The end of the eighties, the Anchorage international airport, Alaska. More than thousand of people wearing «Welcome to USА» T-shirts and small flags greet the Russian musicians who have arrived from Magadan. Among the Russian delegation is a young white-headed man, a soloist and leader of the Moscow rock band “Rondo”. He is smiling at this country, at these strangers and is still unaware how many cities and countries he would see in the future. But he knows for sure that they will turn this city on.
A concert at the Salevann Arena a bit later – the audience is in delight – the Russians play super rock-n-roll and joint session «I want a be a rock-n-roll star» with Eddie Many – the California rock star.
«New York Times» and «Daily News» front pages are full of enthusiasm – “The Russians have melted the Alaska ice”. It is a real success, and now everyone can see it – not only millions of Americans, but also the Russian guy who arrived with his band in the Anchorage airport in the morning from the mysterious Russia where the perestroika has already started – both distant and close country.

  Music stormed into the life of little Sasha Ivanov rapidly, leaving no chance to escape. Everything started from the “Bremen Musicians”, or, to be more precise – from the “Angara” cinema where seven-year old Sasha went with his parents. After a wonderful movie the whole family went to a record department in a small stationery store nearby. The parents bought a disk of a popular singer Nikolai Slichenko for themselves and a soundtrack to the cartoon “Bremen Musicians” for the boy. Very soon the record becomes his favorite disc, he is listening to it for weeks, and the familiar phrase “Nothing is like wandering with friends around the world” stays in the future musician’s soul for a long time afterward.
   We cannot say that when Sasha Ivanov met the musicians from the far away Bremen he immediately went to music school and started studying gammas, but it was in Germany where he first performed at the stage, and this first abroad trip awoke his wish to “wander around the world”.
   And yet everything went as it was supposed to. Sasha took lessons of judo from his third year at school. He graduated from the Dynamo sports school No.210, was a member of the Dynamo sports association, several times became the Moscow champion and winner in various competitions. It seemed he would make a sports career. But music knocked at Sasha’s door once again – this time with the hands of his best friend Serezha Nagaitsev. He was going to the Pioneers’ Palace on the Vorobievy hills to take part in the contest for participation in the rock-opera “Malchish-Kibalchish” and asked his friend to go with him. And a typical story happens. The friend fails, and the jury ask a 15-year old Sasha Ivanov to sing something. At first he is kidding, saying that he is not a singer, he has just come to support his friend and that he is going to have competitions round the corner. “Who cares about corners?” – he hears, - if you have come you should sing”. He sang a popular song “Where the maple rustles”. And he was admitted – but of course! His friend was discouraged, but this did not destroy their friendship.
   Since that time his life was full not just of training and competitions, but also of rehearsals and performances, and Sasha gradually gained the professional scene feeling.
   But at that time sports was much more important for him, and all his thoughts about career (if he had any) were related to sports, not to music. And this could have been, but for the army.
   Because of endless rivalry between the country’s major sports associations  - Dynamo and CSKA – they often strived to get certain sportsmen, and at a certain moment Ivanov had to conceal his sport achievements not to be compelled to enter CSKA. He managed to conceal it not only from the CSKA management, but also from the recruiting office, that’s why his sport achievements were not taken into account when selecting a place of military service for him. Finally he was sent to Kaliningrad with the Soviet troops, and then – to the forwarding station in Weimar, Germany. He swore in the Saalfelde city, and the real military life with formations, duties and quarrels with older soldiers started in Plaune – the place four kilometers away from the FRG border.   
   Many things had seemed impossible before the army. But after the musician had got, as he says, into the military system “hard millstones” he understood that impossible can be possible too. Daily washing in icy water, five-hour long guards at -10 degrees, company and regiment tactical exercises (loading T-55 and T-62 tanks), obligatory marches in gas-masks for 10-15 kilometers – all these things became an integral part of his life. 
   But it was not physical exercises that feared him – rather a prospect to spend two years far away from his nearest, from everything that used to be so dear and important in his civil life. That is why he was trying to add part of his former life into the soldier routine.
   If you don’t want someone to engage you into the things you dislike, find something pleasant to do. He realized this military principle, true even now, right away. As soon as he had a chance, he talked to the praporschik (a middle-rank officer) and offered teaching officers judo. He even got a special room for this purpose. He managed to do this for some time – he had students eager to study this ancient fighting art. But service is service, he could not steal too much time from fulfilling the oath he had taken. Especially taking into account that he was a “spirit” (a fresh soldier) and had a very long time to go before discharging. But even then Ivanov did not lose hope to get into the sports company. He even took part in the free style wrestling competition carried out as part of the military sports games. But at that time neither sambo (self-defense wrestling he trained a considerable part of his life) nor judo were really popular in Germany, his failure was predictable. Probably, it was after losing the free-style wrestling competition (can you imagine a judo wrestler winning it?) when he, feeling desperate, gave up his hope of the sports company. Having left one closed door, Ivanov turned his attention to another one being opened a little.

   Once, when Ivanov passed the soldiers’ club, he heard sounds of music. After that he became a permanent guest of the soldiers’ band rehearsals. Soon Ivanov proved his vocal and musical talents and received an offer to become a band member. At that moment he got a new idea. Sasha Ivanov made friends with his countryman, praporschik Vitya, and persuaded him that the band ought to participate in various festivals and friendship parties in different German cities. Soon his thought of the music promotion got more detailed. And he proposed to the staff commander (a big fan of the wind-instrument bands) to create an off-staff regiment orchestra. He was impressed with the boys’ enthusiasm and ordered them to find gifted guys who could play wind instruments or could learn how to play them. So, thanks to Alexander Ivanov and his friend praporschik Victor, the tank regiment acquired its off-staff orchestra. During the first performances at the formations the whole regiment rocked with laughter looking at the discordantly marching musicians, but after half a year, during one of the general inspections, the staff commander was full of well reasoned pride of his creation.
   At first the orchestra attracted everybody who did not want to load and handle the machines – most of the so-called musicians had no idea of music. Senior sergeant was the only one who could play trumpet. He was the one to teach the “volunteers” and soon everyday six- and even seven-hour rehearsals yielded result. In future, some of the guys coming to the orchestra that constantly needed new participants (the soldiers were dismissed after the appropriate term of service) were real professionals. For this purpose the praporshik, when visiting the forwarding station in Weimar, selected soldiers with musical education or experience of working in ensembles. Nikolai Safonov, the drummer with whom later Alexander Ivanov would make a revolution in “Rondo”, came to the military unit after one of such trips.  When Safonov – a professional musician who had quit service in the official regiment orchestra – showed his musical skills, the other members encouraged with his professional level, immediately plunged into daily many-hour long rehearsals. (Alexander Ivanov still thinks that that year and a half of long everyday rehearsals was as good as study in the musical college and this was a basis for his future artistic career.) The future colleagues in “Rondo” Ivanov and Safonov chose different instruments, Nikolai –small drum and Sasha – cymbals. Soon after that the orchestra got new members –Vladimir Kiryushkin, a keyboard player, Yuriy Gaptarev, an awesome guitar player, and other high-class musicians. (Later Alexander Ivanov met Vladimir Kiryushkin in the Ryazan region philharmonic society, then he worked with Bari Alibasov in the “Integral” band, and after that moved to America where he is still engaged in musical activities.)
   The orchestra, now including much more members, and among others - professional musicians, became a regular participant of various festivals and often took first places; its musicians had an opportunity from Poland, Check Republic, Germany. Alexander Ivanov got most bright impressions of his first trips abroad with the ensemble and orchestra.
German gaststatte cafes, supermarkets, toy-like houses of German farmers, foreign musical channels broadcasting performances of the legendary  «Deep Purple», «Van Halen» «Beatles», «Led Zeppelin» – all these signs of prosperity changed the young man’s outlook.
At that time foreign land seemed to be a glossy fairy-tale. But he had no wish to stay in this fairy-tale. What he wanted was to travel. And the song from his childhood was playing in his soul again.
   After dismissal, in Moscow, Alexander found out from his friends that in the regiment where he had done his service there was established a staff official orchestra and the first musical company. Dreams and wishes of Ivanov and his friends did come true, and who knows for how many young boys coming to the separate tank regiment life was totally altered thanks to this “soldiers’ musical college” founded by Alexander Ivanov and his friends.

    He came back from the army quite a different man – and to a different country too. The quiet seventies were replaced by the rebellious eighties. Another five years – and Gorbatchev would become the General Secretary and “perestroika” would become a common word for still Soviet citizens. But even then, in the early eighties, certain changes had taken place. They seemed outstanding for Ivanov who had come back from the army. If in 1979 such bands as “Arax”, “Visokosniy God” (Leap-summer), “Mashina Vremeni” (Time Machine) had played only in students’ classrooms and in 11 p.m. Moscow had been deeply asleep, after the Olympics-80 the wind of freedom stormed into the Soviet Union. Instead of the only Moscow night café in the Sheremetyevo-2 airport being a meeting place for all the city high society there appeared discos playing both the Soviet singers and Italian pop-singers.
   One could freely come to a disco with a girl, dance, and drink some wine. The ticker cost 3-5 rubles. The price included a soft alcohol cocktail and a small package of nuts – a real liberty for those times.
– Now it is hard to understand what was wrong about it, but we really could not believe that we were allowed to do this, – says Alexander about that time.
   First of all he returned to the Dynamo sports society and regained his sports shape, but, despite all the promises, he was offered no job. Like any young man he was in a hurry to live – he wanted to arrange private life and earn money himself, not asking for the parents’ help. That’s why he immediately agreed being offered a job in the Moscow band “Raduga” (Rainbow) by the Kizyl-Ordinskaya philharmonic society. He had an experience in a musical band and an interest in that other music he had heard from his foreign colleagues. Several days later Alexander with the band went on tour in Kazakhstan.
   Though the public mentality was going through global changes, cultural sphere was still far from any new ideas. Musicians of the new Western style were just appearing, many of them started their career in amateur bands. They and their music were different and alien to the Soviet pop-culture. They had a long way to go to the professional stage. Now any artist having been hatched out of the producer’s nest immediately appear on radio and TV, in Moscow concert halls and stadiums. But then only honored and people’s artists could perform in Moscow, all the others, including those playing rock-n-roll, traveled throughout the country. Only few artists having contacts in the Kremlin were an exception. And it was even harder for the musician to find a job in Moscow. Now it is next to impossible to imagine, but once Alla Pugacheva was an unknown artist working in the Lipetsk philharmonic society and, like many colleagues of her, performed in different Russian cities; Alexander Barykin worked in the Groznyy philharmonic society etc.  
   The “Raduga” band traveled through Kazakhstan far and wide in a small antediluvian bus “Kuban” with a twisted door hardly having enough space for the equipment. Sometimes they drove 500 kilometers per day. Jusaly, Jalagash, Kozalinsk, Aralsk, Chiili – for Alexander Ivanov these are not just the cities names, these are places where he spent a considerable part of his life.
   During one of such trips the old “Kuban” gave up – ran out of the brake fluid and it seemed impossible to move farther. But the musicians were not taken aback and filled the bus with a women’s port wine “Adham”. They moved on, till the next breakage that happened really fast. In the city of Jusaly the engine failed, and the tour could easily finish because of the transport problem. The musicians had to hitchhike to Jagalash. There the driver had a brother who had a kind of an auto-service station at home. There they had to take out the engine, rearrange and repair it themselves. Only after that the tour was resumed.   
   The “Kuban” bus, that was given to all the artists from the philharmonic societies according to the Ministry of Culture decree, was the most capricious band “member”. He was constantly drawing everybody’s attention with its endless “tricks”. For example, its specific design. Because of the twisted door the equipment could be put inside only sideways, and any band inevitably had the musicians who knew how to do it and earned for the “qualified” loading 2 rubles and 20 kopeks. But the first thing that bewildered the guys when they saw their metal companion (right after they had signed a working agreement with the philharmonic society) was the tin plate instead of the back windows. And when they asked why they needed such an “armored” car, they heard a short “you’ll see after the first concert”.
   When the “Raduga” musicians were driving away from the local Palace of Culture after the first tour concert, stones suddenly started furiously hitting its tin back. The driver explained calmly that this is the way the local boys express their emotions and see the artists off. And each departure of the band from each city was accompanied with such an enthusiastic stone-fall. The better was the concert the more stones fell on the poor “Kuban”.
   But neither small salary (2 rubles 20 kopeks per day), nor small everyday problems affected their wish to play the favorite music. They were young and got pleasure from the tour. They needed money to buy port wine and jeans only. The main goal was to play rock-n-roll.
   Big distance from Moscow let them feel free with the standard limitation – “play up to 80% of the Soviet music”; the “Raduga” play-list included songs by “Time machine”, “Arax”, «Deep Purple», «Beatles», «Led Zeppelin». At the same time they created their own compositions.
   But soon they had to say good bye to the Kazakh steppe, thoughtful camels and magnificent old Kazakhs – aksakals. The guys quarreled with the manager and the contract was not resumed. They had no money even to go back to Moscow, and only after selling the equipment they returned home.  
   Then he worked in the bands “Allo”, “Airport”, groups “Crater”, “Monitor”. Ivanov’s musical career was developing rapidly, he was gaining important experience, and meetings with his elder colleagues left afterwards not just professional fables, but also a certain attitude towards the scene. And the main thing – it was the period when the future performer first demonstrated his new quality – a wish for experimenting and gathering various bands.
– I was constantly trying something new, I just could not live without it, - Alexander says. – I have also wanted these experiments to give birth to good songs.
   In 1984, between his works in different philharmonic societies, he came to a company of interesting creative people – he was invited to work in a youth experimental studio of the “Commune” palace of culture by the Frunze cotton mill situated in the Varshavskoe shosse, not far away from the Tulskaya metro station. The young people under Alexander’s lead experimented with everything – they made a stage of plastic, started (nearly the first) to invite various bands to the discos carried out in the palace. Among the often guests there were “Bravo”, “Aria”, Vladimir Presnyakov junior. At that time Alexander made friends with the “Bravo” band leader – Evgeniy Haftan. And when Haftan was in a trouble because of arrest of Zhanna Aguzarova, Alexander without any hesitation gave them the rehearsal base and the music equipment for their trip to the MAI summer student camp in Alushta. Two years later it was Evgeniy who called Ivanov and told him that Mikhail Litvin, the leader of the Moscow band “Rondo” was looking for a new soloist.

   He was admitted – but of course! The work tempo was crazy – 30-40 stadium concerts per month. “Rock panorama”, Valeriy Goldenberg program at the Moscow philharmonic society was very popular. Such famous groups as “Lotos” with Andrey Sapunov, “Bravo” with Zhanna Aguzarova, Konstantin Nikolskiy’s group “Zerkalo mira” (Worl mirror), “Master” and others performed in the program. “Rondo”, Zhanna Aguzarova and Konstantin Nikolskiy had 10 “sold out” concerts in a row in the “Yubileiniy” Leningrad palace, and then – as many in the “Olympic” palace in Moscow.
   In 1986 “Rondo” and “Bravo”, as the most promising youth rock bands of the country, were offered to take part in the first space bridge Moscow – New-York organized by the two television stars – Phil Donahue and Vladimir Pozner. Hot argues on the topic where people lived better – in which country of the two that had lately declared of the cold war termination – made the program interesting for Americans and Soviet (yet Soviet) people. Both Moscow and American studios were mostly filled with the youth. The groups representing the new Russian rock wave had an opportunity to sing a couple of their songs live. Thus, the American viewers could get an impression of the modern music in Russia under perestroika. One of the compositions “Rondo” performed during this live program was called “The smartest class”. Participation in the space bridge was of a high importance not only for “Rondo” and “Bravo”, but for the whole Russian rock as well. Later, when “Rondo” came on tour in America, people in the street recognized the participants and asked for an autograph telling that they had first seen them during the Moscow – New-York space bridge.
   Another considerable event for Alexander Ivanov was participation in recording the Russian variant of «We all are the world». All the leading stars had been invited for singing this composition in the West. And at the same time it occurred to Chris Kelmi to create an analogue of this music hymn reflecting unity of views and faithfulness for the popular music. Musicians from the most popular rock-bands - “Time machine”, “Cruise”, “Arax”, “Black coffee” etc. - took part in recording this unquestionable hit, as well as a young “Rondo” soloist – Alexander Ivanov. But music does not care for age – the song was recorded in a fantastic atmosphere. Joint work united the musicians so much that right after its end they all went to Sergei Minaev’s place where they were talking, drinking, arguing, taking pictures and certainly singing “We all are the world”.  In the New Year the song recorded with the help of Martha Mogilevskaya, the “Morning mail” producer, and some of her colleagues was shown in the “New Year party”. Having been shown on the central TV-channel together with the national rock-music stars, Alexander Ivanov became one himself. But soon, along with fame, there came dissatisfaction with his own work in “Rondo”. Alexander Ivanov and many other participants did not like the songs and faked images of guys with make-up and back-combings. Mikhail Litvin, in pursuit of complying with the modern trends, copid the style of David Bowey, «Duran Duran», «Roxy Music». Ivanov preferred the bands playing glam-rock. Sooner or later the coming conflict was to become an open opposition. Bu the situation was resolved in an unexpected way.
   In 1987 Mikhail Litvin was going to emigrate to the US, because of the poor health condition, which was known to all the “Rondo” participants. But before leaving he managed to sell the band name – a famous brand – to Leonid Plavinskiy. When the “Rondo” musicians became aware of this, they all left their manager.
   Mikhail Litvin and Leonid Plavinskiy took on the new group, made the new soloist paint his hair white and told everyone it was Ivanov, telling that he had gained some weight after the marriage. For some time there were two “Rondos” in Moscow. Even after Mikhail Litvin had emigrated, the new band musicians refused to return the name to the former, real participants of the popular group. (They managed to return the famous name through court only in 1989 with the help of Stas Namin and Pavel Slobodkin, the “Veselye Rebyata” (Cheerful guys) manager).
   Without the manager the guys felt free – they changed the play-list, image, started traveling abroad. And most important – they were not afraid to experiment and do something new anymore. They had no fear to vanish, get lost among the other bands – the group under management of the 28-year old Ivanov gladly started an independent voyage.
– When you are young you have wings growing behind your back, - Alexander says. – The wings were so large then, and our wish for success so enormous that it seemed we were about to take off and show those snobs what we are.
And they did show it. Their independent trip to the Aland Islands in Finland, for the festival in memory of the freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, was a great success.

  Leaving for their first foreign tour the musicians felt like schoolboys skipping lessons. The feeling of freedom was even more exhilarating, as there was no KGB agent accompanying them and watching everything happening in the trip, and, besides, they had received checks for several ten thousand marks. And though they had to bring most part of the money back, the fact of having such a huge (for the time) amount gave a pleasant feeling.  But as the newly-made capitalists had a very poor knowledge of English, they were extremely happy when the contest organizers met them in Helsinki. They gave the guys considerable daily allowances and – to their enormous surprise – boat tickets. It turned out that they had to take a two days sea voyage to the Aland Islands.  They drove to the Nantali port in Mercedes-taxis, like real stars. But as soon as they saw a huge ferry “Viking-Line” that was supposed to take them to the islands, they felt indescribable delight. In the snow-white cabins they found gift chocolate with a small note “Welcome on board”. They decided to explore the boat and found a whole mini-city there – more than twenty night clubs, numerous discos, perfume and confectionery stores and even “MacDonald’s”. Here they made good use of the marks cashed in Helsinki – the guys devoted all their time and energy to shopping. Especially taking into account the fact that each of them had a whole case with black caviar and “Zolotoe Koltso” vodka bought in the “Russian Wines” store in the Tverskaya on advice of elder musicians. But the main shopping was in Mariehamn, the major port of the Aland Islands. They had two days before the festival beginning and went exploring the unfamiliar land on bikes. There they met a famous television traveler Yuriy Senkevich taking a new trip around the world and coming to see the festival. The meeting was very warm. Another interest for the musicians was to explore the Finnish supermarkets and small stores where they bought bunch of presents for their nearest and dearest. Alexander Ivanov whose daughter had just been born bought for her gifts for several next years.
   But the trip main event was surely the concert. But for Ivanov’s team, among its participants were Finnish, Swedish, German, Norwegian groups and a band from the USA. “Rondo” became a real discovery of the festival, thanks to its bright and unusual show – when performing the song “Video” the guys in theatre costumes showed mini-scenes from American action movies, when singing their song about police they marched like the policemen. The audience, including the festival organizers, evaluated and remembered the unusual performance. After the Aland Islands “Rondo” was invited to many rock-festivals in different countries of the world. Most songs performed in Lapland were included into the album “Custodian of the law” issued in 1988.
   And before their leaving they had another non-forgettable meeting. Being in Helsinki two days before the departure the guys met another Russian musician – Alexey Belov from the “Gorky Park”. The former compatriot lived in the Finnish capital waiting for his departure for the US. It was the beginning of friendship of the Russian musicians in a Finnish club.
   After their return to Moscow the band started working exceptionally for the Moscow musical center in the Gorky culture park under management of Stas Namin. He was a producer for about 40 west-oriented bands, including such groups as “Gorky Park”, “Blues League”, “Brigade S”, “Kalinov” Most, “Alliance”, “Nuance” etc. In 1988, during the visit of Ronald Reagan to Moscow, MMC became of the main stages hosting arrangements in honor of this international event. Stas Namin organized a music festival and invited there foreign performers. Alexander Ivanov was lucky to sing with Howard Jones and Woodstock star Melanie. The international trio sang two compositions -  «We shall over come» and «Stay by me». Performance with the world stars in front of the seven thousand people gave Alexander outstanding impressions, and a year later the musician felt a kind of deja vu the other way – he was a foreign star performing for millions of Americans. In 1989 Ivanov and his band had a tour in Alaska that opened “Rondo” for America and America for “Rondo”. Curious Yankees met them like national heroes and asked funny questions at press-conferences, like: “is it true that bears with balalaikas are walking along the Moscow streets?” After the terrific concerts in six Alaska cities they were invited to perform on the continent – in Seattle, San-Fransisco and Los-Angeles. But Stas Namin decided to focus on the “Gorky Park” who had by that time signed a contract with the «PoliGram» company, and stopped “Rondo” half-way. The last American city they visited during the tour was Seattle, Washington. America was left behind. But even fifteen cities were enough. They were eagerly waited for in Finland, Sweden, Japan, Poland, Bulgaria, Thailand, Singapore and other countries.
   Perestroika, glasnost, new way of thinking and a birth-mark on Gorbachev’s bald-patch as a symbol of changes. By the time the guys returned from America, the matter of the band name had been finally resolved. In 1989 “Rondo” became unique again, and Leonid Plavinskiy had to rename his group at the Moscow philharmonic society as “Mission”. They won. Euphoria after Alaska gradually moved to a loaded tour schedule – cities, people, countries, events – everything like he wanted. The dreams were coming true. And we always remember good things. At that time everything was even too good for one person. Still under impression of the American trip the guys recorded an album in English (but for a couple of songs) – “Kill me with your love”, quite different from anything “Rondo” had done before. The “Gorky Park” leader Alexei Belov gave them two compositions, and the album main song «Kill me with your love» was screened into a west-oriented music video by director Mikhail Hleborodov and cameraman Sergei Kozlov. The America-affected songs of the band was first heard in Japan where “Rondo” in November 1989 participated in the «Armenia Aid» festival raising money from the ticket sale to help the children who had suffered during the earthquake in Armenia. The Russian musicians performed two high-class concerts, including one in the “Sito-club” in Tokyo, a wonder of the Japanese acoustics. The guys came to the Osaka city, 600 kilometers away from the Japanese capital, by the express-train moving with the speed of 200 kilometers per hour, which took them just a few hours. The most touching thing was that their Japanese fans followed them in small tourist buses. The guys decided not to visit radio and TV and devoted the remaining time to sightseeing and purchasing presents and souvenirs for their families and friends, including video recorders impossible to find in Russia.    “Rondo” concerts in Osaka and Tokyo were recorded during the performance. The tracks later taken to Moscow and processed in Stas Namin’s studio were included into the album “Rondo” in Japan” (Live), 1990.
   Then “Rondo” took part in the popular “Christmas meetings at Alla Pugacheva's” on TV, and after that the Soviet scene prima invited them in the tour with the same name across the Middle Asia. Among the tour participants there were also Olga Kormuhina, Philip Kirkorov, “A-Studio” and other artists. The Asian tour traveled through such cities as Tashkent, Dushanbe, Frunze etc. The concerts were held in the stadiums and were attended to by up to forty thousand people. For example, in Tashkent a small round scene was established in the center of the stadium, and the singers had to make several circles around the huge football field when singing (on foot, by car or by horse), so that the audience could see them.
   During the concert in Lipetsk, when Alla Pugacheva was singing a final song surrounded by all the other singers, the spectators (at least 30 thousand people) broke through the militia cordon and rushed towards the stars. But Alla did not panic and went on singing, then she started calmly directing the procession another way saying “OK, turn around, around..” – and then suddenly commanded: “Off!”. And the whole artistic team ran to the way out safely hiding in the dressing-rooms.

   In 1989-1990 “Rondo” has many tours with Vladimir Presnyakov, the future son-in-law of the Union most popular singer. At that time Sasha and Volodya were very close friends – Ivanov was even one of the first to know that Presnyakov is “madly in love” with Alla Borisovna’s daughter, Kristina. Presnyakov came to Sasha and Lena’s wedding party together with Kristina, and Nikolai Safonov freely walking on the wedding table splashed them both with champagne. Alexander still keeps the old photos – Volodya and Kristina, both young and splashed with champagne.
   In addition to the photos, there is also a song left from that time and born out of the two musicians’ friendship. At that years Sasha and Volodya had many joint tours. During their tour around the Altai region, Presnyakov ran into Ivanov’s room saying: “Do you remember the song you have shown me in Moscow. I have dreamed of it. It is a hit. You must sing it.” He meant the song written by Sasha “I will remember” that he had shown him before. Enthusiastic Presnyakov offered to make the new composition not only to his musicians, but also to “Rondo” a few hours before the concert. After one rehearsal the song “I will remember” was first presented by Ivanov and Presnyakov together at the concert in Biysk. By the time they came to Barnaul it was already a new, well-made hit. After the tour the song was recorded in Stas Namin’s center by sound producer Oleg Salhov. The friends often sang it during the tours, and Presnyakov many times invited Ivanov to his concerts as a special guest for the sake of this song, but it was first performed on TV in 1991 only, in the “Christmas meetings”.

  During that period there appeared a lot of other good compositions performed by “Rondo”, e.g., “On one Earth”, “We are wedded by storm”, “White bull terrier”, “I will be back” and “Mom, give me bucks”. The latter has an interesting history. In 1992, during the band’s two large solo concerts “From Russia with love” in the “Russia” concert hall the guys threw into the audience more than ten thousand bills with Ivanov on them that were immediately distributed between different people. Minor swindlers decided to make use of the fantastic completion – they exchanged the “dollars” issued by Ivanov in exchange offices, made of them false bundles of dollars and even paid for gas with the bills! Now, when someone asks Ivanov, ex-leader of the “Rondo” band: “Were it you who started negotiation of dollar in Russia?”, he answers confidently: “Yes, certainly.” These two concerts that were also attended by Vladimir Presnyakov and Alexander Monin from the “Cruise’ group, had a great success and made “Rondo” and its front man  Ivanov even more famous. 
   Ivanov does not remember the moment when people started recognizing him in the street. It was happening gradually, step by step. Besides, at that time the start status was understand by many performers in a different way. There was no such a concept as “star”, there were famous and popular artists. Ivanov worked, traveled in tours with many of them, learned something from them. He still could well remember his first Kazakhstan tour, work with Vladimir Miguli in the “Monitor” band. Ivanov traveled to many Russian cities together with Alexander Barykin, extremely popular at the time, having 15-17 concerts per month. Sasha Barykin turned out to be a very shy and pleasant man. At that time the “star” appeared during the tours, moving from one megapolis to another, finding shelter for night in shabby hotels, and the main thing was not popularity and autographs, but the tour life as it is, meetings with fans in different cities. Meetings forming the life itself and understanding of why you have come to the world. And the star status appearing later was understood as part of the artistic way to a distant goal – a “stairway to heaven”. This song of «Led Zeppelin» was Alexander Ivanov’s favorite one for some time. He still thinks that each person shall have his stairway and his steps he needs to take on the way of self-improvement.
   In the 90-s there were so many “steps” that he had to run up, skipping some stairs. Having conquered the American and Japanese listeners, “Rondo” went to socialistic countries – Bulgaria, Poland, Lithuania, that became a certain discovery for them too. And during the tour in the Baltic countries “Rondo” suddenly came across a band with the same name. This time the case led not to court, as in the 80-s, but to joint concerts “Rondo plus Rondo”, that completely won the heart of the Baltic region.
   In spite of the numerous foreign tours, Ivanov still did not have any wish to stay in this fairy-tale, even after all those years. He was still missing home, his “unkind Russia”. The musician liked to perform in the Moscow night clubs, although there were very few of them at the time.

 In the beginning of the 90-s they were just appearing and seemed something very unusual. “Rondo” could be seen in “Jump” located in the “Friendship” sports complex in the Luzhniki, “Fox’s” in the “Olympic” or «2Х2» in the “Lenkom”. Ivanov’s friend who had just come back from Singapore once came to “2x2” and told him good news – the “Rondo” band was invited to work for a month in a nightclub in the “Mandarin” hotel whose owners had liked their music.

  They accepted the offer and started preparations for the long flight. But, thanks to Alexander’s close ties with the Ukrainian “Primexpress” company, the musicians traveled to their destination not by plane, but by ship making a month and half long cruise from Odessa to Singapore. Together with the cruise participants, the guys literally traveled through the seven seas, visited the Maldives, Thailand and Malaysia. In Thailand Alexander Ivanov saw the island of his dream – Phuket where they spent the whole day. (Later the Ivanovs would rent a bungalow on the island and meet there guests as masters.) They had a lot of adventures during this time, but finally, by the time they arrived in Singapore, the club where they were supposed to work had been closed for repair.
   At that moment there appeared a good Samaritan who introduced himself as an owner of a five-star hotel in Thailand and offered them to work there. And here everything was brought together. They did not strive to leave this paradise and go back to the snowy Moscow, and he was in a hurry to have their answer. When the musicians with the “hotel owner” and his family boarded onto a small tourist ship heading for Thailand they had no idea that they would come there only in two weeks and stay there for half a year. When they just arrived in Thailand everything was fine – they gave performances, rented two houses near the sea in the Siam gulf (Alexander’s wife even came there for a month), but when the “hotel owner” who turned out to be just an adventurer was sentenced to jail, the musicians had to move from the foreign country themselves – and this was no pleasant trip.
   While the “Rondo” core team were sunbathing under the Thailand sun, the group guitar player and sound producer Igor Zhirnov, who had stayed in Moscow, was working on combining and mastering of the new glam-hard album “Welcome to paradise” recorded before the guys’ departure for Singapore. In 1993 Gennadiy Martov, Dmitry Rogozin in cooperation with Igor Zhirnov who had just come to the band, started the material forming. After three or four months of rehearsal the musicians started recording the album in Alla Pugacheva’s studio in the “Olympic” sports center. It was a topical hard-rock album of the social character. “Paradise” was taken into commas, and the disk itself reflected that dramatic days in Moscow when tanks fired at the White House. There were a lot of experiments during the recording – for example, the band invited rap-singers, in particular DJ Hedgehog who had worked with Bogdan Titomir. He read rap in the song “My Dad bought me Harley Davidson”. The powerful back-parts were sung by Alexander Monin, Dmitriy Remeshevskiy, Igor Kupriyanov and other singers. The album was west-oriented, that’s why it contained much slang, joint Russian-American expressions, the Russian versions were inserted with English words.
  The disk “Welcome to paradise” issued in summer 1994, after the musicians had come back from the Thai exile, demonstrated what the “Rondo” group was at the moment. The beautiful, stylish and modern album contained such well-remembered compositions as “Gulp of night”, “I am coming back to myself” and “You are burning the bridges” addressed to the Russian soldiers – a kind of a message from years of military service by Sasha Ivanov who had written both music and words. The song “White bull terrier”, noted by Alla Pugacheva, was shown in the “Christmas meetings” in 1994. There were music videos taken for some of the “Paradise” songs.
   In 1995 the “Bekar-recordds” company, managed by Alexander Shulgin, offered to issue an anthology of the “Rondo” best ballads. The guys agreed and started work on the album including such compositions as “I will remember”, “Let it be”, “On one Earth”, “I will be back” with new arrangements. The song “Night prisoner” that Alexander Ivanov sang with the Georgian singer Teimuraz Bodggua was devoted to the boys who had died in Afghanistan. Another interesting composition from the album – Elvis’s ballad «Can't help falling in love with you» with the new unusual arrangement. The disk “Rondo” best ballads” was issued in 1995, and a year later the musicians celebrated ten years of the band with a large concert in the Moscow Youth Palace with participation of their old friends from “Gorky Park”. The songs performed by the heroes of the day and their “American” guests were recorded during the performance, and in such a “live” variant were included into the double album “Last - Alive” issued in the same 1996. The guitars had hardly cooled down when the ten-year old band set off for the large-scale anniversary tour across the former-USSR cities. It was 1996.

    In the early 90-s Alexander Ivanov felt a need to express himself, to do something on his own. He wanted his own project that could be undersigned as “Alexander Ivanov”. He had always loved poetry, read verses since childhood, and the volumes by Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Gumilev had always been his frequent “companions”. His solo career also began from poetry. Together with his guitar player Oleg Avakov they composed music for Marina Tsvetaeva verses “I’m calling for rain”. A famous musician Vadim Golutvin known for his unique bright style took part in the song recording. As a result they made a wonderful symphonic ballad, quite different from everything Alexander had been doing in “Rondo”.
   In 1995 Alexander met Sergei Trofimov, an unknown at that time poet and song-writer who offered Ivanov part of his songs. Ivanov selected several compositions, among them such as: “God, what a trifle”, “I will lay the sky under your feet”, “Night”, “Tenderness”, “I live here” - and included them into his first solo album “Sinful soul sorrow” (1997) that had a great success. The album opening the “new” Ivanov immediately became a national bestseller (and not only in Russia, but also in the South Korea, where it was issued after the song “I’m calling for rain” with Marina Tsvetaeva’s verses had been made the main theme of a popular television series.)
   In spring of the same year Alexander Ivanov and “Rondo” received an offer from the “Artline Entertainment” company and gave two successful large solo concerts in the “Russia” concert hall with the participation of the small string orchestra. After these concerts the concert organizers totally changed their attitude towards the band, as they had used to see them as rock musicians only. “Rondo” conquered much broader audience and began to receive invitations not just to the stadiums, but also to small halls with good acoustics. The band leader – a rock musician who had suddenly became a romantic – was in the center of everyone’s attention. After the issue of his disk “Sinful soul sorrow” Alexander Ivanov who had opened to the country another side of his gift was in a great demand – he got endless offers to participate in various pop music projects. When he was still working on the first solo album, some of the songs already being played by the radio stations, Alexander was invited to take part in the NTV channel project “Night in the opera” where Russian music starts sang classical opera arias. Ivanov was offered part of Lensky’s aria “Where, where are you gone?” from the “Evgeniy Onegin” opera. He recorded it in the Mosfilm studio with the great cinematographic symphonic orchestra directed by Sergei Skripka and the musicians he had invited – bass guitar player Dmitry Rogozin and Vladimir Petrovich Presnyakov who performed a splendid saxophone part. Alexander did not try to imitate classical opera singers, he just wanted to show another part of his gift and he was a success. Later the composition he had performed was used as a sound track for the feature movie “Azazel”. Approximately at the same time Philip Kirkorov preparing an interesting double album “Surprise for Alla Pugacheva” in which popular singer performed cover versions of her songs invited Alexander into the project. Alexander Ivanov and his old friend Alexei Belov, the “Gorky Park” leader, made an arrangement for the composition “Angel on duty” that was included into the surprise album and also - together with part of Lensky’s aria “Where, where are you gone?” – into the complete version of the album “Sinful soul sorrow. Full version” issued in two CDs in 1999.

Presentation of the complete version was carried out in summer of the same year, during Alexander Ivanov’s live concert near the legendary fountain in the Moscow GUM. The supplemented version included two new songs worth a super-hit status – Mikhail Sheleg’s “Above the bell towers” and Sergei Trofimov’s “My unkind Russia”. Thanks to the multimedia format the listeners having computers could watch four music videos for the songs “Night”, “I will lay the sky under your feet”, “She believed in miracle” and “God, what a trifle!”. 

The latter two videos were created by the Russian director Oleg Fisenko and Lebanon cameraman and director Milad Tauk. Alexander Ivanov’s two dearest persons – his wife Lena and 8-year old daughter Karina – acted in the “God, what a trifle!” video.
   For some time he managed to combine successful solo career and work in the band. In 1998 they presented in the “Russia” concert hall the new disk “Past-Alive” recorded during the anniversary concerts with their friend from “Gorky Park”. In 1998-1999 the guys started an active tour life again. In summer 1998 the TV-6 channel invited “Rondo”, along with the two young rock-bands “Mummy-Troll” and “Masha and the bears”, to participate in the Sochi musical “New Riviera” festival. The three bands took part in a long program that gained a large audience and was shown on TV. “Rondo” got an experience of work with young artists – the rock musicians liked each other very much, there happened a kind of an interchange – with experience, energy, emotions.

  Another bright tour of the period embracing 25 Russian cities – large-scale road-shows arranged by the «Philips» company and its representative in Russia Hans Kuleiman. For the “Incredible festival” stages and enormous screens were assembled in the cities’ central squares. DJs led various contests and awarded prizes on the stages. Such a festival could last for five-six years and ended with performance of the specially invited stars, among which there was “Rondo”. “Incredible Festival” finished with a grand concert in the Manezh square in Moscow attended to by more than 75 thousand people and broadcasted through satellite TV in Holland. The Dutchmen were astonished watching “those crazy Russians” singing that  «Philips is part of the Universe» a month after the August crisis of 1998. After that the guys were constantly participating in the «Philips» events. And the company supported them in printing posters and issuing albums, for example, Alexander Ivanov’s second solo album “When the wings grow” issued in 2000 and having the same success as the musician’s former work.

  “Sinful soul sorrow” proved interest to and demand for lyrical ballads. The things he did for himself turned out to be necessary and timely for many others. However, when working on the second solo album, he did not want to make a good, but similar project. He wanted to experiment, look for something new. The album concept combines both complexity and simplicity, he dreamt to make the album lyrical and sensual, deeply Russian in its essence, to keep the atmosphere he had found in “Sinful soul sorrow”, but make it alive and modern, include alternative rock elements, “industrial” style» and the sound of Seattle and Los-Angeles advanced groups. The core of the new album “When the wings grow” was six compositions of the Petersburg composer Mikhail Sheleg – “Moscow fall” that had become popular even before the album issue, “My fair angel”, “Flowers”, “Above the bell towers”, “Word and note”, “Nevsky prospect”. Two compositions from the album had music videos – “My unkind Russia” (music and lyrics by Sergei Trofimov, director Mikhail Makarenkov) and “Last song tune” (lyrics by Alexander Ivanov, music by Oleg Parastaev, director Dmitry Zakharov).

  Alexander Ivanov’s second solo album “When the wings grow” was presented in the Saint Petersburg central concert hall “Oktyabrskiy” and in the Moscow concert hall “Russia” as part of the “Our music” TV program.
   It happened so that the last album “Coda” issued in 2002 in cooperation with Hans Kuleiman and «Philips» became the Last “Rondo” album.   
”Coda” was meant for advanced listeners and included experimental compositions composed by Igor Zhirnov and Sergei Volodchenko. The major trend was experimental rock with the alternative music elements. The brightest song “Crazy girl” was played by radio stations for a long time. The album also contained the oratorio “Olympics” written by Igor Zhirnov and Sergei Volodchenko especially for the closing ceremony of the World Youth Games 1998 in Moscow. But unfortunately, the bright, interesting and very gifted album was underestimated by the musical critics. And the band participants at that time id not care much for it, as there were certain conflicts within the group.  
  When the creative team stops “sparkling”, when it is not an alive creature anymore, it starts skidding. By that time they ran out of creative ideas, the sympathies ceased. They had said everything they could. It had no sense to stay together. Ivanov, as the band leader, decided to suspend its work and offered the musicians to participate in his concert group. Dmitry Rogozin, Svyatoslav Kulikov and Sergei Volodchenko stayed with Ivanov. The others started their own projects. Nikolai Safonov became a producer and not so long ago recorded his own album. Igor Zhirnov is engaged into producer activities in his own studio too. Igor Maximov is Igor Nikolaev’s main sound producer. In 2002 Ivanov officially announces “Rondo” dissolved.
   Maybe, one day we will hear a new album of this band that came from the middle of the 80-s, but now Alexander Ivanov is completely immersed into his solo career. And he seems to have thought of something better.  

  The start of the century – maximum of life. Concerts are always live concerts, albums are recorded with more than 20 various musicians, travels – it is easier to say where he has not been, presents are hard to count. A sea of plans, an ocean of ideas. But it is not that simple for someone who has always been moving against the stream. The star status and spotless reputation cannot help against common stealing. When in 1999 Alexander Ivanov started working with the “Soyuz” recording company, he could not even imagine that later he would be laterally robbed by its employees and they would show him the data of the “When the wing grow” sales proving that there had been sold only five (!) disks for the whole five years! And this is taking into account that the musician himself had bought more than two thousand recordings for presents, for radio stations and promo events, and such songs as “Moscow fall”, “My unkind Russia”, “Last song tune” are still the national hits! Regarding the previous disk “Sinful soul sorrow” recognized by Mikhail Tanich Charity fund as the XX century best album, there were data of about 4 million recordings sold. But Ivanov was given totally different figures that then were altered several times and later disappeared from the computer database in an odd way. And afterwards the “Soyuz” managers responsible for Ivanov’s album sale disappeared in the same way, but those reappeared pretty soon, as general managers of their own recording companies. In 2005 Ivanov founded his own recording label - «A&I», and finally set himself free from dishonest recording companies stealing from the musicians most part of their earnings of the disc sales. Now he is able to make his own products, from the music material and to the cover arrangement, he just needs to find a distributor network that can sell his exclusive material.   

 Number one in the list of Sasha Ivanov’s exclusive ideas is his new, third solo album “Passenger”. The time he spent for it is one of the happiest periods in the musician’s life. The artist prepared the album taking his time, improving the material between the tours and travels. “Passenger” is his today life, tours, meetings, partings, countries, continents and friends – everything he has always wanted. The album hero is a man wandering around the world, his observations and feelings are the basis for the album songs. Each song is a story. One of the central songs “Amsterdam” tells of a real story. It is about the composer from Germany looking for his performer and finding him in Russia. The composer is Alexander Dzyubin, and the singer is Alexander Ivanov. “Amsterdam” tells about their truly hearty meting in this city.   
   Recording was an easy and pleasant process with the people he has known and felt for ages, the ones with the inspiring style he still likes. The rich musical sound is the achievement of Igor Zhirnov, who is again a sound producer for the new solo album by “uncle Sasha”, as the musician calls him. Maybe, that is why even his colleagues who know Ivanov’s new songs sometimes say that yes, Sasha is working in the same style, inviting the same authors. In fact among the poets and composers taking part in the album creation were both those who had never worked with Ivanov before and his old authors – German Vitke, Alexander Shaganov, Konstantin Arsenev, Igor Kokhanovskiy, Oleg Parastaev, Evgeniy Arakcheev and Vladimir Kovalev. Many songs written by Alexander Dzyubin, a poet and composer, not very well known in Russia, are thought to belong to Sergei Trofimov or Mikhail Sheleg who worked with Alexander Ivanov in the previous two solo disks. Alexander believes this is because all the songs are composed by the people spiritually close to him, he is taking each one through his soul, and as a result the music is associated with him or with his colleagues. Anyway, most of the songs are included into the artist’s tour program and have been presented to listeners in many Russian cities. Many compositions – such as “Fifth Avenue”, “Tour song”, “Passenger”, “Dreams” – have already become popular, instead of the lack of advertisement.  But this is not enough for hi. Before issuing “Passenger” under his own brand «A&I», Ivanov will go to Hamburg in order to make the mastering in one of the best mastering studios «Master&Servant». This will considerably improve the quality of the first musical product under the label. He also plans to reissue all the “Rondo” albums and his own solo disks with a new nice design, as well as issue three  DVD-disks with performances and videos collection. The first DVD contains all the music videos for Alexander Ivanov’s songs, exclusive videos of different years from the Artist and the band’s concerts and tours. The second one contains the “Rondo” concert in the “Russia” concert hall in 1992 with the program “From Russia with love”, with participation of Vladimir Presnyakov Junior and Alexander Monin from the “Cruise” band (the one where they distributed “dollars”). And the third disk is a recording of the concert “Past-Alive” in MDM in 1996 dedicated to “Rondo” 10^th anniversary, with participation of the “Gorky Park” musicians. These recording have never been shown before, and the DVD buyers will be the first to see them. Alexander Ivanov has matured this exclusive material for years, and it has got even better, like good wine. The concert is of a special interest because of the “American” friends taking part in it and giving it a particular charm. Well, the ones who saw the concert will have something to remember, and the ones who did not will have something interesting to look at. Another DVD disk issue us planned, it is supposed to contain Alexander Ivanov golden hits (solo) and the “Rondo” best music videos (1986 – 2006).

   Alexander Ivanov will support the young gifted performers with the help of the recording label. The first step has already been taken – the first album of a new and very interesting, as Alexander thinks, singer Katya Gagarina had been produced. It is called “A fairytale before sleep”.
   The «A&I» company business, its prospected development and future transformation into the producer center require a certain level of control. New ideas, projects and finally, new artists will become the major factor of the future center development and prosperity. At the same time, for Alexander Ivanov who is constantly in tours, and, besides, composes lyrics and music for songs, would be really hard to combine both his creative work and management activities. And anyway, one person cannot control all the matters, starting from disk design approval, meeting with photographers, photo sessions arrangement and ending with the distributor contracts. Everyone could understand this, including the artist himself. And though the «A&I» separate activities are conducted by a certain employee, for example, concert manager Ilya Dolgin is responsible for performances and tours organization, and Sergei Matiyasevich – for mass media, Internet-technologies, marketing and advertising materials, all these processes need supervision. At a certain moment these management functions were undertaken by Elena, Alexander’s wife. Lena Ivanova is a professional ballet-master with a 25-year experience as a ballet group manager and she liked the new position at once. This employment did not really change anything in their family life. Lena used to help her husband in his work before, and now, as she says herself, she receives salary for this. However, now she cannot say that I have helped you with this and now “sorry, I shall go” or slam the door and run away. But they can easily solve any problem at any time without even leaving home. Lena works very hard to protect Sasha from everyday routine and give him as much time as possible for his creative work, dealing with all the organizational issues herself.

    And if you work well, you should rest well. His old dream of traveling has long become a reality. Travels are something that keeps his heart warm, gives power and strength and takes all his free time. He has compatriots, acquaintances and friends living in big cities in Japan, USA, Germany, Netherlands. He has not yet been to Australia and New Zealand, but will have time to do this in future. But the only place where he is always striving to go, irrespective of the weather and mood, is still Thailand. When Alexander visited the island of Phuket in 1994, he thought it was a paradise. And he has not changed his mind in the past twenty years, but proved it to his family as well. For several years now the Ivanovs have been renting a bungalow in the island and rest their with friends. For the sunny and friendly local people he is not a rock star, but just Sasha who deeply loves his wife and daughter, has a lot of friends and sings beautiful songs in a kind strange language accompanying himself on guitar. And for him they are the “sea children” whom he can entrust anything and anybody – even his small daughter and be sure that nothing will happen to her in the Phuket narrow street, maybe just Thailand will become her second home.  

  In spring 2005 the grown-up 18-year old Karina was baptized by the all-Mexico Metropolitan signor Chadravi in one of the local Russian Orthodox Church departments abroad. The young actress and model first time arrived in Mexico with her Father to take part in filming the song “Dreams” from the new album.  But this filming was no way the first one in Karina’s life. Being a student of the actor’s department in RATI (GITIS), Karina has got a considerable experience of acting in the movies for her age – she played in the series “Dear Masha Berezina”, “Fathers’ sins”, “My fair nanny”, “Better be born lucky” etc. Besides, she is a successful model who started a career at eight – the little princess opened Sergei Zverev’s fashion show.

  When the grown-up Karina came to the «President» model agency, she pretty soon became its leading model. But the most curious thing was that after some time Olga Dubrovina, the agency manager, noticed her “star” Father – a stylish man paying much attention to his own image. She made Alexander an offer he could not decline. Alexander Ivanov became the «President» agency VIP-face, supporting a world-wide tradition when famous people cooperate with various brands. Especially for the All-Russia young model contest «President Model Contest» in fall of 2005, held together with the “Marylyn” Parisian agency, Alexander composed the song “She bluffs best of all” that became the contest official hymn.

  Besides the stylish clothes, Alexander is still interested in sports, and not just as a fan, like most men, but as an active participant. For several years he was playing fro the football star team “Fortune”, and now, along with other performers and artists, represents the “Starco” club, often taking part in charity events arranged in cooperation with the “Football stars”. One of the latest events is the Russia wide charity action “Under the banner of Kindness” that started on May 25, 2005. It was organized by the “Rosich” sports club by the Russian Government and the Russian pop stars football club “Starco”.  All the money raised from the large-scale sports competitions and concerts in many Russian cities will be used to help the families of kinds in need of expensive medical treatment.
   He got interested in bowling during his Thai exile in 1994. He made friends with a Danish guy Bent Adisti who lived in Pattai, and often went to play bowling with him. Two years later his wife Lena gave him the “Alex” club member card. It was one of the first bowling clubs in Moscow. Then Alexander began to take lessons from the Korean trainer Sim Jay Yonga. Since then he has been participating in numerous bowling championships and has mane times won. He is always happy with the Russian sports victories. He is a crazy fan. Biathlon, basketball, hockey – whatever, but “our guys shall win”! If they lose – it is a week-long tragedy, and the whole house in a mess. Lena is fan too – his fan. It is important that his team won, then their home remain peaceful and quiet.

 She says that life with Sasha is very touching and that since the very beginning she has admired his kindness to each alive creature, even a very small one. One of the examples of such love is Chihuahua Kuzya who has been living in the Ivanovs’ apartment for seven years as a family member. Before Kuzya Lena strongly objected to any animals at home, and when Sasha took him home she first thought it was a toy. But after this “toy” had spent just one night at home, nobody could part with it, and Lena most of all.
   Another passion is fast driving and beautiful cars. Motor-rally organizers know about Alexander’s love of extreme sports and often invite him to take his chances and get some adrenaline. In 2002 Alexander was driving across the country with Nikolai Safonov in the rally “Moscow - Sochi” organized by the “Automobiles” magazine. They were fifteenth out of the 24 teams taking part in the “courage contest”, which was quite a good result, taking into account that sometimes the car moved at the speed of  200-230 km/h and four cars were crashed (thanks God, nobody was damaged). During this very rally Alexander met Alexei Vasiliev, a famous racer, and they together ascended the mountains crossing rivers and massifs in off-road jeeps. In 2003 Alexander and his colleagues participated in another rally where they had a chance to drive on the sand-hills near Astrakhan, fly in the helicopters, test the «Range-Rover» and just had fun with their friends and colleagues singing when they had free time. But Alexander himself thinks that the main rally in his life was “Out for life on the Earth” arranged by the “Autoradio” in 2004, when he left Vladivostok in the  «Land Cruiser –100» jeep and, having passed 11 100 kilometers, arrived in Moscow, to the Vasilievskiy spusk, with one of the eighty teams participating in the rally.
   Alexander is a many-sided person, and it is impossible to tell about all of his “sides”. He is constantly trying something new. In 2005 Ivanov, as a person having the good knowledge of music and a fine sense of humor, was invited to conduct the TV-program “Elder in the morning” on the MTV channel.
   In 2006 it is 20 years since Alexander Ivanov came to Mikhail Litvinov’s band “Rondo”, 25 years since he first started professional performance career and 45 years since he was born. But- no matter how many years have passed – the main thing for Alexander is still meeting his listeners and for them he is still ready to travel thousand kilometers far, like twenty years ago. Coming to a distant city he sees his listeners face to face and eyes to eyes and proves again and again that he is alive and real. This is the most important thing for any musician. And any real artist will tell you that. And Alexander Ivanov says like this too, and he believes that he still has the main song to sing and the main concert to play.

P.S.
   2005, Thailand, the island of Phuket, Patong coast. Small coast dwellers, gesticulating animatedly, meet their Russian friends who have just arrived. The “sea children” love these Russians so much that they start preparing for their visit in advance – bake cakes and make posters  «Welcome, Sasha`s family!». This very «Sasha is in the center of the guests», it is still young blond man. He is happy because his most dearest people being the sense of his life are near him – his wife and his daughter, as well as his numerous colleagues who have long become his friends and his friends who have not become colleagues. He is smiling at this country and his Thai friends and he knows for sure that no matter how many countries and cities they will see in the future, they will never find another place like this.    
 

Victoria Shumakova