Grigory Gorin died

(Photo: Natalya Loginova )

He was just over sixty, he was an all-Union famous wit, and the audience's love for him reached the level where the most unimaginable diction did not prevent him from being considered a TV star.

But first of all, Gorin was, of course, a playwright and screenwriter who created his own ironic intellectual-popular genre based on rethinking traditional literary plots. In Soviet literature, he succeeded primarily Evgeniy Shvarts, to whose texts Gorin often turned. His films and performances directed by Mark Zakharov were loved by everyone, and the intelligentsia of previous years caught and relished caustic political hints and ambiguities in them. The most amazing thing is that there was not a drop of cynicism in Gorin. His irony was combined with sincere sixties pathos and piercing sentimentality. The lyrical element in his plays was not inferior to the social one.

I once heard a story told by Gorin himself. A long time ago, another anniversary of his friend Igor Kvasha happened. Kvasha decided not to celebrate his anniversary, upset that he was getting older. And then in the evening Gorin, together with one of his mutual friends, rang Kvasha’s doorbell and, pushing aside the hostess with his shoulder, gloomily walked into the apartment. He settled down in the room on the floor, laid out bread, cucumbers, vodka, etc. on a newspaper and, not noticing the owners fussing around, began drinking “to this bastard” (who does not invite friends), “to this bastard’s wife,” “to this son bastards" and so on. When I heard this story in my youth, I thought: how lucky is the one who has such friends. And what a misfortune it is to lose such a friend.

Grigory Gorin was a doctor by training. He died on the night of June 15. It is believed to be from a massive heart attack.