Stories about the Foundation’s co-founder (in Russian).
It happened about fifteen years ago. Ekaterina Shirman and Pyotr Gulko got into a taxi. The driver turned out to be talkative and friendly, and asked their names straight away.
“Pyotr Ilyich.”
“Well, I’m Lev Nikolayevich. So here we are, met at last!”
They fell into conversation. Ekaterina Romanovna listened for a while and could not help joining in.
“Why are you breathing so heavily?”
The driver explained: something with his heart. He had been to the clinic, they were supposed to run tests, but it kept dragging on. Ekaterina Romanovna frowned.
“Lev Nikolayevich, listen, this is serious. Bring me whatever papers you have — urgently.”
In the morning Lev Nikolayevich, not yet suspecting what the word “urgently” meant in Ekaterina Shirman’s vocabulary, received a call. Her insistent voice demanded: “Lyova, where are the papers?”
“I can’t do it that fast, I haven’t got them ready,” he answered, taken aback.
“What do you mean, not ready? This is about your life!”
He brought the papers the next morning. Two days later he was in Dr Bokeria’s clinic. A day after that he had bypass surgery. The surgeon said: another week and the man would have been gone.
And a week later the surgeon who had performed the operation called Pyotr Ilyich.
“Listen, what a strange friend you have. He runs up and down the stairs like a rabbit — I can’t keep up with him!”
Pyotr Ilyich and Ekaterina Romanovna came to the hospital and asked what was going on.
“You can’t imagine! I can breathe! I realised I can breathe!”
…Lev Nikolayevich came to say farewell to Ekaterina Romanovna. Since the operation he had forgotten all about his heart.
But Ekaterina Shirman’s kind heart he will never forget.
This story was told to us by the parents of the pianist Maxim Miloslavsky from Rostov-on-Don.
It is about how Ekaterina Shirman believed in people — and above all in children — and saw a little more in them than even their own parents did.
Here is the Miloslavsky family’s account.
“It was the end of 2020. A difficult, anxious time; much seemed uncertain. And suddenly a proposal from Ekaterina Romanovna: Maxim Miloslavsky, a young pianist from Rostov-on-Don, was to perform at the Foundation’s concert in the House of Music.
And not simply perform.
“Let him appear in three guises,” Ekaterina Romanovna said calmly.
A solo piece.
A duo with a domra player — his classmate from Rostov.
And an improvised duo with the gifted violinist Lyudmila Vygovskaya from the Central Music School.
To be honest, we were at a loss.
“Ekaterina Romanovna, how is this possible?” we thought. “It is almost impossible.”
But she had no doubts. Because she always knew a little more. A little further. A little deeper.
“For a gifted person nothing is impossible. I believe in him.”
The preparation was done at a distance. The musicians were in different cities and rehearsed online. They met in person only an hour before the concert.
One hour to feel one another. One hour to become an ensemble. One hour to believe.
And then — the stage of the Moscow International House of Music, 14 February 2021. Maxim comes out and lives through that concert like a small life. In each piece he is different, and in each he is genuine: collected and profound in the solo, a sensitive partner in the duo with the domra, and in the improvised duo free, breathing with the music, alive.
The hall answers with a storm of applause. And we understand: this is not just a concert. It is a step. An enormous step forward. And in that step is Ekaterina Romanovna’s faith.
She always wanted talent to unfold in many facets, boldly and on a large scale. She invented, connected, inspired — even when the performers themselves were not yet sure of it. But she was sure. And, as it turned out, she was right.
Maxim is now a first-year student at the Moscow Conservatory. Her care is part of that road too, her involvement, her constant questions: “How were the exams? Is everything all right?” Because for Ekaterina Romanovna there were no “other people’s” children. They were all her own.
…Back in 2020 it seemed to us that we might not manage. But she knew we would. And she gave us the chance to become more than we thought we were.
We shall never forget it, dear Ekaterina Romanovna.
This story was shared with us by Elena Babicheva, professor of the opera department at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music.
Late February and early March 2005. A group of the Foundation’s scholars flew to Canada: Toronto, Montreal, a new country and a wealth of impressions. The children in that group became outstanding musicians — the cellist Tigran Muradyan, the domra player Artyom Belov and several others.
The concerts were over and one day in Canada remained. It was decided to give the children an unforgettable present: a trip to Niagara Falls. The whole group was loaded into an off-road vehicle, got out of it and went to look at the extraordinary beauty.
“The icy banks were like the realm of the Snow Queen! Of course we stood there open-mouthed, admiring all that nature. It was a very emotional moment. We forgot about everything,” Elena Babicheva recalls.
The return to reality was distinctly prosaic: when the group came back to the vehicle, its front window was smashed. So much for a civilised country. The bags were gone, and with them the passports of Artyom Belov and Elena Babicheva — the documents they needed to fly home to Russia the next day.
So: it is 2005, you are in Canada, your flight home is tomorrow, and you have no documents. What do you do? Elena Viktorovna did not hesitate for a second: call Ekaterina Shirman.
“It was Friday evening. By the time we got back to Toronto the consulate was closed, there was no one there. In Moscow it was early morning, but Ekaterina Romanovna picked up the phone and said: ‘Calmly, Lena, wait. Reassure the children, I’ll try to sort this out now, give me fifteen minutes,’” Elena Viktorovna says.
“All right, Ekaterina Romanovna,” she answered, swallowing her tears. She was responsible for the group — without her not a single child could fly.
Soon Ekaterina Romanovna called back, as promised. She had of course solved the problem: early in the morning the group was to be at the consulate. The duty consul would come and issue Elena Babicheva and Artyom Belov permission to leave Canada. In the morning, in a terrible rush, they got to the consulate, seized the documents and hurried back to the hotel to collect their things and race to the airport.
A happy ending? Not quite. Elena Viktorovna opened her temporary permit and saw, in the box marked “valid until”, the year 1895. Needless to say, the age of the document was somewhat exaggerated. What now? There was no time to return to the consulate. They decided to trust to luck: perhaps the border officers would not look closely and would let them through.
With sinking hearts Elena Viktorovna and the children approached passport control. The tension was awful — but one had to keep a straight face.
“I babbled something in my poor English while the officer stood there studying the document. He read every figure, glanced at us… and without changing his expression at all he pushed my document aside and said: ‘No, no.’ Step away.”
Everything collapsed. The situation seemed utterly hopeless — when even trusting to luck does not save you, what is left? One last hope: another call to Ekaterina Romanovna. “Katya, dear, what do we do?”
“Lena, I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes.”
Those fifteen minutes felt like an eternity. But when the eternity was over, Ekaterina Romanovna called back and said:
“I have found a representative of our consulate. He is at the airport now, collecting the diplomatic mail. He has a special stamp with him and he will help you. He will come to your desk and settle it.”
Ten minutes later the consular officer really did come up, stamp in hand.
“He corrected the mistake in my document by hand, wrote in the right date and stamped it: ‘Correction certified.’ This time the border officer smiled at us and waved us through — no questions left. We breathed out; if you only knew what happiness that was! It was a real miracle. And it was all her doing, Ekaterina Romanovna. She not only stopped trains, she also got aeroplanes off the ground — and this was one of those times.”
August 1991. The coup — a time as anxious as it was legendary, if only because it has grown so many legends and stories.
One of those stories concerns Ekaterina Shirman. And it is one of the rare occasions when it was not she who did the rescuing, but she who was rescued.
At that time she worked as a touring manager for the Moscow Virtuosi on the twenty-second floor of the Comecon building — the famous house at 36 Novy Arbat. History was being made below: nearby, demonstrators were barricading the streets leading to the White House, including Kalinin Avenue, which only three years later would become Novy Arbat.
For two days Ekaterina Romanovna could not leave the building — everything around was blocked off. The Taman Division had entered the city, but by then had already refused to carry out the plotters’ orders.
To get Ekaterina Shirman out, Pyotr Gulko decided to call Sergei Krasavchenko, at that time a member of the Supreme Economic Council of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR — and a great admirer of classical music in general and of the Moscow Virtuosi in particular.
“I explained the situation. ‘We’ll try to help,’ Sergei Nikolayevich told me. After a while he called back and said: I have one spare tank here from the Taman men. They are ready to help you,” Pyotr Gulko recalls.
A little later Major Stepanov came up to him. “Will our tank do? Come and have a look,” the major said, and led Pyotr Ilyich to the vehicle.
“To be honest,” says Pyotr Gulko, “I had not been in a tank very many times. In fact, never. But I liked it in there. It was big and powerful, and the turret turned a full 180 degrees. Inside it was rather cosy — a bit cramped, though.”
They drove up to the Comecon building in the tank and even swung the gun towards the crowd for effect. Everyone fell silent at once. Major Stepanov said: “Sit here, I’ll go and fetch her myself.”
And so Ekaterina Romanovna was rescued from the tower. She did decline the tank, however.
In May 2001 the Foundation was only seven years old — for some organisations a whole lifetime, but for this one the very beginning. It was then that Elena Yanova, teacher and director of the violin ensemble Vdokhnovenie (“Inspiration”) from Rostov-on-Don, first met Ekaterina Shirman.
“My husband, my children and I admired Vladimir Spivakov’s art. His concerts with the Moscow Virtuosi were available to us only on records or on radio and television. To get to one of his concerts was our great dream. And when in 2000 we learned about his Foundation, we began to dream of joining it too,” Elena Georgiyevna recalls.
For that very purpose they recorded the ensemble’s solo concert in Sochi on a disc and handed it to Ekaterina Romanovna in person, through Vladimir Spivakov himself: the Moscow Virtuosi had come to Rostov-on-Don and the ensemble had managed to meet the Maestro. A week later Ekaterina Romanovna called with an invitation to come to the Foundation and play at a concert.
On 6 May, the day before the concert, Elena Yanova came to the Foundation’s office, then still on the second floor of a small building on Pokrovka. Ekaterina Romanovna herself explained what had to be done to join the Foundation, and immediately gave them one of the rooms for rehearsals — even though there was hardly room enough for the staff.
After the first rehearsal Ekaterina Romanovna called the ensemble’s directors over.
“I am very surprised to have been getting calls from Rostov telling me your ensemble is not worthy of taking part in the Foundation’s programmes,” Ekaterina Shirman told the bewildered directors. And at once she reassured them: “Pay no attention to any of that. You have my support now. Do not stop working.”
Elena Yanova remembers realising then that the ensemble had found a good angel in Ekaterina Romanovna.
Ekaterina Shirman’s kindness and protection stayed with the ensemble ever after. And the title “participant in the concert programmes of the Vladimir Spivakov International Charity Foundation” became a kind of passport that opened one door after another. One of those doors Vdokhnovenie opened together with the Foundation: the ensemble took part in the very first “Moscow Meets Friends” festival in 2004.
Vdokhnovenie played a great deal in the most varied places. The programme “Children by the Wayside” is especially memorable. In 2002 the young musicians performed at the Azov juvenile correctional colony. Getting in was impossible by ordinary means: arranging a concert in a closed institution is very hard. Ekaterina Romanovna stepped in, found some way through, and permission was granted. The ensemble returned to that colony again in 2010.
* * * * *
Yulia Sakharova, a violinist and one of the Foundation’s first scholars — she received the title in 1995 — also remembers the sense of protection Ekaterina Shirman gave those in her care.
“Katya always tried to take the greatest possible care of us children. Those years, the 1990s, were very hard and at times frightening. Her favourite phrase, ‘I have my finger on the pulse’, helped us all along the difficult road of growing up,” she says.
Yulia is now concertmaster of an orchestra in Iowa; back then, in the mid-1990s, everything was only beginning. But what a beginning it was: many trips with the Foundation to cities in Russia and abroad, and a gift from the Maestro’s own hands — a bow.
“Now, many years later, I remember our conversations warmly, and those moments and meetings that in many ways decided my fate. Last summer, for the first time in years, I was in Moscow with my children and my mother. One of my wishes was to see Ekaterina Romanovna and Pyotr Ilyich. How warmly they received us! Throughout our two-hour meeting Katyusha did not let go of my mother’s hand. It was as if she were saying goodbye… Saying goodbye… Perhaps.”
The second story we shall tell you today comes from the years when Ekaterina Shirman was editor-in-chief at Rosconcert.
One day the musicians of the Moscow Virtuosi were returning from a concert and were about twenty-five minutes late for their train. The concert had run over because of the ovations — one can hardly run off the stage in the middle of such applause. The situation seemed hopeless: a touring schedule is merciless, and so is a railway timetable, with several hundred people waiting to depart.
“Then Katya picked up the telephone and started calling,” Pyotr Gulko recalls. “No one now remembers exactly whom — the train manager, the head of the station, the minister of transport, or someone higher still. But the result was incredible: the train was held for half an hour, and the musicians caught it.”
Ekaterina Shirman gave thirty years of her life to Rosconcert as well. She worked with Spivakov, Gilels, Richter, Rostropovich and many, many others — and in conversation she called all these world-famous stars “my musicians”. And she did for them everything she would later do for children just setting out towards the great stage.