Alcoholism, surgeries and mysterious deaths: what happened to the lead singers of the group “Ivanushki International”
"Ivanushki International"
Initially, no trio was planned: they wanted to take girls into the group, but no suitable ones were found. Andrey auditioned with Matvienko because Natalya Vetlitskaya sent him there. Igor Sorin joined the group with him. He was a musically savvy guy - he studied at the Russian Academy of Music. Gnesins and had previously traveled around the world as part of a musical troupe.
The first concert took place on November 10, 1995. The guys performed on Trekhgorny Val in Moscow. The name of the group appeared suddenly. The poet Herman Witke, seeing the guys in the studio, asked: “What kind of Ivanushki are these?” And the nickname remained with them.
At first, the group performed in cafes and casinos. Their video for the song “Universe” was a failure. Matvienko was thinking about closing the project, but then they created the hit “Clouds”. And after that it started: three performances a day, decent fees, crowds of fans who did not behave in the best way.
In 1996, the group’s first album, “Of Course He,” was released, and then they began releasing records almost every year. As Andrei recalled, they had no disagreements with Matvienko.
“I think, in principle, I would not be able to work with any producer other than Matvienko. And, probably, I would not have been a singer or musician at all. Firstly, Matvey does not tour with us - he writes music. And secondly, he really is already a dear person - an older friend, a teacher. I actually haven’t met a cooler guy - in terms of his attitude to life, to faith, to colleagues, to subordinates, to family. Matvey is truly great,” said the lead singer of “Ivanushki”.
First split and death
Igor Sorin was significantly different from his colleagues in the group. The musical young man wrote the lyrics himself: the hits “Sunflower” and “Somewhere” were created by him. But by 1998, he felt cramped within the team.
“Two years after success fell on us, Igoreshka realized that he was tired of being “Ivanushka”, tired of this frantic attention, and he wanted to perform solo. Ryzhiy and I tried to persuade him as best we could: “Igor, don’t rush, we have concerts, popularity - everything is fine. And he said: “I’m tired of singing the same thing every day.” I objected to him: “Well, everyone sings the same thing. You will also sing, although it’s your own, but it’s the same thing.” He didn’t want to listen to anything,” said Kirill Andreev.
Even before leaving the group, the artist became interested in certain spiritual practices: during the sessions, everyone was immersed in a state of hypnosis. As Kirill’s wife Lola, who also ended up in this sect, said, it was like drug addiction, but without medications.
“You just have to breathe a certain way. And you also look like a drug addict - you look crazy, your pupils are dilated. And then you lie flat for several days and literally die - your whole body aches, your muscles hurt. But as soon as you come to your senses, you sign up for a new session and begin to count down the hours remaining until the moment when you will be there again, in another reality,” Lola recalled.
Igor left the group in March and went on a cruise to relax. Upon his return, the singer decided to work on a solo project with Mikhail Merzlikin and his musicians from the DSM Formation group. They recorded the album while sitting in an apartment on Veresaeva Street in Moscow. But on September 1, Igor was found fallen from a sixth-floor window.
Igor is the author of some songs of the group “Ivanushki International”
Sorin was taken to Hospital No. 71. He was diagnosed with a fracture of the first and fifth cervical vertebrae, bruised kidneys, complete paralysis of the lower body, and partial paralysis of the arms. What exactly happened that morning is unknown. Igor claimed that he jumped off on his own, but could not explain what prompted him to do this.
“The version of suicide basically doesn’t work for me. You see, when a person wants to commit suicide, he jumps out of the window. And Sorin’s body lay right next to the house, that is, most likely, he simply turned over. I won’t say whether it was drugs, I only know that the forensic examination showed that at the time of the tragedy he was clean,” Andrei later recalled.
Igor underwent surgery, the fifth cervical vertebra was removed, and an implant pin was installed instead. But on September 4, his life was cut short: his heart could not stand it. He was 28 years old. His death was a real blow to his former bandmates and fans.
From time to time new versions of what happened appeared. Igor Matvienko claimed that Igor was addicted to drugs. According to the singer’s relatives, unknown people threw him out of the window.
Igor’s parents, Svetlana and Vladimir Raiberg, lived a year after his death and divorced. The musician’s father married a young girl, a fan of “Ivanushki”. He visits Sorin’s grave at the Kuzminskoye cemetery from time to time. From his second marriage he has two sons.
“I communicate with Igor on a subconscious level. Once I approached a tombstone, and a poem suddenly appeared in my head, I wanted to write down the text, but there was nothing on it... I saw a discarded cigarette pack, picked it up, tore it up and scribbled the lines on the back side. I often do this - I record my thoughts on whatever is at hand, on any piece of paper, napkins, and then transfer it to electronic format,” said Igor’s dad 20 years after his death.
Igor Sorin’s father: “Oleg Yakovlev profited from my son’s name”
Oleg Yakovlev
Replacement for Sorin and the tragic fate of Oleg Yakovlev
Matvienko and the guys had to quickly look for a replacement for Igor. Yakovlev had a hard time. “It was very difficult to introduce Olezhka. Can you imagine, he goes on stage, and the whole stadium shouts: “Woe! G-grief!” I don’t even know how Oleg survived. He cried and left the team. I was literally sobbing: I can’t take it anymore, I’m leaving. Well, it’s clear - a grown dude, he had nothing to do with music at all. But I had to sing all the songs, learn to dance, and stand on stage. Then, I can’t say that Oleg was a public person. But I did it!” - said Andrey.
Oleg worked at the Armen Dzhigarkhanyan Theater and also worked as a janitor so that he could be given housing. He joined the group when Igor was playing his last concert, and in 1999 Oleg was already recording the album “I’ll Scream About This All Night” with the guys. In the song “Poplar Pooh,” Oleg’s vocals were fully revealed, and they stopped comparing him with Sorin.
Oleg gradually joined the team, and he began to have fans. Yakovlev was the lead singer of the group for about 14 years. But in 2013, he realized that he was cramped and wanted to create different music. The artist parted on good terms with Igor Matvienko and the guys.
“He is a wonderful person, simply incredible. We have a very good, discreet, very delicate, I would say, secretly very close relationship. Because he allows me to perform the repertoire of “Ivanushki”, this is generally very rare. Usually, when people part with their producers, with composers, there are often complete bans. It happens that it comes to stabbings, war happens. And here everything is very worthy, good,” Yakovlev said about Matvienko.
It was rumored that Oleg decided to leave the team because of Alexandra Kutsevol. He met a girl when she worked at MUZ-TV. Although Yakovlev later claimed that their meeting took place earlier, when she was still studying to become a journalist in St. Petersburg.
Kutsevol became Oleg’s director and manager when he began his solo career. “Sasha is a very meticulous, detailed person. Perfectionist. Sasha does a lot. She is a close person to me, the first person I consult with. Sasha plays a huge role in my life,” Oleg spoke about the girl.
Kutsevol and Yakovlev never got married
They lived together, traveled, worked, but did not think about marriage. Oleg said that the stamp in his passport does not matter to him. “We never had such plans, we are absolutely modern people, without templates, I am such a person in life and Oleg, we coincided on this wave. I don’t think that a person should get married or have children; no one owes anyone anything,” noted Sasha.
In 2020, Oleg fell ill with pneumonia, but was in no hurry to get treatment. Yakovlev performed despite the fact that he could barely sing. At the end of June, the singer was taken to the hospital. He was in intensive care for a long time, but the doctors could not save him. The singer died on the morning of June 29, 2020. Doctors determined that the cause of death was pulmonary edema. Almost a year after his death, rumors appeared: it was Alexandra who disconnected him from life support.
Oleg Yakovlev’s wife: “I thought that if he was gone, I would die on the first day”
It was also rumored that Yakovlev suffered from cirrhosis of the liver. That is why his body was weakened. Matvienko did not hide at all that the artist could have been ruined by alcohol addiction. “Unfortunately, what happened to Oleg is what happens to a huge number of people in creative professions or athletes who give up sports. Addiction destroyed him. In his case it was alcohol. The main reason for his early departure is cirrhosis of the liver; this organ simply no longer functioned. Why did I start talking about this? Because I can't look at people who kill themselves. And I want to urge my friends not to pour drinks, not to provoke,” said the producer.
Now there are disputes between Yakovlev’s niece Olga and Kutsevol over Oleg’s apartment on Derbenevskaya embankment. The artist’s chosen one forged a document stating that they got married abroad. In her opinion, it is thanks to this that she can stay in the apartment, although she is not registered there. The ex-soloist of “Ivanushki” bequeathed this apartment to his friend Roman Radov. Now the court deals with inheritance issues.
Unhappy marriages, alcoholism and loss of loved ones
Andrey, whom many simply called Red, was a popular guy in Sochi even before “Ivanushki”. He worked as a model, played records at discos and won the most beautiful girls. Grigoriev-Appolonov claims that he has never suffered from star fever.
“Fame didn’t hit me on the head, not at all, not for a second. The group even called him Iron Felix - he was so strict in this regard. And he didn’t let the guys relax. And then, when there is one soloist, he is a deity, everyone around him worships: his retinue, nannies, administrators. No one can pull you, slap you on the head, say - hey, dude! In this regard, everything is fine with us: if Kirya started staring: “I don’t want to be photographed,” I could shout: “I got up and walked quickly!” Or I was capricious: “Oh, I’m tired,” - Sorin told me: “Tired, not tired - I have to!” - said the artist.
When the group was at the peak of its popularity, Andrei began dating Maria Lopatova. She went on tour with the guys, and the young man tried to help her with her career. True, their relationship lasted three years. The breakup occurred some time after Maria lost her child.
“I barely survived. One pipe ruptured. We both experienced this story. We were both afraid that we wouldn't be able to become parents anymore. What, in fact, happened - we didn’t have any children together. For some reason, this terrible story alienated us from each other,” Masha later recalled.
In 2001, she successfully married basketball player Andrei Kirilenko and gave birth to three sons.
Andrey and Marina lived for 15 years
Andrey got married only in 2008. Marina, master of sports in tennis, became his chosen one. Before their official marriage, the couple lived together for five years. Many envied the artist, because he was next to a spectacular blond beauty. The wife gave birth to the star two sons, Ivan and Artemy. However, in 2020, the relationship worsened, and in April of this year, Marina left for basketball player Andrei Zubkov.
“I can say for myself that I love her now just as much as on the first day we met. And, of course, I was worried,” Andrei said about breaking up with his wife.
The wife of Andrei Grigoriev-Appolonov stopped hiding her lover
True, in difficult times there were always women next to Grigoriev-Appolonov. The artist does not deny that he drank a lot of alcohol during his career in Ivanushki. And in 2020, Andrei lost two close people: Oleg Yakovlev and his sister Yulia. She died in her native Sochi, presumably due to a serious attack of asthma,” the singer said.
Now he tries to monitor his health and rarely drinks. He wants to celebrate his 50th birthday next year cheerful and full of energy. “Of course, I limit myself in some ways - I hardly eat bread, I try to avoid foods that immediately increase fat content, so to speak. I don’t drink beer, very rarely, if only a cold one on the beach once every three months. Because we don't need a beer belly. At 25–30 years old, they ate everything they could eat, of course. And now, of course, I’m thinking that it’s undesirable to get better. I’m always in a state of losing weight - no one is immune from belly fat after 40,” the artist shared.
Kirill Andreev
Head injury and sober living
Kirill Andreev made a positive impression on his fans. He was a fairly athletic guy with a nice model appearance. However, at the peak of his popularity, Kirill began to drink. He was already married to Lola then. They met in 1998. In 2000, the couple had a son, Kirill.
“I don’t hide the fact that we relieved stress with alcohol. We drank almost every day, a lot and often,” the singer said.
His wife wanted to leave him many times, because he was not in adequate condition after taking him to the breast. However, it was thanks to her support that Kirill gradually gave up alcohol.
Another situation probably contributed to this. At a party, Andreev got into a fight with an influential businessman and received a head injury. Doctors had to perform a complex operation on the musician. Then he almost died.
“Even before the trepanation, Kirill had a dream that he was performing on stage, and the late Sorin was standing in the hall. In the dream, he approached Kirill and asked him to light a cigarette. And when the fire broke out, they were thrown in different directions. Kirill felt as if Igor was telling him that it was not time to die yet,” Andreev’s wife recalled.
Kirill and Lola have been living together for about 20 years
Andreev was always considered a monogamous man, and all the rumors about his infidelities were not confirmed. However, Lola had to endure it.
“Many years ago there was a fan from St. Petersburg who declared her love to me, called and threatened Lola. But this was the only case in 20 years. Of course, there was always enough attention from fans, but it was not something unpleasant. Recently, Andrey Grigoriev-Apollonov and I were reviewing an old video and remembered a funny incident. At the beginning of our career, Andrei rented an apartment in a five-story Khrushchev building on the fourth floor. One day we were sitting with him and suddenly there was a knock on... the balcony door! We look - there is a girl standing. We are shocked: how did she get there? The fan explained: “Please excuse me, Andrey, I love you very much. And you, Kirill, too. My dad is a climber. So I climbed onto your balcony. Can I go out the door? We took a photo with her for memory. And they asked me not to climb on balconies anymore,” the artist shared his memories.
Andrey Grigoriev-Apollonov, Kirill Turichenko and Kirill Andreev
Kirill Turichenko joined the Ivanushki group in 2013. Many people still can’t remember the guy’s name. Andrey found him in a karaoke club in Odessa. The 36-year-old artist began his career in theater and musicals.
“I know that Kirill is a very well-mannered and delicate young man. He has a good voice, he comes from Odessa. I like that he respects me. A very sensitive and pleasant boy. I wish him that everything will work out, that he too will go down in history,” Yakovlev said about him.
Kirill could have been one of the Smash!! group, but due to his father’s illness in the early 2000s, he did not get there. Then Turichenko admitted that it was difficult to part with his dad. Turichenko came to the team with some baggage.
“Before “Ivanushki” I sang solo, I have my own concerts, programs, videos. Andrey and Kirill also work on the side. We have an agreement that all soloists “have the right to the left.” Just so that it doesn’t interfere with the group,” Kirill noted.
A few months ago, the romance between the artist and Yulia Baranovskaya was actively discussed on the Internet. True, the TV presenter denied that there was a serious relationship between them. According to her, they are connected only by friendship.
Yulia Baranovskaya was filmed passionately kissing the lead singer of the group “Ivanushki International”
Photo: Legion-Media, StarHit archive
Otar Kushanashvili: “The girl of the red-haired “Ivanushka” is a light cycle younger than him!”
Otar Kushanashvili commented on the new love relationship of Red “Ivanushka”.
Andrey Grigoriev-Appolonov recently celebrated his 50th birthday. At a party for relatives, friends and colleagues, the red-haired “Ivanushka” had a blast no worse than the young people. The singer’s entourage claims that the secret of his youth is in new love relationships. Whether this is true or not, our correspondent found out from Otar Kushanashvili, who knows everything about everyone.
Otar Kushanashvili
– Is it possible that Grigoriev-Appolonov, once a confidant and confidant, and now just a beloved comrade, this lively, crafty Pulcinella, is he really 50?! - Otar is surprised. “He, like Kirill Andreev, performed a trick that the Safronov brothers, illusionists, would not have been able to do: he survived. And this, in the conditions of our show business, which is a symbiosis of macabre and farce, is just a trick, a wonderful miracle, as the idol of “The Walking Dead” Elena Malysheva would say.
Until recently, there were rumors that Andrei was deeply depressed due to the deaths of his bandmate Oleg Yakovlev and his older sister Yulia. And after his wife Maria, with whom he had been married for 11 years, left him, Red began to abuse alcohol. According to Kushanashvili, before the anniversary, the artist completely coped with depression and began to take care of himself again.
- “Dulls down the pain with damn urine”: Kushanashvili - about the problems of Grigoriev-Appolonov
“You have to be not entirely human to survive so many tragedies (father, mother, sister Yulka, Sorin, Yakovlev, the darkness of our bosom friends... divorce) and remain Andryukha, capable of transforming space with one smile,” continues Kushanashvili. – “Ivanushki” on the top seems to be from the Neolithic, but Red’s eyes are burning. Of course, I saw him with dull eyes. But the heavenly powers love him, he is rehabilitated amazingly quickly. He is terribly irritated by stories about drinking, which are extremely exaggerated. The producer of “Ivanushki” Igor Matvienko, who truly loves Ryzhiy, recently complained that Andrei was ruining himself with epic libations. Immediately after this, my sidekick came to the shooting of my program, and I saw the guy, although sad because his wife Manya had left, was in excellent shape. This does not mean at all that there were no rampant, permanent, frantic drinkers. Andrei Grigoriev-Appolonov himself calls those times “hard rock and roll.” But he survived! He loved his Manya, but Manya was a temperamental young lady; she was then and now one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, and she had the right to claim more attention than he gave her. In an interview, she once sadly complained that Andrei was not created for family life. No, he was created, he just looks at this enterprise differently; This is not a “scythe on a stone” paradigm, these are different principles and different optics. It is risky to declare this publicly in our hypocritical, philistine times, but Grigoriev-Appolonov and I are house-builders, adherents of a healthy patriarchy. Now, taught by bitter empirical experience, he, no doubt, will build the right relationships.
Andrey Grigoriev-Appolonov with his ex-wife
Igor Matvienko recently spoke about the fact that Red is now dating a girl who is 30 years younger than him. The producer not only did not provide a photo of the beauty, but did not even disclose her name. But Otar assures: Matvienko did not lie - Red really does have a young lover.
“My intelligence reported that the new passion is younger than Grigoriev-Appolonov by a light cycle and nine cat lives, but he is not the St. Petersburg ridiculous grandfather Krasko, after all, and not the satanic Gauguin,” shares Kushanashvili. – Numbers in his case are not an obstacle. The main thing is that he has earned the right to love. The new sweetheart must understand: Andrei adores the sons Ivan and Artemy.
- “Red lives alone, there is no 20-year-old”: the new novel “Ivanushki” was called a fake
