He took the stage: students and colleagues said goodbye to Boris Yukhananov

The Crazy Prince, Icarus and Sunny Boy. Boris Yukhananov was different for everyone. He looked like an alchemist and two power plants at once, which could light up the whole of Moscow. This is how the masters Klim Shipenko, Alexander Veledinsky, Konstantin Ernst, Grigory Zaslavsky and many other cultural figures remembered who came to say goodbye to the artistic director of the Stanislavsky Electrotheater on August 7. The funeral ceremony took place within the walls of the institution, which the director and teacher led for more than ten years. About why people carried sunflowers with them, and about the prophetic lines found in the artist's phone, in the Izvestia report.

In search of the elixir of life

Dozens of people with flowers at the door of the theater — the picture is familiar. Only this time the reason was sad — on August 7, the walls of the Stanislavsky Electrotheater said goodbye to its artistic director Boris Yukhananov. The director died on August 5 at the age of 67 after a long illness.

"A completely untimely death," said Grigory Zaslavsky, rector of GITIS, at the ceremony. — I always went to Boris's performances as a place of learning. For him, the theater was a territory where he learned something himself and where he opened up some new worlds to others, including me. It was a unique situation. As well as the fact that he came to the theater through a competition announced by the Moscow City Department of Culture at that time, I do not know of such examples. The concept that Boris proposed was not only the most interesting. He got into this theater torn apart by contradictions and conflicts and managed to captivate him with a creative idea.

In 2013, the name of this stage was different — the Moscow Drama Theater named after K. S. Stanislavsky. The new artistic director, a representative of the arthouse and underground, not only renamed it the Stanislavsky Electrotheater, which refers to the history of the building where the cinema once stood, but also carried out reconstruction, completely changed the concept and repertoire. You could say he turned everything upside down.

— I've been to so many of his performances, and it always came as a bit of a shock to me: "Is that okay? Wow! It's against all rules!" And I admired that," director Klim Shipenko told Izvestia. — For me, this is a person from my childhood. He and my father studied together. Communicating with Boris has always been an event for me, because this man had great energy and a very sharp mind. I felt like I had to reach for it. For me, he was an alchemist who was looking for the elixir of life, but at the same time discovered some other meanings. Everything that I try to do myself, I learned a lot from him.

From the production — the heart: what legacy Boris Yukhananov left

The outstanding theater director died at the age of 67.

It looked like two power plants at once

The theater became only a part of Boris Yukhananov's creative biography, and he inscribed his name in Russian culture long before — he founded the first independent theater group in the USSR, Theater Theater, was one of the founders of the Parallel Cinema movement and filmed unique cinematic experiments, in the workshop of individual directing (MIR) he brought up more than one generation of creative the figures. The hall of the Electrotheater, where the ceremony was held, was almost packed with students, whose speeches on stage also turned into a kind of experiment, a performance. Those who took the floor switched roles, spoke in some other language, understandable only to them and their teacher, sometimes there were kind jokes, which were periodically interrupted by loud crying.

Among the guests were actors Ulyana Vaskovich, Alexander Sinyukov, Andrey Yemelyanov, Honored Artist of Russia Oleg Bazhanov, director Alexander Veledinsky, media manager Konstantin Ernst.

— I met Borya and the Aleynikov brothers in 1986. Borya was like two power plants at once. It could light up the whole of Moscow. He was everything at once — a director, a writer, a philosopher, an actor. He was an absolutely renaissance man. Then we rarely saw each other. He was actively criticizing me, saying: "What kind of TV are you? You're an avant-garde artist!" And I still called periodically, offering different projects," Konstantin Ernst recalls.

One of these was the Edification project. The name of Zinedine Zidane is encrypted in the title, and the story is dedicated to the scandalous episode of the 2006 World Cup final match between the national teams of France and Italy. Zidane then headbutted Marco Materazzi in the chest, for which he was sent off. Being a football fan, Boris Yukhananov tried to find an answer to the question of why this happened, but using his own methods, transferring the game to the realm of the mythological.

— It was an exciting thing. I said I would show it, but four hours on TV is impossible. He said he would try to reduce it. Then a week later he calls: "You know, it's not working," Konstantin Ernst recalled. — Borya had a series of "Crazy Princes". Borya was a crazy prince himself, because normal people work in accounting, and violators of norms create works of art.

Yukhananov created not only multi-hour, but also multi-day projects. For some, the director was a crazy prince, for others, Icarus — that's what director Vladimir Klimenko called Boris Yurievich from the stage, unable to hold back tears, for someone, a genius. Another face is a Sunny boy, which is why many carried armfuls of sunflowers to the coffin.

— Everyone had their own uncle Boris, their own Boris Yurievich, everyone called him differently, just like he called himself. Someone said he was a dragon, others said he was the goddess Isis, but for me he was a Sunny boy, so I'm with sunflowers. He is a multi—faceted deity," actor Evgeny Dahl, a student of Boris Yukhananov, told Izvestia.

Maria Belyaeva, the director's widow, was the last to speak. She read the poem she found on his phone, which was written in May. The last lines sounded like a premonition.: "I'm going to lie down in my coffin, I'm going to compose projects for myself and heaven. So death will pass. I got in on time."

Boris Yukhananov was buried at the Troekurovsky cemetery.