Inlägg 90Natalia Solovyova (Estonia) skrev:den 22 juli 2009 kl. 08:35
A TALE ABOUT FISHERMAN AND HIS GOLDEN SONG
(fisherman=rybak in Russian)
http://www.mk.ru/highlife/312161.html
[If we truly respect Alex and wish him the very best, than we must be skeptical when it comes to press - everybody wants to make some money on his back. Unfortunately, it does not stop there, but affects everybody who surrounds him. So, it mustn't be all true what follows here. - Irena]
[After having compared it with many other sources, I can say this article is very trustworthy, but it has some minor mistakes and exaggeration. - Natalia]

PART 1 (by Natalia, checked by Irena ;) thank you, dear!)
Discussion of phenomenon of “the sunny boy”, who's won the hearts of many-millioned audience, is not calming down so far. Specialists are talking about charisma, charm and sincerity of the musician from the land of fjords. Astrologists are mentioning his fortunate horoscope, when the planets formed the “Chariot of the Victor”. But only family and friends, who call him Sashka or “Sushka” [crisp bread ring], know the ways which had led him to his victory. Our special correspondent has met with Alexander's uncle, a well-known poet and musician Alexander Savitski [actually, he's not a poet, and nowadays he's working as a journalist in a military newspaper], and found out that:
*It was a permanently drunk neighbour, Zhora the Policeman, who made Rybaks move to Norway.
*Alexander had a chance to stay in Moscow for good, when he was 15.
*The Norwegian genius was a strolling musician.
*The winner of Euro-2009 is a certificated fitness instructor.
*[Igor Rybak was born in 1954, Natalya Rybak in 1959 - not from the article, just thought that to be interesting]

Alexander Savitski:
- In order to understand the origin of Sasha's talents, I have to tell you about his ancestors. My mother, who is Sasha's grandmother, Maria Savitskaya, is a gifted pianist, who was a teacher in the musical academy of Vitebsk. Moreover, she had a gift of eloquence and wrote articles about culture in many magazines. It was she who began to teach her 2-year old grandson Sasha to play the piano.
Sasha's grandfather, Alexander, was a militaryman – an artilleryman – and not only was he very handsome, but he also sang extremely well. [Well, 3 Alexanders! My head is spinning! Rybaks are not very inventive at choosing names for their sons, are they? :) ] He was quite a dandy; he was always dressed very fashionably. All Rybaks inherited this love for fashion from him. [Not our Rybak!! :D - Irena. "Looking at Alex's endless t-shirts, I can't agree with this statement :) " - Natalia]
Maria was Russian, Alexander was Belorussian. In the birth certificate of the elder son, Alexander, they stated his ethnic group as Russian, and the younger son, Igor, became a Belorussian. [In USSR, every person had both citizenship and ethnic group specified in his/her passport] This fact influenced their destiny in the future.
Mom sent us both to the music school. They would put sheet music in front of me, and father's belt lay nearby. I had to practice for 3 hours. Father used to beat me with his belt mercilessly. Igor had less repulsion towards learning than I did. In the beginning years of the music school his talent was noticed; in the senior years, he was expected to have an outstanding future.
Because of staff reduction in the army, father had to get a job in a factory. He used to be a terrible womanizer. Sometimes, when he was walking with our mother and happened to notice a pretty girl, he would ask his wife to pretend that she was his sister. Mother would feel offended and go home, and father would run after that girl. Mother believes in God deeply, and she loved our father very much and she forgave him every time. But father left us one day and married a second time. I was 13, Igor was 9. Father moved to Minsk, and we stayed in Vitebsk. Father hasn't participated in our lives since then.
I sensed the freedom, and started visiting dirty drinking houses, where I performed dirty songs with my accordion for thieves and prostitutes. The police used to go searching for me at my music school. I barely passed my exams, and mother had to help me with it. I would have definitely ended up in prison, but I was employed by a military orchestra where our father had played once.
Gradually, I realized that I was in charge of our family. I steadied down and began to take care of my younger brother. Later, he used to say that I had taken the place of our father.