The show “Together and Forever”, dedicated to the 50th The summer anniversary of the vice-champion of the Olympic Games, as well as producer and choreographer Ilya Averbukh, took place on Sunday in Moscow. It was the first time after a serious illness that resulted in amputation of limbs that Olympic champion Roman Kostomarov appeared on the ice on skates. The audience greeted the man of incredible will with a standing ovation.
Skating and MishinThe appearance of Kostomarov on skates was the main surprise that Averbukh was preparing in this show. But surprises began at the very beginning. After a touching number in which Averbukh seemed to meet himself from childhood, Marina Anisina came out to congratulate the hero of the day. With her, Ilya became a two-time world junior champion, and then fell in love with Irina Lobacheva and decided to skate only with her. Anisina had to look for a new partner, he was found in France – Gwendal Peizerat became him. The irony of fate is largely that Lobacheva and Averbukh at their main tournament in life – the 2002 Olympics – lost gold to Anisina and Peizer.
The Olympic champion recalled this whole story by delivering about half of her congratulatory speech in French, translating her key phrase as “The sky is in your heart.” Then Anisina and Averbukh remembered their youth, making a circle on the ice in the style of Lyudochka and Khobotov from the Pokrovsky Gate, but at the end they still performed a difficult lift, causing an ovation from the almost full VTB Arena.
In general, there were a lot of nice nuances in the show. Maria Petrova and Alexey Tikhonov, 2000 world champions in pair skating, performed a joint number with their daughter Polina – where else will you see a parallel rotation of three or a lift in which a partner lifts two representatives of the fair sex at once?
But the surprises continued – Lobacheva and the coach of the strongest duet in Russia at that time, Natalya Linichuk, took to the ice. Both, according to the tradition of this evening, are on skates. After warm words addressed to the hero of the day, both Linichuk and Lobacheva rode in a circle with Averbukh, as Anisina had done before. And then Sofia Shevchenko and Andrei Yezhlov, who are now preparing for the Russian Championship, reproduced one of the most iconic dances in the careers of Lobacheva and Averbukh. It is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, and with it Irina and Ilya became vice-champions of the Olympics. This was another touching feature of the show – young skaters performed programs that Averbukh performed during his sports career.
Honored Coach of Russia Alexey Nikolaevich Mishin also took to the ice on skates. At the age of 82, he confidently made a “swallow” – but then he still took the microphone and said an original congratulation in Misha’s way. Having called Averbukh the Columbus of figure skating, Mishin ended his speech like this: “Having traveled a lot across the seas and oceans, Ilya came across the Arzamas Islands and found his Golden Fleece there,” referring, of course, to the wife of the producer and director, Elizaveta Arzamasova. Then Averbukh and Mishin congratulated Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, who was unable to come to the show for health reasons, on her birthday. But another student of the Professor, Mikhail Kolyada, presented the program.
There were also premieres in this show. Anna Shcherbakova performed the soulful number “What are you thinking about” to the live performance of Alexey Vorobyov. The Olympic champion, perhaps, really matured this year – not only externally, but primarily creatively. Of course, everyone still hopes to see Anna in big-time sports – especially since recent trends show that it is possible to win in adult competitions with adult skating, without super-complex technical content. But the fact that Shcherbakova pleases with new images in the show is incredible happiness.
The long-awaited “Carmen” An important milestone in the work of Ilya Averbukh is the show “Carmen”. He staged it for the first time in 2015, then in 2019 and, finally, this year – when he introduced two-time world champion Evgenia Medvedeva, whose sports career was closely connected with Averbukh as a director, into the main role. Medvedeva performed a fiery fragment of the play in the Sunday show along with Alexander Enbert, Maxim Stavisky and Mark Kondratyuk. Moreover, the number literally became fiery when the torch-bearing jugglers appeared on the ice.
But the audience that evening was still most looking forward to another “Carmen”. A fragment of the rehearsal was leaked to social networks, and it became clear to everyone that the main surprise that Averbukh promised at the press approach would be the dance of Tatyana Navka and Roman Kostomarov, with whom they won the Olympic Games in Turin. Of course, modified – we all remember what Roman went through. But how?
And then the Olympic champions appeared on the ice – this was the highlight of the evening. In the same suits, as Navka admitted, in which they won the Olympics 18 years ago. And, honestly, with the same energy. They didn’t show any complex elements, but it was still hard to believe your eyes – Kostomarov managed to perform a fragment of the winning Olympic program in such a way that you never guessed that this man was skating without legs. “As promised, I took to the ice after such a short time,” Roman said simply.
Until this moment, Kostomarov had already gone out on the ice on skates – for the first time after everything that happened to him. First, this happened on a daytime show, to which for some reason they decided not to invite journalists. Roman took part in the performance of his wife Oksana Domnina and her partner in her sports career, Maxim Shabalin. Viewers have already seen this production in Averbukh’s show “Letters of Love”. In August in Sochi, Kostomarov appeared on the ice wearing it for the first time – but in sneakers.
However, as Roman promised, he is moving forward. And after an evening outing on the ice in the same room, the figure skater said thanks to everyone who helped him overcome a terrible illness: “I want to thank my wife, who was with me every minute, my parents, my brother, everyone who cared about me “I'm glad to congratulate Ilya on his anniversary, he was next to me with the whole team. If you have a loved one next to you, it makes sense to move on.”
Averbukh's show lasted more than four hours. During this time, he listened to a lot of congratulations from many people – including from the Honored Trainer of the USSR Tatyana Tarasova, People's Artist of Russia Philip Kirkorov, and other celebrities. However, all the attention that evening was attracted by Kostomarov, who won his next and, without a doubt, not the last victory after the blow that life dealt him. The fact that the audience only received this man of amazing willpower while standing is proof of this. And absolutely in this case, Averbukh will only be glad that he was not the main hero of his anniversary.
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