My acquaintance with drugs happened simply. I was not put on them. No one bothered: "Come on, try it, you'll like it!" Just when on Smash !! Fame came down, everyone wanted to see us with Lazarev in his company. And in many nightclubs drugs, as they say, are on the menu. I was then knocked fifteen, Seryozhka was two and a half years older and, perhaps, therefore - wiser. He resisted temptations, I did not.
I came to the club tired, thought to escape in half an hour home, fall asleep. And then the ecstasy tablet turned up. I held it in my palm and tried to convince myself: "It's not even a drug, nothing will happen once." Finally swallowed, and I was covered with such a surge of energy that I walked all night.
And then it rolled. I slowly and faithfully sank to the bottom. He became angry, irritable. Could explode for any reason. Relations with people spoiled on level ground. Immunity fell to zero. Banal cold was attached for a month. Right during the speech he began to cough like an old man.
One night I woke up with a terrible pain. With every minute it got worse. It seemed - the end. So it became so terrible. I called an ambulance. She arrived surprisingly quickly. The doctor examined me, understood everything and shook his head:
"These are the kidneys, I have to go to the hospital."
- I have a concert today, I can not!
"If the kidneys refuse, there will not be any concerts." There will be nothing at all.
In the hospital, pumped up with anesthetics, I fell into a dream. When he came to, the mother was sitting next to her on the chair.
Her eyes filled with tears.
- Vlad, this is because of the drugs, right? Please, please, drop them. You could have died today. And what about me, Dad?
I ran my hand over her wet cheek:
- Do not cry, I'm back ...
I often heard about myself: "Yes, he was born with a golden spoon in his mouth!" It means that my father is a big businessman, the owner of his own law firm. Yes, and a musician in the past. So, they say, I can always count on strong financial support. And in general, the lucky one.
In the family archive of Vlad Topalov, everything is still wrong. Yes, he really was, happy, but there were days when loneliness and a sense of uselessness to the closest people covered his head. But the pain is given to us in order to feel the happiness more sharply.
This swing, probably, is life ...
My parents met at the bus stop. Mom, a student at the Historical Archives Institute, was hiding from the pouring rain. And my father ran past and offered her his cloak. You can say, thanks to this rain, I was born.
They were a beautiful couple, but very different: father - military, hard, extremely collected. He worked in the Main Directorate of Personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Mom - a creative nature, keen on various "advanced" ideas.
We lived in a tiny "kopeck piece" near the metro station "Novoslobodskaya". In the evenings a lot of parental friends were stuffed into it. Dad, because his whole youth was associated with music - he graduated from the music school, and in the student years professionally played in the rock band "The Fourth Dimension", was familiar with many famous musicians and artists. Despite the difference in age, he was friends with Alexander Lazarev and Svetlana Nemoliaeva.
They always set him as an example to his son. Shurik Lazarev is only seven years younger than my father. And they made friends. When I was born, Shurik became my godfather. And not formal: he was seriously interested in what is happening in my life, treated very warmly, talked, taught mind-reason. We still communicate.
In three years I, the only and beloved child, experienced the first serious shock. One day a whining pack was brought into the house.
"This is your little sister," said my mother. - Look, what a beauty.
I did not like my sister:
"But where's the beauty?" Her face is wrinkled!
Now Mom spent a whole day revolving around this ever-grudging doll. I was jealous of it, I thought up various ways how to get rid of it. At first I wanted to put it in the toilet - I was caught when I was carrying Alinka to the toilet. The attempt to throw it into the garbage chute also failed - my parents were on the alert. It seemed to me that my sister had stolen from me their love. I demanded attention, I achieved it by all available means: capricious, riotous, fought. "Crown number" was a header in the stomach. It was delivered to the guests, doctors in the polyclinic, even just passers-by. Since then, the reputation of a "difficult child" has been firmly entrenched in my family.
Mom my rapidly deteriorating character is not very scary. She had her own ideas about raising children, and she was sure that everything would equalize as soon as her son grew up. To make me get used to taking care of my sister, she wrote us and Alinka in the children's ensemble "Neposedy." I was five, Alina - two. I quickly became accustomed, became a soloist. But my mother's idea of "making friends" with my sister did not work. When Alina grew older, our hatred became mutual. Adults beyond the threshold - we are in a fight. We had nowhere to hide from each other: we lived in one room, where there was a bunk bed. Every evening they fought for a more prestigious upper shelf. In the end, the parents are tired of this and they proposed to make a schedule: who and when he sleeps at the top. Now two weeks there I was blissful, two - my sister.
In the early nineties our life began to change. After the coup, the father, who at that time was already in the rank of major, left the Ministry of Internal Affairs and started a business in which he was very successful. There was money, and my mother decided that my sister and I should get education in England. I was nine, Alina - six. We did not want any England. But my mother was adamant: "Without language, nowhere."
British schools either extol, or scold the last words. The truth is, as usual, somewhere in the middle. Not paradise, of course, but also not a "Dickensian" nightmare, where children drag out a half-starved existence and are battered.
Our school in the vicinity of Leeds was surrounded by a high fence. In one end of the courtyard is the women's building, in the other - the male. In the huge bedrooms for eight people stood bunk beds. In English, I only knew thank you and goodbye. This was clearly not enough to communicate with the guys. That's when I realized that my sister is a native person. However, the orders in the school were strict. We met only in the classroom, more precisely - at the changes. They threw themselves at each other's neck. Separation from parents, especially with my mother, and my sister, and I experienced very hard. At night, when neighbors fell asleep, I cried and asked, looking at the dark ceiling. "Mom, please take me away from here!" And Alina too. We will not fight anymore. Just take us! "
But my mother did not show up, entrusting us with the care of the English curator who lived in Leeds. Apparently, the parents felt that their visits prevented us from adapting.
In a parallel class I discovered a Russian boy. And then he stuck to it. Egor was already fluent in English and, taking pity on his unhappy compatriot, took me under the wing. But I continued to miss my parents anyway and once I persuaded my new friend to flee. The plan was this: get to the city, find my curator, and call her parents - let them fly out right away. I was sure that they just do not know how bad it is here.
We managed to get out of the school gate and pass two hundred meters. And then the fugitives were overtaken by the school guard in the car ... We had a noticeable form: gray trousers and bright red jackets. It can easily be seen from afar. To embark on a journey in such clothes is like fleeing from an American prison in an orange prisoner's robe. But is it really thought about at the age of nine?
The director threatened to expel us from school if we continue our attempts to escape. To which Egor said: "Take away from me this bore. I can not see Topalov crying anymore. It's all his fault! "
So I lost a single friend because of a stupid escape. However, our adventure was not entirely meaningless. Teachers reported to my mother about my misconduct. And at the end of the school year, taking us to Moscow for vacation, she said: "Here you will not learn more. I'll think of something".
Alinka and I were happy: good-bye, hated prison! But in August my mother started to collect us again in England. She did not want to give up the idea of giving her children a classic British education. And even my father could not convince her.
- I spoke with Vlad, their training program lags behind the Russian one. Especially in mathematics.
"Vlad never liked mathematics," Mom stood stubbornly. "You yourself know very well, he's a humanist to the core." He just needs a common development. "He can easily get it here."
- In England, children will be taught riding and good manners. Vlad, by the way, this is most important, you yourself know what his character is.
"He has your character," answered his father. - The mood changes every five minutes.
- But he's kind! - Mom flared up.
Previously, we had never heard parents raise their voices. But now quarrels have become commonplace. And in their conversations a woman's name constantly appeared-Marina.
"She is my secretary and assistant," my father argued to my mother.
"Is that why you spend more time with her than with your family?" - Mom urged.
"I love you, I love children." I work a lot, I do everything so that you do not need anything!
- I, too, could work, but for the sake of the family, for your sake, I remained a housewife!
- You are a woman.
- And who is she, the work unit?
"Tanya, stop it!"
With the father happened what often happens to successful, wealthy men. They inevitably become an object of hunting. At every step they are pursued by girls, ready to do anything to arrange their own destiny. Few will resist the temptation ... Father was no exception. Moreover, he was left to himself: my mother, frightened by my depression and flight from the first school, now lived with us for a long time in England.
In Harrogate, my sister and I liked it. Alinka always gave her studies, and I had my first love.
Charlotte studied in a parallel class and did not pay any attention to me. The Russians in the school were generally treated like second-class people. However, not only to Russian, but also to all not Englishmen: Koreans, Japanese, Italians. I told one friend that I was in love, and he advised: "Write a note. If it turns out that she does not like you at all, at least you will not worry in vain. "
And then I wrote to Charlotte that I loved her and did not know what to do about it ...
I handed the message during the change. At the lesson, I was shaking. And then the bell rang, and I saw Charlotte. She was smiling at me!
We began to correspond. Walked together on the changes. Once they sat next to each other, they were silent and suddenly touched each other with their knees. I blushed and moved away. Later a note came: "Why did not you speak to me?" - "I was afraid that you were offended. You were silent, too. "
And at that time my friends proudly shared their "victories": everyone had already kissed a girl named Jousi. In order not to be a black sheep, I also kissed her. But I did not like it at all.
At the end of the year, my mother said:
"The pope is right." If you stay in England for at least another year, you will never be able to catch up with your peers in Russia. You need either to finish school here, or to return to Moscow. Choose.
"Home!" Home! - We all shouted together with Alinka.
And indeed, I learned the language in three years, but otherwise the fool returned from Foggy Albion. There, in the sixth grade, fractions were divided, and here square roots were already extracted. I did not know how to approach them. I had to stay every day for additional classes in algebra, geometry, Russian ... Of course, there was not much joy.
But much worse was the other. When Alina and I went to England, we had a family, and when they returned, there was practically no family.
Parents swore every day. It was enough to spark a scandal. My mother suffered from her father's betrayal, but she did not remain in debt either. Eventually, another man appeared in her life, and she went to him.
My sister and I were so tired of the scandals that, when we heard about the divorce, we breathed a sigh of relief. The true scale of the calamity that has befallen us did not immediately open. Parents acted, they thought, sensibly: they divided the children. Mom believed that the son needed a man's education, and left me to his father. And she took her sister with her. I became very close with Alinka for the years spent in England. And now she lost both her and mothers at once. Mom completely stopped studying me. We hardly saw each other, sometimes we only talked on the phone:
- Vladyush, how are you doing?
- Good.
"How's your studies?"
- Fine.
That's all communication. Dad, too, was always busy, and he was not up to me.
"Loneliness as a lodger drove into our former home." I will write this later and on another occasion, but the feelings are from there, from that time.
I could not shake the feeling of abandonment. I was offended by my parents, but I gradually got used to it, and I even began to like this life: no control, do whatever you want. Now I have not called Mom for weeks or even months, and have had fun with friends. The closest of them was Sergei Lazarev. He was already studying acting at the Moscow Art Theater School and was an indisputable authority for me. No matter what happens between us, I loved him, and I will always love him as a brother, as a native person.