2023-07-25 09:40:00
On July 25, 1980, Vladimir Vysotsky, one of the prominent people of the past century, passed away. A resident of the agricultural town of Olshany, in the Stolin region, Stepan Shut was personally acquainted with the great bard.
Stepan Dmitrievich Shut.
Stepan Dmitrievich has been involved in construction for the fifth decade, today he is a civil engineer at JSC Novaya Pripyat. Last year, on the eve of the professional holiday of agrarians, he was the only one in the region who was awarded the badge “For Merit in Agriculture”. What connects a professional builder from the Polissya hinterland with a famous person?
Boxer – club manager
The acquaintance of the Belarusian from Olshan and the native Muscovite Vysotsky was preceded by a number of events in the life of Stepan. While studying at the Brest Construction College, the guy became interested in boxing and during the army service in the city of Chekhov near Moscow, he often participated in competitions. The judge in the ring, captain Vladimir Durnev, remembered the senior sergeant Shut well and, when he arrived in the military unit of the city of Chekhov as a political officer, he appointed Stepan the head of the club, instructed to organize a sports section.
In this position, the sergeant had to not only conduct boxing training. The command of the unit kept sending him to Moscow to invite famous artists to creative meetings. The expectation that a simple soldier would not be refused worked. During his service, the olsha native talked to many movie and pop stars. Acquaintance with Vladimir Vysotsky was especially memorable, because it did not last a day or two, but stretched out for a long time. The authorities instructed him to invite the most popular bard in 1977 to the celebration on February 23rd.
Vysotsky’s concert in part
The soldiers carried out such orders according to a well-established scheme. Having received a leave of absence, in the morning I went to Moscow by train, then by metro – to the theater, where the candidate worked for a performance in the unit. The Taganka Theater, where Vysotsky played, he found without difficulty. A lot of people gathered in the foyer, everyone was waiting for Vladimir Semenovich.
“When he came out to us, he immediately went to me, a soldier in uniform,” recalls Stepan Dmitrievich. – We greeted each other and talked about the visit of the artist to the unit to perform in front of the soldiers. Vysotsky said that he would not be able to come to the holiday on February 23, everything was already scheduled in advance by the hour. The February day after the holiday was appointed. He set a condition: they should come for him, and immediately asked what kind of car would be. I said that the military UAZ, and simply put, “goat”, to which he only laughed.
To deliver Vysotsky to Chekhov, they still found the Volga. A soldier was put behind the wheel, but he drove around Moscow so timidly and uncertainly that Vysotsky himself got behind the wheel. Arriving at the club, he immediately peered furtively from behind the curtains and looked around the audience. Seeing that the hall was filled mainly with officers, he reproached me for incorrect information. After all, soldiers were promised. It turns out that for this performance he selected a special repertoire, which now will have to be changed along the way.
Everyone listened to him tensely, so high was the nerve of the hoarse voice and the power of reincarnation into the heroes of their song works. I noticed that many words familiar from tape recordings sound differently, and I realized that Vladimir Semenovich is a talented improviser. After the concert, we talked about performances in other parts. He was expected everywhere, and the amount of 400 rubles per hour was never an obstacle to the concert lasting much longer than the allotted time.
Tempting offer
In the course of the negotiations, Vysotsky mentioned that in some places he was let down, promising to make oak shelves for books instead of money, and did not. We had a sawmill in our unit, so I immediately suggested that Vysotsky make racks for us. My goal was simple: this work could prolong my association with a man who was idolized by the whole country. Vladimir Semyonovich asked how long I would serve.
I lied when I said that I was leaving in the fall, although I was supposed to be demobilized in the spring, and there was very little left before the dismissal. He cheated because he thought: Vysotsky could consider this time insufficient for the planned work and refuse the proposed service. We agreed to meet the next day in the courtyard of the Taganka Theater after lunch.
At the appointed hour, Vysotsky was waiting for the soldier in his “Mercedes” the color of wet asphalt, without leaving it, so as not to attract attention. And the political officer told Stepan that the artist’s Mercedes was burgundy. Therefore, he did not immediately notice him in the car, and the actor, as Stepan Dmitrievich recalls, even cursed with annoyance for the long wait.
Let’s go to Vysotsky’s apartment. Stepan Dmitrievich does not remember the exact address now, but, most likely, it was a prestigious house number 28 on Malaya Gruzinskaya Street. Vysotsky bought an apartment here in 1975, he equipped it together with Marina Vladi.
Vysotsky’s apartment
Vysotsky showed the soldier his work room, in which shelving had to be installed. At the same time, he drew the guest’s attention to an antique armchair and other furniture requiring careful handling. Shelves for books, according to his plan, were to be installed up to the ceiling against the wall with a large mirror, which he wished to leave untouched, but so that it would organically fit into the shelf interior.
Apparently, Vladimir Semenovich had a special professional attitude towards mirrors, because one of the walls of the large hallway was completely mirrored, the wall opposite was lined with sound recording equipment. Stepan measured the height of the walls and the width of the space for the racks and, returning to the unit, set to work with the soldiers.
Together with his assistants, he often had to travel to Moscow both by train and by passing military transport. Vysotsky himself was not always present in the apartment. There were his mother Maria Nikolaevna and Marina Vladi, women in communication are simple and friendly.
Marina Vladi’s personal request
Marina Vladi and Stepan Shut (to her right) with colleagues.
When Vysotsky introduced Stepan, whom he called Stefan in the Polish manner, to his wife, he emphasized that he was from the Brest region. Marina Vladi’s eyes immediately perked up: probably, pleasant memories of staying with Vysotsky in Brest awakened. She asked the soldiers to fulfill her personal order – to make and install a large oak table with benches on the sides in the kitchen. So she said “with benches”, just as they say in the Stolin region, in confirmation of their Slavic roots.
Her order was completed quickly, because the work was simple. The table was built from three planed oak boards, tightly compressed on a special machine and secured from below with transverse planks. Lacquering, at the request of Vysotsky, as well as racks, did not. He said that “Marina will bring wood stain from France,” which will only emphasize the charm of the natural structure of oak.
Shelves for books were delivered to the apartment disassembled, on the spot they were adjusted to the desired dimensions. At the same time, there was a lot of garbage, but Vysotsky’s mother and Marina Vladi tried to clean it up themselves.
Secret Relic
Once, left alone in the apartment, Stepan looked with curiosity at what was on Vysotsky’s desktop. Portraits of Marina Vladi under glass and sheets of paper with recently written poems. The guy noticed a lot of edits: crossed out words and even sentences written anew. To his taste, the crossed out was just as good as the new. This secret touch to the work of the poet remains in the soul of Stepan Dmitrievich a memorable relic to this day.
Then he met one of the sons of Marina Vladi. Now he does not remember his name, but asked him why he was not at school. The boy replied in broken Russian that he studied privately.
Sugar free coffee
Alone with Vysotsky happened infrequently. Once, upon arriving, the poet offered the soldier a quick bite to eat together. They drank coffee without sugar (it was not in the apartment), they ate stale rolls. This snack was interrupted by a guest – actor Boris Khmelnitsky. Stepan didn’t call his name then, but he remembered his face from the role of Robin Hood in the popular film of those years.
“Don’t be shy, make yourself at home, take everything in the fridge,” Vysotsky said, leaving with Robin Hood. But in the refrigerator, Stepan found only an old schnitzel, hardened to the point of unusability. And all the shelves in the kitchen were lined with empty coffee boxes that Vysotsky collected.
To have a bite to eat, the sergeant took to the streets of the capital, using a permanent pass issued by the unit instead of a daily leave. But for the evening verification of the location of the company, he was obliged to return every time by nine in the evening.
Interrupted flight
And once the sergeant did not appear in Vysotsky’s apartment in the morning. From a cold, his eye became inflamed, and the soldier was placed in a hospital in Chekhov. In the spring of 1977, a telephone rang in the office of the head physician, a voice sounded in the receiver, familiar to almost the entire Soviet Union. It was Vladimir Vysotsky. Apologizing for the anxiety and introducing himself, he inquired about the health of the conscript sergeant Stepan Shut, who had ended up in the hospital. The head physician immediately went to the ward to Stepan to clarify how an ordinary soldier feels, whom Vysotsky himself is interested in.
Vladimir Semyonovich promised to give the sergeant a chic, in his words, gift for the “demobilization”. Which? This has remained a mystery. After all, Stepan lied to Vysotsky that he was leaving in the fall. And in May, the truck that was carrying him from Chekhov to Moscow to the poet’s apartment was turned back to the unit by radio. The second half of the racks were carried in this car. For what reason that flight was interrupted, Stepan never found out, but he did not go to Vysotsky again.
Olshansky trail
After being transferred to the reserve, Sergeant Shut immediately went home, he didn’t even think about going to Moscow and going to the Taganka Theater, he wanted to return home as soon as possible.
Stepan Shut saw the fruits of his labor in Vysotsky’s apartment many years later on the TV screen. They showed the opened museum of Vysotsky, created on the street named after him, near the Taganka theater. There, the poet’s working room was recreated, which was in an apartment on Malaya Gruzinskaya Street. The books of his library are on oak shelves installed by Stepan Shut. So the Olshansky trace remained forever in the memory of the outstanding bard.
Fedor MUHA
#Stepan #Shut #lie #Vysotsky.