How does Arkady Vysotsky live and what he does, who never trumped his name "the forgotten eldest son"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The youngest son of the famous bard and actor Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky is always in sight. Nikita Vysotsky runs a charitable foundation named after his father, often gives interviews and takes part in numerous projects dedicated to the memory of Vysotsky Sr. Unlike him, Arkady Vysotsky prefers to lead a non-public life, although he can also be proud of his successes and achievements. True, in the media he is often called "the forgotten Vysotsky."

Choosing a path

The first-born of Vladimir Vysotsky and Lyudmila Abramova was born in 1962, and when Arkady was six years old, his father left the family, subsequently marrying Marina Vlady. Mom, too, was not left alone, and her second husband, engineer Yuri Ovcharenko, completely replaced Arkady and his younger brother Nikita, their father.

Nobody forbade the boys to communicate with dad, but their meetings were very rare. The father was constantly on the road, at rehearsals, on tour, and saw his sons at most several times a year. However, neither Arkady nor Nikita complained about life. They had enough love and care that they received at home, no one tried to impose their vision of their future on them or somehow influence the choice of their future profession. Although Vladimir Vysotsky, when the boys were already grown up, offered them assistance in entering any institution of their choice. But neither Arkady nor Nikita took advantage of this offer.

Since childhood, Arkady gravitated towards the exact sciences and sincerely believed that the humanities were categorically not suitable for him. He studied at a strong physics and mathematics school, enthusiastically studied astronomy and physics, and after receiving a certificate went to the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. He brilliantly passed the entrance exams, but he never found himself among the students. Some sources say that in this case the surname played a cruel joke with Arkady. When the selection committee learned about the relationship of the applicant with Vladimir Vysotsky, they decided not to take him to the university.

It cannot be said that Arkady was very upset at that moment. He immediately submitted documents to the Moscow State University at the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, he studied there for only a year. And he realized that all these exact sciences and numbers are too far from his true vocation.

But even then he could not afford to rush from institute to institute, for Arkady Vysotsky, by the time of his separation from Moscow State University, had managed to acquire a wife and a child, which, whatever one may say, but had to be provided: to feed, drink, buy shoes and clothes. Arkady Vladimirovich, already in his youth, was a serious and thorough person, and therefore made an informed decision: first to provide himself and his family with a financial cushion, and then go on to study further.

Thanks to one of his father's friends, who led the development of gold, he was able to get a job in an artel in the mines, where he worked on a dredge - a special unit for gold mining. Arkady worked conscientiously and after a month, thanks to physical labor, he pumped up his muscles so much that almost all his clothes became too small for him. It took Arkady Vysotsky two years to secure a future for himself and his family.

Returning to Moscow, the eldest son of Vladimir Semyonovich applied to the screenwriting department of VGIKA. He wrote poetry from his youth, but for the creative competition Arkady Vysotsky presented a story about his childhood and youth. From the very first attempt he was enrolled, although at that time, according to the recollections of mother Lyudmila Abramova, the surname could rather interfere than help her son. And, if he became a student at VGIK, it meant that the selection committee actually considered his talent and prospects.

Live life

After graduating from the institute, Arkady Vladimirovich faced professional lack of demand. In the 1990s, films were not particularly filmed, and the scriptwriters, accordingly, were not needed by anyone. Nevertheless, the family had to be provided for. And he, leaving for a while creative throwing and searching for the meaning of life, went first to work in a taxi, was the press secretary of the Moscow Rescue Service. Later he took his first steps in journalism and on television, served as an editor, even once made a program about his own father. However, now Arkady Vysotsky admits: television and journalism are absolutely not his sphere of interest.

When Arkady Vladimirovich was offered a job as a teacher at VGIK, he decided to try. And suddenly I realized: he likes teaching students almost as much as he liked to write, compose, invent life stories of the heroes of his scripts. At the same time, the eldest son of Vladimir Semyonovich never aspired to popularity and fame, and even now he is not offended by the fact that in some media he is called "the forgotten Vysotsky." Rather, he deliberately walked towards this throughout his life.

He generally gives the impression of a completely free person. He is engaged exclusively in what he likes, he can easily abandon the project, even if they promise to pay very decently for it. He feels much more pleasure when he works for less money, but with an interesting idea to him.

Arkady Vysotsky writes scripts for films and serials, sometimes acts in episodes, according to his script "Butterfly over the Herbarium", which won first place at the All-Russian competition for the best script in 2000, Igor Maslennikov directed the picture "Letters to Elsa".

Today, Arkady Vladimirovich continues to do what he loves, several series have already been released based on his scripts. But Arkady Vysotsky invariably refuses proposals related to the filming of films about his father or programs about him, arguing that he had too little contact with his father, and therefore he simply has nothing to tell. At the same time, Arkady Vladimirovich loves the work of Vladimir Vysotsky and even discusses it with his students. He is in no hurry to present his reasoning to the general public, believing that more than a dozen years must pass for an objective assessment of the poet's and actor's work.

During his life, Arkady Vysotsky was married three times. His two children from his first marriage, Natalya and Vladimir, have long lived in the United States, where they moved with their mother, the screenwriter's first wife. Thanks to the eldest daughter, Arkady Vysotsky already has seven grandchildren. In addition to Natalia and Vladimir, Arkady Vladimirovich has three more children: Nikita, and Mikhail and Maria, born in 2004 and 2005, respectively. Despite everything, Arkady Vladimirovich maintains relations with all his children. He still prefers not to appear in public too often, carefully protecting his privacy from prying eyes.

Nikita Vysotsky himself is a rather famous person. He acts in films, preserves his father's legacy, writes scripts, teaches acting at the Institute of Culture. And he frankly says that the early death of Vladimir Vysotsky influenced the choice of his profession. Although Nikita Vladimirovich admits that he could not avoid the mistakes of his father.