This amazing girl was born on January 31, 1952. The indicated date immediately catches the eye. Also on January 31, the famous fortuneteller Vanga was born. She was only born 41 years earlier than Nadia Rusheva. That was the name of the girl, about whom the whole world began to talk a few years after her birth.
The baby was born into a creative family. Father - Nikolai Konstantinovich Rushev (1918-1975) was a theater artist. Mother - Natalya Azhikmaa-Rusheva (born 1926) was a ballerina. The family lived in Ulan Bator. In the capital of Mongolia, the girl's parents were engaged in teaching activities. The family left the distant eastern lands in the summer of 1952 and moved to a permanent place of residence in Moscow.
Nadia Rusheva
The name was given to the girl for a reason. In Mongolian, Nadezhda is Naydan, which means "ever-living". By naming the child in this way, the parents turned out to be visionaries. Nowadays, the work of Nadya Rusheva is known to almost every cultured person, both in Russia and abroad.
The girl began to show her unusual ability to draw at the age of 4 years. The father read fairy tales to the baby, and she took a sheet of paper and a pencil in her hands and began to draw fairy-tale characters. Nikolai Konstantinovich, being a professional artist, very soon noticed that his daughter had a real talent as a painter. He had to admit that he couldn't paint as well as Nadia.
In her drawings, the girl emphasized the characteristic images of fairy-tale characters, expressed the dynamics of movements, and what is most striking - she absolutely correctly depicted costumes of different eras and their colors. She did it intuitively and was never wrong.
Mother, father and little Nadia
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In her early years, Nadya Rusheva loved most of all the fairy tale "The Little Prince" by the French writer and pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupery. She drew about 30 drawings for this work. One of the girl's favorite writers was A. S. Pushkin. Once, while listening to "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", Nadya drew about forty drawings on paper at once.
Taking a pencil in hand, the girl quickly and accurately traced an image on the paper. The impression was that there were already invisible lines on the sheet. The child only circles them. At the same time, the young artist never used a washing eraser. She created another illustration once and for all. Each of these creations was a unique image, surprisingly accurately revealing the image of the fairytale hero.
A. Pushkin with his wife
Nadya Rusheva dedicated a lot of drawings to A. S. Pushkin. She portrayed him, his wife, children. There are drawings that tell about the last hours of the poet's life. All these illustrations characterize the era of the first half of the 19th century with surprising accuracy. One gets the impression that the young artist was a direct participant in those distant events.
Of course, such an accurate depiction of bygone days can be attributed to the girl's rich imagination, but is that the only thing. Nadia's creativity cannot be squeezed into the framework of ordinary giftedness. Her drawings indicate a certain ability of clairvoyance, the gift of seeing what others cannot see.
A. S. Pushkin says goodbye to his family before his death
The girl dedicated a whole cycle of her drawings to Ancient Greece. These are "The exploits of Hercules", as well as the immortal works of Homer: "Odyssey" and "Iliad". And again, all the graphic sketches surprisingly indicate that Nadya Rusheva was, as it were, a contemporary of those events. She absolutely accurately noticed the spirit of ancient times, as if she lived among the Greeks and looked at the world around them through their eyes.
The first exhibition of the girl's drawings took place when she was 12 years old. This is 1962. By this time, Nadia had become widely known among artists. Vasily Alekseevich Vatagin (1883-1969), graphic artist and animal sculptor, drew attention to her. Despite the huge age difference, the two people became friends, seeing each other as true creators.
The girl was distinguished by her strong character and self-discipline. She inherited all this from her mother. Indeed, for a real ballerina, such qualities are simply necessary. At the same time, Nadya Rusheva was a gentle and kind person. She delicately felt the world around her, was well versed in its "shades", empathized with good and was unacceptable towards evil.
The master meets Margarita
The biggest role in the development of the girl's talent was played by her father. He was the first to notice the unusual gift and unobtrusively saw to it that his daughter continued to develop it. His care and attention were of great importance to Nadia. It was her father who gave her the book "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov to read. This novel began to be published in the USSR only in 1966, although it was completed in 1940.
Nadia read the book in one breath. After that, father and daughter walked through the places in Moscow that were described in the novel. Under the impression of all this, the girl created a whole series of drawings dedicated to The Master and Margarita.
Illustration for the novel "The Master and Margarita"
It was the heroes of the immortal novel who became the last in the girl's creative life. But before the fatal end, 15 more exhibitions of Nadya Rusheva took place. Her works were exhibited in Moscow, Leningrad, Czechoslovakia, India, Romania, Poland, USA. Much has been written about Nadya in the press. True, not everyone liked the praise. There were serious people who believed that one should not extol a very young girl so much. Glory spoils mature people, and here it is almost a child, whose whole life is ahead.
Nadia's fame did not spoil. By her nature, she was far from ambition, conceit, conceit. She was worried about completely different things, inaccessible to the understanding of most people. The girl looked at the world differently from those around her. In everything, she looked for an inner meaning hidden from human eyes, and then tried to express it in her drawings.
Another illustration for the novel "The Master and Margarita"
Nadya Rusheva, due to her unusual gift, had practically no close friends. The most dear people to her were her father and mother. It was with them that the girl shared all that innermost that worried her in this world. The family lived in a small apartment on the outskirts of Moscow. The Rushevs did not even have a telephone. In our time, this is impossible to imagine, but in those years it was an ordinary phenomenon.
Along with the unusual and mysterious, Nadya was an ordinary student of one of the Moscow schools. She did not like the exact sciences, but she gravitated towards literature and took an active part in the social life of the school. Her skills were simply irreplaceable in the manufacture of wall newspapers. Naturally, this was used first by the pioneer leaders, and then by the Komsomol leaders.
The girl spent a lot of time with her father at various art exhibitions and in museums. I read serious literary works with interest. After reading "War and Peace" by Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, I dedicated almost 400 illustrations to this book. They surprisingly accurately reflected that difficult time for Russia.
Ballet "Anna Karenina"
The girl also created drawings dedicated to the ballet Anna Karenina. This work of the great Russian writer made a very strong impression on Nadia. In total, there are more than 10 thousand drawings, covering at least 50 works of various classics.
At the end of February 1969, the girl went with her father to Leningrad. In the city on the Neva, the Lenfilm studio began to shoot a film dedicated to the young artist. It was called "You, as the first love …". These were some of the most beautiful days in the girl's life. She walked a lot in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, got acquainted with its history, architectural monuments, museums.
In early March, Nadya Rusheva returned to Moscow. In the early morning of March 6, 1969, the girl was getting ready for school. She was putting on her shoes when she suddenly fell to the floor. The father immediately rushed to his daughter, but she was unconscious. Nikolai Konstantinovich ran around the neighbors, but none of them had a telephone. Then the man ran to the nearest hospital.
The ambulance arrived quickly and took the girl, who never regained consciousness. Already on the operating table, it turned out that Nadia was suffering from birth aneurysm of the cerebral vessel. In the 60s of the XX century, this disease did not respond to treatment. A few hours later, the talented artist died. Her death shocked people. Many refused to believe it: it seemed just incredible to die at the age of 17 at the peak of fame and creativity.
The graves of Nadya Rusheva and her father
Nadya was buried at the Pokrovskoye cemetery. The monument depicted the "Centaur". School No. 470, where the young artist studied, was named after the girl. A minor planet discovered by astronomer L. G. Karachkina in 1982 is named in honor of Nadya Rusheva.
In 1972 the premiere of the ballet Anna Karenina took place. The main character was danced by Maya Plisetskaya. The costumes were created by Pierre Cardin. The ballet was a huge success. It was striking that Nadia drew ballet dancers in the same dresses that a venerable French fashion designer who had certain feelings for Maya Plisetskaya created a few years later.
Another fact is no less striking. Just a few weeks after the death of the talented artist, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova came to the Rushevs. This woman loved MA Bulgakov very much and was for him the same lifesaver as for FM Dostoevsky his second wife Anna Grigorievna. That is, she was engaged in publishing issues and held in her hands all the financial affairs of an impractical writer.
It was thanks to Elena Sergeevna that the novel "The Master and Margarita" was widely recognized and published. The main heroine of this immortal work, Margarita, was the prototype of Elena Sergeevna. Having met his third wife in 1929, Bulgakov began his romance at the same time. Now the woman had to put a logical end to this epic that had been dragging on for 40 years.
The writer's widow was preparing a complete edition of the novel. Naturally, she wanted the text to be adorned with relevant illustrations of the highest quality. Therefore, the elderly lady ended up in the Rushevs' house.
Margarita and the Master
Nikolai Konstantinovich laid out in front of Elena Sergeevna Nadia's drawings, created by his daughter for The Master and Margarita. Looking at them, the elderly woman's face changed. In the drawing where the girl portrayed Margarita, the facial features of Elena Sergeevna were clearly visible, although Nadia had never seen the writer's widow. Shook the guest and the portrait of the master. The young artist depicted a ring on the ring finger of his right hand. Bulgakov wore exactly the same. The girl could not know about it in any way.
What drove Nadya Rusheva when she created the illustrations. What forces pushed her hand to draw exactly this, and not something else. Nobody will ever know about this. There is no doubt that the talented girl had an amazing gift of a soothsayer. After all, it was not for nothing that she was born on December 31, like Vanga.
Nadya Rusheva on a bench near her house
The imminent death of an amazing girl evokes a feeling of deep regret. She lived up to insulting little. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that with congenital aneurysm of the cerebral vessel, children, as a rule, live no more than 8-9 years. Fate gave Nadya 17 years. The higher powers considered that the girl needed to stay on this earth. She completed some mysterious mission and only after that left the sublunary world. Well, we will be grateful for this to those who gradually control our destinies and decide when a natural end should come for each of us.
Leonid Kirillov