The secret history of Alla Pugacheva! How Brezhnev and Gorbachev’s favorite became a spy

* “Golden Orpheus” and the song “Harlequin” launch Alla to the top of fame

* Pugacheva is a People’s Artist of the USSR, in the USA she is placed next to Elvis and Michael Jackson, she is in the top 100 of the most influential women

Alla Pugacheva, the singer beloved by many Russians, was left alone on her birthday. She had invited many friends, but due to Iran’s attack on Israel and the interruption of air traffic, none of the guests were able to arrive at the celebration, reports “Komsomolskaya Pravda”. Her husband Maxim Galkin was also not with her because he was not in Israel.

Her daughter – the singer Kristina Orbakaite, congratulated his mother with a post on Instagram and shared archival footage of joint performances. But on the eve of her 75th birthday, Pugacheva gave herself a present, released the love song “Crying”. The text and music were written five years ago by the composer Leonid Agutin for his 50th anniversary. However, then the diva was unable to perform the song with him due to illness.

Instead of gifts for her 75th birthday, the favorite of Soviet and Russian leaders from Brezhnev to Yeltsin to Gorbachev, the People’s Artist of the USSR, the most famous singer in the Russian Federation, is threatened with being declared a spy. At the end of March, the head of the Federal Anti-Corruption Project, Vitaly Borodin, said that the General Prosecutor’s Office had started a procedure to recognize Pugacheva as a foreign agent. Later, the SHOT telegram channel reported that the singer could enter the relevant register just in time for her anniversary.

At the same time, at the end of March, State Duma deputy Sergey Solovyov noted that it is too early to talk about making a decision on this issue. “I am confident that the inspection will be carried out thoroughly, comprehensively and objectively,” he said.

“In the ranks of foreign agents”

In 2022, after Russia started the war in Ukraine, Pugacheva’s husband, Maxim Galkin, was recognized as a foreign agent. The Ministry of Justice in Russia believes that he received money from Ukraine “while carrying out political activities”. In response, Pugacheva asked to be included “in the ranks of foreign agents” because she shares her husband’s position.

Already in 2022. Pugachova, Galkin and their two children left Russia. Alla announced that she left for treatment and rest, but ended up staying abroad and in May 2022 she received an Israeli passport. In exile, the singer is mainly engaged in raising her heirs – twins Lisa and Harry, 10 years old, and also often attends performances of her compatriots. On social networks, she releases posts from the performances of “Time Machine”, Manizhi, Sivert, Valery Meladze and others.

For the past 2 years, Alla has returned to Russia three times. First in September 2022, to say goodbye to the first president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev. After that, she admitted on social networks that “she hasn’t cried like that in a long time.” “The era in which we got freedom has passed. Gorbachev rejected violence as a way of politics and maintaining his own power,” the singer wrote and urged everyone to be ready to compromise.

Pugacheva came to Russia for the second time in May 2023 for the funeral of fashion designer Valentin Yudashkin. In November 2023, the performer returned to her homeland again, it is assumed that she solved problems with real estate and inheritance.

According to documents obtained by the website kp.ru in 2022, the artist has an apartment in Moscow, two plots of land and two garages. The source lists Galkin as the owner of a 20-room castle in the village of Gryaz and a three-room apartment on the outskirts of Moscow. In Israel, Pugacheva and Galkin live in a three-story white marble mansion with panoramic windows, a spacious terrace, a swimming pool and a bomb shelter. The media also reported that the couple bought a penthouse in Cyprus for 10 million euros, located in the tower of an elite residential complex in the city of Limassol.

Her albums in “western” style

Born on April 15, 1949 in Moscow, the singer recorded her first song “Robot” in 1965, and two years later made her debut as a songwriter with the lyrics and music of “The Only Waltz”. There is no official studio recording of it, as it was only performed on tour. Then she traveled around the Arctic as part of the propaganda team of the Yunost radio station. He gained popularity in the 1970s after winning the Bulgarian music competition “Golden Orpheus” with the song “Harlequin”. After going on a tour of the Soviet Union and appearing on television. Her songs became a sensation. For the film “Foam” Alla wrote the first Soviet disco hit in the Italian spirit. In other compositions, motifs of the “Beatles” can be detected. The country style fascinates her and she weaves it into her songs. Some of her albums at that time sounded too “western”, but Pugachova was allowed everything. The peak of her talent as a writer was the album “How Hard This Time” (1982), in which she wrote 12 of the 16 songs (the rest were composed by Raymond Pauls and Vladimir Vysotsky). The album contains everything from prog rock to funk, from reggae to folk. And it has nothing to do with the “stale” Soviet song.

In the 1980s, after Pugacheva toured American cities, Billboard magazine put her on par with Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. At the same time, she left her musical experiments to her most progressive partners – electronic engineer Yuri Chernavsky and rock musician Vladimir Kuzmin. In the 90s, he suddenly caught fire on chanson and gave the genre the green light. In 1997, poems and music were born for “Primadona”, with which Pugacheva went to the Eurovision Song Contest in Ireland. Two years later, she wrote “Candle” based on the poems of Boris Pasternak. She hasn’t created anything since.

Alla Pugacheva is a recipient of the title “People’s Artist of the USSR”, multiple winner of the “Golden Gramophone” and “Song of the Year” awards, awarded with the “For Merit to the Fatherland” order.

Pugacheva left the stage in 2010, having previously done a farewell tour with 37 concerts in 13 countries. After that, he participated only in television programs and creative evenings. During her career, she has 17 solo records, the total number of her albums sold exceeds 250 million.

In 2022, the performer was included in the list of the 100 most influential women in the world.

“I am the only star in the Soviet Union and Russia. This is my position,” says Alla.

On March 4, 2024, Pugacheva released her first album in 16 years, entitled “PS”, which includes audio recordings from her anniversary concert held in the Kremlin in 2019. Her first song in five years also appeared on the Internet and caused a backlash among her colleagues and fans.

Business and marriages

In the 90s of the last century, Alla began to engage in business – she launched the perfume “Alla” and shoe series “Alla Pugachova”. “You need enough money to not feel humiliated,” she says. In the new century, he became interested in politics and in 2005 he became a member of the Public Council of the President of the Russian Federation, where he was involved in social activities.

Pugachova has five marriages behind her. The first is with the circus performer of Lithuanian origin Mikolas Orbakas, with whom she has a daughter, Kristina Orbakaite.

Then she married the director Alexander Stefanovich, the producer Yevgeny Boldin, for singer Philip Kirkorov and lastly – in 2011, for TV host Maxim Galkin. Two years later, the two became parents of twins, born from a surrogate mother.

“Freedom is the main wealth. I value it, I live with it and I will try to live until the victory of light over darkness, the victory of good over evil, the victory of truth over slander. Let’s continue our lives!”, the singer wrote in one of your latest Instagram posts.

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