My History

One hot summer day in Irkutsk, one of numerous Siberian towns was marked by appearance of a new human. The boy with a beautiful name and unusual destiny. Sasha Shulgin.
Until three he had grown as other children until one event had turned his further life. His grandfather had presented him a small record-player, allowing him to listen to minions. Sitting beside that record-player whole days long has become a start of his passion on music.

Sasha grew up, he successfully graduated from secondary school and applied for higher education in institute but he has never given up devoting himself to music. He did not enter into any of the local bands, however sometimes at spare time he used to play in public with some musicians on dance-halls of his native town.
Later on some band ‘Karnaval’ visited Shulgin’s native town which after a brief association with Sasha invited him to accompany them in Moscow. Shulgin flew to Moscow where he contacted with another band ‘Kruiz’, but stayed there shortly after what he flew back to his native town, despite the fact that ‘Kruiz’ musicians invited him into their band as a member.
And here again another turn in Sasha’s life made him think over human foibles. That was the  second Sasha’s serious life-lesson.
At that time he had to make a grave decision very quickly: in one hour he assembled himself and arrived in Moscow again. In three months he started his work with the band ‘Kruiz’.

Part II. 19-25. Alexander

At that time it came about that as Shulgin began his work in the band all the rock-groups had been prohibited all across the country. Alexander assumed the problem and started to visit different official channels such as Ministry of Culture, committees etc. As a result in March of 1985 state commission approved the program of ‘Kruiz’.
They passed their program, received the status of ensemble and went on tour. They worked almost without feedback as their guitar strings got out of order very frequently, while a set of strings cost them 30-40 roubles. However the tour came out to be successful and the Kruiz returned to Moscow. And unexpectedly they got a suggestion to go on tour to Norway. They had only one day to settle all the necessary documents.
Kruiz went to Norway and gave a good account of itself before state bodies: all came back, conducted themselves and came out being morally stable.

ASh: “ Being inspired by Norway we began thinking of going somewhere else, and the most interesting is that we really began going on tours. Usually we went on tours connected to associations on peoples groups, Ministry of Culture, state concerts and ‘Yunita’ newspaper festivals. Then we went to the German Socialist Party festival and met there a person connected to a world-wide concern. The concern ‘Warner Brothers’ (now “AOL/Warner”) became very interested in our ensemble and offered us a profitable suggestion, but we were unable to decide ourselves. At that time we made up our minds to invite them in USSR and they came. At the same time of negotiating with us the representatives of Warner Brothers also were negotiating with another popular group, whose director was my best friend. And after talks with my friend those considerable 50-year men met me, the young boy, and told: “We stopped our choice on ‘Kruiz’, we’ll work with you. Do you know why? We negotiated with your friend for three hours. And all that time instead of praising his own group he had been declaring against your group and yourself. Actually, when someone says a lot of bad things about certain person that means that person is a real competitor for speaking one. So that person is worthy indeed. That’s why we did not even arrange to choose you and your group ‘Kruiz’”. That was the third serious test in my life, the third life-lesson.

The fellows lived in Germany for 4 years, then Kruiz fell apart, the musicians’ ambitions clashed and their relationships had been spoiled. Warner having seen these processes gave up on them. Each of the musicians hoped that company would make a deal with him, but no way. Shulgin stayed in Germany to work in studio, passed so-called universities and began to experience the system of show-business. He worked in studios with world-wide famous people. At first Alexander just sat and learned and that was very important. Simultaneously he got acquainted with popular, well-known people in show-business, entertainment industry and learned a lot of new things, realized some local projects and returned to Moscow. And here private entrepreneurships began working, new firms and joint ventures were launched.

ASh: “We did a lot: organized tours and shot them on films, made clips for foreign and local known artists, recorded 15 great compositions with Moscow State Academic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pavel Kogan for world classical music. For EMI FRANCE we organized ‘Intershanse’ festivals here, shot big films for ‘Canal+’ and made recordings for BBC channel.

Part III. 25-38. Alexander Shulgin

At that time a project was planned among famous musicians on the West. These were musicians from ‘Scorpions’, and those who worked with ‘Pink Floyd’, ‘Pet Shop Boys’. They were to perform the music of Vitaliy Bondarchuk. A group of western specialists arrived in Moscow, the work went on until 10 p.m. (they didn’t permit to work after that time!).
That was in 1989 when in Moscow it was nowhere to go to after 10 p.m., but a bar on Taganka where were foreigners and diplomats. The concept of face control already existed there, there was no any signboard and aliens were not allowed. Shulgin often came there, there played good musicians such as Sergey Mazaev and Igor Matvienko.
One day when Alexander and his partners came to club they saw a young artist-woman on a stage, whom Alexander didn’t know. His foreign colleagues then told him: “Pay attention, what a nice voice, it matches our project! Who’s that girl?”
The thing is that Shulgin used to tell them he knew all the musicians there, but that girl was an exception.
Eventually he screw up his courage and at 12 at night he approached the young artist-woman, feeling very shy.

ASh: “I did not feel ok approaching her and asking her phone number at 12 at midnight… So banal and trivial situation… But I approached and left her my phone number, saying her I had  some work suggestion. The next day she called me, we met and in 15 days we already had been working on recording. That’s the way I met Lera. However we worked in studio not for a long time, I tried to work with her for 3 days. These were 3 days of everlasting controversies. The girl entered in studio for the first time did not accept any outer remarks…
I continued working with Lera until I had understood that I love her. I made her a declaration of love – that was on the 9th of May, The Victory Day. And after that I had always told her that was Her Day of Victory over me, over my heart… In two months after she divorced we began living together, and in 4 months later she woke me up one night and told that we would have a baby.

Shulgin was happy to hear that, because by that time he got ready to be a father and dreamt of full-fledged family. The next month was very difficult ‘cause they had to settle the business with an English company. An album was to be released at that time and a promotional campaign started which coincided with the birth of Alexander’s and Valeria’s baby. Shulgin had very serious talks with the company’s president, who told him: “Sasha, this is your choice. If you decided to leave the baby with yourselves, perhaps, you are right, but you must understand that all the work done is coming to nothing.” Shulgin answered that they had made their choice.

After such amazingly happy event as the birth of their daughter Shulgin and Valeria started to record a new album “Anna”, which probably could not have another name. But during the first recording of the new album Alexander got the news that Lera is pregnant again. That’s the way Temka appeared.

On November 21, 1998 the third child – Arseniy appeared in the family of Valeria and Alexander Shulgins. At age of two getting to his mother’s concert for the first time (that was in Irkutsk), he sat calmly more than two hours in concert-hall and after told his mother that he liked it, especially her song “Don’t Hurt Me”.

In 1993 Shulgin was engaged in big business. That was a joint venture which distributed western technics. That was one of the largest firms, owning most of the trading shops and real estates in Moscow. At first, in the beginning of 90th those all things were interesting for Alexander, a lot of money but only on papers. This much millions transferred to Germany, that much received, and then it started. Sudden jump of deutsche mark, dollar and the next life-lesson. Everything changed very fast, we had to return debts but inflation burnt everything day by day. All in all everlasting work in stress situations.

At this time an association of phonogram producers had been created which included several incorporators, and further the firm ‘Soyuz’ left it. Everything that was used by ‘Soyuz’ firm was worked out by that association. At that time Shulgin was a Director General of ‘Bekar Records’ firm and they shared the music market with ‘Soyuz’, issuing plenty of albums of different artists such as Kristina Orbakaite, Irina Allegrova, Alexander Buynov, Irina Saltykova.
ASh: “And at that very time I started some  producing projects: groups ‘Mechtat’ and ‘Ivanushki International’. After that I worked with the group ‘Mumiy troll’. Then I went away of the company because I felt tha twas  not interesting. At the same time I also was busy with political activity. And then we had had companies ‘Familia Entertainment’ and ‘Familia Publishing’, which were headed by Valeria Yurievna. But after she had a maternity leave she went to her homeplace and I had to return to this business, although I did not want to…”

Part IV. 38 years old – up to date. ASh

At the age of 38 Alexander’s life changed dramatically. Work on the album “Glaza Tsveta Neba / Sky Coloured Eyes”. After Arseniy’s birth, Alexander and Valeria were very busy with their children. Then there was a tough period connected with the financial crisis in Russia. There was a long pause. And after that they had to work on Valeria’s return to the scene. Valeria’s first big concerts were a success and Alexander thought, “At last everything’s fine: I have a loving family - my children and my dear wife - and work is going well…” And then there was a sudden awful 180° turn. He lost his family, his wife and an opportunity to see his own children. Just in a day!

ASh: “It was a very tough time for me. I thought I’d lost everything: my family, my wife, my children. My business was torn to pieces. My friends, to whom I always was extremely good, turned against me. It was a trial given to me.”

At the same time, Shulgin was inundated with different kinds of invitations and offers. One of them was to participate in creating the program “Stan’ Zvezdoy / Become a Star” (it’s a Russian variation of new talent shows like “X-factor”). Alexander was asked to take part in the TV version of the program, and then was suddenly accused of forsaking the pop-band “Drugiye Pravila / Other Rules” (which was by the way almost his own creation).  Then there was a new project “Fabrika Zvezd / Star Factory”, in which Shulgin didn’t want to participate at all…

ASh: “As for the Star Factory or the band Drugiye Pravila, or the project Become a Star in general: any artist signs an agreement with a rights owner before he/she participates in the program. In this case they signed agreements with organizations which worked with the First TV Channel or RTR Channel. I was invited there as a music producer. I was honest with my part of the job: I wrote some songs for them, I helped them to be discovered. But I didn’t have in mind that I would be organizing concerts for them or writing songs with silly words. Not  for the world would I write such songs. As for the Star Factory, I knew that it was not a devout project and I knew where I was going to. But in those 100 days I did my best for the guys. I don’t want them to sing some “priming” songs. I not only wanted to give them some basic music concepts but also I wanted to help them to understand what a person is, or spirituality, or responsibility, or humaneness. It was so unusual for all the previous talent shows that in a month I was no more on air. I was even expelled from a 24 hour internet channel. I suppose that the reason was that instead of talking with the kids about tours, endless concerts and money, I was talking with them about Humaneness. And if these talks were in, let’s say, a drawing-room, then just the empty studio was shown live! And after this, friendly mass media and the First Channel journalists blamed me for abandoning the Star Factory participants. Whatever the newspapers wrote, I’m in friendly relations with all of them.”

Meanwhile passions ran high around Shulgin. His friends (or, to be more precise, former friends) started open and hidden wars and all looked like some terrible plan started to be realized. All went in the direction about which Alexander had had no idea just several days before. In this short period he had to withstand 48 lawsuits and many false reports in mass media, even threats.

 ASh: “What they wanted was quite clear: they just wanted to erase me. But all is in God’s hands. All I can say is that this was for my own sake and I had made several important conclusions concerning myself. The sphere surrounding me somehow clarified, I rethought my own priorities. The main thing is that at that time I was able to compose music quietly. Now I am able to do what I want easily. And when I made that decision I just calmed down. I would say not just calmed, but I got some kind of inner harmony.”

So Shulgin continued to compose music. He helped the band FM to record their debut album «MADE IN RUSSIA», he recorded Alexander Buynov’s album, thus attracting a much younger audience to his songs and making more interesting for mass media.
After that Shulgin recorded the first solo album of FM soloist Aleftina Yegorova then he was working with Tatiana Ovsiyenko.
But not all was as perfect as it seemed at first sight.

ASh: “Yes, I can say that I rejuvenated Buynov’s audience by changing his repertoire. After that impulse the mass media got interested in him? But now he changed his repertoire again. We worked productively with Tatiana Ovsiyenko, we recorded several songs together, but then she suddenly faltered. Initially Igor Krutoy [Ovsiyenko’s producer - editor] asked me to help her. I can’t assert anything but probably there were some hidden rules in a game of Igor Krutoy and The First TV Channel that hampered our collaboration.”

Strange things didn’t stop there. For some period of time Shulgin was working with Nastya Shirokova, more that half an album was recorded but the work stuck again. Nonetheless Alexander intended to finish the album.
All along he was ignored by the Russian mass media. It seemed that Shulgin disappeared from everywhere at once: from radio, TV, newspapers. If they were asked “why?” mass media representatives replied that Alexander is a “persona non grata”. But the real reasons for that remained hidden.

ASh: “I was often invited to join different activities outside Moscow. I gave a lecture on copyright at the Eastern European music convention in St. Petersburg. I was a jury member at “Morskoy Uzel / Fisher's Knot” music festival in Novorossiysk. I took part in many other large scale music events. I was working hard, notwithstanding that I was not in favour with the Russian mass media. ”

But despite his active music life, the mass media continued to ignore the composer. It seemed that Shulgin and all his music were just “softly banned” in Russia.

ASh: “There was a moment in my life, when the band “Cruise” was banned. It was banned forever. Than it was “the system” and nobody thought there would be Gorbachev and the thaw. In those times if something was banned it was banned forever. It was a good training for me. I’m not that easily frightened by such bans anymore. And for sure further in my life there were different prohibitions many times. And I suppose there will be some more. I was forbidden in broadcasts and I moved to the internet. I created my own website which became very popular and cited, I created an anonymous account at livejournal.com.”

Alexander Shulgin became am important and well-known internet personality quite quickly: he began to communicate with other people from the web, was an active participant at internet forums and conferences. As a result many of his virtual interlocutors became friends in reality.
We can not say that Shulgin was totally absorbed in the internet – of course not. He still had his old friends, but at he same time he got a bright new, young web sphere.
That way another face of Alexander Shulgin emerged - ASh. That was the name that was used by Alexander’s internet-friends and now many other people (and the composer himself) call him this way.

ASh: “I didn’t want to fight with “the factory that produced factory-stars” or with the forces that cherished it and hinder any other activities. Even in the internet somebody tried to interfere: several times my website was hacked as well as my livejournal page. But all those trials just hardened me. I got stronger.”

In spring of 2005 Shulgin was offered the chance to compose music for the new TV series “Primadonna”. It is a film about the life and the destiny of a Russian female singer. And Alexander composed 20 original songs. But as for music themes there was an obstacle – Shulgin’s music turned out to be greater than the plot itself so that viewers’ attention was drawn to it more than to the picture. That was the reason why in the final version of the film there are only three music themes and all 20 songs of the composer.

ASh: “I was not interested in composing music in some “oohm-sh-oohm-shh” style. I was composing what I wanted to. And if the music is stronger than the picture – is it really necessary to make the music worse in order to fit the picture? I didn’t want to make it worse. And I didn’t want to use simple sounds and simple instruments as well. If the series was filmed on simple video and not on cinefilm, it did not mean that I had to record simple sounds and simple instruments. Nonetheless I’m glad that music that was considered to be “stronger than the picture” came into being in the process of work on the film’s soundtrack. And certainly it will be released on a separate album. Hopefully it will happen together with the release of the albums with songs from “Primadonna”.

In the end nobody was able to break Alexander Shulgin. In the last year or year and a half he helped several artists to record their albums; he composed 20 original songs for a music film and began to write his own column in a new business online newspaper “Vzgliad” - www.vz.ru.

ASh: “As for my column in “Vzgliad”…If several columns are published there, I will be glad. But I don’t intend to become a journalist. And anyway a columnist is not the same as a journalist. Let’s put it this way: if with the help of this column I am able to express some of my thoughts, I’ll be very glad.”

More that that Shulgin composed all the music for a new social and political TV channel “SPAS”, and what is probably most important he released his first solo album “Predstavleniye / The Presentation”. As was stated in an agreement between Alexander Shulgin and the leading company in digital music industry TheOrchard.com, his album is available in more that 170 countries of the world.
Also Shulgin composed a number of instrumentals. Particularly for 4 albums of saxophonist Elena Sheremet.
As for his internet life, Alexander is still active in this field as well. For example, on his website there is a chapter called “Thinking aloud” where the composer shares his thoughts and experience with his readers. Here on his website Shulgin began to publish his poems in MP3 format, that Alexander himself calls not poems but “Words”. He actively communicates with his friends in a guest book and visits different forums and web communities.
Life goes on. Shulgin composes music, lives an active life. Despite the pressure that is still not over as unfortunately the time of those people who persecute Alexander Shulgin is still not over.

ASh: “There were lots of trials in my life, and many are still to come. They only make me stronger, make me progress. And I believe that everything will be fine.”