Tall, stately and similar to Paul McCartney, Gennady Ponomarev did not impress singer Zhanna Bichevskaya at first.
When he first met, he gave his future wife a cassette of his songs, and then for a long time sent postcards with poems of his own composition without a signature. Zhanna Bichevskaya did not immediately guess who her most ardent admirer was.
Biography of Ponomarev Gennady Robertovich
Gennady's birthplace is the city of Tula, which he dearly loves and comes on tour. The house and apartment where the poet and musician was born are still preserved and are his place of inspiration, peace and memories. The year of birth of Gennady Ponomarev is 1957, this year the songwriter has his 60th birthday.
Gennady's father Robert Serafimovich was very fond of music, had his own tape recorder and, noticing his son's musical abilities, sent him to a music school. Mom was in solidarity with her father, she herself sang very well. The boy learned to play the guitar himself, the guys in the yard showed only a few chords. It turned out that the guitar is "his"an instrument that makes unique sounds, the boy wrote several songs almost immediately.
Thanks to his own creativity, after graduating from high school, Gennady Ponomarev was accepted into the professional team of the city of Tula, which held rehearsals at the local Palace of Culture.
Army
In the late seventies, when he received a summons from the military registration and enlistment office, Major Yeleyev, the head of the club of the Kremlin regiment, arrived in Tula. Handsome and tall Gennady Ponomarev got into his troops and it so happened that he began to play in the ensemble of the Kremlin regiment. Together with other soldiers, Gennady performed at concerts, festivals and even managed to write a song about post 1.
It was a time of physical and spiritual maturation of a young man. Driven by vague feelings, Gennady Ponomarev went to the library of the Kremlin Regiment and in that godless Soviet time he wanted to read the Bible. His desire was granted and the young man periodically began to study the book of life.
Spiritual development
But this did not go unnoticed, one of the members of the ensemble reported to the authorities that Ponomarev "is rotten inside and reads the Bible." The young man was called "on the carpet" and the political officer of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Eliseev, issued a strict verdict. He was exiled to the city of Solnechnogorsk for the higher military courses "Shot".
Gennady Ponomarev talks about this page in his biography as a believer. On the eve of the transfer, he was sent to the Georgievsky Hall of the Kremlin, where the soldiers were ordered to take out the tables after Brezhnev's anniversary. Togetherwith a friend, Gennady was carrying a heavy carpet somewhere up the stairs, when the young men stopped to rest, Gennady raised his eyes, and suddenly the face of Christ appeared before his eyes. It turned out that they climbed to the very top of the church and someone placed the icon of the Savior there.
Gennady is convinced that the Lord strengthened the spirit of the young man by such his appearance. From the army he returned fully believing and received Holy Baptism. The service in Solnechnogorsk was successful, the future composer served in the ensemble for the rest of the time.
Singer Ponomarev
Even in the army, Gennady Ponomarev decided that if his musical career did not work out, he would be asked to sing in the temple. And it so happened that when he became one of the members of the Fanta group and performed in Tula concert halls, he was spotted by the regent of one of the local churches, Lyubov Borisovna Sobinina. Interestingly, she approached Gennady and invited him to sing in the church choir on the kliros. This both pleased and horrified Gennady, because, in his opinion, it is not appropriate to sing in a holy place after worldly songs, but the regent reassured him, saying that church singers do not work anywhere.
Thus, the composer Gennady Ponomarev served ten years in the temple of the city of Tula. During this time, he discovered a whole layer of unique Russian singing and composing culture. This enriched him not only as a musician and composer, but also as a believer, a spiritual person.
Creativity of Gennady Ponomarev
Therefore, when Zhanna Bichevskaya became a little more supportive ofyoung man, the first thing he asked her: "Are you baptized?". This simple question put Zhanna into a stupor, it turned out that she had no idea about it, but she wanted to be baptized.
As befits thoughtful and faithful people, they not only passed civil registration, but also got married in a church. Since then, they have not parted for twenty-nine years.
Under the influence of Gennady Robertovich, Zhanna Bichevskaya changed her repertoire, now she sings more spiritual songs, almost all of Gennady Ponomarev's compositions are performed by her husband, and some of them are completely dedicated to her. Here are some of them:
- "Tsar Nicholas".
- “The age is too short.”
- "Musician's Autumn".
- "Love, brothers, love."
- “To Your Name, O Lord.”
- “The Fear of the Lord.”
- "Farewell, free element."
- "Stars raced, capes washed in the sea."
- "Maybe you don't need me."
- "Pineapples in champagne, pineapples in champagne"
- "The Russians are coming through".
- "I saw the light in autumn dreams."
- "I will break the silence with a sigh."
- "Ah! How the birds sing!”.
- "God, give us the King."
- "In the throes of having experienced."
- "I would like to wear a big crown."
These and other compositions were written either entirely by Gennady Ponomarev, or to poems by poets such as A. S. Pushkin, B. Pasternak, O. Mandelstam, S. Bekhteev, N. Zhdanov-Lutsenko, Hieromonk Roman and etc.
Conclusion
Currently Gennady Ponomarevis not only a poet and composer, but also a sound engineer, sound producer. Wife, Zhanna Bichevskaya, performer of folk songs, also writes music and poetry. Joint cooperation only strengthens their marriage.
It is interesting that fifteen years ago Ponomarev wrote a song with prophetic words: “Russia will return Russian Sevastopol. The peninsula of Crimea will become Russian again…”. And his love for the royal martyrs, whom he called saints back in the nineties, prompted him to create a cycle of songs that are well known to lovers of the work of Bichevskaya and Ponomarev. This is the biography of Gennady Ponomarev - a real Russian nugget.
