Muslim Magomaev. A story about a first marriage and a beloved daughter.
The history of the relationship of the great Azerbaijani singer Muslim Magomayev with his first wife Ophelia and his only daughter Marina. The first marriage lasted only a year, a daughter was born ... Now Marina lives in the USA with her husband and young son. The boy was given several names, and one of them is Muslim.
Muslim Magomayev was 18 years old, and already in these years the young man enjoyed wild success with girls. He studied at the Baku Musical College, where he met a classmate, a beauty with a romantic name of Ophelia, and decided to marry her. Grandmother Baidigul Muslim was so frightened that she hid the passport of her beloved grandson so that he would not “foolishly marry”.
Hidden passport and secret marriage
“Carefree youth is over - I fell in love,” Muslim Magomayev recalled. - Everything is like in a song: I met a girl, an eyebrow with a crescent ... We began to meet. Uncle and aunt, knowing about my hobby and knowing my character, felt something was wrong. But due to his natural delicacy, Uncle Jamal did not dare to start a manly conversation with me, and I still did not consider it necessary to open up to my uncle. And then one day my passport disappeared. It seems that it was the hand of my grandmother: she caught a dangerous moment in time - Ophelia and I had just decided to get married. In our yard lived a certain Olga Kasparovna Charskaya, in the past a famous performer of old
nyh romances. She was a very sociable woman and, if she told something, she would shout at the whole yard. And so my grandmother hid my passport with her, because she understood that at home I would still look for it. The neighbor, due to her sociability, could not keep the secret entrusted to her for a long time, and it all ended with me returning the passport in some cunning way.
19-year-old Muslim got married anyway, and secretly ...
“Ophelia and I signed without saying anything to anyone. I put my family before the fact. The reaction is restrained, I thought it would be worse. Grandmother was upset, and the sad uncle grumbled:
- Do you want to be independent? Okay, let's try, you're already an adult. But keep in mind, if you cry, we won't understand.
I began to live in the family of Ophelia. Her father, an intelligent man, a chemist, worked at the Academy of Sciences. He was delicate, modest, and a mother-in-law ... A mother-in-law is a mother-in-law. Everything turned out according to the law of the family swing. Very soon, the showdown began. I had to feed our little family, I had to urgently get a job.”
“You won’t make a good husband!”
In a youthful marriage, Muslim had, frankly, a hard time. The wife's relatives believed that he should earn money without sparing himself. The young man then dreamed of singing at the opera house, albeit in a small one. But the relatives of the wife met these desires of Muslim with hostility. The most unbearable thing for the singer was the constant reproaches: “You won’t make a good husband!”. Muslim was accepted into the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Baku Air Defense District. But after that, Ofelia began to be burdened by the crazy touring schedule of the rising star. The young woman wanted her husband to always be with her.
“With the ensemble, we traveled to different cities, including resort ones. Everywhere there was success. In the ensemble I was paid decently at that time. Tour whirlwind distracted me from domestic troubles. I did not want to return home from the trip, my character did not allow me to play the role of a decent family man.
Then Chechen motives sounded in the life of the singer. At the invitation of friends, together with Ophelia, he moved to work in Grozny, the homeland of his great-grandfather Mohammed. The soloist of the Grozny Philharmonic Society was waiting for success ... But because of the greed of the director, Muslim for the first time in his life appreciated the taste of ordinary black bread with sprats.
“In windswept hotels, we fed bedbugs… I caught a cold while traveling around the villages, yelled in the mountains so that my voice was gone. They found a good doctor for me in Grozny, a specialist in acupuncture. Two weeks later, from her needles or from silence, the voice returned. I sang. But Ophelia could not stand our life like this and went home to Baku.”
The beggarly existence in Grozny got tired of the singer, and a few months later he returned to Baku, but not to Ophelia's family, but settled with Ramazan Khalilov (director of the Baku Opera House), the nephew of Uzeyir Gadzhibekov, the son of one of Baidigyul's grandmother's sisters.
“After Ophelia left Grozny for Baku, I decided that our life together was over, but, having learned that my wife was expecting a child, I returned to her house. We had a daughter (1961), we named her Marina ... But our family life did not work out ... Subsequently, we broke up ... ”
This name was chosen by the father not by chance. Even at the age of 13, Muslim was in love with the schoolgirl Marina and even wrote a song in her honor, which he performed at school holidays and parties. In the 70s, this composition became a hit.
“What can I say? - Muslim Magomayev recalled with a sigh about this page of life. - A boy at the age of 18 for the first time flared up to a woman ... My first reaction is to get married! Now it's ridiculous for me to talk about this frivolity of my own. But I am grateful to those times - our short marriage, it lasted only one year, gave us a daughter. I have a very good daughter Marina - for which many thanks to Ophelia. And about what I endured in that family, and I don’t want to remember, so as not to injure Marina ... I became completely unbearable to live. I was forced to earn money somewhere. And I knew one thing: I need to sing at the opera house, even in a small one. And they expected me to go to some team where they pay more. But the most unbearable thing is the eternal lamentations: "You will not make a good husband."
“Marina inherited my character, sharpened it in a feminine way. It turned out, alas, worse than mine ... "
According to many, Muslim always paid “frantic alimony” for his only daughter. Now Marina, together with her husband Alexander Kozlovsky and mother Ophelia, live in the USA, in Ohio. They have a seven-year-old son, Alain, the grandson of Muslim. By the way, the son-in-law's father Gennady Kozlovsky was a friend of Muslim, together they even wrote two songs.
“Then a friend went to America with his family. Unfortunately, he has already died. Alik is a very nice guy. At first, she and Marina talked on the phone for a long time, every day he called her in Baku, and it all ended with a wedding. Marina inherited my character, sharpened it in a feminine way. It turned out, alas, worse than mine ... "
Marina was very close to her father, and Muslim infinitely valued friendly relations with her daughter. Although Marina graduated from school as a pianist and was destined for a bright future as a musician, she chose a different path. The father said tenderly: “I have a beautiful daughter, Marina, already an adult. At one time, her grandfather, an academic chemist, persuaded her to study geodesy and cartography: apparently, because of me, my wife's family developed an allergy to music. Marina graduated with honors from school as a pianist, she was predicted to have a wonderful future as a musician, she plays amazingly from a sheet ... But her daughter did not become a professional musician. I decided to find myself in another. I had no right to impose something on her, to give advice, and even more so to interfere in her fate. We have friendly relations with her, and I endlessly appreciate it ... "
Muslim dreamed of performing with his daughter on the same stage.
“If she lived with me ... However, how could she live with me, because I led a wandering life for a very long time? Yes, and with a child in my arms, I would not be free in a creative life. It so happened - Marina did not become a musician ... I urged my daughter to give up her geography and go to the conservatory. She would have performed with me in concerts, accompanied.
They met frequently. Either Marina and her grandson flew to Moscow or the famous father liked to come to Ohio with his wife Tamara Sinyavskaya.
“Tamarochka and I have a great relationship,” says Ofelia. - What connected us with Muslim was a long time ago. She didn't steal my husband. They met after our divorce. And Marina is like a daughter to her. She often visited her father with her grandson…”
Marina said goodbye to her father in Baku
October 29 ... In the hall of the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic, in the center of the stage, on a pedestal decorated with white roses, a closed coffin was installed. The widow - Tamara Sinyavskaya - hardly holds back her tears. She is reassured by the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. Marina is crying next to her. Due to problems with a visa, she could not come to say goodbye to her father in Moscow, but flew immediately to Baku. She is supported by her husband, Alex. Ofelia really wanted to go to the funeral to see once again the man she loved so much in her youth. But she stayed in the USA with her grandson, they say, her health does not allow long-distance flights.
Tamara Sinyavskaya, the widow of the legendary singer, categorically forbade telling seven-year-old Allen about the death of his grandfather. Allen loved his grandfather very much and his relatives were afraid that for the child the news of his death would become a severe stress. Allen, who also has the name Muslim, does not yet know that he will never see his kind and great grandfather again ...
The article uses materials from Muslim Magomayev’s book “My love is a melody” and an interview with a singer from Moskovsky Komsomolets
From the book by Sophia Benois "Muslim Magomayev. Betrayed Orpheus.