In the center of Simferopol there is a monument. At the piano of black marble stands a short man poured out of bronze. So the Crimeans immortalized their love for the People's Artist of the USSR Yuri Iosifovich Bogatikov.
Childhood
Yuri Bogatikov was born in 1932 in the mining town of Rykovo in southeastern Ukraine, his current name is Enakievo. The boy’s childhood passed in Slavyansk, Donetsk region. During the war, a mother with children, among whom was nine-year-old Jura, was evacuated to Bukhara. The family returned from Uzbekistan not to their homeland, but to Kharkov. Father, who went to the front, heroically died.
First steps
In order to get a specialty in post-war Kharkov, the teenager entered the vocational school of communications. After graduating, he worked as a mechanic at a city telegraph. A mother who raised children alone needed an assistant and support. All these years in Jura did not doze off creativity, he began to sing from an early age. The young man devoted all his free time to amateur performances and even became a student at the Kharkov Music College. Studying had to be postponed in connection with a draft for military service. It took place in the song and dance ensemble of the Pacific Fleet. During this period, Jura finally became convinced of the correctness of his choice. He could not imagine his life without music.
Becoming an artist
After completing an academic education in the vocal class, he began working in the Kharkov Theater of Musical Comedy, and then in the ensemble "Donbass". The next three years, a professional vocalist performed at the Philharmonic of Kharkov and Lugansk. Then he moved to the Crimean Philharmonic, whose soloist remained almost two decades. In 1967, the performer was named the best in the song contest of young Ukrainian performers. This victory opened the way to success and recognition for a talented singer with a wonderful velvet baritone. Bogatikov’s performances were accompanied by the music of the Crimea ensemble, which he directed.
National glory
The singer first appeared on television in 1969 in a festive concert dedicated to the mining profession. The performance of the song "Dark Mounds Sleep" was so liked by the audience that the vocalist became a frequent guest of television and radio. His presence on the main stages of the country did not raise any doubts - he firmly took his place on the stage. A new stage in the song biography of Yuri Bogatikov has begun.
The performer's repertoire was extensive and totaled more than 400 works. Most of the songs were dedicated to the defenders of the motherland: "Three Tankers", "At anonymous height", "We are the army of the country." Having survived the severity of the war and the post-war devastation, he subtly felt and understood the content of such works. He loved to sing songs about the fleet and was very proud that he served in the Pacific. He considered the topic of a working man to be important, since he himself had grown up at the time when "his fate was checked against the factory horn." There were works about the love of the Fatherland and the beauty of the native land. There were some comic compositions that were especially loved by the audience: “Listen, mother-in-law”, “A soldier is walking around the city”. The listeners liked the songs and lyric songs of the performer: “Burn, Burn, My Star”, “My Joy Is Living”, “Crimean Dawns”, songs about Kerch and Sevastopol. At his concerts there were always full halls, the audience sang along with the artist. Each soloist dreams of performing on the big opera stage, but Bogatikov understood that the song genre is more understandable and loved among ordinary people. To them, he demonstrated all his musicality, range and acting abilities. The singer never allowed himself to perform under the soundtrack.
The artist recalled with interest the tour period when he shared the concert program with Alla Pugacheva. To win the audience, the audience had to be a showman, although the performer himself did not like this word. Spectators "played" with the vocalist, became his "partners". The best reward was an unbearable pause at the end of the performance, which was replaced by a thunder of applause. The singer toured a lot around the country and abroad, visited a number of countries in Europe and South America.
Personal life
In the life of the artist there were three families, his incredible charisma attracted the opposite sex. The singer met his first wife Lyudmila at the Kharkov Drama Theater, where she performed as part of the choir. Their joint daughter Victoria followed in the footsteps of her parents and chose a creative destiny. The second wife was called Raisa. The third marriage took place with Tatyana. Today she works as a director of music programs on one of the TV channels in Moscow.
Recalling the work of Yuri Bogatikov, we can say that his career was successful, and he made a worthy contribution to contemporary pop art. In addition to the title of People’s Artist of the country, which he received in 1985, the singer’s piggy bank consisted of numerous awards and prizes in the field of music. He was distinguished by a special ability to be at the right time with the right song.
