Vakhtang and Irina Kikabidze: "I pray the Almighty to die first, so as not to see your tears "

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

Singer, actor, songwriter - it's all about him. His name is known to admirers all over the world, and in Georgia he is not just known. If it is possible to say about someone that he deserved truly nationwide love, it is about Vakhtang Kikabidze. The female love for this stately charming singer is also quite understandable. But he has been married for more than half a century to the only one that has become his destiny for life.

John F. Kennedy - the culprit of the outbreak of feelings

During his foreign trip to Budapest, Vakhtang Kikabidze found himself in the same concert group with Irina Kebadze, the prima ballerina of the Tbilisi Academic Opera House. All the artists involved in the days of Soviet art were young, active, and cheerful. Of course, in the evenings the whole team gathered, joked, sang, drank good wine.

Once such warm gatherings were unexpectedly interrupted by the noise coming from the streets. Someone was shouting, the brakes of cars screeching, hysterical sobs were heard. The artists rushed out into the street with the whole crowd and were shocked by what was happening. The drivers threw their cars right in the middle of the roadway and ran somewhere, everyone was shouting loudly. There was a feeling of general panic and horror from what was happening.

At that moment, Vakhtang Kikabidze looked at the group and saw a thin, fragile Irina, whose eyes became huge and there was such an immense fear in them that he immediately hugged her, pressed her to him and felt her trembling all over. Since then, he never let her go, trying to protect, protect, calm her down.

At that moment, everyone thought about a military coup, but the cause of the panic was in fact the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

In 1965, Irina Kebadze and Vakhtang Kikabidze became husband and wife. Irina was previously married to Guram Sagaradze, an artist of the Shota Rustaveli Theater, she already had a seven-year-old daughter Marina. Vakhtang Kikabidze considers Marina to be a native person, on a par with his son Konstantin.

Booba and his family

At first, the young family huddled in two tiny rooms in the basement, together with Irina's parents. They loved Vakhtang like their own son and forgave him a lot. Even when he came home very drunk, no one made scenes and scandals. The actor admits that more than once he offended his spouse because of his youth by spree with friends, his own inattention. And also unmotivated jealousy, which Kikabidze eventually coped with, realizing how much she loves him.

In Georgia, everyone calls him Buba, and no one calls him Vakhtang. When Irina was told at the hospital that she had a boy, she began to laugh to tears. And to the puzzled looks and questions of the doctors through laughter she said: "Buba will be very happy!"

And he was really happy. And he barely even smashed the whole restaurant with his friends, in which he was caught by the joyful news of the birth of an heir. The scar on his leg until sneeze reminds the actor of this significant event. The newborn was given the name Konstantin - in honor of Vakhtang Kikabidze's father, who went missing during the war.

Konstantin grew up very shy and was ashamed of his father's fame so much that in an essay about his parents he wrote: his father died in the war, and his mother died of grief. Marina, on the contrary, was proud of her father, enjoyed the opportunity to be behind the scenes and subsequently chose the profession of an actress. Konstantin, who graduated from the Academy of Arts, served at the Georgian Embassy in Moscow, now lives and works in Toronto, has his own business.

The secret of family happiness

The secret of their long-term strong marriage lies, according to the artist, in mutual respect. As long as it is there, there will be a family. They constantly think about each other and about those people who are next to them. When in 1979 Vakhtang Konstantinovich was admitted to the Burdenko hospital with a brain cyst, he underwent a complex operation. Irina Grigorievna visited not only him in the hospital, she took care of everyone to whom relatives could not come. Many were not Muscovites, but she fulfilled all the patients' requests, bought cottage cheese, fruits, fish at the market. And Kikabidze did not mind, he knew: she could not otherwise.

They have been together for 52 years. Their love has not disappeared, has not dulled over the years. Vakhtang Kikabidze regrets that he does not always have the opportunity to give flowers to his wife every day. But he immediately goes to see if everything is in order with his wife, if he does not hear her steps in the house for a long time. However, she does the same.

They cannot imagine life without their loved ones, without children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. Booba does not understand how you can hurt a loved one by betraying him. In his understanding, it is impossible to spoil the life not only of the wife, but in general it is impossible to spoil the life of anyone. Moreover, treason or betrayal. Even more, he appreciates in a woman not only beauty, but intelligence. Apparently, this is also the secret of their long marriage.

He composed a song for her with the words: "My dear, the mother of my children, the grandmother of my grandchildren, I pray the Almighty to die first so as not to see your tears …" But Irina Grigorievna forbade her to perform it, because in it he called her grandmother.

For many years, Vakhtang Kikabidze has been friends with whom she paid for fame and recognition with her loneliness.