The first wife of Vladimir Vysotsky, Iza (Isolda) Vysotskaya, died on July 20, 2020, at the age of 82, in Nizhny Tagil, where she lived for more than 40 years. She was called almost a recluse - and completely unfairly. The least is known about this marriage of the famous poet, actor and bard. They even say that back in Soviet times, when compiling Vysotsky’s official biography, they decided to shorten the list of his wives - they say, it was indecent for “our” artist to be married so many times, and as a result, they “crossed out” the first marriage.
First meeting
In his first film “Peers” (1959), Vladimir Vysotsky starred in a cameo role while still a student.
Still from the film Iza met Vladimir at the Moscow Art Theater School in 1956. She was then a third-year student, married, and bore the last name Zhukova. Vysotsky was a year younger than her, he had just entered his first year. Then he was usually called either Volodechka or “Vysota”.
A funny, slightly freckled, ruddy boy, in love with all the girls at once - this is how Isolda Konstantinovna remembered him. Funny, daring, yet gentle and caring. As the actress recalled in one of her few interviews, he did not pay any attention to her married status, very touchingly began to court her - he unexpectedly appeared, looked straight at her, brought either candy or an apple.
They say that Volodya behaved as expected of an ardent young lover, capable of sweet extravagances. He could buy a goldfish for his beloved in a restaurant, get a scarce movie ticket, introducing himself as the son of a minister... After finishing her studies, Iza went to Kyiv, where she got a job at the Lesya Ukrainka Theater. Vysotsky constantly came to see her, went to Kyiv almost every weekend, and returned to Moscow on Monday.
Vladimir Vysotsky, 1965 Source: Globallookpress.com
The status of the young actress continued to remain unclear. Officially, she was still married. And one day she realized that she was expecting a child from Vladimir. I panicked. “Everything was shameful, terrible, insoluble,” Iza later recalled. Then she decided to have an abortion.
Living in two cities lasted about two years. Finally, Isolde got divorced. Almost simultaneously, the actress left the theater and moved to Moscow. She married Vysotsky in April 1960; they said that at first the young couple did not want to have a grand wedding, but the groom’s father insisted that everything should be as it should be.
Personal life
In her first year, Iza experienced passionate but unhappy love. The brother of a school friend, Yuri Zhukov, who had tender feelings for Meshkova as a teenager, helped to cure his lover of his betrayal. Isolde finally reciprocated and married the young man after a month of dating.
Iza Vysotskaya and Vladimir Vysotsky
When the girl was in her third year, Vladimir Vysotsky appeared among the first-year students of the Moscow Art Theater studio - “all - a joyful readiness to help, assist, help out, just say hello.” The stamp in Isolde’s passport did not stop the ardent and hooligan Volodya. According to her, it was impossible not to fall in love with him: a joker, the life of the party, always hugging a guitar.
Soon the young people were already sharing the shelter of a walk-through room in a communal apartment. The husband did not agree to the divorce for a long time; the connections of Vysotsky’s high-ranking relatives helped. The couple married in the spring of 1960. Vladimir Semenovich's relatives greeted his young wife coldly. Mom, having learned about Isolde’s pregnancy, created a scandal - a woman at 45 did not want to become a grandmother. As a result, there was a miscarriage.
Iza Vysotskaya and Vladimir Vysotsky
The relationship with her husband was also cooled by Iza’s departure to Kyiv. However, Vysotsky often came - either on vacation, or to his wife’s premieres, or even unexpectedly appeared at dress rehearsals. Having worked the allotted time, the actress returned to the capital of Russia.
Due to a lack of work, she had to leave for Rostov, where the young actress was offered a place in the theater. Vysotsky begged his wife to stay, but, according to Isolda Konstantinovna, she could no longer live under the same roof with his family.
Iza Vysotskaya
The couple agreed to separate for a short time, but it turned out to be forever. One day I received a call from a former classmate, who said that Vladimir’s new passion, Lyudmila Abramova, was expecting a child from him. In May 1965, Iza and Vysotsky divorced. The actor himself suggested that his ex-wife keep her last name.
In the same year, Isolde gave birth to an heir. Gleb bears the name of the famous bard, but is not the natural son of Vladimir Vysotsky. The actress had no more children. Gleb became an engineer and worked in the largest company in Yekaterinburg. Iza Vysotskaya got married again and buried her third spouse shortly before her own death.
Vysotsky's first wife
In June, Vysotsky graduated from the Moscow Art Theater School and was accepted into the Pushkin Moscow Drama Theater. Iza couldn’t find a job. Meanwhile, Vladimir began to drink - sometimes, as Isolda Konstantinovna recalled, he could not come home on his own - he was like a “log”, friends brought him. But when he found out that she was pregnant again, he promised that he would stop drinking. And he kept his word. This child was very desirable for both. But it all ended with Iza Vysotskaya again having to go for an abortion - at the insistence of her mother-in-law.
Isolda Konstantinovna recalled that moment, which may have marked the beginning of a turning point in their relationship, with a feeling of great heaviness in her soul. The actress admitted that she did not remember a single word that Nina Maksimovna “brought down” on them when she learned that she would soon become a grandmother. Vladimir started drinking again. Years later, Iza Vysotskaya learned that at that dark moment for both of them, he stood under the windows of the hospital where she lay after an abortion and cried.
“I was the first woman to recognize his talent”
Iza Zhukova and Vladimir Vysotsky met while studying at the Moscow Art Theater studio school. They rehearsed the play “Hotel Astoria” together.
— How did I first see Volodya? A joyful, open, active junior student: he entered the Moscow Art Theater School two years later than me, he was 18 years old, I was 19. He was ready to say hello to everyone, to help everyone. He didn’t walk, but jumped up and down, smiling happily. His classmates called him Vovochka, and sometimes Vasek. A funny boy in love with all the girls at once. And when we needed a student to play the silent role of a soldier for the graduation performance “Hotel Astoria”, we unanimously decided - let’s call Vovochka Vysotsky! At the celebration after the performance of this performance, I first noticed it. My classmates and I went home early in the morning and waited for a taxi on the street. Volodya, who had been nearby all evening, suddenly took me by the hand... Everyone left, and we were left alone,” Iza recalled.
Since 1957, the couple began to live together, but they could not register the marriage - Ida was married and could not quickly get a divorce.
“Gradually, this funny boy became dear to me, very necessary, necessary!” But I was not free then - I got married after the first year, when I returned to my native Gorky for the holidays... Volodya courted me ingenuously, touchingly - he would give me candy, or a tangerine, or a flower. Sometimes, when we returned late from class, he would disappear into the entrance of his house and come out with a tray with pancakes on it. He handed them to me and assured me that he himself was full. One day I got sick, and Volodya managed to find time to visit me several times a day. He always brought some goodies. Gradually I began to notice that I was waiting for him. And one day, when we stayed up late, I told him: “Volodya, you are... wonderful!” In my opinion, this was the most necessary, most sincere phrase in our entire life together. You should have seen his face when he heard this! “I was the first woman to recognize his talent,” said the artist.
The young girl did not at all see Volodya as a future nationally famous bard, and his songs irritated her terribly.
“Not only did I not attach any importance to these songs, they were some kind of torment for me.” Wherever we went, songs began. Moreover, people heard them for the first time, and I heard them for the 101st time. Sometimes she even rebelled. Volodya had already started filming, we often had to separate... And I was angry: you can’t do any songs! You only need to deal with your wife! In those years it seemed to me so,” Ida recalled.
Another woman
When the actress received a call from Rostov-on-Don and was offered a job in the local theater, she jumped at the opportunity, realizing that it was a chance to get out of the “black hole” in which she found herself. Vysotsky begged her to stay, but Iza made a decision. It became fatal for both of them.
For some time they again lived in two cities, Vladimir constantly flew to his wife in Rostov, Iza, as soon as the opportunity arose, came to Moscow, they rejoiced at every meeting. It all ended in the spring of 1962 with a call from a friend who said that Lyudmila Abramova was pregnant with Vysotsky’s child (they met in 1961 on the set of the film “713th Requests Boarding”).
Lyudmila Abramova in the film “713 asks to land.” Still from the film
He called his legal wife as if nothing had happened a few hours later and said that he would arrive soon. Isolde asked her husband directly whether what she found out was true. And he began to lie - “very convincingly,” the actress later said in an interview. Iza Vysotskaya could not forgive betrayal with lies - and decided that an end should be put in their relationship.
They officially divorced only three years later. After the divorce, Isolda Konstantinovna left her husband’s surname; she never remarried. In 1965, the actress gave birth to a son, Gleb. Subsequently, a rumor appeared that the child’s father was Vladimir Vysotsky. But, as the actress admitted, she gave birth to Gleb from another man.
Five main women of Vladimir Vysotsky
80 years ago, on January 25, 1938, Vladimir Vysotsky, poet, actor and musician, was born. Almost all the women of the Soviet Union were crazy about the artist, but he dedicated his poems only to them - the five main women in his life.
Isolda Vysotskaya
Vysotsky’s classmate Isolda Meshkova (by her first husband, Zhukova) is the artist’s first wife. They started dating when Isolde had not yet filed for divorce, and got married only after 4 years of relationship - in April 1960. At the same time, Vysotsky graduated from the acting department of the Moscow Art Theater School. Iza was one year older than her husband.
“Vysotsky was 19 years old at that time, I was 20, my feelings were youthful,” recalls the actress in her book “Short Happiness for Life.” “He called me Izuley, and I called him Little Wolf... Life with Volodya was easy, sunny, despite the fact that we lived unsettledly, “behind a screen,” without money. We often quarreled: it’s so delightful to say a bunch of words, say everything and even more than “everything,” run out of the house and get into a taxi: “You’re welcome!” And at the same time know that Volodya is already driving into a taxi next.”
The marriage produced a son, Gleb Vysotsky. However, the father of the child was another man. After the wedding, Isolde was invited to play at the Rostov Theater, and Vladimir Vysotsky went to see his wife. Isolde invited her husband to stay and work with her, but Vysotsky began serving at the Taganka Theater and acting in films. On the set of the film “713 Requests Landing,” he began an affair with actress Lyudmila Abramova. She became pregnant from Vysotsky.
When it became clear to both spouses that their guest marriage had fallen apart, a divorce was filed.
Now Isolda Vysotskaya lives in Nizhny Tagil and serves in the local theater.
Lyudmila Abramova
Actress Lyudmila Abramova was married to Vysotsky from 1965 to 1970 and gave birth to two sons from the artist - Arkady and Nikita.
Both were born before their parents' wedding. The couple separated before the official divorce - in 1968. Then Vysotsky already had feelings for Marina Vladi, and Abramova knew it.
55-year-old Arkady Vysotsky is an actor and screenwriter, father of five children. 53-year-old Nikita Vysotsky, like his father, graduated from the Moscow Art Theater School and played in the theater, established the Vladimir Vysotsky Charitable Foundation, and also wrote the script for the film “Vysotsky. Thank you for being alive".
Arkady Vysotsky
Now Nikita Vysotsky teaches at the department of directing and acting at the Moscow State Institute of Culture.
Nikita Vysotsky
Now Lyudmila Abramova is 78 years old. After her divorce from Vysotsky, she remarried and gave birth to a daughter, but always felt a connection with the artist. Abramova took part in the creation of the Vysotsky Museum.
Tatiana Ivanenko
In 1972, Vysotsky had a daughter, Anastasia. Vysotsky had a long-standing relationship with the girl’s mother, Taganka theater actress Tatyana Ivanenko, but he was in no hurry to marry his mistress. Feelings for the spectacular foreigner Marina Vladi were stronger than the old affection for her colleague.
Vysotsky refused to acknowledge his daughter publicly, especially since she was born when he was already married to Vladi. Tatyana gave the child her last name, raised her daughter on her own and did not give a single interview. She once sued Express Newspaper, which published a false interview, and won the case.
Anastasia Ivanenko
Vysotsky’s daughter Anastasia Ivanenko graduated from the journalism department of Moscow State University, worked on the “Culture” channel, and is raising her daughter Arina.
Marina Vladi
Both Marina and Vladimir were interested in each other even before they met. He saw the 17-year-old actress in the 1956 film “The Witch” and lost his head, but she heard about the charismatic Russian and one day - in 1967 - came to see the praised artist at the Taganka Theater. At a banquet after the performance “Pugachev”, Vladi and Vysotsky finally met - and fell in love.
Vysotsky was a famous seducer, but it was difficult not to get carried away by Marina. The daughter of Russian emigrants, Vladi was that fatal beauty who drove men crazy. The French actress of Russian origin was not at all in the “Soviet” format: she followed fashion, brought clothes from Paris, did not worry about public opinion and starred in explicit scenes in films.
Before Vysotsky, the actress was married twice; her sons Igor, Pierre and Vladimir grew up in France. She could not leave her children and lived in two countries. At this time, Vysotsky fought for the right to travel abroad - and for his own life.
Vladi was married to Vysotsky from 1970 to 1980, until the artist’s death from acute heart failure. According to the widow, Vysotsky was ruined not by alcohol addiction, but by drugs, which doctors unintentionally “addicted” him to. Doctors used morphine and amphetamines to “pump out” Vysotsky after binges. Since 1977, Vysotsky himself systematically administered injections. Withdrawal symptoms began, and in 1979 Vysotsky experienced clinical death.
Vladi witnessed Vysotsky’s severe attack at the very beginning of their relationship. In 1969, a vessel in his throat burst, bleeding began - doctors fought for the artist’s life for about a day.
“I beg you to call an ambulance, your pulse has almost disappeared, I’m seized by panic,” the actress recalled in her book “Vladimir, or Interrupted Flight.” — The reaction of the arriving doctors and nurses is simple and cruel: it’s too late, there’s too much risk, you’re not transportable. They don't want to have a dead person in the car, it's bad for the plan. Then I block the exit, shouting that if they don’t take you to the hospital right now, I will start an international scandal... They finally understand that the dying man is Vysotsky, and the disheveled and screaming woman is a French actress. After a short consultation, cursing, they carry you away on a blanket..."
Over the 12 years of their relationship, Marina tried more than once to save Vysotsky from drugs and alcohol, but the artist was burdened by her care, and later by strict control. In conversations with a psychoanalyst, Vysotsky called his wife a “black cloud” hanging over him. The couple's relationship has been tense for the past two years. The couple moved away from each other, and 40-year-old Vladimir Vysotsky became interested in 18-year-old student Oksana Afanasyeva.
Oksana Afanasyeva
Afanasyeva became the prototype of the heroine Oksana Akinshina in the drama “Vysotsky. Thank you for being alive". She idolized Vysotsky, and he, according to rumors, even dreamed of getting married, but Marina Vladi stopped talk of divorce.
Oksana grew up in a bohemian family. Her grandfathers are the impresario Chaliapin and the director of the Isadora Duncan studio school, her father is the actor and writer Pavel Afanasyev-Sevastyanov, her aunt is a dentist at the clinic of the Ministry of Health. The girl herself dreamed of becoming an artist and studied at the Moscow Textile Institute.
Young Afanasyeva was a theatergoer and met Vladimir Vysotsky after another performance at the Taganka Theater. The actor approached the beauty near the ticket office.
Like Vladi, Afanasyeva struggled with Vysotsky’s binges and dreamed of saving her loved one, but we know the outcome. Oksana was next to Vysotsky the night he passed away.
After Vysotsky’s death in July 1980, Oksana Afanasyeva was expelled from the institute. Her attempt to leave the country was also unsuccessful. But two years later, Oksana met a new love - and this time everything worked out happily and forever.
In 1983, Oksana Afanasyeva married the young actor Leonid Yarmolnik. In the same year, a daughter, Alexandra, was born into the family. In 2014, the couple became grandparents.
Now Oksana Yarmolnik is 57 years old, she works as a costume designer for theater and cinema, and is involved in charity work.
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Isa Vysotskaya at the Vladimir Vysotsky Museum in Yekaterinburg, 2020 Bulatov Alexey / KP Archive
more on the topic
The last wife of Vladimir Vysotsky, Marina Vladi, spoke about her difficult life with the artist
Iza Vysotskaya continued to communicate with her ex-husband almost until his death in 1980. In 2005, she published a book of memoirs, “Short Happiness for Life,” and a year before the actress’s death, her second book about Vysotsky, “With You... Without You,” was published. As Isolda Konstantinovna said, she never intended to become a writer, but she was too tired of reading the numerous stories and fictitious “memories” that began to appear after the poet’s death.
In a few interviews, the actress admitted that she tries not to pay attention to rumors and is very glad that she lives far from Moscow. She always said that she was happy that in her life there was such a person as Vladimir Vysotsky, there was this love. And she has no dissatisfaction with fate.
For the last 40-odd years, Isolda Vysotskaya has lived in Nizhny Tagil. She served at the local Drama Theater and taught acting to students. Son Gleb grew up and moved to Yekaterinburg, but constantly visited his mother and called her almost every day. Isolda Konstantinovna, who had recently developed serious health problems, died in his arms, surrounded by her closest and dearest people.
