Алла Пугачёва: Жизнь и творчество легенды советской эстрады

Soviet Russian singer (born 1949)

Alla Borisovna Pugacheva (А́лла Бори́совна Пугачёва, ; sometimes Pugachova; born 15 April 1949) is a Soviet and Russian singer songwriter. Her career started in 1965 and continues to this day, even though she has retired from performing. For her "clear mezzo soprano and a full display of sincere emotions", she enjoys an iconic status across the former Soviet Union as the most successful Soviet performer in terms of record sales and popularity. Pugacheva's repertoire includes over 500 songs in Russian, English, German, French, Kazakh, Hebrew, Finnish, and Ukrainian, and her discography has more than 100 records, CDs and DVDs. In addition to Russia and the former Soviet Union, Pugacheva's albums were released in Japan, Korea, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. In total, Pugacheva has sold more than 250 million records. She became a People's Artist of the USSR in 1991, a Laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation in 1995, and was decorated as a Chevalier of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" II, III and IV degrees. In December 2022, Pugacheva was included in a list of the 100 most inspiring and influential women in the world (BBC, 2022), one of the three Russian women on the list.

Pugacheva was born to Boris Mikhailovich Pugachyov and Zinaida Arkhipovna (née Odegova) Pugachyova in Moscow, on 15 April 1949. In 1956, she enrolled in music school No.31, and attended the Ippolitov Ivanov music college. She went on to study at school No.496, finishing her studies there in 1964. She then studied in the choral conducting department of the college. Pugacheva recorded her first track "Robot" in 1965, for a morning programme on Radio Yunost.

Pugacheva finished college in 1966 and subsequently toured with the group Yunost' (Youth) in western Siberia. The following year she began working as a piano accompanist at the State Circus Musical college. She provided the leading vocals to a number of bands, including Novy Elektron (New Electron), part of the Lipetsk State Philharmonic Society, in 1966, Moskvichi (Muscovites) in 1971, Oleg Lundstrem's band in 1972–73, and Vesyolye Rebyata (Merry Folks) in 1974–75. She recorded songs throughout that period for numerous movies. In 1974, she came in 3rd place in the All Union competition of musicians. In 1975, she received the Grand Prix of the Golden Orpheus international singing contest in Bulgaria, performing the song "Harlequin" by Emil Dimitrov. The Amiga label released her winning song as a single in East Germany. Subsequently, in Bulgaria, the Balkanton label released the live recording of "Harlequin" from the festival as a single. A year later, Pugacheva returned to the Golden Orpheus to perform a concert outside the competition. The Balkanton released the live tracks as Pugacheva's first album Zolotoy Orfey 76. In that same year, Pugacheva recorded a number of songs for the musical drama comedy The Irony of Fate as the singing voice of Nadja, the female protagonist.

Pugacheva went on to work on the musical film The Woman who Sings in cooperation with the band Ritm (Rhythm) in 1977. She played the leading lady, a famous pop singer who sacrifices her personal life for her career. The soundtrack, which was co written by Pugacheva and composed of pop songs, culminated with the dramatic title ballad "Zhenshchina, kotoraya poyot". The Soviet audience, regarding the film as autobiographical, brought the soundtrack to reach record audience of the year in 1979, as it was bought by 55 million people. The soundtrack was first released in 1977 as part of the double album Zerkalo dushi (Mirror of the Soul), which was a collection of her songs from 1975 to 1977. The Victor label released a collection album Alla Pugacheva in the same year in Japan. In 1978, performing the song "Vsyo mogut koroli" ("Kings Can Do Anything"), Pugacheva received the Amber Nightingale prize at the Sopot International Song Festival which at the time meant automatically winning the Grand Prix of the Intervision Song Contest. In 1980, the Kansan label of Finland released her above listed works as the compilation album Huipulla (At the Top). Tonbandausnahmenkompanie Bayer GmbH did the same in West Germany, releasing Alla Pugachova.

During the 1980s, Pugacheva was a frequent visitor to Stockholm. She started out with multiple guest appearances on the popular Swedish radio show Galaxen (April 1980 year) conducted by Jacob Dahlin, and later frequently appeared on his TV show Jacobs Stege (Jacob's Ladder). Dahlin and Pugacheva used to perform duets, such as "Superman" where Dahlin sings as the title character. In Stockholm, Pugacheva recorded an album in English, released by the World Record Music label in Sweden as Watch Out and by the Melodiya label in the Soviet Union as Alla Pugacheva in Stockholm. She represented Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 with the song "Primadonna", finishing in 15th place. Pugacheva had sold a quarter of a billion records by 2000, in 2023 one of her songs were used for Atomic Heart for the intro.

In 1969, she married Lithuanian circus performer Mykolas Orbakas [lt], and on 25 May 1971 she gave birth to a daughter, Kristina Orbakaitė, who is also a popular singer. Pugacheva divorced Orbakas after four years of marriage in 1973. She married film director Alexander Stefanovich (1945–2021) in 1976 and starred in several of his movies. The union was dissolved in 1980. In 1985, Pugacheva married producer Yevgeniy Boldin, with whom she had numerous professional collaborations. She had a working and romantic relationship with a young musician and singer, Vladimir Kuzmin during this period. In 1993, she divorced Yevgeniy Boldin stating that their professional lives interfered too much with their personal life. In 1994, she married a pop singer, Philipp Kirkorov. Their divorce was announced in November 2005. On 23 December 2011, Pugacheva married satirist Maxim Galkin, who is 27 years younger. The couple has twins delivered by a surrogate mother.

From 1963 to 1977, starting when she was fourteen, Pugacheva was a member of the Komsomol. On the day of the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, while in Odesa in the company of Mikhail Zhvanetsky, she expressed confidence that there would be no turning back, that their time had passed. In June 1996, Pugacheva actively participated in the pre election tour of Boris Yeltsin's presidential campaign "Vote or lose." Later, she did not hide that she had taken much money for her performances at concerts as part of this election campaign. On 14 June 1996, two days before the vote, an interview with Leonid Parfyonov was aired in the Hero of the Day program on the NTV channel, in which Pugacheva called on all Russians to vote for Yeltsin. In 1998, Pugacheva supported Valery Zubov as candidate for the governorship of the Krasnoyarsk Krai. In December 2005, Pugacheva became a member of the Civic Chamber under the President of the Russian Federation, where she worked on social development issues until 2008. For the 2007 Russian legislative election, Pugacheva starred in a United Russia campaign video. On 14 September, she took part in the party congress. However, after the removal of its leader, the day after the congress at a meeting of supporters of Mikhail Prokhorov, she left the party, blaming Vladislav Surkov for what happened. In 2012, Pugacheva supported the punk group Pussy Riot. Alla is considered to be a gay icon in Russia by Russian LGBT community. Pugacheva took second place in the ranking of "100 Most Influential Women of Russia" (Ogoniok, 2012) and 4th in the ranking of "The Smartest Women of Russia" (Russian Public Opinion Research Center, 2012).

In March 2014, Pugacheva signed a petition against the persecution of Andrei Makarevich, who protested against the annexation of Crimea and war in Donbas. In March 2022, Pugacheva and Galkin, whose mother is Jewish, left Russia for Israel following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In August 2022, Pugacheva returned to Russia hoping to clean up "the mess in people heads". In September 2022, after her husband had been declared a "foreign agent", she spoke out publicly condemning the war and useless deaths of Russian men who are forced to die for no reason. She also asked Ministry of Justice to declare her a foreign agent, too. Russian authorities began investigating Pugacheva for "discrediting" the Russian military under Russian 2022 war censorship laws. In October 2022, Pugacheva revealed that she had left Russia again for Israel. In November 2023, Pugacheva returned to Russia for a few days before leaving again for Latvia. The British pop group Pet Shop Boys supported Pugacheva. The band members said they admired her courage and honesty. German rock musician Udo Lindenberg and Ukrainian singer Svetlana Loboda also expressed words of support for Pugacheva.