Yuri Shmilevich Aizenshpis was one of the most famous Russian producers of show business, twice a laureate of the Ovation Music Prize. He helped many of today's pop stars to ascend into the horizon of show business. And the creative teams and solo singers and singers with whom he worked, still cause a response in the hearts of the public.
Family and childhood of Yuri Aizenshpis
Yuri Aizenshpis, whose photo can be seen in this article, was born in Chelyabinsk, immediately after the war, on the fifteenth of June 1945. His father Shmil Moiseevich was a veteran of World War II. Mother was Maria Mikhailovna. Surname Aizenshpis means "iron peak" in translation from the Yiddish language. Yuri's parents were Jews, worked in the General Directorate for the Construction of Airfields.
At first, the family lived in a wooden hut. But in 1961 they got an apartment in Sokol (it was the Moscow district, which was prestigious at that time). Yuri Aizenshpis since childhood was very fond of sports. Most of all he was fascinated by athletics, handball and volleyball. He could very well have become a champion in one of these areas. But he still had to leave the sport. The reason for this was a leg injury at the age of 16.
The first steps in show business
After school, Yuri Aizenshpis entered the Moscow University of Economics with a degree in engineering and economics. He graduated in 1968. In addition to sports, Yuri had something else. He was attracted to music. Since his sports career was closed for him because of an injury, he chose show business.
And his first job was acting as the administrator of the Sokol rock band. He sold tickets for concerts of the creative team according to the original scheme, which helped technically equip the stage with first-class equipment. And the quality and purity of sound for Yuri was always very important.
At first he made arrangements with club directors for a group performance. Then Aizenshpis bought all the tickets for evening concerts and then personally sold them at a higher price. Yuri was the first in the Soviet Union to begin to hire guards to ensure order during the show.
Yuri Aizenshpis: biography. Arrest
For the money earned from the sale of tickets (mainly dollars), Aizenshpis purchased from the foreigners musical instruments for the group and high-quality sound equipment. But at that time in the USSR, all foreign exchange transactions were illegal, and he took great risks in making such transactions. If he had been caught, they could have been sentenced to a serious term.
Law enforcement agencies drew attention to his “speculative” activities. On January 7, 1970, Aizenshpis was arrested. During the search, more than 7 thousand dollars were found and confiscated (as Yuri himself admitted in an interview, he accumulated even more than $ 17 thousand) and more than 15 000 rubles. Aizenshpis Yuri Shmilevich was convicted under article for currency fraud. They gave him a term of ten years in prison. Yuri was sent to serve his sentence in the city of Krasnoyarsk.
After he was released, he did not enjoy it for long. And again he was in prison under the same article. But this time he was given seven years and eight months in prison. In total, he served in prison seventeen years. And finally he was released only in April of the eighty-eighth year.
Imprisonment
Yuri was sent to “wind up the term” among inveterate criminals. Every day he observed cruelty, blood and lawlessness. But he was not touched. The main reason, most likely, was his sociability. He knew how to listen and conduct dialogue. Being a very contact person, Yuri Aizenshpis was able to quickly adapt to an environment alien to him.
Although more than half of the prisoners are usually hungry, he went around this pitfall. Money, although secretly transferred in the form of bribes to prison, could make its existence in the zone more tolerable than for many. At least he was not starving.
Yuri was not kept in one place; he was transferred many times to other regions and zones. Only anywhere was he distinguished by his unbending character and high standard of living.
The first "star" group of Yuri Aizenshpis
After his release from prison, where Yuri Aizenshpis served a total of seventeen years, he got a job at the Gallery, which he created the Komsomol City Committee. Aizenshpis first organized concerts of young talented performers. In the eighty-ninth year, he became the official producer of the Kino group. Yuri was among the first to violate the state monopoly on the release of records. Aizenshpis released the last record of the Kino group - The Black Album in 1990, taking a loan of 5 million rubles for this. This was his first group, which he brought to the world stage.
Further activities in show business
In 1991-1992 producer Yuri Aizenshpis worked closely with the Technology group. He helped release their first album, “Everything You Want,” which became debut. Widely launched advertising activities, releasing printing products with the image of members of the Technology group: postcards, posters, etc.
In 1992, he received the Ovation Award as the best producer in the country. And from this year on, ninety-third collaborated with the Code of Morale and Young Hans. In the summer of 1994, he began working with Vlad Stashevsky. During their collaboration, four music albums were recorded. The debut was "Love no longer lives here."
In the same year, Yuri was one of the organizers of the international music festival "Solar Adzharia". He participated in the establishment of the Star Award. According to the results of his creative activity in the ninety-fifth year, Aizenshpis Yuri Shmilevich again received the Ovation Award.
Since 1997, he began working with Inga Drozdova, still just a beginning talented singer. But at the same time he still collaborated with Vlad Stashevsky. In 1999-2000 devoted a lot of time to singer Sasha. And created from her a new star. And in 1998-2001. worked with singer Nikita, making him very popular on the stage. Yuri was the producer of many famous stars (Katya Lel and others).
The latest projects of Yuri are Dima Bilan and the Dynamite group. Since 2001, Aizenshpis worked at Media Star as CEO.
Different roles of Yuri Aizenshpis
In 2005, he tried himself as an actor, playing a small role in the cast film "Night Watch". He also proved himself as a writer, becoming the author of an autobiographical book, “Kind of a Star”.
Yuri Aizenshpis: personal life
The theme of the personal life of Yuri Aizenshpis has always been banned for publicity. Therefore, in an interview with these questions he avoided. But still, general information is known. Yuri had a wife - Kovrigina Elena Lvovna. But they lived in a civil marriage. This did not prevent the birth of a son, who was named Michael. He was born in 1993.
The death of a famous producer
Yuri Aizenshpis should have had heart surgery. But did not have time. On September 19, 2005, the producer became ill with his heart, and he was taken to the 20th Moscow city hospital for examination. After some time, the producer felt much better and he was released home. But the next day in the evening the heart attack repeated. Yuri was urgently taken back to the hospital, but could not be saved. He passed away at about eight in the evening. The famous producer Yuri Aizenshpis did not live long before the planned heart operation. The cause of death is myocardial infarction. Yuri was buried near Moscow, at the Domodedovo cemetery.