We continue to publish pictures and stories of the cult photographer Valery Plotnikov, who has worked with almost all Soviet and Russian celebrities. Among them is Andrey Makarevich. Time is the very beginning of the 90s. Location - Moscow. - In this picture, Andrei with his son Vanya. Andrey is young, and Ivan is four, maybe five years old. I started to shoot Makarevich and The Time Machine actually a long time ago and thoroughly. I took pictures when I was not even familiar with them yet. I remember that I went on an editorial assignment somewhere far, far beyond the Yauza, where they had a concert - the hall was simply packed with modern youth, and the "machinists" themselves performed there in the images and costumes of The Beatles. The similarity was striking - almost indistinguishable. I filmed “The Time Machine” and Andrei a lot and in every way - it is quite possible to make an album. But for what reason Andrey came to me that summer with his little son, I somehow don’t remember. This did not happen at all at the dacha, as one might think, but in Moscow, in the very center, where there used to be such living pieces of land. In the area, as I call it, the "Smolensk Triangle", where the American embassy, the British embassy, and there has long been not a piece of, so to speak, unburnt earth. And then there were still - I will not say that there were vegetable gardens, but still there was wildlife in some places. Andrei Makarevich told why he stopped supporting Putin. And it was there, in the courtyard of the house where I lived then, that I made this shooting. I wanted to take a photo of a courtyard, with the feeling as in childhood: when the courtyards were wonderful, dusty, with secret places, with bicycles, with dominoes, with a special atmosphere. And I am very glad that such a photo turned out to be alive and natural. And this fence is very picturesque now it is gone. He could not survive among embassies and concrete complexes. Perhaps it was necessary to take some photographs of him for the tour. Then they already traveled a lot abroad. Once the three of them went to work abroad. Abdulnik (Plotnikov calls Abdulov so. - Author), Yarmolnik and Makarevich - apparently, Lenya again found some wonderful opportunities to earn money and it was necessary to make a poster for this trio. And Makarevich then could not come to the shooting, which I did in the same alley. I first shot Yarmolnik and Abdulnik, and put Andrey on the picture in a separate way - as Zhvanetsky said, I superimposed it using the overlay method. It turned out, I must say, a wonderful poster for America, where all three of them against the background of the red flag and coats of arms are all bearded and solemnly funny, like Karl Marxes. People were joking for a long time looking at this photo. It was that day or another, I don't know, but I know that Andrei came with his son then for one simple reason - he was a visiting dad. Vanya lived with his mother, and Makarevich separately - but he had to somehow see the child. It so happened that I filmed many of his life friends. And he took off his wife. Oh, I would have known - I would have written it down, laughs Valery. About 30 years have passed since that day, but I remember exactly that Vanya did not indulge in and did not carry sweets, he was generally a well-mannered, modest, even shy boy - he hid a little behind his father. Apparently, he was still bothered by the fact that he was the son of Makarevich. Still they ask: “And you, boy, when you grow up, who will you be? As dad, will you play the guitar? " By the way, I did this photo not so much for Andrey as for the boy. He imagined that he would grow up - and he would be pleased that he had a photograph with his father. Well, Andrei himself is now he, perhaps, a little heavier in character, but then he was radiant, wonderful, motor. He had already begun to travel, and the time was then - continuous movement and drive. Life was going well, it went forward and promised all sorts of different gifts. * * * The material was published in the publication "Interlocutor +" 12-2020 under the title "Makarevich and Wooden Moscow".
