Singer Shura. Photo: personal archive of Alexander Medvedev.
Alexander Medvedev, known under the pseudonym Shura, is a colorful figure. Inconceivable outfits, platform shoes and missing front teeth attract the public no less than vocal abilities. By the way, music education the singer does not. The nugget spent his universities in restaurants, where he sang from the age of thirteen. Alexander inherited his artistry from his grandmother, who was of gypsy blood and performed amazing romances. Leafing through the family album, Shura talked about how he got rid of his drug addiction, defeated cancer and charmed Patricia Kaas.
1. I am thirteen years old. I'm passing through Moscow - going to Riga for design courses. You can say that I fell in love with Moscow from the first candy. When I was five years old I was given a box chocolates with the image of the Kremlin. I took it out into the yard and treated it to the guys. Then he cut off the cover with the picture and hung it above his bed. I said that I would definitely live in this city. And the dream came true.
2. Central park of the city of Novosibirsk, where I spent my childhood and youth. Very happy time. From the age of thirteen I sang in restaurants, earned money and took the kids from my class to the park to have fun. We walked, rode carousels, ate barbecue. I have never spared money for entertainment, for my family and friends.
3. This is me at my good friend Natasha’s dacha. I really like this place near Moscow. We often relax here, barbecue, and make fish soup. Well, yes, I like to fool around. These lambs are ceramic floor sculptures. Did you think they were alive? Ha ha ha.
4. I am with my grandmother Vera Mikhailovna, the closest and most adored person to me. She always supported me, gave me her blessing and money for all my endeavors. The grandmother was of gypsy blood and sang romances beautifully. She also had a skirt made from forty pieces, lined with bottle caps along the edges. When grandma walked, the skirt rattled like a tambourine.
5. Filming some TV program. I was a TV presenter. In total I had twelve different female images. As for Ksyusha Sobchak, we get along great. For her birthday, she often books a concert with my participation. I respect her, love her and say: “If I ever marry, then only someone like Sobchak.”
6. I’m at the Metelitsa club, running my own program. This is my last bleaching with blonde: already then my hair began to fall out a little. I was diagnosed with cancer. I perceived what happened as a pattern. I had prophetic dreams that, they say, you will make it if you don’t stop taking drugs. But it was hard to stop. The illness became an incentive to quit, leave the environment that was sucking money from me for drugs, and completely change my life.
7. My twenty-second birthday. We celebrate it at the Metelitsa club. My girls are with me good friends. They sang in some youth group. Now I don’t remember the name, it quickly faded away. I love my birthday. I always celebrate it on a grand scale, noisy, fun and insanely expensive. Although I am getting older and older.
8. I’m in the guise of Baba Yaga, singing a song from the cartoon “ flying ship", with me backing vocals "Buranovskie Babushki". That day I had to go to the dentist and they removed my upper teeth. The director exclaimed: “Look at Shura: how responsibly he prepared for the role!” It was a fun number.
Shura is called the most outrageous singer modernity. This favorite of women and children is shrouded in a fog of rumors, gossip and mysteries. He decided to shed light on some of them.
- Sasha, it’s no longer a secret to anyone that you had big problems with drugs. Is this completely over now?
Yes. I was really on drugs for three years. It was a very difficult period. Somehow I managed to work, but I also had to eat drugs.
- What do you mean “had to”? Force fed, or what?
Yes, the whole party is like that! Don't you think they are saints? Russian show business just full of drugs. I really wanted to try it too. There was simply no strength to resist. Let's just say I wasn't smart enough. Thank God it's all over. I completed a rehabilitation course in a good clinic. It’s good that I survived this, that no one will tempt me with this now. There are no more drugs in my life. Now I'm alive healthy man. I'm working normally again.
- It seems like your mom helped you a lot?
Yes, she came from Novosibirsk, got me into a clinic, and lived there with me. The treatment, by the way, was not expensive, although a lot of things were prescribed. The course cost about two thousand dollars.
- Why have you gained so much weight?
Best of the day
Because after the treatment I developed a beastly appetite. There are no more sunken cheeks and blurred eyes, you can see for yourself.
- If it’s not a secret, how much money did you spend on drugs?
Everything was spent... Therefore for a long time I had neither an apartment nor a car. Everything was spent on friends, on restaurants, on drugs. It probably cost fifteen thousand dollars, or even more. But during the treatment, none of my colleagues were with me. I was silent about my illness. It was scary to look at me insane, so I behaved very separately.
- Sasha, who is the closest person to you now?
Of course, mom. Now she lives with me in Moscow. For me she is also a friend. My mother helps me a lot - both in clothes and in repertoire. I'm glad about this, because before we weren't friends and didn't communicate much. Only when mom realized that her son was not doing such nonsense did things begin to work out for us. a good relationship. And so she gave me complete freedom, but we were not friends.
- Many people say that you have a progressive form of star fever. What do you think about this?
star fever I had it right when I was on drugs. She passed unnoticed by me. And for those around me, probably, too, since I was sitting at home, not getting out.
- Scandals with organizers, disruption of performances, shocking behavior - is this a thing of the past or does this still happen?
At one time it was fashionable to behave provocatively. The scandals were necessary, I had to go through it. There was such a Shura before. Now I'm different. Calmer, more professional and cultured. Now I arrive at all concerts on time, even earlier, which surprises everyone.
- At one time there was a story about how you hit your headmistress on the head with a suitcase. This is true?
I'll tell you how it all happened. I'm flying from Switzerland to Sheremetyevo-2. On this day, I am scheduled to have an important concert with Berezovsky in Moscow. I go up to my director and ask: “Please tell me, Snegol, where will the concert be?” “This information will cost you money,” my director answered me. Naturally, she got hit on the head with a suitcase. That's where we parted. It was just one blow, but serious and correct. Anyone in my place would do the same. But there was no beating.
- Is Snegol the girl who sheltered you in her communal apartment when you had nowhere to live?
Yes she. I have not forgotten all the good things she once did for me. But then it was a different Snegol, who later changed a lot and fell in love with easy money. She, like many, was spoiled by show business.
- How is your personal life now?
Amazing. I love and I am loved. Everything is fine. In this regard, I do not suffer.
- Is it true that you had an affair with current spouse Natasha Koroleva Tarzan?
It is precisely because he is now the Queen’s husband that I would not like to answer this question. I'll just say one thing: I love beautiful people and it doesn’t matter to me what gender they are.
- It was rumored that during drug addiction you, as a singer, have come to naught. This is true?
The drugs I used, fortunately, did not affect the ligaments. Although there are, of course, a lot of people who completely suppress their voices. I retained my ability to work. After I stopped using this poison, my vocal range even increased. Not Mariah Carey, of course, but somewhere close. I can sing in falsetto, I can sing in bass. I can sing in an operatic voice. I can’t say exactly how many octaves I take, because I don’t know solfeggio well.
- How do you write songs?
I hum into the recorder, both music and words. This doesn’t happen, first la-la-la-la, and then the words.
- Sasha, is it true that Berezovsky invited you to perform at his daughter’s wedding?
Yes, but not at a wedding, but at a birthday. What's wrong with that? All artists perform at some closed events. I think this is normal. The main thing, as they say, is the honor to know.
- You constantly shock everyone with something, but what can shock you?
Naked woman! (laughs) Just kidding. Seriously, I don't know. I didn’t think about it somehow.
- But you think about your image. By the way, some women's outfits, oddly enough, suit you.
Sometimes I was even mistaken for a girl! Honestly. They didn’t recognize that I was “that same singer Shura,” but in all seriousness they thought that I was a representative of the fair sex and tried to get to know each other. Once I performed in a closed nightclub. It was built by oil workers for their vacation; our oil kings and artists hung out there. Now we can talk about this, because the club was closed and it became part of history. In general, I had a concert, after which I sat down at the table with my director and dancers. We sit and eat. Suddenly a waiter comes up and brings a bouquet of flowers and a note from the next table, where the man’s name and phone number are written. I waved to him, saying, thank you for your attention, but I decided not to continue the conversation. As it turned out later, he was one of richest people in Russia and just wanted to spend the night with me. Not as with a man, of course, but as with a girl. After all, I was in a spectacular red latex dress, with such a fluffy collar... In general, a colorful girl...
- I wonder why the female singers came to that club - to “act”, to meet sponsors?
No, what are you talking about! It was actually a nice place. There the artists were fed for free. Just because they are celebrities. And our musician brother just piled in there in heaps. The club's owners didn't go bankrupt because of this, so you don't have to worry about them. On the contrary, this was a big plus for them. The stars went to eat, and the oil workers went to see them, not even suspecting that they paid so much for dinners that they covered the food of all the artists. Just don’t think that I’m somehow poor and can’t afford to buy food. The atmosphere in the club was just good.
- How do you feel about the popular opinion that now on the stage there are so many characters with unconventional sexual orientation that people who are doing well have nothing to do at the microphone?
- Hmm... Here I am - gay? I assure you, I'm fine. I like girls. I like men too, but I don’t sleep with them. There is such a thing as a stage, an image that we create. On the stage we are one thing, in life we are another. All artists, even the most serious ones, are clowns and clowns on stage who are supposed to entertain and amuse people. If the public demands that you be gay, film yourself having sex with a boy in your video, the public demands that you undress - show everyone your bare ass! We must work for the public so that they love you, so that your appearance causes delight. And I do it. Being gay, lesbian or transvestite is now fashionable. Walking around in shocking clothes is fashionable. It’s also fashionable to film freaks in videos. Tomorrow there will be a different time, different morals. Perhaps I’ll wear a tuxedo and a bow tie, although I don’t have such outfits in my wardrobe right now.
- How do you generally feel in the music community?
But there really is no party. Visibility is simply created. Once, I remember, everyone was hanging out at the Metropol, the so-called stars came in abundance... I met some new girl. I was told her name was Helen. It turned out to be the same one from the series, which several years ago in our country was very popular among young people, even I watched several episodes. Looks like grandma from Titanic! We introduced her to me, danced together, and then ran away. Another would now start shouting about the party: they say, this is the social life, I picked up such a cool French chick! But in fact this is a bluff. I’m sure that now, if we meet her, we won’t even recognize each other. There is no party as such, nope!
- They said that you had an affair with Eva Polnaya?
Was. But I would call this the experience of short-term, albeit stormy, romances for advertising purposes. That is, this is gossip about supposedly our love relationships, from which both my popularity and the popularity of the “Guests from the Future” group benefited. By the way, we also had a fake affair with Larisa Chernikova. But I have never had affairs with male artists - neither virtual nor real. Although, I admit, some people gave me unambiguous hints.
- Is it true that by profession you are not a musician at all, but... a phytodesigner?
Certainly! It's pretty known fact my biography! I even have a diploma, received in Riga when I was only 16 years old. In my free time from concerts, rehearsals and studio recordings, I am engaged in arranging bouquets, the raw materials for which are regularly supplied to me by fans.
- Yah?
Did you think that I only have stockings, asses and tits on my mind? By the way, in my native Novosibirsk I managed to work in one of the Houses of Culture as a teacher at handicraft courses. And I even had my own students, and different ages: both schoolgirls and pensioners.
- They say you were a bully at school?
No, I was a calm, balanced child. Although not without sin. I remember I was almost expelled from school for super absenteeism - I was not in class for exactly a week! It’s just that a friend of mine had a girlfriend - the daughter of a nurse from the hospital. She stole several certificates with stamps, I entered my name there and thus quite legally “excused myself” from attending classes. Every morning, when my mother woke me up for school, I got up, took my briefcase and went to the next basement, where I just sat... looking at erotic pictures.
- And where did you get them?
I don't remember where I got it, but they were there. I also had playing cards with images of naked girls. I bought them from some high school student with money saved from my mother’s school lunch money. So what to do? In our time, Playboy was not sold everywhere!
Shura is called the most shocking singer of our time. This favorite of women and children is shrouded in a fog of rumors, gossip and mysteries. He decided to shed light on some of them
Sasha, it’s no longer a secret to anyone that you had big problems with drugs. Is this completely over now?
- Yes. I was really on drugs for three years. It was a very difficult period. Somehow I managed to work, but I also had to eat drugs.
- What do you mean “had to”? Force fed, or what?
- Yes, the whole party is like that! Don't you think they are saints? Russian show business is simply full of drugs. I really wanted to try it too. There was simply no strength to resist. Let's just say I wasn't smart enough. Thank God it's all over. I completed a rehabilitation course in a good clinic. It’s good that I survived this, that no one will tempt me with this now. There are no more drugs in my life. Now I am a living, healthy person. I'm working normally again.
- It seems like your mom helped you a lot?
- Yes, she came from Novosibirsk, got me into a clinic, lived there with me. The treatment, by the way, was not expensive, although a lot of things were prescribed. The course cost about two thousand dollars.
- Why have you gained so much weight?
- Because after the treatment I developed a beastly appetite. There are no more sunken cheeks and blurred eyes, you can see for yourself.
- If it’s not a secret, how much money did you spend on drugs?
- Everything was spent... Therefore, for a long time I had neither an apartment nor a car. Everything was spent on friends, on restaurants, on drugs. It probably cost fifteen thousand dollars, or even more. But during the treatment, none of my colleagues were with me. I was silent about my illness. It was scary to look at me insane, so I behaved very separately.
- Sasha, who is the closest person to you now?
- Of course, mom. Now she lives with me in Moscow. For me she is also a friend. My mother helps me a lot - both in clothes and in repertoire. I'm glad about this, because before we weren't friends and didn't communicate much. Only when my mother realized that her son was not doing such nonsense did we begin to develop a good relationship. And so she gave me complete freedom, but we were not friends.
- Many people say that you have a progressive form of star fever. What do you think about this?
- I had star fever just when I was on drugs. She passed unnoticed by me. And for those around me, probably, too, since I was sitting at home, not getting out.
- Scandals with organizers, disruption of performances, shocking behavior - is this a thing of the past or does this still happen?
- At one time it was fashionable to behave provocatively. The scandals were necessary, I had to go through it. There was such a Shura before. Now I'm different. Calmer, more professional and cultured. Now I arrive at all concerts on time, even earlier, which surprises everyone.
- At one time there was a story about how you hit your headmistress on the head with a suitcase. This is true?
- I'll tell you how it all happened. I'm flying from Switzerland to Sheremetyevo-2. On this day, I am scheduled to have an important concert with Berezovsky in Moscow. I go up to my director and ask: “Please tell me, Snegol, where will the concert be?” “This information will cost you money,” my director answered me. Naturally, she got hit on the head with a suitcase. That's where we parted. It was just one blow, but serious and correct. Anyone in my place would do the same. But there was no beating.
- Is Snegol the girl who sheltered you in her communal apartment when you had nowhere to live?
- Yes she. I have not forgotten all the good things she once did for me. But then it was a different Snegol, who later changed a lot and fell in love with easy money. She, like many, was spoiled by show business.
- How is your personal life now?
- Amazing. I love and I am loved. Everything is fine. In this regard, I do not suffer.
- Is it true that you had an affair with Natasha Koroleva’s current husband Tarzan?
- Precisely because he is now the Queen’s husband, I would not like to answer this question. I will only say one thing: I love beautiful people and it doesn’t matter to me what gender they are.
- It was rumored that during the period of drug addiction you, as a singer, came to naught. This is true?
- The drugs that I used, fortunately, did not affect the ligaments. Although there are, of course, a lot of people who completely suppress their voices. I retained my ability to work. After I stopped using this poison, my vocal range even increased. Not Mariah Carey, of course, but somewhere already close. I can sing in falsetto, I can sing in bass. I can sing in an operatic voice. I can’t say exactly how many octaves I take, because I don’t know solfeggio well.
Yesterday on Channel One they showed a cool episode. Usually we don’t watch such programs, but this time we lingered for a second and for good reason. Shura turned out to be the father of two eight-year-old children!
The plot goes something like this:
A girl came to the program and said that Shura was in St. Petersburg 8 years ago and became a dad. They conducted a paternity test, a DNA test, and a lie detector test. Results at the end of the program!
Shura was invited. He naturally denies everything! They invited all his PR people and his friend Otar Kushanashvili. Otar was brief and said that Shura was gay and couldn’t be with a girl.
In the process of clarification, Shura said that 8 years ago he was treated for testicular cancer, so I can’t be in St. Petersburg, and the girl is still lying!
They brought the children. They rushed at Shura and began calling him dad. Shura, of course, was at a loss!
If you're interested in the story, let's take a look! DNA and lie detector test results at the end of the program!
Release of the “Let Them Talk” program with Shura
For several months now, singer Shura has been in the most difficult situation. The artist lost his only home. He purchased an apartment in Moscow 15 years ago. But also in nightmare he could not imagine that the day would come when strangers would come to him and assure him that the living space now belonged to them. About all the vicissitudes of this tragic story Shura told our correspondents in an exclusive interview.
“In 2002, I decided to buy myself an apartment,” says the 43-year-old singer. — I came to the Stolitsa company, whose employees I was friends with at that time. They offered me to enter into a contract with CJSC Gradostroy. So, “Stolitsa” found an apartment for me, and I paid “Gradostroi” 30 thousand dollars as a down payment. The house was sold to me at cost - around $900 per square meter. At that time the dollar exchange rate was about 28 rubles. It turns out that the apartment cost 95 thousand dollars. But at that time I was still a drug addict, and for me it was a lot of money. The trouble is that I was not legally savvy, I didn’t read any papers, I was busy with my career. I had no time to delve into everything. I just regularly carried money to the company. I still had a debt of 25 thousand, but they told me that I could move into the apartment, make repairs there and live. We agreed that I would either work off this money through barter for my concerts, or pay it in later. That's exactly what I did. I drove into concrete walls and made repairs that cost me more than three million rubles. He lived in peace, paying all utilities.
For all these years, the singer could not have imagined that the company, it turns out, had not registered the apartment in his name.
“And here comes my birthday this year,” the public favorite sighs sadly. — Three days after it, I go out into the street to buy some water. And at the entrance there are two handsome young men with papers for my apartment and absolutely culturedly, without any attacks, they say: “Alexander, we purchased this apartment!” It turned out that “Stolitsa” registered my housing in the name of its employee Arabov Murad Mansurovich. I’m in shock, running away from grief into the bushes to cry. I was afraid that now they would come into my apartment and immediately evict me. But thank God, the new owners and I agreed that I would rent housing from them for six months for 60 thousand rubles a month.
The new owners are already planning to put the apartment up for sale.
“I’m still afraid to even think about where I’ll go,” the artist complains. — To take out a mortgage, you need a down payment. I don't have one. Roughly speaking, this requires eight million, but my fees are not a million rubles, and I have generally refused all tours because of all these proceedings. And now I need to pay lawyers, because I want to file an application in court so that the company fulfills its obligations and provides housing to my property.
Shura assured us that he is not even dreaming of any unprecedented luxury now:
“As you know, court proceedings are very long and unpredictable. But I need to move somewhere now. “I’m used to living where it’s green, I really love my Leninsky district,” the star shares. “But here you don’t have to choose anymore.” Wherever they give it, I’ll settle there. It would be good if there were people who could give a mortgage without a down payment. Because I don’t want to rent an apartment and pay money anywhere.
Andrei Malakhov and Viktor Rybin have already offered Shura a helping hand, saying that they can give them the keys to their homes. The singer’s mother Svetlana Ivanovna, with whom he reconciled six months ago after 25 years of misunderstanding, also began to persuade her son to move to Novosibirsk with her. The artist was also inundated with letters from fans from many regions of Russia with offers to live with them.
“One woman wrote: “I live alone in a three-room apartment, come, I’ll give you two rooms,” Shura smiles. — Mostly, of course, they write not from Moscow; in the outback people are more responsive. But I won’t leave Moscow, I have work here. It’s also a shame that so many lies are now being written about my situation. They say that my apartment was taken away for debts, drugs, etc. And they wrote to my lawyer that I was doing PR for myself with this and that no apartment was taken away from me. On this moment an interview with you is the only truthful printed source of information. In the meantime, most publications do this: I told them one word, and they will write ten more!
It is worth noting that this is not the first time that Shura has had a deplorable housing situation. At the dawn of his career, when he had just moved to Moscow, the future star had the opportunity to spend a whole week in the Botanical Garden, eating the berries growing there.
“I started out as a homeless person, and I continue to do so,” the artist says sadly. - Well, what should I do now, go live on the same bench? By the way, my first home in Moscow after the botanical garden was also on Leninsky Prospekt. I lived there with a prostitute Tanka. At that time, I had already started singing in one establishment for a bowl of soup, and I took it with me. She made money there. I also fed her Pekingese dog when Tanka was away for a long time. I remember thinking: it’s better to eat the carrots yourself or feed them to the dog.
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