Natalya Naumenko was for many years the wife and muse of the famous Soviet rock musician Mike Naumenko, the leader of the popular group "Zoo". He is the first Soviet musician to combine the style of Anglo-American rock with lyrics in the genre of everyday realism.
Biography
Natalia Naumenko (nee Rossovskaya) was born in 1960 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg).
She, unlike her husband and his musician friends, was a non-public person, so the general public does not know the details of her biography.
Almost all the interviews that she gave to the press were devoted to her ex-husband, their friends and the St. Petersburg rock party of that time. Natalia talks little and reluctantly about her past before marriage, so there is no accurate information about her childhood, relationships with parents and relatives.
Before the wedding Natalia got a job at Teploenergo. They were already going to get married with Mike, and in this organization, families were given separate housing.
A fragile girl worked as a simple operator of a gas boiler house, or rather, a stoker.
Huge unfamiliar mechanisms at the boiler room at first frightened Natalia, but over time she overcame herself. In her free time, the girl read a lot and studied English.
Family life
Natasha was introduced to Mikhail Naumenko by his cousin Slava, she was then 19 years old. The meeting took place in a communal apartment on Vasilievsky Island at a party with mutual friends.
They met again a month later at Vyacheslav's wedding. Naumenko actively courted Natalia, joked and then invited her to a rehearsal at the Bolshoi Puppet Theater, where he worked at that time.
Soon, Naumenko made an offer to the girl, but they decided not to rush to the wedding, since it was necessary to resolve the issue of housing.
Even before the official registration of marriage, Natalya became pregnant. The pregnancy was not easy, I had to go to the hospital to save. After discharge, Mike immediately took Natasha to the registry office to formalize the relationship and the child was born legally.
Due to the rush, the wedding turned out to be fast and chaotic.
The couple had a son. At first they wanted to name him Mark, in honor of Mark Bolan, they were determined for a long time and eventually settled on the name Eugene.
The spouses lived extremely poorly, but youth and recklessness covered all the domestic troubles. Moreover, in Soviet times, most people lived at about the same level. There were guests in their communal apartment all the time. Rock musicians gathered at the Naumenko couple on Borovaya, who later became real legends.
In 1997, Alexey Rybin wrote the book "The Right to Rock", which also included personal memories of Natalia Naumenko about life with Mike. This part is called "The Hotel Called" Marriage ".
An affair with Tsoi
As for family life, Mike was not the best father and husband, he did little to help his wife with the way of life and raising a child. Unlike Naumenko, Viktor Tsoi often visiting the spouses, helped Natasha with the baby. She recalled that Victor coped with Zhenya very easily, as if he had already raised several children.
There were rumors that there was an affair between Natalia and Tsoi.
In 2007, Alexander Zhitinsky asked Naumenko to lend him personal notes to create a book about Tsoi.
Natalia agreed with the author that her memoirs will not be published. However, the author nevertheless included entries from the girl's diary into the manuscript, promising that everything would look noble. Naumenko agreed, which she later greatly regretted.
Judging by Zhitinsky's book, Tsoi spent a lot of time with Naumenko, and very warm and friendly relations developed between him and Natasha. They talked a lot and joked, although in the company Choi was considered a gloomy silent man.
On the eve of her 22nd birthday, Natalya asked her husband to make her an original gift - to give her permission to kiss Tsoi. Mike was surprised at the request, but allowed it to be done.
On his wife's birthday, Mike was at work, and it was then that the first kiss of Natalia and Victor took place. This kiss was not the last, although Natalya characterizes their relationship as an ordinary "kindergarten" with light flirting and innocent caresses.
According to Natalia, she and Tsoi had a tender friendship, but it did not come to an intimate relationship. Although Mike sincerely believed that such a "friendship" is much more dangerous for marriage than a one-time betrayal.
In 2018, Kirill Serebrennikov's film "Summer" was released. The plot is based on little-known facts about the personal life and relationships of Viktor Tsoi, Natalia and Mike Naumenko. Even before the screening of the film, a big scandal erupted. Boris Grebenshchikov, after reading the entire script, said that what was written in it was a lie and had nothing to do with the people with whom he was friends.
Director Alexander Lipnitsky was also very skeptical about the picture. He believes that the plot is simply "sucked from the finger."
Lipnitsky previously filmed a documentary about the "Kino" group, talked with Alexander Zhitinsky, as well as with friends and relatives of Tsoi.
The director said that he did not believe in a story with a passionate romance. For himself, he realized that between Naumenko and Tsoi there were only hints of a real romantic relationship.
After the premiere of the film, Natalya said in one of her interviews: "Everything will soon boil off, everyone will speak out and subside," and I will wash the blood off the floor and find my peace of mind."
The movie turned out to be controversial and received many comments, from fiercely angry and negative to enthusiastic.
Natasha lived with Mike Naumenko for 10 years. The couple officially broke up on August 15, 1991. The divorce was without scandals and a showdown. Sad fact: 12 days after the divorce, Mike died, the cause of death was a cerebral hemorrhage.
Natalia moved to Moscow with her child. Now she is married, lives a quiet non-public life, brings up grandchildren and is engaged in the creation of toys using the felting technique.
