The group "Tender May" is well known to fans of domestic pop music of the 1980s and 90s. Many songs from the tender May repertoire are popular today. The names of the group members - such as Yuri Shatunov, Andrey Razin are known to everyone. But Andrei Gurov - a member of the very first composition of the group and its youngest soloist - was somewhat forgotten. Meanwhile, Andrei Gurov is a talented singer, composer and a very charming person. Fate was merciful to him: at 33, he ended up in prison for unintentional murder. But the musician was able to overcome all adversity with dignity.
Childhood and youth
Andrei Alexandrovich Gurov was born on October 27, 1975 in the Stavropol Territory, in the village of Privolnoe. Andrei was the youngest child in the family, his brother Yuri was born four years earlier. The Gurov brothers are one of the few participants in Tender May who grew up in their own family and not in an orphanage.
Gurov’s father was a football player, in his youth he played in the Dynamo-Stavropol team, then he worked as a teacher of physical education, and he introduced his sons to sports from childhood. Andrei also played football very seriously, played in a team at quite a high level competitions and even thought about a professional sports career. Later, he began to engage in martial arts, in particular - the classic struggle.
Another hobby of Andrei Gurov was music. His cousin was a musician, played in the band "Altair", and the boy wanted to be the same as him. Andrei enjoyed visiting the local Sverdlov Culture House, where he mastered playing the musical instruments such as balalaika, piano, and guitar. In addition, he attended the drama club, amateur art circle and performed as a vocalist at discos.
Later, the famous Andrei Razin, the head of Tender May, later worked in the same House of Culture. In those years, he was still a student at the Stavropol Cultural Education School and had practice at Privolnoye, in that very club, and was also deputy chairman of the local collective farm for supply. Razin met Yuri Gurov, Andrei’s elder brother, and invited him to play drums as part of the band “Tender May”, which was just being formed. Later, Razin also invited 12-year-old Andrey Gurov to become the keyboard player and vocalist of the group instead of the departed Konstantin Pakhomov. So the young man found himself in Moscow and overnight became rich and famous.
"Tender May"
Since 1988, the dizzying career of Andrei Gurov as part of the "Tender May" group began. At first he only played keyboards, and then he began to sing. Especially fans of the group loved the songs "You, Me and the Sea", "Telephone Novel" and others performed by Gurov Jr. The group’s popularity was growing rapidly, and the boy from the small village had to get used to performances at such huge venues as the Olimpiysky sports complex, the Rossiya concert hall, the Moscow pop theater, etc. Andrei recalled that he was very worried, suddenly facing thousands of fans and admirers.
Over four years of work in the group (from 1988 to 1991), Andrey took part in more than 1200 concerts. Constant tours, crazy popularity, crowds of fans, a lot of money - all this was in the biography of Gurov, then a teenager. In 1991, life in the country began to change dramatically, the popularity of "Tender May" also declined. Andrey Gurov left the group to study and get a profession for the future. And in 1992, Andrei Razin at one of the concerts announced the completion of the LM.
After "Tender May"
Since the majority of Mayovites were still schoolchildren, they were listed as assigned to the Moscow boarding school No. 24 on Kakhovskaya, and on tour they were accompanied by teachers who studied with the children on the school curriculum. So Andrei did not lag behind studies, and having left the group, he returned to Privolnoye and completed secondary education. Then he entered the V.D. Stavropol Institute Chursina at the Faculty of Law, and a year later transferred to the newly opened faculty of arts at the same university. After college, the young man went to serve in the army at the 12th Moscow Air Defense Corps in Rostov-on-Don; in the army, he also played music in a soldier's ensemble.
Gurov invested money in Affectionate May in bank savings, but as a result of default and inflation, all money depreciated. Returning from the army, the young man discovered that nothing was left of his former material well-being. But Andrei is not one of those who are discouraged: he tried to work in different places - even a laborer at a construction site; his dream was to organize his own agribusiness. In addition, he was eager to continue to sing, to perform with solo projects.
A tragic turn in biography
In 2000, Andrei moved to Moscow, got married, his wife's name was Aliya. The couple rented apartments in different areas, for some time they lived with their mother-in-law. And suddenly Alia inherited from her grandmother a room in a communal apartment. It would seem that the ordeals had finally ended and a normal life would begin, the couple dreamed of a child. But in 2008, Andrei’s biography took a tragic turn.
Gurov’s neighbors in a communal apartment - an elderly married couple - turned out to be conflict people, prone to alcoholism, constantly quarreling and scandals. In the absence of Andrei, a neighbor started a skirmish with his wife Aliya and beat her. Andrei, returning home, decided to deal with his neighbor “like a man”, a fight broke out, as a result of which the neighbor died. Gurov tried to save the man - he did artificial respiration, called an ambulance, but the tragedy had already happened. The matter was compounded by the fact that after a while a neighbor died, the victim's wife - she also abused alcohol and suffered from dementia.
Andrei Gurov was convicted and received six years in a strict regime colony, despite the fact that the amount of alcohol in the blood of the deceased went wild. Colony No. 11 was located in Stavropol, the birthplace of Gurov. Four times a year, prisoners were allowed to receive programs weighing up to 20 kilograms. Andrei Alia’s wife visited her husband, brought food, told the news. Andrei Razin and other former members of Tender May also helped with provisions.
None of the prisoners serving their sentences with Andrei knew that he was a former lead singer of a mega-popular band. And when this turned out, Gurov was invited as a soloist to the Vinyl Inter group, which was created at the colony and consisted of prisoners. As part of this group, Andrei constantly played music, began to write and perform his own songs in the style of chanson - for example, “Father dear, sorry”, “Arestant” and others. The songs were redirected “to freedom”, where friends and relatives posted them on the Internet; Gurov’s work began to gain popularity. When several members of the Vinyl Inter group were transferred to other colonies, Gurov, together with his friend Dmitry Bortsov, created a new group, AvanPost. The creative activity of this group continued for some time after the liberation of Gurov and then Bortsov from the colony.
After release
In 2011, having served half his term, Andrei Gurov was released on parole. Andrei Razin, who found and paid for the services of sensible attorneys who managed to prove that the prosecution and the term of conviction of Gurov were not justified, was of great help.
Returning to freedom, Andrei finally got into agribusiness: he began to travel to the regions, conclude contracts and transactions for the supply of grain agricultural products abroad. He currently lives in Rostov-on-Don.
At the same time, Gurov is engaged in creative work: he writes albums, performs at various venues with the performance of songs of both his own composition and other authors.
He sings the songs of the group "Tender May." Sometimes some well-known Mayevians gather to give a concert - for example, in honor of the group’s anniversary, or to perform at the Disco 80s festival and other retro events.
Gurov several times came on tour in the Donbass - in the DPR and LPR.
