The name of Valery Grushin is known to any hiker-hiker, lover of the author's song. It sounds every year at the beginning of July on the banks of the Volga near Samara, where thousands of people gather to honor his memory.
Valery's life motto:
Biography
Valery Grushin was born in 1944 in the family of a military pilot. At that time, the family lived in North Ossetia, after a while my husband was assigned to work in the northern region. In the early fifties, the family returned and settled in the Kuibyshev (now Samara) region.
Valery was the third child in the family. He was an enthusiastic person, skillful and talented. He was very sociable and welcoming. He had many friends and loved animals. He drew well, respected plumbing, which was arguing in his hands, as he got older, he began to drive a car and a motorcycle. He graduated from school with honors and entered the Kuibyshev Aviation Institute named after V. I. S. P. The Queen, where, together with his friends, he seriously became interested in music, in particular the author's song, which in the early sixties was gaining strength and was nearing its heyday.
The bard song was born in campaigns, was inextricably linked with tourism, and Valery was captured by the wind of wanderings. Wherever he has visited! Altai, Ural, Sayany, Carpathians … In the campaigns he drew inspiration, bringing new songs from distant travels, in which the smell of taiga and the smoke of a campfire were vividly felt.
Together with his friends, Valery created a trio "Singing Beavers", in whose work there were mainly original songs, both his own and famous bards.
On August 29, 1967, Valery died heroically while saving people drowning in the icy water of the Siberian Uda River. He was only 23 years old …
Tragedy on Uda
A group of Leningrad tourists, among whom was Valery, was dropped by a helicopter onto the Uda River to the Khadominskaya meteorological station. From here, travelers had to raft down the harsh Siberian river by boat.
On that fateful day, the head of the meteorological station, Konstantin Tretyakov, was going to take his two sons and his niece to the village. In the middle of the river, due to problems with the engine, the boat hit the rift and capsized. Konstantin, seizing his youngest son, swam to the shore. The older children held on to the boat.
Seeing this, Valery, without hesitation, rushed into the water, throwing off only his jacket. Having quickly reached the motorboat, he pulled the girl ashore and immediately returned for the boy, who was carried away by the turbulent current along with the boat. Life was counted for seconds, you won't last long in icy water. Valery managed to drag the child to a shallow place, but he didn't have enough strength to swim out himself, the current swept over him …
The birth of the Grushinsky festival
The news of Valery's death with a sharp blade cut through the souls of his friends and classmates. A year later, friends gathered on the banks of the Volga to remember Valery, to sing his favorite songs. They were gradually joined by everyone who knew Valery. This became a tradition and served as the beginning of the birth of the oldest in the history of the festival of author's song, named after Valery Grushin.
At first, only local lovers of bard songs gathered for the festival. But soon thousands of people began to gather on the high banks of the Volga, where the best author's songs performed by amateur groups and famous bards were sung on a floating stage in the form of a guitar. Songs of Yuri Vizbor, Alexander Gorodnitsky, Yuri Kukin, Vladimir Lanzberg, Alexander Dolsky and many other famous and unknown authors sounded over the Volga.
The festival amazes with its scale and soulfulness that sounds in every song. The bards sing on the stage, the whole Volga mountain sings, the souls of thousands of people merge.
It is especially impressive when in the finale the anthem of the Grushinsky festival sounds - everyone's favorite song by Yuri Vizbor "My dear, forest sun". They sing it while standing, merging their voices in a single burst … They sing it in memory of Valeria Grushin …
