ALEXANDRA PAKHMUTOVA'S EVENING AT THE 1980 OLYMPICS - July 24, 1980
ALEXANDRA PAKHMUTOVA'S EVENING AT THE 1980 OLYMPICS
July 24, 1980
Report for the news program "Vremya"
FULL VERSION:
YT: • ВЕЧЕР АЛЕКСАНДРЫ ПАХМУТОВОЙ НА ОЛИМПИАДЕ-8...
DZ: dzen.ru/video/watch/66a1158cd3a54523d5cd8a74
From July 19 to August 3, 1980, the XXII Summer Olympic Games were held in Moscow. This was the first Olympics in the history of the Games to be held in a socialist country, as well as the first Olympics in Eastern Europe.
Some Olympic events were held in other cities of the USSR rather than in Moscow. The sailing regatta, for example, was held in Tallinn, while qualifying games and the quarterfinal stage of the football tournament were held in Kyiv, Minsk, and Leningrad.
More than 50 countries boycotted the 1980 Olympics in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Among them were Great Britain, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and others. However, athletes from these countries were still able to compete in Moscow under the neutral Olympic flag.
However, the XXII Summer Olympic Games became famous for more than just boycotts. Athletes set 74 Olympic and 36 world records at the Moscow competitions.
No major sporting event is complete without music, so the sound design for the Moscow Olympics was carefully considered. The song selection was personally overseen by Vladimir Popov, Deputy Chairman of the Organizing Committee and former Deputy Minister of Culture of the USSR.
As part of the concerts in the Olympic Village, a major evening of composer Alexandra Pakhmutova's work was held.
One of the signature songs of the Olympics was the song "Heroes of Sports," performed by Muslim Magomayev. Its creators, Alexandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov, seemed to have adopted its chorus as their motto: "We want to give all records our resounding names." On the eve of the Games, Pakhmutova and Dobronravov set a new record: their songs were played most often on radio and television. Sofia Rotaru performed their uptempo hit "Temp," Muslim Magomayev performed "Stadium of My Dreams," and Lev Leshchenko, meanwhile, earned standing ovations with "Moscow Gives the Start." It was 1979, and Lev Leshchenko had no idea that Alexandra Pakhmutova would soon offer him a timeless hit.
Initially, the legendary song "Goodbye, Moscow" was supposed to have a slightly longer title—"Goodbye, Moscow, Hello, Los Angeles." But due to the war in Afghanistan, Western countries decided to boycott the Moscow Olympics, and the Soviet authorities decided to change the song's tone: let it be simply a farewell to the Games.
But even here, there were some incidents. Alexandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov wrote a song about a flying bear, and some members of the organizing committee didn't like this version: after all, real bears don't fly! Furthermore, the enormous bear puppet made for the closing ceremony struggled to take off vertically for a long time and hovered on its side. Numerous balloons attached to the bear's paws rectified the situation. Now the bear took off as expected, and the organizing committee had no questions: the symbol of the Olympics was flying away thanks to the balloons—everything was in order.
However, Pakhmutova and Dobronravov were no longer certain that the song would be performed at the closing ceremony, so when they offered it to Lev Leshchenko, they warned him in advance that it was unclear what the future held for "Tender Misha." As a result, the artist completely forgot about it.
"When they played this song at the closing ceremony, I didn't even recognize my voice at first; it was so unexpected," Lev Leshchenko recalled to Sputnik. "I recorded it two months ago. Of course, I recognized myself later, but at the first few bars, I simply didn't realize it was that song. Naturally, I was delighted, but nothing more."
According to the artist, the song had a surprising destiny.
"Nobody expected this song to become so iconic. When I recorded it, I thought, 'Well, what a song, a song for the Olympics, after all, there are so many songs there.' But it still stays with us, and it's not just the generation that witnessed the Olympics that loves it. I often perform it with young artists—Alsu, for example, or Basta. Why do young audiences respond so well to this song? I think, firstly, it's informal, kind, and has a special meaning—an attitude toward the land, toward universal human values. And secondly, it's still fresh in the memory; parents conveyed their emotional state to their children, plus the recent Olympics in Sochi, where Mishka was also present, played a role," Leshchenko said.
(Based on materials from https://ar.culture.ru/ and https://ru.sputnik.kz/)
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