I, Alla Pugacheva

It seems that I have long been accustomed to my name, but somewhere in six months I suddenly think about the fact that my existence is some kind of nonsense. How can you live with the name of Alla Pugacheva? At such moments, I try to present next to me a person who tells me absolutely seriously, say: “I am Philip Kirkorov” or “I am Efim Shifrin”. Well, how is it possible and why, with that name, did I manage to choose the profession of a journalist? And why didn’t it occur to me that a day I have to introduce myself to strangers ten times? I don’t remember when the last time I asked my father the question "Why am I Alla Pugacheva?" It seems that several times in childhood I asked him about this, but he always got off the answer so technically and so fervently had fun that I decided: this name is the most important joke in his and in my life, pulling the endless chain of hundreds of others, not so ridiculous.

A couple of weeks ago I ran into a bookstore to finally use a gift certificate that I accidentally went to me. About thirty minutes wandered between the racks with books and went to make a purchase to the wholesale sales department. Everything seems to go well. In a tiny dusty room, a gloomy blonde with scarlet lips displeasedly broke away from the computer, thoughtfully turned the books I have chosen and began to write it somewhere there:
- Do you have the entire amount on your gift card?
- Well, yes.
- Here it turns out 2,997 rubles.
- Well, yes.
- What is your name?
- Alla.
- And the last name?
- Crap. Pugacheva.

Then it happened exactly that that always happens in such situations all my life: half a minute of stupid silence, they look at me gently and, probably, I think that I am either with moron, or just not very successfully.
“Alla Pugacheva,” I repeat slowly and clearly and pull in a bag for a passport, which I always have to carry with me specifically for such cases.

The blonde finally understands that no one here is trying to laugh at her. She relaxes noticeably, sways with her head sympathetically and hollows with a whisper to get married as if I had just admitted to her in some terrible sin. I don't answer.

Actually, how I present my name to new people, always depends on the mood. Most often, at the same time I am having fun-whimming, I say something like: “I am Alla Pugacheva, well, serious” or: “My name is Alla Pugacheva. My father has a kind of sense of humor. ” Thus, I seem to try to soften the blow - to save a person from instant shock or hysteria. The girl who served me in a bookstore was not lucky. She encountered me at the moment when I felt absolutely comfortable with this name, when I forgot that it was some kind of completely ridiculous borrowing when I did not think that my name exists perfectly without me, or maybe even better. In such cases, I am releasing an important look and let it understand: yes, I am Alla Pugacheva, and there is nothing absurd and even more funny in this. But in fact, it is not: it is all just very absurd and just terribly funny.

A few days after the story in the bookstore, I sat in the editorial office, half -time living the seventh for a row, and was about to leave, when a new experience was addressed with a timid with a timid request. For the simplicity of communication, I suggested adding each other in Facebook - and here it all started again. Having hung over the experience, I drove my name into the search bar - and after a few seconds we stared at the monitor together, from which countless Pugachev alla sparkled with porcelain smiles. And there was not a single me among them. I caught myself thinking that for some reason the break between “registered embarrasses” began to increase, and the concentration of the absurd was rapidly increasing.

Such situations take place in my life too often to keep them in my head. If you regularly take the results of the week, there will certainly be at least one similar episode.

In Dubna, Moscow Region, where I grew up, a stream of jokes on my name was dry somewhere by about my ten years, but I experienced them very difficult. The situation was significantly complicated by the fact that in childhood I seriously engaged in vocals and even salted in the choir (this is the horror!). I would prefer to just sing and that no one would imagine me at the same time, but this could not be avoided, so one day the weak children's nerves passed: to the enthusiastic cries of the hall, I rushed off the stage and wandered around the streets of Dubna for a long time, sobbing and thinking about life.

Time passed, I had a circle of communication, and joke in my presence about Alla Pugachev at some point it became simply boring and uninteresting. For a while I was left alone. And then there was a journalism faculty, then Nikolayevich Zasursky was a clearing of student tickets, and I, under a bold laughter, the screams and applause of classmates, descended from the farthest row of two hundred of the two hundred of the first audience to the department. Then my name was discussed in the dining room - in a smoking room - in pairs - everywhere.

In fact, all these difficulties with the name were compensated by a whole bunch of unforgettable stories related to it. In April 2012, everything was completely dreary. I should have turned twenty -three. I had no idea how to spend my birthday, with whom and where. I never knew how to organize holidays, especially my own, so I just lay down on the couch with a glass of rum and began to wait. Usually, when I lie like this on the couch with a glass of rum, my classmate Dasha appears. Dasha and then appeared instantly: she called me and said that there was nothing to think about here, everything was decided: we are making a party “Bingon with Alla Pugacheva”.

Black Balakhon dress is not a problem, a red-haired wig-even more so. “I will make the poster, prepare music, but let the guests dress like the stars of the Russian stage, well, there Leontyev, Basque, Agutin, Varum, Kirkorov, who else is there?” - Verily reasoned Dasha. The site for all this hell was found quickly: my empty apartment in Dubna. The date of the party almost accidentally coincided with the birthday of my namesake - April the fifteenth. I was born two days earlier, the thirteenth, but decided to celebrate on Saturday evening.

We came off as we could, and I carefully pulled something from Alla Borisovna's early repertoire when they called the door. Expecting to see a new portion of guests, I joyfully fell out on the threshold in a wig that had gone to one side and stumbled upon two district police officers. A crowd of mummers pressed behind.
- The neighbors complain about the noise, what is happening here?

I am drunk, a little discouraged and I can’t explain anything clearly. I am adjusting the wig, stamping on the spot, I somehow smile stupidly. Russian pop stars come to the rescue:
- Alla Pugacheva's birthday!
- What, fucking, is happening?!
- I am Alla Pugacheva. I have a birthday, - I suddenly blurt out and already out of habit I turn around to run after a passport.

Two huge people in the form in a former look at all this stupid masquerade. In the depths of the apartment, someone heartily howls about the iceberg in the ocean. I see that the police are confused. I know that today is the fifteenth of April, I know that I am Alla Pugacheva and all this is true, really.
- Make it quieter, the neighbors complain.
- And from what apartment neighbors?
- Doesn't matter.
- No, it is important!
- Well, let's say, from the eighteenth ...

From the depths of consciousness, the idea crawls out that something is wrong here. I suddenly understand that from the eighteenth apartment they could not call. Alice lives in the eighteenth, and now she just finishes the next glass of wine under the songs of Alla Pugacheva. Her mother stayed at home. Anyone who is really dissatisfied with the noise, simply did not want to call the number of his apartment.
- Go to the eighteenth again.
- And we will go.
- And you go!

They went. At three in the morning, Alice’s sleepy mother irritatedly explained to the police that Alla Pugacheva was celebrating the birthday in the fourth apartment, and in general, that it may be incomprehensible here. I remember that they returned to us a little confused and as if even timidly and politely said goodbye.

The most fun party in my life was my most desperate attempt to reconcile with my own name.

2012 was generally a difficult year. I graduated from the university where everyone had already got used to everyone, and came to work on the radio, where I received a fresh portion of bewilderment, amazement and distrust daily. The famous philologist, according to the textbook of which I once studied at school, once refused to give me an interview, because "if you are Alla Pugacheva, then I am Paul Newman or Ramon Merkader." After that, I always do my best to name my last name.

Then it was only worse: the jokes got into Facebook and Twitter, and for some time I started every working day with monitoring of blogs and social networks, carefully collected all the sharpness in one Word File and made up the best ratings. This whole story reached the highest point of absurdity on that day, the day when the editorial office began to circulate rumors that in the near future an invited guest in the studio would be real Alla Pugacheva.

I had to take a picture with her, if only in order to deliver even more joy to all the indifferent. They figured out an approximate plan of action: after the live broadcast, I will go to my hand and ask her to say a few words to the upcoming birthday of the radio station - everything is simple. But on the day of the interview of Alla Borisovna, for some reason, I again lay down on the couch in light melancholy. I was raised by a phone call from the editorial office with a demand to urgently come. And then another, and then four more from different people, but with the same request. It turned out that my meeting with her was approved already at the level of the leadership of the radio station, and I risk disappointing everyone. I didn’t want to go anywhere, I only wanted to lie down. This idea already seemed stupid: why should I, after all, these photos.

Nevertheless, after forty minutes, breathing and irritated, I stood in front of a man who, without knowing it, influenced my life so much. Around us is a dense ring of joyful colleagues and flashes of cameras. Alla Borisovna looked tired, she smiled restrainedly and carefully picked up the words. Or maybe not, because everything that occupied my thoughts then is a recorder that first appeared in my hands. In what extremity to press the buttons so that the record goes, at what point to turn it off and how to save everything, what kind of blurred red dot in the upper part of the case is that I was thinking at that moment.

I don’t know why, but I perceived this meeting as a certain unique ritual, after which my name will finally stay with me, and this whole storm will finally subside. But everything remains as before: the name does not belong to me, but I can’t answer my question whether I like this state of affairs or not. I only know that it would be a little sorry to part with him.

After all, I am Alla Pugacheva.