BELIEF IN FACT THAT ALL IS FROM A TO Z…. DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF YURI ALEXANDROV

Amazing person! World knowledge, talent of a storyteller, educator. His lectures could be listened to for hours, and it was not lectures, but a monologue-performance performed by a talented actor! The sensitive, kind, gallant!
Now, unfortunately, there are almost no such educators in love with their profession! He always supported Mark’s point of view! Classmates, like-minded friends, … And he was sharply against rudeness and primitive.
Yuri Vilyamovich always kissed women hand. Don Quixote!
Marina Turpisheva

***
During the discussions of the premiere performances of the Tashkent theaters, Yuri Vilyamovich always expressed his opinion very accurately and interestingly. He spoke very correctly about the pros and cons. No one ever argued with him.
He could not stand an unprofessional, irresponsible attitude to the profession.
Seydulla Moldakhanov

***
Once when I was on a shift I was handed a book wrapped in a newspaper. I was dumbfounded somehow …
Opened. It was a Maeterlinck book. And the story was highlighted. “Inside there” The book is a gift from Yuri Vilyamovich.
Somehow before that, we talked about what I like. I said I like something strange. Elusive.
***
Then we planned to talk more. But I was too young. And I was shy …
I’ve already talked to him “inside”.
Khristina Belousova

I came to the theater later than everyone for a semester, so I was afraid of everyone and everything, and especially to express my opinion: it seemed to me it was better to remain silent … Especially in the lectures of Yuri Vilyamovich.
In one session, I really did not know what was going on, but I decided to speak out so as not to lag behind everyone. I’ve never been listened to like he did that time… from the fact that there were really no thoughts, I began to get lost, and he guided and said “thank you”.
And only then I realized: he knew from the very beginning, that I was speaking in order to say something.
But after that I never approached him unprepared. If I didn’t have time, I would read at least the headline in the subway so that he would listen to me again.
In his classes, we felt like free creators, he created all the conditions for this. His favorite phrase, which I use now: “If you want to eat, eat. Eat and listen better than you think about the pies in my class.”
Natalya Lee

***
Firstly, Yuri Vilyamovich is the only teacher in my life when one could sleep during his lectures. And not because the classes were boring, but simply that it was “officially” authorized by himself. Secondly, we could borrow countless video tapes with cool art-house films from him, and there was no Internet that time.
***
Once, with our entire course, under the supervision of Yuri Vilyamovich, we went to the play Caspar based on the play by Peter Handke, which was brought to Tashkent by the German theater team Theater an der Ruhr …
After a very long, as it seemed to us, first act, we all wanted to leave, all together, but Yury Vilyamovich, the critic and educator with reach experience of watching a huge number of performances, coursing together with us up hill and down this and all other German theaters, advised us to show all our tolerance and stay on the second act. We did so.
This day, we all experienced a real theater miracle, what we saw in the second act made a tremendous impression on us. After that, I fell in love with German modern theater forever. With our mouths open due to surprise, we in a string came out of the hall, and when our delighted chain sailed beside Yuri Vilyamovich, who was sitting a little higher, as we noticed his eyes shining, waving his arms, articulated with his lips distinctly – “I’m an old fool! “, and we, as if hypnotized, nodded our heads, absolutely agreeing with him.
Of course, he scolded himself for allowing himself to voice his judgment at the presence of his students, all the more negative, without having watched the play till the end. And we, after we moved away a little from the obsession of impressions from the second act, were very embarrassed, catching ourselves on the fact that by agreeing with Yuri Vilyamovich, we called him “an old fool.”
After this incident, I try not to leave without having watched the play to the end, although, unfortunately, this is not always necessary …
Maxim Fadeev

***
Yuri Vilyamovich experienced our luck and failure as his own.

I watched all the performances several times and after each I stayed and shared with my impressions. His presence in the auditorium inspired and motivated.
I remember once after the next performance of the Tortilla Flat, he came up to me and said: “Today in the finale you were accurate and convincing, and I also liked that Dani was unshaven today. Good finding.” Since then, a week before this performance, I don’t shave.
Boris Gafurov

I’ll tell you one old secret.
Once, when we were just starting to work on the play “Flights of Mashrab”, we came across in the foyer with Yuri Vilyamovich and he asked me what I thought about the new material. I replied that this was my first acquaintance with Sufism, but I still do not fully understand who the Calenders are, and so it’s difficult to come up with a sketch about them.
Yuri Vilyamovich nodded his head and just said – let’s go. It was a deep evening, there was no one in the theater, the space was clean, and the two of us went straight down to the stage. He closed the large doors, set me in the middle on the second row and said – look.
I don’t even know which words to use to describe what went on next … Miracle, carnival, fireworks, solo performance WITHOUT WORDS! Exactly, without words! Our dear Yuri, who was a master of words, who could spend hours telling the history of the theater, who we always only listened to, suddenly, without uttering a single word, began to make some sounds, perform plastic steps, flutter like a bird, dance “umba-yumba” – dancing, immersed in a shamanic dhikr.
For 20 minutes I’ve seen a real Sufi prayer, who had a beginning, development and peak, in which he connected with God. To say that I was dumbfounded is to say nothing. When he finished, I sat with my mouth open pressed to the back of the chair.
– Got it? He asked me
“Got it,” I answered.
And then he added:
“That should be our biggest secret with you, promise?”
“I promise,” I answered.
The next day I brought to the rehearsal several sketches.

More than 15 years have passed, and neither Mark nor his colleagues knew about this episode, no one. And now I am proud to say – Yuri Vilyamovich! You are our teacher! And therefore we always remember you! Happy Birthday dear.
Bernard Nazarmukhamedov
***
And once, after the play “Laboratory of Dr. Chekhov”, Yuri Vilyamovich asked me a question:
– Olya, why the “bear”?
– Well … Chekhov … so called his joke in one action ….
“No, why did exactly she call exactly him exactly so?

I took on … I can’t say that I thought about it all twenty-four hours a day. But re-read, thought …
And after a year and a half, as if by itself the answer came brilliantly simple, easy and childishly joyful!
– Sure! Smirnov in his (one of) angry monologue pronounces the word “crocodile”.
– You look at another poetic creation: muslin, ether, a demigoddess, a million raptures, and if you look into the soul – an ordinary crocodile!
It gets on the inflamed female brain with an increased emotional background…. oh so, then I’m a crocodile?!
And you … You … Then ….
– Bear! Bear!
Bear!
Here … the logical conclusion of the zoological “shootout”!
Thank you, dear Yuri Vilyamovich, for this lesson!
……………………………….
P.S. And also … he is so handsome … Man.
He reminded me A. Blok’s portrait.
But closer …
(c) Olga Volodina

I want to write a lot. But it is hardly possible to make it brief; but a book needs to be written about him!
Yuri Vilyamovich, a classmate of my parents, and from childhood he seemed to be my uncle, my father’s, mother’s brother, like Mark Yakovlevich, Kamaridin Umarovich, Natalya Konstantinovna and all fellow students, all the wonderful personalities of the course. All of them are our dear ones!

Yuri Vilyamovich! All his qualities that you want to list and they can be listed, all will be written with capital letter! This is Kindness, Politeness, Charisma, Attraction! The Theater Institute, the Youth Theater, the Ilkhom Theater, the Museum of Cinema, free evenings in the Jewish Cultural Center, the Institute of Choreography … are associated with it … a short Life-long journey!

I know him from childhood, I know him from different angles and now over the years I realize very much how we miss him… but there is a documentary video, it returns us to him. The video that was made about his life will tell more than our words …