Looking ahead

I was young for a long time, but that passed.
Although the golden oar splashed in the morning.
Although a mischievous child recognized me.
Although I dreamed of flowers and wolf. Although...
Yuri Ryashentsev, "Farewell to the Empire"

And how old are you, my child?
Ah, a lot, sir, a lot, eighteen!
Yuri Ryashentsev, "Three Musketeers"

It is customary to write about the anniversaries "The Bright representative of their generation." Yuri Ryashentsev, who turned eighty, the bright representative of not his generation, but the next. In the era, when all the “applied” genres were considered low, the lyrical poets were “above all this”, the probes were contemptuously called songwriters, and the authors of the musicals were librettors, he dared to descend to the zongs and musicals. It turned out beautifully and technically, and along the way it turned out that this does not interfere with lyrical poetry, but on the contrary, the syllable disciplines.

Eighty, in this case, the figure is completely implausible. Does not fit with the image of the poet and even more so his lyrical hero. At this age, it is supposed to stand on a pedestal. Ryashentsev is active, in demand, strict to himself and condescending to others. Asceticism and epicurestism miraculously get along in it. The workaholic to the brain of the bones, he invariably sees the beautiful in everyday:

Weekdays of the holidays are more beautiful
And probably not in vain.

In my student years, my favorite day was such everyday life, namely, Tuesdays, because our seminar gathered on Tuesdays. There was something in it from an underground organization: it must have been, therefore, Yuri Evgenievich, we almost immediately began to call the chef.

This seminar arose at the Yunost magazine at the very beginning of 1992 and already in the second lesson from a close editorial room crawled home to the chef. We gathered on Tuesdays at the legendary round table, and for five years every such Tuesday was an event. In this creative workshop, everyone fed each other. Our favorite pastime was to listen to the stories of the chief, since his life in itself is literary. The characters of his oral stories - difficult teenagers, athletes in bathing caps, classics of literature and screen stars - are no less interesting than the heroes of his stories and poems. He talked about friends with tenderness, about the enemy - with soft irony, about the victories of stormy youth - without bragging. He never envied anyone: probably, that's why it was so well preserved.

Yuri Ryashentsev talked a lot with us about the "ratio of life and spirit." He himself, like no one else, found his place on this axis. His lyrics are sensual and piercing, and the texts of songs for films, performances, musicals are witty, virtuoso and frivolous. It is hard to believe that the author is the same. He is not serious about the “three musketeers”, but meanwhile my children remember the songs from this film by heart. Yuri Ryashentsev never strove for glory, rather waved away from her. He did not try to merge with the mainstream, did not flirt with the authorities:

Everything is not forever with us except our eternal anthem,
I do not love him, for I know that it is mutual.

And the chef told us that the most charming are those who do not realize their own charm. I believe that you can’t say more precisely about him.