Tabakov left, the Moscow Art Theater was empty. How we said goodbye to a great artist

How Oleg Tabakov was seen off on his final journey on March 15 in Moscow: report by Sobesednik.ru.

It happens that roads are blocked for the passage of motorcades. They honk their horns in traffic jams, showing their indignation. This time, automobile Moscow was also buzzing, but with sympathy, seeing off the hearse with Oleg Tabakov at the Novodevichy cemetery.

People at the entrance to the Moscow Art Theater, where they said goodbye to Oleg Pavlovich, began to gather as early as seven in the morning.

– I was also born in 1935, like Oleg Tabakov. This morning I came specially from the Ivanovo region,” 82-year-old Ksenia Petrovna sighs in a conversation with Sobesednik. She slowly walks up Tverskaya Street towards the theater. In his hands are flowers wrapped in newspapers. – It seems that Tabakov is dear to me. When I found out, I cried, I wanted to say goodbye to him so much. Children and grandchildren say: “Go.” They bought me tickets. So I’ll go and bow.

They started searching the grandmother at the entrance to Kamergersky Lane. Metal detectors were installed there. A newspaper bag with flowers attracts special attention and demands to be unfolded. She looked confused and asked: “Is Tabakov the president?” The day before, accredited journalists were asked to send all their passport data. They said that they were expecting the arrival of HIMSELF. Moreover, as it became known, relatives said goodbye to Oleg Pavlovich all night: there was a funeral service in the Cathedral of Sophia, and then a funeral service in the theater, closed to everyone.

Actress Evgenia Dobrovolskaya is smoking on the corner of Kamergersky and Tverskaya. There is a passage fenced off by police and metal partitions for VIP guests to the service entrance of the Moscow Art Theater. She, tearful, says that she cannot enter the theater. Because he doesn't believe it.

- Scary! It's very scary to believe this! The theater is empty! – she whispers in a conversation with the “Interlocutor”.

In the large hall, on the stage of which the coffin stood, only accredited journalists and theater employees are allowed to sit. Ordinary spectators walked in front of the stage and laid flowers on the theater footlights.

“Go faster, don’t linger,” orders one of the men in a suit, slightly nudging those passing by. One woman, leaning on a stick, asked to sit in the hall and take a breath. They didn't allow it. Everyone had been waiting for Putin since nine in the morning. He has arrived. But closer to two days. Everyone knows that Vladimir Vladimirovich likes to be late. Putin cried at Tabakov’s coffin and hugged the widow, actress Marina Zudina. She, wearing large dark glasses, approached Tabakov’s body several times throughout the hours of farewell, whispering, talking, and stroking her husband.

“After her husband’s death, she didn’t sleep at all, they say.” At the morgue I asked Oleg Pavlovich to be prepared as quickly as possible. “I didn’t want to let him go for a long time,” says a theater employee. - Yes, we all did not sleep. Tabakov’s death brought us even closer. I know that some even spent the night in the theater these days.

The hearse with the body of Oleg Tabakov left, as is customary for artists, to applause. People cried, but whispered: what next? Who's next? A tearful Igor Zolotovitsky, who is predicted to take Tabakov’s place, helps load the flowers into the car. The cars drove to the Novodevichy cemetery, where the people's artist was buried.

Kamergersky Lane was empty, and Oleg Tabakov looked from the posters with his famous sly smile.

* * *

The material was published in the publication “Interlocutor” No. 11-2018.