In the Jewish Community Center a memorial evening for Vladimir Vysotsky "Interrupted Flight" took place. Over 40 people including teenagers and our eldest community members came to the event on August 6. Vladimir Vysotsky was talking to us through his songs about love and friendship. He was joking, speaking with irony and great wisdom. There were many young people at the event, who were born after Vladimir’s death and they never lived in the country that Vysotsky sang about. But our young people are genuinely interested in this bard.

The Jewish roots of Vladimir Vysotsky are well known now. His grandfather from father’s side was Volf Shliomovich Vysotsky, who had changed his name for the Russian name Vladimir Semenovich. Last year the Almaty Community was visited by U.S. Rabbi Barton Vysotsky. We could not but ask the person with such a family name if he was a relative to Vladimir Vysotsky and the answer was affirmative. <br>
Adolf Artsishevsky opened the event, "On July 25, 1980, Vladimir Vysotsky passed away. His passing away showed the real scale of this magnificent personality. The first time we heard singing Vysotsky in the movie "Vertical". The movie disappeared while the songs became well known to the wide public."

Adolf Artsishevsky told us how carefully he was preparing for the event. He managed to make a consolidated presentation of all aspects of Vladimir Vysotsky’s work - his songs, poems, films, and theater performances. He recollected how many years ago they were walking in Almaty with Writer Viktor Starkov (who now lives in Israel) and were listening to Vystosky’s song "Capricious Horses" coming out from an open window of a block of flats. Starkov said, "It is not possible to live and write at this limit of emotional intensity." It had been two years before Vladimir Vysotsky passed away.

The community youth actively participated in the memorial evening. Alexander Gudkov recited poems. Zhenya Chugainova, Nastya Ursolova, Nastya Yezhova, Natasha Tresvyatskaya told about personal contemplations of Actor Vladimir Vysotsky. Nastya Borovikova performed songs-sketches of Composer Vysotsky - "Morning Exercises", "Dialog in Front of the TV" and recited the monolog of a parrot about the fairytale "Alice in Wonderland".

It is already thirty years that Vladimir Vysotsky has been gone. His work is equally important to us now as it was thirty years ago. We are now even more clear what his songs mean to us. This is a revelation, and a relaxation, and a joke, and very serious matters. His hoarse voice, different from any other, is impossible to forget.

Lyudmila Starodubova