If Kote Makharadze was in the commentator's booth, then everything that happened on the football field was like Shakespeare's passions of incredible power. Each episode was unforgettable. His every word was caught by the listeners as something secret. And each of his phrases was remembered by the fans and became a delicious "treat", equal in taste to the phrases of the heroes of Gaidai and Ryazan films. So who is he - Kote Makharadze? Actor, sportscaster, husband of one of the most beautiful women in Georgia - Sofiko Chiaureli!
Childhood and family
The best commentator in the entire territory of the Soviet Union was born in 1926, on November 17th. His parents were very modest Georgian intellectuals. Dad, an officer in the emperor's army, Ivan Konstantinovich Makharadze, worked as an economist all his life. Mom, Varvara Antonovna Makharadze-Vekua, worked as the head of the library in the city gymnasiumTbilisi. Ivan Konstantinovich passed away in the spring of 1956. His wife survived him by fourteen years.
Kote Makharadze was still very young, only seven years old, when he began to study at the Tbilisi Choreographic Studio, from which he graduated with honors just before the war, in 1941. It was within these walls that for the first time in his life he collided so closely and began to eagerly absorb the art of the greatest masters of music, dance and stage design.
A hundred roles in a quarter of a century
It's 1944. School graduated with honors. Now young Kote, with his talent and perseverance, conquers the Tbilisi Institute of Theater Arts. Sh. Rustaveli. Four years later, when he received invaluable knowledge from the school of the famous stage masters of the People's Artists of the USSR, he was accepted into the Academic Theater. Sh. Rustaveli. Within the walls of this theater, Kote Makharadze, whose biography, with the onset of his first fame, became of interest to admirers of his talent, in less than a quarter of a century (for 23 years) put a piece of his soul into a hundred of the most diverse interesting roles.
Theater and sports
By the beginning of the 70s of the 20th century, Kote Ivanovich moved to the Academic Theater. K. Marjanishvili. In this theater, he almost doubles the number of his roles, played with unfailing rapture and solemnity. Twice his work was recognized as the best on this stage. The star of the Georgian theater receives the title of laureate of the Prize. Marjanishvili and Akhmeteli. He is awarded the highest civilian awards in Georgia, titles of honorary citizens.
Love for a beautiful woman
Kote Makharadze was over forty when he found the greatest love of his life. It was like a light breeze, thanks to which he realized that it was this woman who would make him happy. They could easily understand each other without finishing the sentence. Each of them knew exactly what the other was thinking just by looking at him. They could complement each other almost perfectly, penetrating the interests of everyone and offering something new. Sofiko Chiaureli and Kote Makharadze met when they were not young people, but they had many years of cloudless happiness ahead of them, not overshadowed by any vicissitudes.
Yes, the beautiful Sofiko at that time had a husband - the famous director Georgy Shengelaya. Yes, and Kote was not free, he had two children growing up. But love, which suddenly flared up and blazed like a huge hot and unquenchable fire, decided to change everything in the life and fate of these two couples. There was a big scandal. But the result was that they both walked away from already past families and began their new life from a blank slate. They were together, as a whole, until the day Kote Ivanovich passed away.
Had his chances of opportunity
As a sports commentator, this tireless Georgian began working back in 1957. First on the domestic (Georgian), and then on the All-Union radio and television. Over the course of four decades of his career, he had occasion to report in two languages - Russian and native - withseveral Olympics. Since 1966, he has worked at all the World Cups (I would especially like to note the legendary match of 1981, where Dynamo managed to win the European Cup Winners' Cup). And one cannot help but pay attention to the incredible fact in the biography of the legendary commentator, according to which, the number of TV reports that Makharadze conducted in 20 sports exceeds two and a half thousand!
Any of his reports instantly became a small, but very talentedly played performance, invariably ending in a standing ovation from invisible spectators. It even happened that the action that took place on the field did not interest the fans as much as the boring comments of Kote Makharadze. The pearls that came out of his mouth remained forever in the treasury of the football world: about the full Papadopoulos of the rivals of the Greeks, and about the beautiful poses of the side referee, and many others.
Yes, and how can it not seem strange (after all, Soviet times were quite strict) and doubly and even triple surprising that he was allowed to work? It is unlikely that anyone else would have gotten away with this, because Kote pearls could easily be the end of a career. But he didn't care. He was a legendary person. And, just like Nikolai Ozerov, he was considered the standard of the Soviet style of reporting.
His latest report
On October 12, 2002, the game between Georgia and Russia began in Tbilisi. The match promised to be not just interesting. This iswas supposed to be a breakthrough in the football community. But suddenly, in the middle of the game, the lights went out. The game ended before reaching its logical conclusion.
Maybe someone didn't particularly pay due attention to this fact, but not Kote Makharadze. The commentator took it as a personal tragedy. He suffered so much that in the evening of the same day he had a stroke. After him, the talented Georgian was never able to recover. His heart stopped on the afternoon of December 19, 2002.
Yes, of course, he was one of the most beloved sportscasters in the Soviet Union. And, of course, a wonderful person, a talented actor. He was loved and respected by millions of fans, and he himself treated his viewers and listeners with great respect and warmth. Each match, which he commented with his inimitable Georgian temperament, instantly turned into an emotional action. That's why he is still loved and remembered …
