The gift of curiosity

In Paris, an exhibition of the famous photographer Vladimir Sychev is taking place. In this city, he feels completely his own, although he was born in Kazan and lived in the USSR for the first 35 years. Most of all, Vladimir loves to remove the streets and faces. As a prologue - a photo captured in 1978 to see the home exhibition of Mikhail Shemyakin at the apartment of Vladimir Sychev on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard in Moscow. From left to right: Glory Lenon, Venedikt Erofeev, Alexander Zinoviev, George Vladimov. The frame also has the daughter of Zinoviev, his wife and wife Vladimov. Vladimov and Zinoviev, like photographer Vladimir Sychev, was soon destined to emigrate. I don’t know if there are still photos of these writers together.

Since then it has gone near 40 years. And Vladimir Sychev, who lived more than 32 years in Paris, is now inhabited in Berlin. I met him at his exhibition in the hospitable Berlin House of Maria and Vadim Zakharov. I know some pictures of Sychev from publications in magazines and newspapers. For example, this, capturing Kita Haring , drawing on the western side of the Berlin wall in 1986.

Nearby are portraits of the kings of the Parisian fashion of Iva Saint Loran and Karl Lagerfeld and Sonya Rickel. How did it happen that the native of Kazan was in Paris and lived there for more than 30 years? How did he even become a photographer?

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Conversation with Vladimir Sychev in the program "Cultural Diary"

I arrived in Kazan, sold a saxophone and immediately bought a camera

Vladimir Sychev: 1965, I am a student of the Kazan Aviation Institute and I play a saxophone in the Big-band Stam, a student theater of pop miniatures. We are going to Moscow to the first festival of student theaters, whose chairman of the jury was Arkady Raikin. We took first place. A photographer from the Moscow Komsomolets came to our hotel. He handed out newspapers with our photos, and unexpectedly put a pack of photographs in my hand. I don't know why. There was a photo of all the stars of world football: the great Brazilians Pele, Garrinch and others. Everyone who came to Moscow, he shot them all. But I was not at all interested in football. I put the photos in the nightstand, and soon discovered that they had disappeared: my friends pulled them out, and I would have handed it out. But the fact that the photographer came up to me played a role. At that moment, of course, I did not realize this, and only looking back at my life, I see that the turns in my life came from very insignificant seemingly phenomena. And they sometimes played an important role, like this case. Because I arrived in Kazan, sold a saxophone and immediately bought a camera.

- What was this device?

- "Zenith", the Soviet apparatus - then others were not sold. And I began to immediately take pictures on the street. I lived between the station and the central market, and the whole real life passed under my windows.

- And much that you started shooting and shooting further, ended up in your collection, brought to Paris in 1980?

- Right. Even now, at exhibitions, I show the series "Kazan of 1966". There was a lot of things there. Then I worked for two years by the radio engineer on Baikonur, then I moved to Moscow, and what I showed in the magazine Pari-Match-it was Kazan and Moscow.

- What is France for you?

I left out of curiosity

- France? Well, this is from the same series ... I already said that the turns of my life seemed to be random, including France, but it turned out that this is the most important ... I have been in Moscow for the past five years, from 1974 to 1979, I was engaged in the installation of one-day apartments of non-conformist artists, including, for example, Mikhail Shemyakin ... All my friends in Moscow were artists. Foreigners - both diplomats and journalists went to these one -day exhibitions to me. I knew almost all foreign journalists. And I showed all of them my photos, but they did not interest anyone. Only one journalist from Newsweek Fred Coleman, who lives in Paris now ... So he once or twice gave me something to take off.

And so nobody needed neither my photos nor my skill. And so I have no illusions regarding my chances as a photographer in the West. I did not leave for political reasons for which I believe that it was necessary to stay in the country. I left out of curiosity. And I am still curious - I am interested in how people live.

I turned out to be the first Soviet photographer to show photographs of everyday life in the USSR

And I, having arrived in Vienna, like all emigrants, by an Israeli visa, asked there in Vienna an American visa. Until 1970, the United States was the center of world photojournalism, two magazines were published there: look and Life . They were weekly, competed among themselves and paid a lot of money for photographs. The first closed in 1970, the second in 1972. To my appearance in the West, Life magazine opened again, but only purely as American and as a monthly man. They began to pay literally 25 times less. But I did not know anything about it. I came to Vienna and began to wait for an American visa. And then my French-duplicates call me, who took out the paintings to me, and they say: "Volodya, come and take your paintings. And then, if you leave for America, then maybe you will never come." And by that time, other diplomats brought me negatives directly to Vienna, well, I, with my family, with children for train and going to Paris. In the meantime, I was sitting for four months in Vienna, one person gave me the coordinates in Paris of the photo agency Sipa Press, with whom he was dealing with once.

I came to Paris to this agency. The owner is the Turks Sipaglu, a fanatic of journalism. Because he sat in the office for 365 days a year, read the entire world press, watched all the television programs, listened to the radio and sent photographers to all points of the Earth. He looked at my photos, and after 15 minutes we were in the magazine Pari-Match.

Two people who watched my photos are Michel Sailor, the director of the Pari-Match, and Roger Teron, the director of the photographs of all publications around the Pari-Match, and there were 70 of them. Today Roger Teron is an icon of photojournalism in France. And both of them are the largest collectors in the world. That is, I immediately fell into my hands to one fanatic, and then worked for a long time with two other fanatics who liked my photos. This continued until the Pari-Match was sold to the La Garder military company. We summarize, I got to Paris by accident, came to pick up my paintings, but it turned out that I arrived when necessary and where necessary.

And in the "Pari-Match" I was immediately printed, and then these photographs of Russian life reprinted other famous magazines, including Life. So I turned out to be the first Soviet photographer to show photographs of everyday life in the USSR.

From the first days in Paris, I began to work in a photo agency, and so my professional career of the photographer in the West began.

I became the most printed photographer in the world for 1980, and my record has not yet been beaten

The magazine "Pari-Match" published in two numbers on 44 pages of interview with me and a series of my photos of the 1960-1970s, Life magazine printed photos on 12 pages, and Stern magazine on 25 pages and my photo on the cover. The Italian magazine "Oji" posted my photos in 4 rooms, the international press actively reprinted the Pari-Match.

As a result, I became the most printed photographer in the world for 1980, and my record has not yet been beaten.

After the publication in Life magazine, Larry King invited me to his 3-hour radio program for midnights, and then other leading US radio and television journalists: Dan Razer, Tom Brookau and Peter Jennings in his news releases of Prime Time (CBS, NBC, ABC programs).

In October 1980, the Pari-Match publishing house “Russian Sychev” was published.

- In your Parisian history there was another character - the great photographer Helmut Newton. What do you think he liked in you?

Helmut Newton and Vladimir Sychev

-I never asked him, but he saw my photos in the Pari-Match and asked the editors to introduce us, and then for two years we were friends until his departure to Los Angeles. But Cartier-Bresson came to me a couple of times, and I was visiting him three times, and we never talked about the photo ... I remember how I asked him at the first meeting in 1980 (it was at my very first time in Paris): "Are you right or left?" Then in France everyone was divided on the left and right. He replied: "I am an anarchist." And I really liked it.

The poster of the exhibition of the photographer Vladimir Sychev in Paris

- Is it true that you were invited to the Vogue magazine from Newton's filing?

- Yes, this is thanks to him, and Vogue resisted. Some Russian photographer ... But Newton made them give me a trial work. They called me and invited me to a conversation, and the director Roger Gaya tells me: "Helmut Newton has been tormenting us for three months now, well, he doesn’t knock on a fist, but he demands. Honestly, we didn’t want, because you are not a fashion photographer? Do not know?" “No,” I say. "Have you ever photographed fashion?" - "No."

Well, he says to put an end to, we will give you our main editris Francin Kressan, you will walk with her, she will show you which models to shoot, and you will only click. If it doesn’t work out, it's okay.

Photographer Helmut Newton

Then it began on Sunday evening with Nina Ricci, and ended on Thursday at 17 o’clock in Ivo Saint Laurent. I shot Nina Ricci, on Monday I brought to the editorial office to show. And we dined there in a cafe inside. And on Tuesday, I just came to dinner, and the director calls me to me. I went up to him to the second floor, and he says: “Listen, showed the first films, the whole editors are delighted, we offer you a contract. And I must tell you that for the 50 years of the French Vogue, no photographer was offered, you are the first!” Well, I say, I'm flattered, although I know that I'm not a world champion ...

But they really really liked it, he did not hide, and the first publication was 40 pages. Under the contract, the magazine was obliged to print 100 pages a year. For two years, I made my 200 pages there and left, because, of course, I am still not a fashion photographer. I do not like to shoot against the backdrop of white walls ... I asked them to let me shoot black and white photos on the street, and they forced me to make colored in the studio ...

But with Saint-Loran and Pierre Berget I just had a friendly relationship. And this is probably because, as I later found out, they loved the Russians. I felt sympathy for the Russians and communicating with many other Frenchmen, in particular, with the French presidents Valerie Zhiskar d'Esten and Jacques Shirak.

Yves Montan

- You have many portraits of famous people. What did you remember from meetings with them?

- I have a bad memory. But if something is remembered, then, then, there really was something interesting. It was very easy with Iv Montan, maybe because he, as an actor, is a real pros. I took it off in his apartment and invited him to go down to the cafe (after all, Paris is the city of a cafe) to remove him there, and he immediately agreed. I remembered several meetings. One of them was with the great pianist Vladimir Gorovitsa. I spent three days with him in Paris, where he came after a 20-year pause. I shot it at rehearsals, in a concert, behind the scenes with my wife, who, by the way, was Toscanini's daughter. We spoke Russian, and he spoke to her in English, with which I also have no problems. I always shoot a lot, and I took it a lot, but I had an exact feeling that I did not remove something. We come to his hotel with him, and I see: a piece of a chessboard sticks from somewhere. And I am a chess fanatic. The player is weak, but a fanatic. I shot all Kasparov matches with Karpov ... I say Gorovitsa: "Are you playing chess?" - I immediately came to the idea that he should be removed for chess and not at all for the piano. But he interrupts me with his question, after which I forgot what I wanted. He says to me: "Do you like ice cream?" I say: "You did not just get to the point. You asked a person who is ready for ice cream is day and night. And this is pure true. A kilogram at a time! Because I love ice cream. From childhood." Well, since childhood everyone loves, and now I love him now. And so he turns to his wife and tells her in English with tears in his eyes: "Dear, look, how many times I told you that all Russians love to play chess and there is ice cream ... (she, apparently," took it out "at this point)." And I was moved and forgot that I wanted to take him behind the chessboard.

Vladimir Gorovitz

Vladimir Gorovitz in Paris, 1985

Roman Polanski and Mikhail Baryshnikov

And I persuaded Polansky and Baryshnikov to make a film about Yesenin and Duncan with Baryshnikov in the title role. "What will I do in this film?" - asked the Baryshnikov skeptical in relation to Yesenin (he then said about him the "peasant poet"). I replied: "In a dream to dance. With her."

Among different stories and cases in the life of Vladimir Sychev, a special place is occupied by a story that led him to the belief that the family of the last Russian king was not shot.

- In June 1987, I was in Venice as part of the French press, accompanied by Francois Mitteran at the Big Seven summit. During the breaks between the bullets, an Italian journalist approached me and asked something in French. He saw my French accreditation, but, having heard from my accent that I was not a Frenchman, he asked where I was. From Russia, I answered. “Here,” my interlocutor said. Under his arm, he held the Italian newspaper Repubblica and translated me from there a large, half -page, article.

Pascalin's sister before his death asked to invite a lawyer and witnesses, because she did not want to take a certain secret of her life to the grave

It was approximately the following: in a private clinic in Switzerland, Sister Pascalin dies. She was known to the whole Catholic world, since she was with the future Pope Pius XXII since 1917, when he was still Cardinal Pacelli in Munich (Bavaria), before his death in the Vatican in 1958. She had such a strong influence on him that he entrusted her to the entire Vatican administration, and when the cardinals asked for an audience with the pope, she decided who was worthy of such an audience and who did not. So from the article it followed that Pascalin’s sister before his death asked to invite a lawyer and witnesses, as she did not want to take a certain secret of her life to the grave. And she, with a lawyer and witnesses, said only one phrase: "A woman, buried in 1976 in the village of Menajio near Lake Magzhore, is really the daughter of the Russian Tsar Olga!"

I convinced my Italian colleague that this is a gift of fate and that it is useless to resist. Upon learning that he was from Milan, I told him that I would not fly back on the presidential press plane, and he and I would go to this village for half a day. After the summit, we went there.

We found a village, a cemetery and a cemetery watchman who led us to the grave. On the grave stone-a photograph of an elderly woman and the inscription in German: Olga Nikolaevna (without a surname), the eldest daughter of Nikolai Romanov, the king of Russia, and the dates of life-1985–1976.

DEM Andenken Olga Nicolawna 1895–1976 Alteste Tochter des Zar Nicolaus II von Russian

An elderly couple immediately appeared, I thought random passers -by, and this was the best friends of this Olga, who looked after her grave. I asked them.

- When did she settled here? - In 1948.

- She said that she was the daughter of the Russian king?

- Of course, the whole village knew about it.

- Did it get into the press?

- Yes.

- How did the other Romanovs react to this? Did they sue?

- Siled.

- And she lost?

- Yes, she lost.

- In this case, she was supposed to pay legal expenses of the opposite side.

- She paid.

- Did she work?

- No.

- Where did she get the money?

- Yes, the whole village knew that it was contained by the Vatican!

I went to Paris and began to look for what is known on this issue ...

Of course, everyone is free to believe or not to believe, but the photos of Olga’s grave (or false olga, as anyone likes it more) with a unique inscription, Vladimir Sychev then did.

Mr. Danieli and his wife at the grave of Olga Romanova

Grave Olga Romanova, 1986

Portrait of Olga Romanova

Now this grave is not, but the ashes were reburied in the family crypt by Olga's friends. I found evidence of Olga’s support (or again false olga) from the sister of Pascalina and some German relatives of the royal family. But I leave the story of Vladimir Sychev without comment.

Vladimir Sychev has been living in Berlin for several years now. Why did he choose this city?

-I lived for 35 years in the USSR, and then 32 years in Paris, enough, I think we must still live somewhere. Having received a French passport in 1989, I was overwhelmed by orders for shooting in Eastern Europe and took mainly an international chronicle: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the overthrow of Chausko, 3 days with Mikhail Gorbachev in the family circle, the 1st and 2nd putsch in Moscow, where I was wounded, trips with the presidents (Valeri Zhiskar d'Esten, Francois Mitteraran, Francois Mitteraran, Francoisa Mitteraran, Francoisa Mitteraran, Francoisa Mitteraran, Francoisa Mitteraran, Francoisa Jacques Shirak, Nicolas Sarkozy), Olympic Games, World Cups, Fencing, and so on.

In the collection of the Pompidu museum there are 14 of my photos.

Berlin is a city saturated with energy, like New York in the 80s

After Paris, I wanted to leave to live in Mexico, where there is still a street life that interests me, but, unfortunately, there is such a crime that it is dangerous to live foreigners, and Mexicans too ... And when Mexico, as a possible place of residence, I disappeared, I chose between Barcelona and Berlin. I really wanted in Barcelona, where I had many friends, but five years ago, I left Paris, in Spain, there was such a difficult economic situation in Spain that, coming, there I heard conversations mainly on this subject. And I loved and love Berlin, I often traveled here since 1983, I was on the day of the opening of the wall. Мне нравится Берлин, действительно очень нравится. Это город насыщенный энергией, как Нью-Йорк в 80-е годы. Так видится мне, иностранцу.

На стене в берлинской квартире портрет Владимира Сычева работы Валерия Кошлякова (фото – Любовь Рутгайзер)

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