Pavel Luspekayev: The Swan Song of Customs Officer Vereshchagin

In April 1970, actor Pavel Luspekaev wasn't thinking about death at all. You know how it happens. A person stands on the threshold of something huge, breathes deeply, and emptiness is already waiting behind the door. Phrases of customs officer Vereshchagin from the fresh "White Sun of the Desert," which had become popular, were circulating throughout the country. "I don't take bribes, I'm hurt for the state" - these words became catchphrases almost instantly. And the famous song about "Lady Luck" was sung in the minds of millions exclusively in Vereshchagin's voice, and not in the voice of the Red Army soldier Sukhov at all. Life was giving the actor generous advances.

Unplayed Future

He had a whole stack of offers on his table. Real ones. Big ones. Andrei Konchalovsky was ready to take him to "Uncle Vanya" for the role of Astrov without any auditions at all. Vladimir Motyl persistently called to continue cooperation in the film "The Forest." Tatyana Lioznova saw him as the ideal Müller for "Seventeen Moments of Spring." And even Georgy Tovstonogov. The very same famous director who, a few years before, had been forced to dismiss Luspekaev from the Bolshoi Drama Theater (BDT) with a heavy heart due to his health condition. Now he was offering him to play Boris Godunov - a role that Pavel had always dreamed of showing on stage. And a third of the material had already been filmed in the movie "All the King's Men." It was his first truly leading role.

This promising April was interrupted terribly. And suddenly. On the fifteenth, he and Oleg Efremov were enthusiastically rehearsing another scene. And on the seventeenth, Pavel was gone. Sudden death. Although, to be honest, he had been waiting for it for several years. He was only forty-two. He didn't live to be forty-three by exactly three days.

Snow and Pain

We all admired the stubborn Vereshchagin, not even suspecting what this role cost Luspekaev physically. Every step. Every take. The story of his pain began long before the movie. The boy was born in 1927. The village of Bolshie Saly, Rostov region. Father - a simple butcher, a Don Armenian with the surname Luspekanyan. Mother - a housewife. The guy would become Luspekaev only at the age of fourteen. And at the same tender age, he learned what real, terrible war is. Lugansk, where he studied at a vocational school, was captured by the Germans. Evacuation to distant Central Asia.

But in forty-three, the boy returned. And immediately volunteered for the front. A sixteen-year-old boy with a rifle. A scout in a partisan detachment. Battles. A severe arm wound. Amputation loomed, but the arm was miraculously saved then. And then there was that fateful reconnaissance. Several hours motionless in the snow. Silence. Cold. Severe frostbite of the feet. Already at the age of twenty-six, this icy snow would turn into a terrible diagnosis - atherosclerosis of the vessels of the feet.

In the hospital, the director of the Lugansk theater noticed the bright guy. And after being discharged, the discharged front-line soldier expressed a desire to connect his life with the stage. Voroshilovgrad Drama Theater, which, by the way, bears his name today. Then - a bold direction to the Shchepkinsky School in Moscow. And this is without a completed secondary education. The talent for the art of transformation outweighed any papers. There he found his best friend - Evgeny Vesnik. And there he met his future wife.

Vesnik described him accurately to the point of goosebumps. Love for the profession, huge temperament, inexhaustible imagination. Kindness and sharpness in one bottle. And a burning desire to violate the banality of interpretation.

A Stool in the Desert

Then there was Tbilisi - seven years of work. And Kiev - two years at the Lesya Ukrainka Theater. A chance meeting with Kirill Lavrov changed everything. He recommended the actor to Tovstonogov at the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater for the role of Cherkun in the play "Barbarians." Luspekaev was upset and killed by doubts, felt primitive and uneducated against the background of his St. Petersburg theater colleagues. But the premiere put everything in its place - it was a sensation.

His film piggy bank is small - only 46 works. Debut in the film "They Came Down from the Mountains", the first real wave of fame after the adventure film "Blue Arrow". But it was during the work on the film "Capron Nets" (the first major role) that the disease struck its terrible blow. 1962. The condition worsened significantly. Again, the threat of amputation. This time, doctors had to remove part of his toes to avoid gangrene.

Terrible, exhausting pain. The actor could hardly walk. He almost became addicted to strong painkillers, but freed himself from addiction on sheer willpower. His wife, Inessa Kirillova, had by that time almost left her own career, supporting her husband. She accepted him with all his shortcomings and infidelities. Rescued. Minister of Culture Ekaterina Furtseva personally helped with foreign medicines and prostheses. But Pavel Borisovich was already walking with a cane, and sometimes on crutches. Because of this, the role of Kostalmed in "The Republic of ShKID" had to be greatly reduced. And he had to leave the Bolshoi Drama Theater forever. Tovstonogov then sadly admitted that the theater had lost a brilliant artist.

Swan Song

In 1968, he was offered "White Sun of the Desert." The director didn't know about the absence of feet at first. And when he was informed, he wanted to rewrite the script for a World War I invalid on crutches. Luspekaev flatly refused.

He played Vereshchagin as if it were the end. Like a swan song. He refused comfortable pavilions. He got to the filming location himself. And Inessa followed him with a stool. Several dozen steps on the sand. Stop. He sat down to rest. And again he went into the frame. A double was needed only once - for the scene where the customs officer kicks the bandits.

Inessa loved him to the point of self-forgetfulness. She sacrificed everything, completely devoting herself to her family back in 1959, when their daughter Lara was born.

Today, customs officers consider Vereshchagin their symbol and carefully look after the actor's grave at the Northern Cemetery of St. Petersburg. Cosmonauts watch this film before launching from Baikonur. And those high-profile projects that he didn't manage to finish came out with other faces. Leonid Bronevoy became the "all-Union Müller," Sergei Bondarchuk became Astrov, Georgy Zhzhenov reshot all the scenes in "Royal Rati." Motyl shot his "Forest" only ten years later, in 1980.

And Pavel Luspekaev's last film turned out to be not "White Sun of the Desert", but the film "Such a Long, Long Road ...". Due to censorship reasons, the premiere was postponed until 1972. When the lead actor had been dead for two years. This road really turned out to be long. And it continues to this day.