people, their problems, difficulties, joys, sorrows. By the way, in Russian. They are people too. Young people are always beautiful, even though they are different today. Unfortunately, they don't know much. They do not know the taste of apples, that corn cannot be cooked for 30 minutes - normal corn is cooked for four hours, that the shelf life of milk cannot be six to eight months, it will become sour the next day or the day after. But they understand a lot of things that we don’t know.
Young people are simply different, but they are always searching, talented and interesting. You just need to talk to young people like adults, and not like children who don’t understand anything. They will learn on their own, they just need to set a good example with their work, attitude, high and correct aspirations - then the youth will follow you.
– Don’t want to run social networks anymore to grow your audience?
– No, I’m not a blogger and I don’t aspire to be one. My work with young people and with any other contingent of humanity is my creativity and my work.
– Previously, you had a duet with the artist NILETTO...
– I was interested in working with him. I am grateful to him, he was quite sensitive to the song “Waltz-Boston”, he sang it very well, with an understanding of the problem - the way I wanted, he felt the same way. This is nice, because this is the contact with young people that older people need too. Not only do young people need older mentors, but older people also need young people to understand and feel themselves in life.
– Would you like to do something together with one of the young artists, for example, with Vanya Dmitrienko?
– Is NILLETO not modern anymore? (laughs). There are many interesting children. Today there are so many popular people that you won’t see, remember or recognize everyone.
– How do you feel about modern fashionable musical trends, for example, rap? Do you listen to this kind of music?
– I love original rap. In order to rap, you need to have a genetic history. When 50 Cent does it, The Notorious B.I.G. or other serious guys who grew up in the ghetto of Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, with a gang in their pocket - then it’s natural. When the son of a physics and Russian language teacher from Tambov is doing this, I’m at a loss, you know, right? Very across. Imagine if Michael Jackson sang Russian folk songs in trousers and a Russian embroidered shirt. How do you like this?
– You are not only a successful artist, but also a businessman, your chain of restaurants “Tolstoy Frier” is popular in St. Petersburg.
- Not restaurants, but pubs. I love it very much. I didn’t do anything new, but simply tried to return to people what was taken away from them during “perestroika.” All our beer stalls were removed, but the beer culture in Leningrad is appropriate, I just returned it. Irish pubs and Czech pubs are not our genetics. “Fat guy” is our genetics, I like it. We have been standing for 22 years and only good things, I think.
Business is something that needs to be done. We are working on it, of course, my partner Nadezhda Grigorievna Lyubina is working hard. I want this business to last for 100 years. I have grandchildren, there will be great-grandchildren.
– But in the same format?
– This format is Russian, Soviet and Leningrad in the highest sense of the word. I am deeply convinced of this. The stewed potatoes we serve are endlessly popular and delicious because they are for the people. This is our food, just like naval pasta. And bouillabaisse is cool, let them eat it from morning to evening in France, and paella in Spain. I relate to them very well, but it's not my genetics. I also love sushi very much - it’s mine, but not forever. And we ate potatoes and stew, we eat and we will eat, and in “Fat Friar” it is and always will be.
– You have repeatedly come to hot spots with concerts: you performed for soldiers in Afghanistan, in the Caucasus, and gave concerts in support of Northern Military District soldiers. Are you planning a trip there in the near future?
– I plan, I am always with my people. But I want peace for people. I was raised in a country in which every house had seven letters separated by a dash - “Peace to the world,” was the slogan. I see the planetary existence of the Earth as peace, then all people will be fine.
– You often touched on the theme of war in your works...
– And I’m touching on it now, because war is terrible. In war, of course, there is not only red and black - the colors of blood and death, there is also blue, and violet, gray-brown-crimson, and weddings are played, and love is celebrated - such is life. But this life is not normal for a person. Although the planet has not been at war for only 350 years, it has been at war the rest of the time.
– Are you planning to write a song about the events of the Northern Military District?
– I never write songs about any events, because I don’t like journalism in my work. How does the feat of a fighter in the Northern Military District differ from the feat of a fighter during the Battle of Thermopylae? There are universal human laws and spiritual values. Recently I have written three or four songs about the war, they were created on certain material.
– You said that your favorite city is St. Petersburg.
- He is not loved, he is dear.
– You also named Kyiv among your favorite cities.
– I have always loved and love Kyiv very much, it is a beautiful city.
– Of course, we all hope that peace will come soon. In your opinion, what conclusions should we draw, what is the main lesson?
