The dark side of green energy. Boris Martsinkevich

Childhood and youth

Alexander Nikolaevich Martsinkevich was born in Vsevolozhsk on January 20, 1967. He grew up in a large family. In addition to him, his parents raised 7 more children: 5 sons and 2 daughters. The boy showed creative abilities even in childhood. He loved music and taught himself to play the guitar and then mastered the drums. At the age of 12, Sasha won a city-wide talent competition. From the age of 13 he began to try his hand as a writer of poetry and songs.

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Alexander Martsinkevich as a child
In 1987, Martsinkevich was drafted into the army. He returned to civilian life 2 years later. By this time, the aspiring artist had experience of performing as a musician in a regimental orchestra. Alexander was also a member of a vocal and instrumental group.

In the early 1990s, the artist decided to engage in creative activities in earnest. He teamed up with the musical group “Miricle” and began performing in restaurants. This experience did not turn out to be a joyful one for the vocalist, since performing songs for an audience that paid more attention to food than to music was not easy.

Musical creativity

In 1994, Alexander Martsinkevich left his former team and created his own group “Cabriolet”. After two years of existence at the Polish Music Festival of Gypsy Music, the guys received the Grand Prix. At that time, all songs were recorded and performed exclusively in the Roma language. Because of this, recording studios in St. Petersburg did not want to cooperate with them.

Therefore, over time, “Cabriolet” slightly edited their repertoire, leaving only a few compositions in Gypsy. In 1997, the group became a laureate of the Moscow Music Festival.

The 2000s saw the peak of fame for the “Cabriolet” group. Then. Alexander Martsinkevich’s original song “Chains” became a real hit. An amazing video was filmed for it. It was played on all radio stations in both Russia and other CIS countries. It was in honor of this hit that in 2014 Martsinkevich changed the name of the group to “Chains”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3-ZhFMORZ4

In 2020, a very soulful piece “Dedication to a Friend” was recorded. This is a lyrical song that has received well-deserved attention from the public.

Alexander Martsinkevich now

The artist’s creative activity continues. Alexander has his own website where you can find all the necessary information about the performer. The latest news are also published on the resource. In 2019, one of them was the song “Nochenka”, recorded in collaboration with vocalist Katya Titova.

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Alexander Martsinkevich in 2020
Now the group “Chains” actively performs in different cities of Russia under the leadership of its permanent soloist. Fans can find the concert schedule and tour schedule on the singer’s website. Alexander Martsinkevich can also be invited as an artist to a corporate event.

Chansonnier Martsinkevich was cheated out of money

The singer's ex-director Lyudmila Smokutova deceived him of 12 million rubles?

The plot of the fraud is reminiscent of the case of the director of Sofia ROTARU - Olga KONYAKHINA. Lyudmila SMOKUTOVA organized concerts for the soloist of “Cabriolet” Alexander MARTSINKEVICH, which the latter did not know about. When, during the next tour, people came to the halls with last year’s tickets, the artist could not resist and spoke about the fraud of his ex-director.

“Before working with Alexander, Lyudmila was engaged in wholesale sales of products,” says the artist’s current director, Sergei Gorodnyansky. “She had no concert experience, but they shot a video for the song “Chains,” after which Alexander offered Smokutova a job. She registered Cabriolet LLC under her name and began conducting concert activities. She paid Alexander a salary of one hundred dollars. When Vaenga just started, Martsinkevich was already known. By the way, they became friends on gypsy soil, since Lena’s first husband is also a gypsy, he is Sasha’s friend. Martsinkevich performed for free at Vaenga’s concerts more than once.

Lyudmila and Alexander worked together for 12 years. The singer trusted the director so much that he gave her a general power of attorney for all property, including the rights to his songs. “When Alexander asked why he didn’t receive a penny from album sales, it turned out that he didn’t have any rights,” explains Gorodnyansky. — Lyudmila sold the rights to the director of the Ukrainian company Ivan Slobodyanyuk. He blackmailed the artist: “You won’t perform new songs unless you sell me the rights to them at the old price or I forbid you to sing old songs.” We bought the rights to the songs from Slobodyanyuk in half for 55 thousand dollars, although he asked for 75. But we still do not have the right to sell old albums.

After the incident, the singer had a serious conversation with Lyudmila Smokutova: there was no question of further work. “Another story has come to light: 12 million rubles, which our sponsor gave for the purchase of a bus, rotation, and provision for the entire group, disappeared,” Gorodnyansky is indignant. “We learned about this after the death of the sponsor: his relatives demanded a report. We turned to Lyudmila for an explanation, but achieved nothing. Sasha took on the debt. Now he returns in parts. When the Cabriolet group went on tour this year, facts of fabricated concerts were revealed. — Lyudmila is the second Olga Konyakhina! In Vladivostok alone, she organized concerts four times that did not take place. As a result, people came to the hall with tickets dating back to 2006! We missed them, realizing that it was not the fans’ fault.

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Lead singer of the group “Cabriolet”: I experienced unbearable pain that I wouldn’t wish on my enemy

Popularity, money, love from the audience, full concert halls. The most famous St. Petersburg gypsy, as Martsinkevich is called outside the city, was always noisy, cheerful and literally attracted people to him. His sly squint, black curls, and soft timbre drove fans crazy. The long path from a restaurant artist to the lead singer of the “Cabriolet” group passed quickly. In the mid-90s, Martsinkevich put together a team, and after a couple of years they began to be invited to the best venues in the country and offered tours abroad. Grand Concert Hall "Oktyabrsky", "Olympic", Kremlin Palace and the "Chanson of the Year" award. When it would seem that popular popularity would not allow the team to get lost in the labyrinths of show business, disaster struck. And as you know, she doesn’t come alone. At this moment, the life of Alexander Martsinkevich was divided into before and after. First, another creator and arranger of all the compositions of the “Cabriolet” group, Vyacheslav Polosmakov, died from a serious illness. This was a huge blow for the entire team. After the tragedy, Martsinkevich decides to change the name of the group.

“This is a big blow for me.” The two of us started from scratch, we were one, we simply couldn’t live without each other. When he was gone, I made a decision. “Cabriolet” is a brand that has been around for 20 years. Changing the name means just starting from scratch, with a clean slate. It was very difficult, because “Cabriolet” for me is associated only with Glory,” the singer admitted to Life.

“Cabriolet” was renamed into the group “Chains” - after the name of one of Martsinkevich’s most famous songs. The new brand was losing significantly. Soon, according to the singer, the director of the group, using the organizers of concerts in different cities, with the help of fraudulent schemes, greatly exposes the group.

— There was a very strong set-up on the part of my director. We began to engage in showdowns in which very large sums were involved. In some cities, tickets were sold, we were told that the organizers did not comply with the technical rider, and we simply did not go there,” says Martsinkevich, without hiding his excitement. “And people, it turns out, were waiting for us.” Later, when the administration changed and we contacted these cities again, they told us that we had abandoned them. In some cities they simply did not provide venues, they were afraid that we would not come. There were money issues, and then we spent a long time resolving these issues.

The death of a close friend, the inability to go on tour - all this plunged the lead singer of the Chains group into depression. At that moment, he did not yet know that a double blow awaited him ahead. His father and younger brother die after each other.

“It was the strongest blow for me, the biggest test, unbearable pain, such pain that I wouldn’t wish it on my enemy.” Before the solo concert, my younger brother Ivan died. We are burying him, and I have a concert. I call the organizers and ask them to cancel everything, but these are huge penalties, people are waiting. When the concert started, I went up to the microphone several times, but I couldn’t sing because I had a lump in my throat. I lost Slava, then my father left, then my brother. As soon as you begin to move away from one trouble, another comes. It’s hard when you lose close people, relatives, loved ones. But when you have friends nearby who will support you, it saves you,” says the singer.

Alexander Martsinkevich was truly saved by his friends, those closest to him, those who were with him throughout all these years - this is his team. Today the group “Chains” is preparing to release a new album, and in the fall their international tour will begin, which starts in Germany.

Martsinkevich, Alexander Nikolaevich

Born on January 20, 1967 in the city of Vsevolozhsk, in the Berngardovka microdistrict, in a large gypsy family. Alexander has two sisters and five brothers. Since childhood, he showed interest in music and mastered the guitar and percussion instruments.

At the age of 12, he received first prize at the city competition for young talents. It is also known that during the performance, Martsinkevich broke one of his drumsticks, and he finished playing with one[1]. At the age of 13 he began writing songs.

In 1987-1989 he served in the Soviet army. He was a musician in the regimental orchestra and played there as part of an amateur vocal and instrumental ensemble[2].

In the early nineties, Alexander Martsinkevich performed in a restaurant with the gypsy group Mirikle. Subsequently, the singer said about this work:

It's terrible when the restaurant public perceives you as nothing more than an exotic dish. Not everyone will be able, no matter how much money they promise him, to perform any music to order while your “grateful listener” devolves roast lamb on both cheeks[3].

In 1994, Martsinkevich created his own group “Cabriolet”.

It would seem, what does a luxury foreign car have in common with gypsy music? Gypsies simply call a caravan with an open top a “convertible”. In the old days they said about people who came to visit in such a “convertible”: “They came to us with an open heart.” “Hence the name of the ensemble, because we really come to you, the audience, with an open heart and sing with all our hearts,” says Alexander Martsinkevich. And this is indeed true, as Alexander says. During the entire concert, it is impossible to remain indifferent to his songs, because they are, first of all, about love, life, about everything that every person experiences in his life, but it happens differently for everyone.

In 1995 (according to other sources in 1996) they received the Grand Prix at the International Gypsy Music Festival in Poland. There they also recorded their first album under the unassuming name “More”, which means “gypsy”. A video was shot for the title song of the album, which was among the top ten songs in the country for several months.

All the songs on the album “More” were in the Romani language, so not a single recording studio in St. Petersburg took the liberty of releasing it to the Russian music market. The refusal sounded approximately the same: “The album, of course, is wonderful, but if you guys sang in Russian...” Well, as offensive as it may be, I had to obey the laws of commerce. Songs in their native language have been excluded as much as possible from the repertoire, and now they make up a little more than a third of it. In any case, it is not the intention of the musicians to abandon them completely.

In 1997, the group "Cabriolet" became a laureate of the Russian Pop Song Festival in Moscow, and in 1999 - a laureate of the Silver Key in St. Petersburg. But, perhaps, their main achievement was participation in the International Festival of Gypsy Art “At the Turn of the Century”. Then about 300 artists and groups took part in the enchanting concert. The panel of judges, chaired by the artistic director of the world's only Moscow Gypsy Theater "Romen" Nikolai Slichenko, selected thirty of the best. Alexander Martsinkevich and his group were among them and received a gold medal as winners.

The group's popularity was brought to them by the song "Chains", recorded in the early 2000s, for which a video was also shot.

In 2007, a joint album by Martsinkevich and his daughters Angelina and Christina, “Fire Dance,” was released[4].

The group has more than 300 songs in its arsenal. She has released more than 15 discs. Alexander writes, records, arranges, and films a lot. His songs are in rotation on radio stations: “Dacha”, “Road Radio”, “Chanson”, “Peter FM”.

In 2014, Alexander decided to change the name of the group. Now his team is called “Chains”.

In 2020, violinist Viktor Rapotikhin left the band. Now Victor plays in the Leningrad group.