The 55-year-old Yevtushenko and his young 14-year-old protégée split up for good after a tour of the United States. In the 80s, they called her the second Akhmatova and prophesied a long, rich and successful life for her. He was already a downed pilot, but he still left Nika without too many sentiments.
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Recently, people have often remembered Nika Turbina, a girl poet with the fate of either the Soviet Lolita or the Soviet Alisa Teplyakova. Even made a movie based on her life, starring Lisa Yankovskaya. But the movie turned out to be tedious and did not convey the depth of Nika’s traumatization.
The girl herself, of course, was not guilty of anything. She was just unlucky to be born to an enterprising mother, who herself did not take place as a media unit, although she dreamed of it. And decided to realize all her dreams of a beautiful life through her daughter.
And should we even look for those to blame for Nika’s unfortunate fate?…. Yevtushenko didn’t consider himself guilty. Mom and grandmother, who involved a 6-year-old child in a multi-year lying carousel — also did not consider themselves guilty. And the girl grew up with a disturbed psyche, desperately seeking acceptance and love all her life, and died at the age of 27.
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It is necessary to dwell separately on the personality of Nika’s mother. Her name was Maya Nikanorkina.
The family lived in the Crimea, in Yalta. Nika’s grandfather, Anatoly Nikanorkin, actually wrote novels and published, even headed the Crimean writers’ organization. Her grandmother worked as a receptionist in a Yalta hotel.
Niki’s family represented the Yalta bohemond. Her mother did not even consider the idea of working at a regular job. Maya Nikanorkina tried drawing, writing, but she was bored with everything instantly. Being a pretty girl, she decided to conquer Moscow and went to put her plan into practice.
According to Maya Anatolievna, in Moscow she was a member of the literary beau monde (yes, yes, what interest did the beau monde have in associating with a poor provincial girl with no connections?). She allegedly had affairs with Voznesensky, Yevtushenko, and Ernst Neizvestny. Neizvestny claimed that he was not acquainted with such a citizen, and Yevtushenko kept silent. Only Voznesensky recalled his acquaintance with Maya, whom she wrote down as Nika’s father, making a story of forbidden love out of an ordinary adultery.
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Having walked a couple of years in Moscow, Maya returned to Yalta to her parents and in 1974 gave birth to a daughter Nika from the actor Georgy Torbin. But could the refined nature to allow that the father of her child was some Torbin? So the idea of Voznesensky’s paternity was born. My grandmother confirmed this legend.
And now a small portrait-characterization of the grandmother from biographer A. Ratner, who published a whole book about the little wunderkind poet Nika:
Niki’s grandmother was considered one of the most beautiful women in Yalta. She worked at the Yalta Hotel, collaborated with the KGB. When her husband was alive, she slept with tourists, extracting information from them. As one of Ludmila’s colleagues told me: Ludka never refused anyone. And these values were instilled in Maya and then in Nika. (с)
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Mama Maya, although she had left Moscow, did not want to let go of the capital’s connections, realizing that only the connection with the capital was the key to the very rich and beautiful life she so desired.
So, above was a brief sketch of Nicky’s family. We see adults with a claim to a better life than most of their fellow citizens. And they chose any methods for this — lies, pretenses, manipulations.
It was decided to mold 6-year-old Nika into a brilliant wunderkind poetess. In the 80s, there was a fashion for child prodigies. Nika heartfelt recited poems, supposedly written by herself in a half-sleep, made a tragic face and even let a tear fall. The audience loved it. My mother and grandmother decided to organize a tour, and that’s where my Moscow acquaintances came in handy.
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Yevtushenko met Nika when her fame was already gaining momentum. The meeting took place at Pasternak’s dacha in Peredelkino. Nika’s mother Yevtushenko already knew. Yevtushenko came to meet her accompanied by Merion Boyers, who later published Turbina’s book in England.
Having looked through the maiden’s manuscript, Yevtushenko immediately asked Maya: Are you writing this? He immediately understood everything, and it is unclear — why he even got involved in this murky business? The answer is self-evident — either money, or a special interest in the girl.
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On May 23, 1985 Nika, accompanied by Yevtushenko and her grandmother, found herself in Italy. In 11 days she visited 8 cities and gave 25 performances.
Later, my grandmother would tell me that it was then that Yevtushenko began to be rude. When Nika got cranky, he told her: Give her a slap on the butt so she doesn’t cry. She must understand that she is at work . Then the grandmother, hurrying to the car, dropped things and collected them under the remarks of the hurrying poet, who did not even deign to get out of the car. She did not like this attitude.
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Two and a half years later, in November 1987, Yevtushenko organized a performance of 13-year-old Nika in the United States, where it became clear that the young poetess without the accompanying performance of Yevgeny himself, the audience simply does not need.
How did Nika herself feel about Yevtushenko? It should be taken into account that the girl grew up without a father, and brought up by her mother and grandmother, aimed at success, saw fathers in the rich and famous. She looked at Yevtushenko as an idol, but she had never even read his poems.
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Almost immediately after the US tour, Eugene married a woman with whom he was in a relationship at the time. Thus he, intentionally or not, cut off all speculations about a relationship with Nika or her mother.
Nika’s experience of Yevtushenko’s indifference was difficult:
She waited six years for him. She suffered, endured as much as she could — hanged herself, cut herself, poisoned herself and so on. So the teenager used every means of manipulation of a shallow girl in love. Mother prompted or guessed it herself…?
Nika was a project for the impoverished poet. So, overcoming his obvious disgust for the girl’s mother, he undertook this project. He made some money and disappeared, as if he had never existed.
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The project was over, but the ambitious and insolent Turbins — mother, grandmother and the girl who had poisoned herself because of him — remained. Nika had almost stopped writing poetry by 1987 — she was already a dead cow that had to be got off: there was no trace of the charming child. Her mother was eager to go on tour again, to be applauded by the crowd, to receive royalties.
This is what Yevgeny Yevtushenko said in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets, in response to a question about feeling guilty for Nikina’s unfulfilled life:
I feel absolutely no guilt for myself. The fault lies with her parents, who received money for her and asked me for more money. She performed, received royalties, and after that her mom asked for a loan. That was immoral. They were getting cash bonuses for her. I don’t remember now how much they gave her in Italy, something like two or three thousand dollars. It was a lot of money in those days.
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Nika resentment burned, it broke through in interviews, in which Turbina said that Eugene betrayed her. This caused him such a reaction (very politely, but still a man of steel temperament):
I read an interview with her called Yevtushenko betrayed me. I helped her publish her first book, translate it into English, go to Italy. My whole betrayal is that I don’t continue to help. I’m sorry, I’m a provincial man. I do not respect people in whom there is no sense of gratitude. I helped, that’s all. You have to put a man on the move, and then you’re on your own.
Nika later backtracked, confessing:
I said it out of childish stupidity and resentment. I was a maximalist back then. I wouldn’t say it now. It’s low and stupid and ridiculous.
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On May 11, 2002, Nika Turbina again attempted to kill herself, and this time she succeeded. The girl was 27 years old, she had no children or family. The last years of her life she was poor.
Voznesensky outlived his named daughter Nika by 8 years, he passed away in 2010 at the age of 77.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko outlived Nika by 18 years, he passed away at the 85th year of life in a clinic in the United States, where he was taken in critical condition after several years of struggle with oncology. Nika was long gone, and he was still making excuses while sitting on Malakhov’s TV program:
I don’t want to accuse her parents indiscriminately, but I remember that when we traveled, for example, to Italy, where we were well received, Nika didn’t drink at all, and her grandmother was always out at night, playing in the casino. Well, that’s her business, of course, but I should have looked after Nika more. I talked to her relatives and said that you can’t pump something out of a child like that… What could I do?
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What did Nika’s grandmother and mother die of? From A.Ratner’s memoirs: Mother died in 2009 from laziness, she was only 58 years old (7 years after Nika’s death — editor’s note). She made up as if she had a crack in her hip, and did not even get up. Her 80-year-old mother fussed around her, I bought medicine whenever possible, and Maya gave herself away by running into the other room when the phone rang, thinking no one was there. Grandma outlived her daughter by five years. She regretted what had happened. She wished a different life for her granddaughter and her daughter. Many times she told me: It was all our fault.