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Concert Ensemble. June 1942
Another photograph from Preobrazhenskaya’s archive. The ensemble’s performers include Pavel Andreyev (third from left) and Ivan Nechaev (third from right). Ivan Nechaev’s voice was well known to all residents of Leningrad. From the start of 1942 the singer had appeared on Sundays on the radio together with bayan player V. Kozhenkov from the Ensemble of the Red Banner of the Baltic Sea Fleet. He himself conducted the concert by requests, naming the works and at whose request they were being performed. At the end of the concert he turned to the audience, stating that they should send their requests to the Radio Committee. Generally, the wounded and soldiers on the front asked for Russian folk songs to be performed. “Mentally I often transport myself back to that terrible time,” wrote one siege survivor later. “I see myself, starving, exhausted, I see my wife, daughter and son, I hear the screaming sirens, the evil drone of the German planes, the squeal of incendiary bombs. It was all death and destruction. But after the air raid alarm was over we could once again hear the voice of the presenter – ‘And now we’ll hear Ivan Alexeyevich Nechaev.’”
* Quote after: A. Kryukov. Music during the Siege. Chronicle. Leningrad: Kompozitor, 2002. P. 90