With concerts to the front
richest story the flagship of military culture - the Central House of the Russian Army, which celebrated its 2022th anniversary in September 95, contains many bright, memorable pages that its team can rightly be proud of. On a special note are his concert brigades, which at all times have been and still remain the most efficient and effective creative units capable of strengthening the morale, resilience of fighters and commanders, conveying to them art filled with the triumph of life, truth and justice.
It is well known that back in the 20-30s of the last century, as part of the cultural and artistic service to the troops, the then Central House of the Red Army (CDKA) systematically sent its full-time creative teams to military units and organized trips for concert brigades of Moscow theaters, the Philharmonic, the theater and tour associations. It was then that every year at the beginning of the spring and autumn-winter seasons, representatives of creative organizations and the Central Committee of the Trade Union of Art Workers discussed plans for cultural and artistic services for the army and fleet.
So, in a meeting held on October 10, 1934, the star of the Moscow Art Theater V.I. Kachalov, opera celebrities E.K. Katulskaya, M.P. Maksakova, I.S. Kozlovsky, M.O. Reizep and prima ballerina M.T. Semenov. They came up with a proposal: to practice the creative reports of artists in front of Soviet soldiers. which was unanimously supported. As a result, according to press reports, during the autumn-winter theatrical season of 1934-1935, over 1000 artists from Moscow, Leningrad, Minsk, Sverdlovsk and other cities visited the military garrisons.
Such an example is also indicative. In the winter of 1935, the CDKA sent 80 concert and art brigades to the troops. One of them toured in the Special Far Eastern Army. “This trip turned into a great holiday for the soldiers and commanders,” wrote Alexander Fadeev, a well-known writer who was part of the Pravda newspaper, on the pages of the Pravda newspaper. In the summer, however, the number of concert and artistic teams sent to military units on vouchers for the CDKA increased. The House of the Red Army completely took over the cultural and artistic service of the Gorohovets, Oktyabrsky and Lublin Red Army camps, where writers, scientists, famous artists were invited. The soldiers of the October camps remembered for a long time the meetings with Maxim Gorky, Konstantin Fedin, Leonid Leonov.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the concert brigades created at the CDKA during the Great Patriotic War. By the end of the day on June 22 in Moscow, in the military registration and enlistment offices, at railway stations, in the Palaces of Culture, clubs of enterprises, agitation centers were deployed, in the organization of which all departments and services of the CDKA participated, which gradually turned into one of the centers of ideological-political and military-patriotic propaganda, became, as it were, part of the operational apparatus of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army. Concert brigades were also created, which began to perform at assembly points and railway stations in Moscow on the second day of the war.
The starting point here was the Plenum of the Central Committee of the trade union of art workers, held on June 23, 1941, which appealed to artists to participate in the “great liberation war” by carrying out patronage work in units of the active Army and Navy. From the first days of the war, the Military Patronage Commission of the Central Committee of the Trade Union (established in 1920 on the initiative of K.S. Stanislavsky and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko), the All-Russian Theater Society (WTO) and the Committee for Arts under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR took over centralized management of military patronage work, organization of front-line artistic brigades, front-line theaters and theater branches. The Central House of the Red Army was assigned the role of one of the main organizers of concert brigades for the front.
On June 26, at the Belorussky railway station, the famous performance of the Red Banner Ensemble of the Red Army Song and Dance directed by the Central House of Culture directed by A.V. Alexandrov, who for the first time performed a song that became a national anthem, raising the country to battle with the enemy. Many other examples could be cited.
Soon, in agreement with the State Committee for the Arts, the Central Committee of the Trade Union of Art Workers and in accordance with the instructions of the GPU of the Red Army, the Central House of Arts began to organize and send to the front artistic teams of theaters, philharmonic societies, concert and tour associations of cities and republics of the country. Together with representatives of these governing structures, it held preliminary reviews of concert programs, helped select the repertoire, and also provided the teams with warm clothes, food, allowances and transport.
These brigades also included many famous stage masters. Among them are actors of the Maly Theater P. Sadovsky, S. Menzhinsky, E. Gogoleva, M. Tsarev, I. Ilyinsky, entertainer M. Garkavi, stage artist V. Khenkin, singer L. Ruslanova. As well as writers and poets L. Sobolev, V. Lebedev-Kumach, N. Tikhonov, V. Kataev, A. Surkov, A. Barto and many, many others.
The first brigade of CDKA artists went to the front on August 9, 1941. Here is how the writer, researcher of the history of Russian pop music V.D. writes about this time. Safoshkin in the book “Lydia Ruslanova. Felt boots, boots, not hemmed, old ones. Biography. Songs (M.: Eksmo, 2003):“Lydia Andreevna Ruslanova joined the first front-line concert brigade together with Vladimir Khenkin, Mikhail Garkavi, artists of the Bolshoi Theater and the Operetta Theater. The brigade was led by the director of the Central House of Art Workers Boris Mikhailovich Filippov, who left us his diary entries, which recorded everything related to the front-line everyday life of the brigade:
- The ninth of August - gathering in the square near the CDKA. Alexander Vasilievich Alexandrov, leader and chief conductor of the Red Banner Song and Dance Ensemble of the Red Army, is worried. - My friends! The hour has struck. It'll be hard. Very hard. There will be many dangers. But our place is there, in the fiery inferno. Where the fate of the Motherland is decided ... "
September 27. Morning. Together with political instructor Aptekarev we are going to the front lines. At 9 am we arrive at the firing point by truck. To the left, about two hundred meters from us, German shells exploded. The battery in which we arrived is located three kilometers from Krasnograd, occupied by the Germans. The environment is far from safe. I ask the opinion of the brigade: to go to the firing point or not. All as one say: "Go!" Ruslanova, Khenkin, Garkavi, Kipiani, accordion players, Aptekarev, me and the photojournalist comrade are arranged on a truck, filed especially for this trip. Popelyansky. In the gun crew we are met with unusually warm welcome. Among the fighters there are women. The concert is held not so much to the accompaniment of bayan players, but to the roar of gunshots and explosions of Nazi shells. In order to divert the attention of the enemy from our battery, all the neighboring firing points of Captain Korolev's artillery battalion opened fire and took on the retaliatory strikes of the fascist artillery.
The concert is over. The captain thanks us and unexpectedly gives the command: - Battery! In honor of the Moscow artists on the Nazis - fire!
Artists from other cities, preparing for a trip to the front, usually stayed at the TsDKA hotel on Commune Square (now the Slavyanka Hotel on Suvorovskaya Square). Here one could see the jazz orchestra of Leonid Utesov, the miniature theater of Arkady Raikin, Claudia Shulzhenko, who experienced the first days of the siege of Leningrad, representatives of the arts of Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Alma-Ata, Tashkent. During the war years, 35 artists, part of 600 theater and concert brigades, went from the CDKA to the army during the war years, giving an average of 3500-50 concerts for each trip, and sometimes 60-120.
But the above figures do not make it possible to measure the joy and inspiration that the artists gave to soldiers and commanders. The power of art strengthened faith in victory, increased the combat ability of the troops, and mobilized for the complete defeat of the enemy. About the concert of Lidia Ruslanova in 1942 in the magazine Ogonyok, Valentin Kataev wrote: “Here she finished the song. A young fighter approaches the singer. He says: “You see how dirty we are after the battle. But you washed us with a song, like a mother washes her children. Thank you. Heart thawed ... ".
The formation and dispatch of artistic brigades to the active army was not without difficulties. Here is what, for example, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, People's Artist of the RSFSR Varvara Aleksandrovna Obukhova said in a letter sent to the CDSA on the eve of its 50th anniversary in 1977:
“Now, when the 50th anniversary of the creation of the M.V. Frunze, I immediately remember the time of the Great Patriotic War. From here, we, the artists of the Maly Theater, more than once had to get tickets to the front. During all four years of the war, the Maly Theater sent concert brigades to the army in the field ... All these years I was both an actress and a foreman of such brigades. We performed in front of the defenders of Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad... Following the Red Army, the artists of the Maly entered Kharkov, Oryol, Kursk, Gomel... Having reached Berlin, they proudly signed on the walls of the Reichstag: “We are from Moscow, from the Maly Theatre. .."
How were our trips to the front organized? Usually, after requests from GlavPUR and the Committee for Arts, I was summoned to the directorate and given the task of being ready to leave at the head of the brigade by such and such a date. The commission at the CDKA got acquainted with the brigade's repertoire and the concert program, and, if necessary, made adjustments to the program. The employees of GlavPUR were tireless - the head of the department of cultural and educational institutions, Colonel A.A. Tsaritsyn, officers B.M. Yarustovsky and I.V. Nestiev, instructors of the Department of Propaganda and Cultural Work of the CDCA S.L. Chernov and A.M. Sandler.
Viewing the program of the brigades usually took place in a small concert hall. Members of the commission formulated their wishes briefly. But here the brigade is "accepted". I am handed a travel certificate, I find out exactly where to go, at whose disposal. At the CDKA warehouse we get food rations for the road (a loaf of bread, a piece of bacon and about a pound of sugar), at the checkout - cash allowance. In winter, the artists were given warm clothes: quilted jackets, and even quilted trousers, felt boots, hats. Departure date is set. Colonel Maksimov gives final instructions. The TsDKA bus comes up, and we go to the station with backpacks. Another trip to the front began.
Front-line brigades were recruited from representatives of all genres of performing arts. Often, artists stayed at the front for two or three months, and returning to the Central House of Arts, they updated their repertoire and again received tickets to the army.
The head of one of these teams of the All-Union Touring and Concert Association, Yakov Isaevich Tsionsky, recalls:
“The All-Union Touring and Concert Association had a front-line department that recruited teams of artists for a trip to the army. The Moscow brigades were sent immediately to the CDKA, where their programs were reviewed and everything necessary for the trip was provided. My team included a vocal quartet, which I led, and artists V. Drozhzhina, R. Sklyarova, D. Chitashvili, V. Shilkin and others. In the first days of the war, on the instructions of the Central House of Culture, we spoke to the soldiers at the railway stations in Moscow, and then received directions to the front. They were on the Western, Bryansk, Steppe, Voronezh fronts, near Stalingrad and Kursk, in besieged Leningrad, they gave concerts to the sailors of the Baltic and the Black Sea. During the four war years, the brigade went to the troops more than 20 times and gave the soldiers a total of up to two thousand concerts. Each time after arriving in Moscow, the CDCA staff provided us with repertoire collections and helped update the program. Collections were released periodically
“The All-Union Touring and Concert Association had a front-line department that recruited teams of artists for a trip to the army. The Moscow brigades were sent immediately to the CDKA, where their programs were reviewed and everything necessary for the trip was provided. My team included a vocal quartet, which I led, and artists V. Drozhzhina, R. Sklyarova, D. Chitashvili, V. Shilkin and others. In the first days of the war, on the instructions of the Central House of Culture, we spoke to the soldiers at the railway stations in Moscow, and then received directions to the front. They were on the Western, Bryansk, Steppe, Voronezh fronts, near Stalingrad and Kursk, in besieged Leningrad, they gave concerts to the sailors of the Baltic and the Black Sea. During the four war years, the brigade went to the troops more than 20 times and gave the soldiers a total of up to two thousand concerts. Each time after arriving in Moscow, the CDCA staff provided us with repertoire collections and helped update the program. Collections were released periodically
The role of the CDKA in organizing concert performances at the front was also important in the sense that the brigades that went to the active army every month (there were 70-75 on average) were formed in the cities and regions of all the republics of the country. At the beginning of 1943, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the trade union of art workers, the head of the Central House of Arts, Colonel V.I. Maksimov emphasized the political meaning of such national groups.
“Their significance is determined not only by their artistic value,” he noted, “This is a huge political matter. The Uzbek, Kazakh, Turkmen and other brigades inspire, raise their brethren to fight the enemy.”
The repertoire of concert programs, its renewal and political content were also constantly in the center of attention of the CDCA. With the help of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army, the CDKA published repertoire collections under the general title "Red Army Stage" in a typographical way. Here, for example, is one of these collections, released in March 1944 with a volume of 160 pages of medium format.
It includes works by M. Gorky, D. Bedny, V. Mayakovsky, V. Gusev, A. Surkov, M. Isakovsky, V. Lebedev-Kumach, A. Fadeev and other famous prose writers and poets, excerpts from plays, feuilletons, songs , ditties, proverbs and sayings. The collection brought together, in essence, all the best that Soviet literature could give then for the Red Army stage, and was a faithful assistant not only to amateur art groups of the Red Army houses and clubs, but also to professional art workers.
CDKA maintained constant contact with the artistic brigades, carefully analyzed their successes and shortcomings. The Committee for the Arts, the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army and the Central Committee of the Trade Union of Art Workers during the war periodically organized public reviews of front-line concert brigades at the Central House of Culture for the exchange of experience. One of the last reviews, in which several hundred artists participated, took place on February 3, 1945. The numbers prepared for the troops were shown by brigades led by Y. Nemirovsky and V. Zhemchuzhny, Lengosestrada, an ensemble of harpists led by Mirskaya and Belova, the Ignatieva sisters and other performers. S. Balashov read the literary montage "Road of Victories", dedicated to the 27th anniversary of the Red Army. Such reviews mutually enriched the brigades and contributed to their creative growth.
Throughout the Great Patriotic War, creative meetings of art workers with Red Army soldiers and commanders were practiced in the CDKA. Actors, painters, writers, composers reported on trips to the fronts, shared their creative plans. The best artistic forces participated in the concerts. Composers A.V. wrote more than one song about the army and for the army at the request of the CDKA leadership. Aleksandrov, A.G. Novikov, brothers Daniil Yakovlevich and Dmitry Yakovlevich Pokrass, V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy, M.I. Blanter. Many songs and dances created in wartime still adorn the repertoire of professional and amateur art groups.
Another important page in the history of the concert brigades of the CDRA was the period from 1980 to 1989, when its creative teams participated in the cultural and artistic services for the military personnel of the Limited Contingent of Soviet Troops in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). At that time, the Central House of the Soviet Army, which had the name of the Central House of the Soviet Army, prepared and sent to the DRA more than 250 concert teams, which included employees of the House and famous Soviet artists, including: People's Artists of the USSR Lyudmila Zykina, Iosif Kobzon, Evgeny Belyaev, Mikhail Gluzsky, Edita Piekha , Lyudmila Chursina, People's Artists of the RSFSR Olga Aroseva, Lev Leshchenko, People's Artists of the Ukrainian SSR Nikolai Gnatyuk, Nikolai Olyalin, People's Artist of the Kazakh SSR Roza Rymbaeva, Honored Artist of the Ukrainian SSR Valery Leontiev, Honored Artist of the Estonian SSR Anna Veski, famous Soviet artists Alexander Rosenbaum, Nadezhda Babkina, Irina Alferova, Ilya Oleinikov and many others.
© Photo from the archive of Anatoly Yarmolenko
Among the groups that performed for the soldiers-internationalists were: the CDSA concert ensemble, the twice Red Banner Song and Dance Ensemble of the Soviet Army named after A.V. Aleksandrova, the State Republican Folk Ensemble "Russia" (artistic director L. Zykina), the State Academic Choreographic Ensemble "Birch" (artistic director M. Koltsov), the ensemble "Russian Song" (artistic director N. Babkina), vocal and instrumental ensembles " Flame" (artistic director S. Berezin), "Echo" (artistic director V. Leontiev), "Syabry" (artistic director A. Yarmolenko), "Yalla" (artistic director Farrukh Zakirov), vocal ensemble "Voronezh Girls" (artistic head Yu. Romanov, director A. Kovrigina), creative teams of Rosconcert, Lenconcert, Moscow Regional Philharmonic, Moscow academic theaters of Satire and Sovremennik, Central Theater of the Soviet Army, Moscow Operetta Theater and other groups.
Recalls the leading methodologist of the Central House of Arts, Honored Worker of Culture of Russia, retired colonel Vasily Andreevich Dmitrichenko: “In the autumn of 1983, being a major in the Soviet Army, I was appointed to the post of instructor for cultural and artistic work of the CDSA and immediately, right off the bat, was sent on a business trip to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan at the head of the CDSA concert brigade. In the future, such business trips became regular. The concert brigades included both CDSA artists and well-known Soviet artists. All of them performed in military clubs or on impromptu stages - two cars shifted towards each other. Most of the songs at such concerts were performed at the request of the military personnel themselves. Such concerts were of great importance, since, according to the servicemen, they smelled of home, a meeting with the Motherland. Moreover, despite the danger of shelling, the artists themselves asked to perform in open areas so that as many servicemen as possible could see them. The unique experience of the CDCA on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War contributed to the successful fulfillment of the tasks by our artists in Afghanistan to the full extent, because in the 1980s many participants in the war worked at the CDCA.”
Natalya Maksimovna Pyarn, an artist of the concert ensemble TsDRA, Honored Artist of Russia, who has been working at the TsDSA - KC Armed Forces of the Russian Federation - TsDRA since 1979, shares her memories of trips to the Limited Contingent of Soviet Troops in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan: “In 1981, in Afghanistan, we flew helicopters over the entire country for seventeen days - Kabul, Herat, Ghazni, Kandahar, Jalalabad. They got to hard-to-reach points on an armored personnel carrier. And how nice it was to see the familiar faces of soldiers and officers, to whom I spoke five months earlier in military units stationed on the territory of the Turkestan military district. I will never forget the APC trip to Jabal-Ussaraj. I, the host of the concert program, for 15 minutes, a thousand spectators in the open air did not allow me to start the program with thunderous applause, just because we decided to come to them, which was very unsafe. And there were many outdoor concerts. The open bodies of cars served as the stage, and during the concert one could observe the trajectories of tracer bullets, the fights, as you know, were not training there. By the way, this explains why we - young girls serving in the Soviet Army were allowed in Afghanistan to arms for training shooting from a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a Makarov pistol.
In 2016, for the first time since the end of the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus, the Central House of Russia of the Russian Army named after M.V. Frunze began to send front-line brigades of artists and writers to the war zone - to the Syrian Arab Republic. The main forces and means of the Russian group are deployed at the Khmeimim airbase. It was there that the front-line brigades of the TsDRA were sent. Moreover, for the first time in the more than 90-year history of the House, the front-line brigade was headed by the head of the institution, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation, Colonel of the Reserve Vasily Mazurenko.
Artists of concert ensembles performed on an impromptu stage on the parade ground of the residential town of the airbase, as well as at outposts (checkpoints) for the military personnel of the group. As the newspapers wrote, all concert performances without exception received a high audience rating, the breath of the Motherland, expressed in beautiful musical forms, was accepted by the hearts of the servicemen in the hot Arab country. Good words were also deserved by the poets of the military art studio of writers of the Central House of Arts. They handed over their books, CDs with their songs, as well as books published by the military art studio of writers to the library, the point of psychological unloading of the air base and to the outposts. Another feature of the trips of the CDA employees to the war zone was the organization of exhibitions of paintings by the CDA artists in the cultural and leisure center of the Khmeimim air base, which was organized by the head of the exhibition hall, Lyudmila Gurar.
Based on the results of the trip to Syria, Vladimir Silkin, head of the military art studio of writers of the Central House of Arts, and Igor Vityuk, editor of the studio, wrote a series of poems that were included in the book of poems and songs “Alien and Our War”, published by the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The composers of the CDRA set some of these poems to music, and now these songs are included in the repertoire of the artists of the CDRA. Business trips of artists to the airbase "Khmeimim" continue at the present time.
The concert brigades of the CDRA also performed in front of the military personnel of the military base stationed in the Republic of Armenia. Several concerts were held as part of a visit to the Russian military base in Armenia by a delegation of the Public Council under the Russian Ministry of Defense, which included public figures, actors, directors, artists, journalists and veterans of military service and military operations.
The day of the working trip of the delegation ended with a concert for military personnel, civilian personnel and their children - members of the Yunarmiya with the participation of artists of the Central House of Artists. For the trip to Armenia, the creative team of the CDRA prepared a new concert program “Soldiers, Officers”, which was presented by the Honored Artist of the Russian Federation Zinaida Sazonova, Irina Surina, the Honored Artist of the Russian Federation Natalia Moskvina, Yan Berezkin. During the concert, the artists performed vocal compositions of different genres - from lyrical romances and songs of patriotic sound to author's works and Soviet pop hits.
The legendary "Katyusha" to the words of Mikhail Isakovsky and the music of Matvey Blanter performed by Zinaida Sazonova was greeted with thunderous applause and the audience sang along with her. Touching feelings were evoked by the composition of Yan Berezkin “Mother”, the song of Yevgeny Martynov and Ilya Reznik “Apple Trees in Bloom”, performed by Natalia Moskvina, and Irina Surina, with the composition “What were you like” (words by M. Isakovsky, music by M. Dunayevsky) sounded heartfelt reminded of the Soviet film directed by Ivan Pyryev "Kuban Cossacks".
The concert brigade of the CDRA delighted the Russian military personnel performing peacekeeping tasks in Nagorno-Karabakh with their art.
The creative mission of the artists of the central military cultural institution was accurately defined by the artistic director of the Central House of Arts, Irina Titova, in an interview with media representatives: “We have prepared songs in different languages, both in Armenian and Azerbaijani, because peace with neighbors is the most sacred thing that Russia can support. Artists of the Central House, as artists of the Russian Army, would like to contribute to the cause of peace and goodness.
The first concert took place on June 12 during the celebrations dedicated to the Day of Russia, at the base of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh. Immediately after the solemn march of the military personnel, the artists of the Central House of Artists, right on the parade ground, were in the center of attention. They performed the songs “My home is Russia”, “We will return home”, “Motherland”, “Order to the Caucasus”, “Peace to your home” and other works, beautiful choreographic compositions were performed.
And the peacekeepers received the artists of the Central House of Arts with great cordiality, each concert number aroused great delight in them. The second concert took place in the same warm atmosphere, which took place in the field, at the checkpoint of Russian peacekeepers.
When a special military operation began in February of this year, the CDA, as well as other central military cultural institutions, were already thinking about how to support its participants. But it so happened that the first spectators of the concert brigades were servicemen, members of the SVO, who ended up in military medical institutions after being wounded and shell-shocked. The concerts took place in the military hospitals of the city of Moscow named after P.V. Mandryk, named after N.N. Burdenko, in Solnechnogorsk near Moscow and a number of others.
I remember well the concert in the military hospital, where the creative team performed together with the People's Artist of Russia Mikhail Porechenkov and the Donetsk poetess Anna Revyakina. The atmosphere in the auditorium was relaxed and very sincere. During the performance of the next song, the star of the television series could not resist and, to the applause of the patients and the medical staff, started dancing along with the artists of the Central House of Arts. Later, servicemen in hospital gowns were so impressed with the performance of the soloists of the ensemble that each was given roses. Anna Kuznetsova, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, did not hide her enthusiastic emotions, who was present at the concert.
The program of meetings with servicemen in hospitals was not limited to concerts. They were also presented with an exhibition of works by laureates of the All-Russian competition of military embroidery "Severe Thread - 2022", the servicemen were presented with letters and drawings from Russian schoolchildren received by the Central House of Artists during the All-Russian action "Letter to a Soldier".
Starting from June 21, the artists of the central military cultural institution as part of the creative team of the military department performed with concerts in various places of deployment of Russian troops in the Western Military District, including the settlements of the Belgorod, Kursk and Voronezh regions. And everywhere - be it the edge of the forest, the assembly hall of an educational institution, a hospital, an airfield site - a warm welcome awaited them, everywhere during the concert there was a festive atmosphere, and the audience in uniform and local residents, including children and veterans, enthusiastically applauded each number, which noted the head of the department of the Department of Culture of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, Alexander Zaitsev, who accompanied the creative team.
The result of the nine-day creative trip of the CDRA artists, during which they gave concerts in front of the participants in the special military operation, was warm applause, warm words of gratitude and bouquets of flowers.
Each time, the artists of the Central House of Arts presented a large program in which vocalists performed songs of a patriotic, civil nature, such as “My Proud Russia”, “Flag of My State”, “Army of Russia”, as well as works in memory of the fallen soldiers. Variety compositions were replaced by lyrical motifs, the mastery of refined choreography was demonstrated by the soloists of the ballet group. The concerts ended on a high note: the songs "For Faith", "Russia, Forward!" lifted the audience from their seats, many had tears in their eyes.
The exception was the concert dedicated to the Day of Memory and Sorrow, the program of which reflected the history of the Great Patriotic War, starting from its first day - June 22. But many works were devoted to modern defenders of the Fatherland.
Unforgettable were meetings with military pilots. All non-flying servicemen attended the concerts. Young, energetic, risk-averse men know a lot about music, and therefore they applauded heartily.
At the end of one of the last concerts, which took place on June 29, the artists of the TsDRA ensemble received words of gratitude from the Commander of the Air Force - Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces, Lieutenant General Sergei Dronov, who noted the professionalism, high skill of performance and so necessary for the military personnel participating in the military operations, the incendiary mood of the creative team.
About the results, the artistic director of the Central House of Arts, Irina Titova, said: “There are a lot of impressions, a lot remains to be comprehended. During these meetings, we found new friends - true defenders of the Fatherland. And with our concerts, we seem to have achieved the main thing - we were able to some extent support our military personnel performing important and responsible tasks, express our admiration for their heroism and courage.
I remember the performances of the artists of the Central House of Arts in front of the mobilized military personnel - the concerts took place in the Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan regions and their recent creative trip to the Republic of Belarus. Then, during a business trip to the fraternal republic, the artists of the Central House of Artists gave four concerts, three of which took place in the field - in the places of deployment of Russian military personnel. All the concerts, which were held with the participation of the vocal and instrumental ensemble "Defense" and the ensemble of Russian song "Russian ZOV", were warmly received by the audience.
Russian folk songs and pop compositions in the rock style were performed by artists of the Central House of Arts, and patriotic works about Russia and the defense of its sacred borders were repeatedly performed as an encore. A special atmosphere at the concerts was created by the servicemen's acquaintance with the letters addressed to them by little Russians as part of the All-Russian action "Letter to a Soldier". Another heartfelt moment of the meetings was the congratulations of the birthday people: for them, songs specially prepared by the artists sounded as musical gifts.
“With these concerts, we tried in every possible way to support our guys who are performing important and responsible tasks. After all, it is known that a good song and a kind word have always been a true mobilizing tool, raising the morale of the defenders of the Fatherland. Judging by the way the servicemen received the performances of the artists, our creative team achieved its intended goal, ”Vyacheslav Titov, deputy head of the Central House of Artists for Development, expressed this opinion at the end of the creative trip.
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