Why the program "Wait for me" was so close to its host Igor Kvasha

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

Igor Kvasha was an extraordinary person. A talented actor who has worked all his life in one theater and has embodied many bright, unforgettable images in films. Even though there were very few leading roles among them. When the program "Wait for me", which was originally called "Looking for You," appeared on television in the late 1990s, Igor Kvasha seemed to have found a second wind. The program has always turned out to be very sincere, largely thanks to Igor Kvasha. After all, he himself was incredibly close to the idea of "Wait for me".

Host "Wait for me"

When Igor Kvasha was offered to become the host of the program "Looking for You", he agreed. The actor then did not even know how popular this program would become, but he knew for sure that it had a very noble mission.

Initially, he was invited to another project, which involved meeting with famous people and discussions on the air. They began to choose topics, develop a general concept, but after that everything stopped, and the idea remained unrealized. In general, Igor Kvasha reacted philosophically to the cancellation of the program, and a year later Alexander Lyubimov called him again and offered to take part in another project, "Looking for You".

But the actor did not immediately give his consent. He easily presented himself as the host of the discussion program, since he himself was a rather principled person, ready to defend his point of view. But the proposed format "Looking for You" demanded a completely different thing from Igor Vladimirovich: a deep immersion in each story.

For the first time, he appeared on the air of the third issue as an invited guest. It should be borne in mind that the first episodes of the program went live immediately, and there could not be a ready-made script, since communication in the studio could go completely different from what was originally supposed. As a result, Igor Kvasha gave his consent and became the host of the program for almost 15 years. He became the very person who helped everyone to hope and believe.

He reread many letters that he sent to the program "Wait for Me", and did not just empathize with the people who wrote them. He took every story to heart and once spoke to those who were tired of waiting.

Igor Kvasha asked them to be patient and certainly believe that a loved one will definitely be found. It was in this that he saw his mission, he sincerely wanted every person to have hope for a miracle. At the same time, the actor immediately agreed with the director that those frames with his participation would be cut from the broadcast of the program, where Igor Vladimirovich could not hold back his tears. He believed that the presenter had no right to such strong emotions. But human destinies never left him indifferent.

Very personal

Igor Vladimirovich himself believed in miracles all his life. And I was waiting for a meeting with the closest person, my father. Once he told about this on the air of his program. By that time, 60 years had passed since the end of the Great Patriotic War, and Igor Kvasha continued to look for at least some information about his father. Vladimir Kvasha was the head of the department at the D. I. Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology, Doctor of Chemical Sciences. When the war began, he could not go to the front, having a reservation from the university, but Vladimir Ilyich stubbornly went to the military registration and enlistment office and wrote statements about his desire to go to war with the enemy.

After the fourth appeal to the military registration and enlistment office, his desire was satisfied. And in June 1942, Vladimir Ilyich went missing, and his 12-year-old son continued to search for him all his life, trying to find at least some information confirming his death. He wanted to find the place where his father died, to go to his grave. But the search was completely unsuccessful.

Sergei Kushnerev, the program manager, was aware of his colleague's desire to find a father. Together with Igor Kvasha, they planned to conduct a search by the forces of the program, they wanted to go to the place where part of Vladimir Ilyich was surrounded. The truth about the actor's father was known only to his wife Tatyana Putievskaya.

This story was told to her by the mother of Igor Vladimirovich Dora Zakharovna. The 305th Rifle Division, where the military engineer of the second rank Vladimir Ilyich Kvasha served as a divisional quartermaster, was surrounded by the village of Kerest in the Leningrad Region (today this territory belongs to the Novgorod Region).

One of those with whom Vladimir Ilyich was captured together managed to escape. It was he who later came to Dora Zakharovna Kvasha and told about the death of her husband. According to a former colleague, Vladimir Kvasha himself gave him the address and asked, if he was rescued, to tell the details of his death to his wife so that she would not wait for him. Almost all the prisoners were then driven into a pit and shot …

Igor Vladimirovich's mother did not injure her son with the news that his father would never return from the front. She revealed this secret only to the actor's wife. Dora Zakharovna and Tatyana Putievskaya decided to hide the circumstances of the death of Igor Vladimirovich's father to the end. They both feared that this would be a second tragedy for the actor. Only when Igor Kvasha was gone, Tatyana Semyonovna told the story of the TV presenter's father in a documentary film in memory of Igor Vladimirovich.

For many years Igor Kvasha lived in the hope of finding his father. Perhaps that is why he understood the heroes of his program so well and gave everyone the right to hope. He tried to help thousands of people not to lose hope of meeting with a dear person.

Emotional, vulnerable, subtle Igor Kvasha and calm, restrained, judicious Tatyana Putievskaya have lived together 55 happy years. Together they overcame any difficulties, but could not win, as they themselves admitted, only Igor Vladimirovich's craving for smoking.