Boris Khmelnitsky died

He was a very good person. No, of course, he was a good artist, very musical - and he got into the Taganka Theater because he had musical abilities, and he and Anatoly Vasilyev, then also a student at the Shchukin School, and now an outstanding director, wrote songs for the play “Kind the man from Szechwan" - and then his life was certainly connected with the theater, and with music, and with cinema, although he never played anything truly epoch-making. Although the image of a noble and romantic hero, collected from all his “costume roles” - in “Robin Hood’s Arrows”, in “King Stach’s Wild Hunt”, in films based on Jules Verne, Walter Scott, Stevenson and other “small classics”, will remain for a long time was remembered by everyone who grew up at that time... But still, first of all, Boris Khmelnitsky occupied such a significant place in his contemporary world precisely because he was a truly good person - kind, generous and noble. And this is very important. And very, alas, rarely.

He could not bear the split in the theater - and simply left. Moreover, he maintained good relations with both halves of the troupe. But he could never forgive everyone together for the fact that the comradely, friendly team, in his mind, which initially swore an oath to the honor of comradeship, could fall apart. However, Khmelnitsky did not have any condemnation or anger. He was simply a devoted friend. Therefore, there was no more constant and trouble-free organizer of evenings in memory of Vladimir Vysotsky, whose talent Khmelnitsky sincerely recognized as the greatest, although this is usually difficult for comrades who started on equal terms. And even the monument to Vysotsky - it was he who went to Luzhkov, this was his idea: Volodya would be surprised. And yet, contrary to his own prediction, he stands at the Petrovsky Gate.

Mark Rozovsky is right when he calls Khmelnitsky a man of the sixties. His kindness was a little simple-minded - like this time itself, naive as a teenager, with the maximalism and uncompromising nature characteristic of age. But this adolescence in him was compensated by softness and lightness, which remained until the end of his life. Anatoly Vasiliev remembered that at school they called him Bambi - he was such a surprised fawn, openly admiring the world.

Khmelnitsky’s relationship with the current time, which does not at all coincide with his values, somehow did not work out. He didn’t act much because he didn’t agree to outright hack work, and he wasn’t invited to anything serious... And how much of that serious stuff was there? His last role was an episode in the not yet released film “Taras Bulba”, where Khmelnitsky was given the role of Robin Hood from the Cossacks.

But he could prepare his disc for three years, carefully selecting the material so that it would turn out, as he said, “my autobiography,” where there is not a single random song.

He liked life, he sang, drank, cooked with taste, and was the life of the party. He thought about death; once said in an interview: “I would like this performance called “life” to have a well-orchestrated ending, after which you would be remembered, so that you wouldn’t be ashamed to leave.” Towards the end of his not too long life - he was 67 years old - Boris Khmelnitsky was very ill. But he was still able to prepare a concert in honor of Vysotsky’s 70th birthday at the Taganka Theater, which became his last work. Quite a worthy ending, although this is not why it will be remembered for a long time, but the memory will be truly bright.

Alena Solntseva