This man lived a very long and surprisingly eventful life. Having gone through war, hardships and hardships, he never betrayed himself or the only vocation of his life, in nine decades he turned from the country's best balalaika performer into a legendary teacher, becoming the real era of folk instrumental art.
The origins
The birthplace of Grigory Nikolaevich and Alexandra Mikhailovna, father and mother of Evgeny Blinov, was the village of Serebryanka, located at the confluence of the small Serebryanaya River in the Chusovaya River, the famous transport artery of the Urals, where a small factory was located. Grigory Nikolayevich, who knows the guitar and balalaika quite well, was even more expert in finance and was in charge of the accounting department of this plant. However, both parents of Eugene had outstanding singing abilities and sang in the church choir. There they met, and in 1918 they became husband and wife.
When the civil war broke out during this period and the Reds came to the village, Grigory Nikolayevich was appointed manager of the local plant.
A few years later, the parents of Yevgeny G. Blinov, whose biography and achievements this article is devoted to, moved to Nevyansk, and then to Sverdlovsk, where our hero’s father became the chief accountant at one of the plants.
On October 6, 1925, the firstborn was born into the Blinov family, and another three years later a second son was born. Grigory Nikolaevich, a great lover of the opera Eugene Onegin, named his eldest son Eugene, in honor of Onegin. The younger was named by him Vladimir, in honor of Vladimir Lensky.
Childhood
By the will of fate, both childhood and youth of Evgeny Blinov were deprived of any residency and constancy. As soon as he managed to make new friends, his family again moved somewhere.
So, in 1931, the head of the Blinov family was invited to work as chief accountant at the Little Russian state farm located in Kazakhstan. There they had a big house, land and a farm. It was here, in the Kazakh steppes, six-year-old Eugene first picked up a balalaika. The father taught the boy the most basic basics of playing it, and his coachman Semyon taught him how to play Polish.
Then, in Nizhny Tagil, large-scale construction of the Uralvagonstroy plant began. Grigory Nikolayevich was again invited to head the accounting department. They moved again. Passion for music continued with Eugene Blinov and there. In 1933, he first appeared on the stage, playing the balalaika at the first regional Sverdlovsk Children's Olympiad.
Two years later, the Blinovs again moved, this time to the Arkhangelsk region, where another large enterprise of the defense industry was being built in the city of Molotovsk.
And then trouble happened. The year 1937 came, the time of mass repressions, exiles and executions. Eugene's father received ten years in the camps.
After the arrest of her husband, Alexandra Mikhailovna went with her children to her brother, who lives in the town of Kushva in the Urals. They had to share a small dark room for three, and Eugene, continuing diligently to complete school homework, soon began to lose his sight from the dim lighting.
Youth
When Yevgeny Blinov was 15 years old, he made the first important decision - to connect his life with music, which required entering the Sverdlovsk School of Music. Despite the fact that he was not able to learn the notes, and he played all the tunes by ear, the selection committee still appreciated his talent and zeal, and Eugene managed to do it.
The first year of study at the Sverdlovsk College of Music, impressions of concerts, the very creative atmosphere of the institution became the basis for shaping the personality of a novice musician. When, after the first year, exams were passed and students expected summer vacations, the Great Patriotic War began. The youth of yesterday's boys and girls suddenly ended, like the childhood of millions of children in the country.
During the harsh war years, Evgeni Blinov, along with the rest of the college students, spoke to the wounded in hospitals until he was called to the front in June 1943. And this is despite serious vision problems.
He was enrolled in an anti-tank company and, for some time, was training military craft along with everyone. However, he was soon transferred to a regimental army ensemble and was even sent for three days to Sverdlovsk for a balalaika.
Performances before the front-line soldiers in the ensemble lasted almost two years. On October 5, 1945, Eugene was finally demobilized and sent home.
Kiev Conservatory
In the summer of 1946, Blinov arrived in Kiev, where he studied at the Kiev Conservatory in 1951, experiencing all the difficulties of the post-war years. There was no food, no money. Students of the conservatory survived as best they could.
Despite all the hardships, Evgeni Blinov, whose photo can be seen in this article, remained an inquisitive, persistent, and striving for continuous improvement student. Nevertheless, as a result of stable malnutrition and overwork, the young man began to experience constant temperature and malaise. In the fourth year, health problems reached such a level that he was sent for several months to be treated in one of the sanatoriums of the Crimea.
In his fifth year of study, Evgeni got a job as a teacher of folk instruments at the Kiev Children's Music School No. 2, and a year later, becoming a graduate of the Kiev Conservatory, he became an assistant trainee in the department of folk instruments, having worked in this position until July 14, 1962, when he was awarded the title of assistant professor.
Ural State Conservatory
In 1963, Blinov left the Kiev Conservatory and moved to Sverdlovsk. On September 20, 1963, he was enlisted as an assistant professor of the Department of Folk Instruments of the Ural State Conservatory, as well as the acting head of this department. On December 6, 1967, Yevgeny Grigoryevich Blinov was approved as a professor in the department of folk instruments, the development and strengthening of which he devoted the next eight years.
In 1975, unexpectedly for Blinov himself, a proposal was received from the local regional committee of the CPSU to nominate him for the post of rector of the conservatory.
Evgeny Grigoryevich refused three times. However, in his jacket pocket was a party card, and jokes with the Communist Party at that time were fraught with. There was no exit. Blinov had to agree, despite the fact that he considered his candidacy unworthy of such a high rank.
One way or another, but on June 16, 1975, Yevgeny Grigoryevich was appointed rector of the Ural State Conservatory, having worked in this position until 1988, after which he left his post, but continued to work at the conservatory, overseeing the department of folk instruments, and only in 2006 wrote a statement on his dismissal from the post of professor in connection with the move to Kiev.
Personal life
Evgeny Blinov was twice married.
His first wife was a student at the Kiev Conservatory Lyudmila Arkadevna Borovskaya, with whom he officially registered relations in 1947. Lyudmila was a talented performer of chamber vocal music, romances and songs. Often performed with her husband.
In 1952, son Alexander was born to Eugene and Lyudmila.
With his second wife, Iskrina Borisovna Sherstyuk, he met during the war years, speaking in the army ensemble. Iskrina was also a participant in these performances. Many years later, fate brought them together again.
