In the Soviet stage and the post-Soviet space, there was and there is only one performer who would be called domestic Robertino Loretti. This singer became famous at the age of fourteen, very touchingly performing the song “Oh Sole Mio” in the television program “Blue Light” in 1963, and after less than ten years he became the husband of Ksanka Schus from “Elusive Avengers”, brilliantly performed by actress Valentina Kurdyukova.
Origin
The biography of singer Boris Sandulenko goes back to Zhytomyr, a city in the northwest of the Ukrainian SSR, in which once after the war his gypsy parents settled for a while.
Like all representatives of his people, the Sandulenko family was free from everything that the Soviet state of that time was: from forced atheism, education and military service, regardless of anyone’s will allowing themselves to do whatever they like. Boris's father was a virtuoso dancer who could do any dance from hopak and tap dance to lezginka with a gypsy girl. Mother, as befits a gypsy woman, was engaged in the upbringing of their many children.
Then there was 1956 and a decree on settled settling, deciding to bring all Soviet Gypsies to work, and soon their trapping began right on the streets for vagrancy, speculation and parasitism.
Gypsies in an accelerated manner began to socialize and occupy some kind of working position in nearby collective farms and even enterprises. Becoming a citizen of the Soviet state has become incomparably more profitable than the arrest and confiscation of the same horses.
In less than ten years, the gypsies became not so much persecuted as they were popular in the Soviet Union. Their ensembles, singers, artists and the gypsy theme itself closer to the 70s took one of the worthy places in the cultural life of the country.
By the end of the 40s, the Sandulenko family migrated to the capital Kiev, giving this city and all the power two famous pop artists at once - their eldest son Boris and his younger brother Leonid.
Childhood
Boris Sandulenko, whose biography will be studied in this article, was born on August 17, 1949.
Like so many gypsy children, he was gifted by nature, since childhood he grabbed music literally on the fly, by ear. He was no longer born in that gypsy family where boys from old times were raised in Spartan conditions, from childhood teaching to ride a horse, wield a whip and a knife. The Sandulenko family, having become settled Kiev gypsies, eagerly tried on aesthetics, gestures, manners and even traditions of well-mannered Kievites.
Little Boris was spoiled, especially not limiting anything. The boy willingly watched what his father-dancer was doing, and listened to the musical rhythms.
In their house there was a piano, which his parent often played, so Boris Sandulenko began to try to play his first songs at the age of five.
Starting so early, his craving for song art under the influence of his father only grew stronger. On top of that, Boris possessed natural charisma and a true gypsy temperament. He not only loved to sing, he literally lived in a song, investing in his sometimes even naive verses his whole young soul.
Debut
For the first time our hero appeared on the scene when he was only eight years old.
The October Palace of Culture of the city of Kiev hospitably opened the doors to great art for him. On that day, the boy performed several songs in Russian, Ukrainian and Italian. During the feast after the concert, he filled full pockets of sweets and met cosmonaut Pavel Popovich.
Then, the young Boris Sandulenko attracted the attention of serious teachers who were also present at the concert.
For the first time, the talent of a fourteen-year-old singer was recognized by the audience during his participation in the New Year's “Blue Flame” of 1963, when Boris performed the song “Oh Sole Mio” so movingly that they began to call him domestic Robertino Loretti.
Youth and education
Boris's youth was brilliant. Already at the age of twelve, he became a personal guest of the most popular star Robertino Loretti, having visited him in Italy. In his family, he became very respected and could, according to the Gypsy tradition, make comments to his younger brothers and sisters. The duties of the teenager Boris Sandulenko also included their upbringing, if free minutes were given. However, they became more and more rare every day.
Boris was already making money on a par with his father, but still he couldn’t not only contradict him, but even open his mouth if Sandulenko Sr. spoke.
Unlike their fellow gypsies, who sent their children to school only so that they could only read and write, believing that studying after the third grade is a waste of time, Boris’s father made his son go through the entire course of high school and become one of the most unique in terms of education of gypsy children in the city of Kiev.
After school, Boris Sandulenko studied at the P.I.Tchaikovsky Kiev State Conservatory, returning to the television screen again in a festive television concert in honor of November 7, 1971.
The audience quickly fell in love with him for a special sincere manner of performance, consisting in the easy flight of his voice, invisibly changing the intonation from a hoarse half-whisper to a fantastic height.
Creative way
After the whole country recognized him, the artist worked for several years in the legendary Moscow VIA "Singing Hearts".
This vocal and instrumental ensemble was created at the oldest Moscow cultural organization Moskontsert in 1971, just after the second appearance of Boris Sandulenko on television. The main organizer of Singing Hearts, Viktor Vekshtein, as part of his ensemble, managed to work with such famous musicians as Anatoly Mogilevsky, Yuri Malikov, Nikolai Rappoport and Sergey Berezin.
At first, Singing Hearts performed the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Tom Jones, as well as many Italian and Spanish songs. In 1973, the ensemble recorded a song by Roman Mayorov, "The Leaves Will Spin," and the next day all its members woke up truly famous. For many years, crowds stood at the box office for their concerts.
In the photo - Boris Sandulenko, one of the soloists of the VIA "Singing Hearts"
One fine day, the entertainer and director of the group, Yan Romantsev, brought the young artist Sandulenko to "Singing Hearts". The young man worked in this ensemble for several years, performing mainly gypsy songs and romances.
Brother
In parallel with the history of Boris Sandulenko, the creative career of his younger brother Leonid, born on August 19, 1956, also developed.
He completely repeated the path of Boris. He began to sing from an early age, graduated from the conductor and choral department of the M. Lysenko Kiev Music School, and then the Kiev State Conservatory, moonlighting as a singer in restaurants in the evenings.
Leonid became the first gypsy to be awarded the title of People's Artist of Ukraine.
He worked for a long time in the Kiev Music Hall, after which he created his own family ensemble Gilya Romen, with whom he toured in the USA, Canada, France, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Holland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Germany, performing Ukrainian, Russian and gypsy songs, romances, as well as domestic and foreign hits.
Valentina Kurdyukova
In the biography and personal life of Boris Sandulenko, the performer of Ksanka Shchus, the heroine of the legendary epic about elusive avengers, appeared in 1970.
Valentina was born in Moscow on December 13, 1951. Her father worked as a builder, and her mother was a ticket seller in a movie theater. To her fourteen, Valya Kurdyukova already had the category of “Candidate for Master of Sports” in rhythmic gymnastics.
For the role of Xanka in the new motion picture Elusive Avengers, her director Edmond Keosayan needed a sporty and physically strong girl. Valentina, who in her usual life was a sociable but impudent kid, approached all the requirements.
The first tape of the trilogy, “The Adventures of the Elusive,” was released in 1966. The film was a wild success with the audience, and the four young actors who played the main roles in it instantly became idols for all the youth of the country.
In the wake of success, it was decided to shoot the sequel. Two years later, in 1968, "New Adventures of the Elusive" was released, almost repeating the success of the first picture.
However, in the last part of the trilogy, “The Crown of the Russian Empire, or Elusive Again”, which was released in 1971, viewers saw already matured heroes, deprived of their former children's persuasiveness and charm. The film did not receive audience sympathy, and critics generally called this picture one of the worst films that were released that year.
After the release of the last movie in the trilogy, Valentina Kurdyukova forever left the cinema, despite the fact that all her partners continued their acting career, however, without much success, like she, by and large, remained actors of the same role.
From the first part of the trilogy, Valentina Kurdyukova secretly fell in love with Vasily Vasiliev, a young, bright and handsome gypsy.
However, she was destined to associate her fate with a completely different representative of this people.
Marriage
At the end of the filming, Valentina entered the circus school. However, for a long time she did not stay in it, during her very first student tour she met the prominent, gallant and already impossibly famous Boris Sandulenko.
They got married very soon. Boris continued his singing career, and Valentina Kurdyukova, who was already in an interesting position by that time, finally put an end to cinema for her family and, at the same time, to the circus school along with rhythmic gymnastics.
According to the gypsy tradition, having acquired a wife, the gypsy son Boris finally got the right to be called a gypsy. By the standards of his people, he became an adult.
Children
A gypsy must have at least one son in his family.
In the personal life of Boris Sandulenko, the first-born appeared in 1973. And soon his younger sister Tatyana was born.
Tatyana Sandulenko followed in her father's footsteps and connected her life with music. She became a teacher in piano, solfeggio and pop vocals. Since 2003, she took an active part in various festivals and competitions of pop art, became the finalist of the Latvian "Star Factory".
Tatyana conducts master classes in vocal art and staging stage numbers. She can often be seen in the jury at various children's and youth creative contests and festivals.
Test
By the end of the 90s, singer Boris Sandulenko had to wait for great success. After successful negotiations, a contract was signed with the very idol of his youth, Robertino Loretti. Preparations for a joint tour were already in full swing.
However, all plans were crossed out by an unexpected misfortune: before he reached the age of eighteen, the son of Boris and his wife Valentina died as a result of a serious illness.
From grief, the singer lost his voice for a long time, and he was no longer able to completely restore it.
Then in Russia the financial crisis began. Sandulenko’s talent turned out to be of no use to anyone. In order to survive their family, Boris’s wife had to sell newspapers, distribute brochures and even work as a barmaid at that harsh time.
Today
Now the spouses Boris Sandulenko and Valentina Kurdyukova lead a fairly closed lifestyle and do not communicate with the press at all.
From time to time, a famous singer in the past performs at the concerts of her daughter Tatyana, but more and more shares with the audience the memories of the days of her former glory, because the voice did not finally return to him.
His wife, Valentina, worked for a long time in the bakery department of one of the shops located near their home. Now she is a housewife and lives the ordinary life of a pensioner.
Be that as it may, after years of fame and ups, replaced by bitter trials, today the family of Boris Sandulenko found agreement with the surrounding reality and lives quite happily ...