Legends of the 1990s: Irina Ponarovskaya, or the story of why "Miss Chanel of the Soviet Union" left the stage

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

In the 1980s and 1990s, she was a style icon, her unique voice with her trademark hoarseness could not be confused with any other. She surprised with her stage images and experiments with the image. Her songs "Rowan Beads", "You Are My God", "I Don't Want Any More" became megahits. In the late 1990s. popular singer Irina Ponarovskaya suddenly disappeared. She stopped appearing on stage, avoided communicating with journalists. Today she is 64 years old, the singer still leads a reclusive lifestyle and does not leave the shadows.

Irina Ponarovskaya was born on March 12, 1953 into a family of musicians, from the age of 6 she played the piano and studied music, and from the age of 15 - vocals. She graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory, was a soloist in Singing Guitars and Korobeiniks, and then in the jazz orchestra of Oleg Lundstrem. In parallel with performances on stage, she began acting in films and music programs on television, hosted a children's program "Alarm Clock".

Her first recitals began in 1988, and in the 1990s. Irina Ponarovskaya has become one of the most popular pop singers. In 1993, she released her first giant disc "This is how my life is passing", in the same year she shot a video clip for this song. The singer was always in great shape, and in the mid-1990s she was offered to lead the program "Fitness class of Irina Ponarovskaya", where she talked about her own method of proper nutrition and gymnastics. In 1997, the singer presented her solo program “Woman is Always Right” at the Rossiya Concert Hall and released a disc of the same name. This was her last appearance on the big stage.

Irina Ponarovskaya has always stood out among other Soviet pop stars with extravagance, unique image, bold experiments with appearance. In 1990, representatives of the Chanel Fashion House awarded her the title of Miss Chanel of the Soviet Union. In the press, she was called the most elegant lady of the Soviet stage, Lady Surprise and Lady Perfection. In those days, Sergei Zverev worked on her image, whom the singer considered one of the best stylists.

They wrote about her personal life no less than outrageous outfits. Her first husband was the head of the "Singing Guitars" ensemble Grigory Kleimits, but this marriage did not last long. In 1984 she married jazz musician Wayland Rodd and gave birth to a son, Anthony. Family life did not bring her happiness - as the singer later admitted, her husband raised his hand to her and constantly cheated. After parting with the Maternity Hospital, the singer lived in a civil marriage with a dancer from her collective, and then married Soso Pavliashvili. Her last husband was a medical scientist Dmitry Pushkar. After that, Irina swore to marry and devoted herself to raising her son.

At the peak of her popularity, Irina Ponarovskaya suddenly disappeared from the screens. When asked why her performance in 1997 was the last, she replies: “Since then I have not performed solo concerts, because perestroika began on our stage. I sing in clubs, and there are always as many spectators as I need. A good audience can now be gathered by Sofia Rotaru, Valery Leontiev, and today's singers can only gather for their concerts young people who do not understand anything about music, but admire the fact that the young people on the stage are very nice, pretty, the girls are all young, slender … I I do not think that a singer of my rank, class and level needs to do some kind of promotion for herself. And to this day, to be honest, I cannot understand what people are so afraid of, for whom it is high time to give way to others. I can see that the stage is crowded. And I'm not used to living in a communal apartment."

When they began to demand money for participation in the "Song of the Year", the singer categorically refused to participate in this program. Beginning in 2000, Irina Ponarovskaya tried her hand at another area: she opened an image agency "Space of Style", released a collection called "I-ra", opened a sewing studio and a Fashion House in New York.

In 2010, Irina Ponarovskaya left with her son to Norway, and in the summer she lives in the Baltic States. At 62, she became a grandmother and spends a lot of time with her grandson. He disapproves of projects like “You are a superstar”: “Trust me, I am a person who has faced so many difficulties, and I understand the value of life. But if, God forbid, I do not have bread and I have to make a choice: go to this program or sell the last ring, I will sell the ring. I will not lose my dignity."

The singer replies to offers to return to the stage: “I am not the person who will die on stage. And I'm not going to torment the screen, as some people do, with my not-so-perfect appearance."

The idol of Ponarovskaya was Maria Pakhomenko is a singer who has gone through a dramatic path from all-Union popularity to complete oblivion.