the translation of this interview:
https://ru.sputniknews.kz/society/20181024/7767393/alexey-yagudin-denis-ten-interview.html
I weep, remembering Denis Ten: Alexei Yagudin told about his friendship with the skater
Famous Russian figure skater Alexei Yagudin told "Sputnik Kazakhstan" correspondent how he became friends with Denis Ten, despite the big difference in age
ALMATY, Oct 24 - "Sputnik", Sergey Kim
An Olympic champion and one of the most famous figure skaters in the world, Alexei Yagudin, held a master class for young athletes in Almaty. For two hours he had been patiently explaining the subtleties of ice art to four-year-old children on the ice of the Halyk Arena.
The master class was organized by the Fund of the First President of Kazakhstan and the Denis Ten Public Fund which was established not long ago.
It is known that Alexei Yagudin and the talented Kazakhstan athlete whose life was tragically cut short several months ago, were friends.
Perhaps, this Yagudin's visit is symbolic: Denis wanted Kazakh figure skating to reach high level. Perhaps there are future stars who will glorify their country, among these thirty children who went on the ice with their idol today.
The open lesson had ended, Yagudin had signed autographs, had a photo with fans taken and had been talking for a long time with a well-known Kazakh documentary filmmaker Kanat Beisekeev. When Alexei had left the locker room to talk to "Sputnik Kazakhstan" correspondent, he had tears in his eyes.
"When you came out of the locker room, I saw tears in your eyes. Why?"
"This is the dumbest question, of course... Tears of loss... when I was undertaking an interview there (to the team of documentary filmmaker Kanat Beisekeev - Sputnik), I even asked Denis' mom to leave the room, because I can't... (tears reappear in my eyes). I am extremely cynical, I am a very hard-hearted person... complimenting is difficult for me, it is difficult to touch me with some life situations... Such is me. Yet I don't understand what is happening. Three months have passed. Three months is not one day. Yet it still happens on some days... I don’t understand why I still react so (weeps). There is a situation - we skate in the "Romeo and Juliet" theatrical. After this death it is still hard to skate. There’s quite a long piece when I'm "dying." Sometimes I even weep during a performance. I don't know why Denis was such a person - extremely kind, open-hearted, responsive. He is a person that still - after three months - evokes such emotions in such a hard-hearted person as me."
"Do you remember your first meeting with Denis Ten?"
"In 2002, I didn't know, that my sports career was over, but it was over. We never met on ice before that. Yet his coach Kolya Morozov could phone me quite often and ask: “Can you come to Denis?” It was a similar master class, but the child was older. It is an additional motivation, support, maybe a couple of words - words can either offend a person or inspire."
"So you met for the first time in his training, didn't you?"
"Where did we meet? I guess it happned on one of the shows. I don't even remember where it took place. I only remember Denis always liked to spend time with me. It doesn't mean I'm good - I can hate myself. Yet he liked to spend time with me, because I love humour, I'm very optimistic about life. It seems to me, he discovered something new for him, he learned from me, he always listened closely. He was saying - I still have these messages in my smartphone: “Father Alexei...” - it has nothing to do with church, but in another sense: I'm old enough to be his father. Or: "hey nice guy, where are you?" I always knew that, having arrived to Kazakhstan, I didn't have to make coffee in the room in the morning. He would always be waiting for me downstairs with a cup of hot coffee. He was such a person."
"It is striking: many friends of Denis Ten remember similar episodes..."
"Ilya Averbukh stated it very well. Ilya came here with an ice show, and Denis was invited to the show. Ilya says: “We are in Kazakhstan, I thought that now the star of the country would come with his whims. But I was stunned when Denis arrived, he said hello, he kept saying “thank you ”,“as you say”.” For Ilya Averbukh it was a discovery, because a lot of supposedly stars of figure skating come and make their demands. As for demands - Denis and I are alike. We don't care where we can change our clothes, where we can go for lunch. We almost didn't touch these issues. We had more important issues - master classes, work, thinking about music...
You know, it is unlikely that I would go to someone for a show when I was told that the cast was already collected. Once I said to Denis: "I really want to skate. Even without being paid. May I skate in your show just for fun, one number?” There was a year when the cast was already collected - I hosted the show and I skated a number for free, just for fun. Just because I treated him that way. It is unlikely that I would go somewhere to skate just like that."
"You have a big age difference. Many are used to think that friendship is a relationship of people, mostly coinciding in the age picture of the world..."
"It is often said that people need to keep in touch with each other to save their friendship, to phone every day, to communicate. No. For me personally, friendship is such a relationship when it's OK not to see the person, not to talk for a long time. There was some kind of invisible thread between Denis and me. First of all, I don't feel like I'm 38 years old, I hope I'm young either. By the way, Denis kept saying "vy" to me for a long time. I was saying to him: "Look, we are not equals in age, but we are similar.""
my comment:
"Vy" and "ty" are two variants of the word "you" in Russian. We say "ty" to all the children, to our friends, to our parents. As for other adult people, it is polite to say "vy" to them, especially if they are older than you (it is like "mister"). Yagudin says "vy" to Tarasova even now, Tarasova says "ty" to Yagudin. He likes, if TV hosts say "ty" to him. When Yagudin does interviews with athletes he prefers to say "ty" and to hear "ty" either.
"What was bringing you together besides figure skating?"
"I can tell honestly why he became a friend for me. I hate stupid people, people who have no desire to do anything in this life, people who are uneducated. As for him, even his messages were a pleasure for me. There were no mistakes, all the commas were in right places. Now many people make mistakes because of the T9 function. Denis could build a good sentence, could string two words together. Just an educated man with an enormous heart. I really respect many-sided people. He did so many things - he wrote scripts and music, he was a photographer. I like such people, I want to socialize with such people. As for him - I don't know why he liked me."
"What was the secret of his irrepressible energy? Sport is time consuming and challenging, that could be enough for him - he had done a lot, hadn't he?"
"You see a similar person in front of you. I don't know another way to live, I want to do something. Television, theater, movies. Why, actually? Yet I can't do without that. It is interesting for me, I have a desire. And he had a desire and interest. He had a rest, he had trainings, yet he wanted to try something else. I understand him. We don't know another way to live."
https://ru.sputniknews.kz/society/20181024/7767393/alexey-yagudin-denis-ten-interview.html
I weep, remembering Denis Ten: Alexei Yagudin told about his friendship with the skater
Famous Russian figure skater Alexei Yagudin told "Sputnik Kazakhstan" correspondent how he became friends with Denis Ten, despite the big difference in age
ALMATY, Oct 24 - "Sputnik", Sergey Kim
An Olympic champion and one of the most famous figure skaters in the world, Alexei Yagudin, held a master class for young athletes in Almaty. For two hours he had been patiently explaining the subtleties of ice art to four-year-old children on the ice of the Halyk Arena.
The master class was organized by the Fund of the First President of Kazakhstan and the Denis Ten Public Fund which was established not long ago.
It is known that Alexei Yagudin and the talented Kazakhstan athlete whose life was tragically cut short several months ago, were friends.
Perhaps, this Yagudin's visit is symbolic: Denis wanted Kazakh figure skating to reach high level. Perhaps there are future stars who will glorify their country, among these thirty children who went on the ice with their idol today.
The open lesson had ended, Yagudin had signed autographs, had a photo with fans taken and had been talking for a long time with a well-known Kazakh documentary filmmaker Kanat Beisekeev. When Alexei had left the locker room to talk to "Sputnik Kazakhstan" correspondent, he had tears in his eyes.
"When you came out of the locker room, I saw tears in your eyes. Why?"
"This is the dumbest question, of course... Tears of loss... when I was undertaking an interview there (to the team of documentary filmmaker Kanat Beisekeev - Sputnik), I even asked Denis' mom to leave the room, because I can't... (tears reappear in my eyes). I am extremely cynical, I am a very hard-hearted person... complimenting is difficult for me, it is difficult to touch me with some life situations... Such is me. Yet I don't understand what is happening. Three months have passed. Three months is not one day. Yet it still happens on some days... I don’t understand why I still react so (weeps). There is a situation - we skate in the "Romeo and Juliet" theatrical. After this death it is still hard to skate. There’s quite a long piece when I'm "dying." Sometimes I even weep during a performance. I don't know why Denis was such a person - extremely kind, open-hearted, responsive. He is a person that still - after three months - evokes such emotions in such a hard-hearted person as me."
"Do you remember your first meeting with Denis Ten?"
"In 2002, I didn't know, that my sports career was over, but it was over. We never met on ice before that. Yet his coach Kolya Morozov could phone me quite often and ask: “Can you come to Denis?” It was a similar master class, but the child was older. It is an additional motivation, support, maybe a couple of words - words can either offend a person or inspire."
"So you met for the first time in his training, didn't you?"
"Where did we meet? I guess it happned on one of the shows. I don't even remember where it took place. I only remember Denis always liked to spend time with me. It doesn't mean I'm good - I can hate myself. Yet he liked to spend time with me, because I love humour, I'm very optimistic about life. It seems to me, he discovered something new for him, he learned from me, he always listened closely. He was saying - I still have these messages in my smartphone: “Father Alexei...” - it has nothing to do with church, but in another sense: I'm old enough to be his father. Or: "hey nice guy, where are you?" I always knew that, having arrived to Kazakhstan, I didn't have to make coffee in the room in the morning. He would always be waiting for me downstairs with a cup of hot coffee. He was such a person."
"It is striking: many friends of Denis Ten remember similar episodes..."
"Ilya Averbukh stated it very well. Ilya came here with an ice show, and Denis was invited to the show. Ilya says: “We are in Kazakhstan, I thought that now the star of the country would come with his whims. But I was stunned when Denis arrived, he said hello, he kept saying “thank you ”,“as you say”.” For Ilya Averbukh it was a discovery, because a lot of supposedly stars of figure skating come and make their demands. As for demands - Denis and I are alike. We don't care where we can change our clothes, where we can go for lunch. We almost didn't touch these issues. We had more important issues - master classes, work, thinking about music...
You know, it is unlikely that I would go to someone for a show when I was told that the cast was already collected. Once I said to Denis: "I really want to skate. Even without being paid. May I skate in your show just for fun, one number?” There was a year when the cast was already collected - I hosted the show and I skated a number for free, just for fun. Just because I treated him that way. It is unlikely that I would go somewhere to skate just like that."
"You have a big age difference. Many are used to think that friendship is a relationship of people, mostly coinciding in the age picture of the world..."
"It is often said that people need to keep in touch with each other to save their friendship, to phone every day, to communicate. No. For me personally, friendship is such a relationship when it's OK not to see the person, not to talk for a long time. There was some kind of invisible thread between Denis and me. First of all, I don't feel like I'm 38 years old, I hope I'm young either. By the way, Denis kept saying "vy" to me for a long time. I was saying to him: "Look, we are not equals in age, but we are similar.""
my comment:
"Vy" and "ty" are two variants of the word "you" in Russian. We say "ty" to all the children, to our friends, to our parents. As for other adult people, it is polite to say "vy" to them, especially if they are older than you (it is like "mister"). Yagudin says "vy" to Tarasova even now, Tarasova says "ty" to Yagudin. He likes, if TV hosts say "ty" to him. When Yagudin does interviews with athletes he prefers to say "ty" and to hear "ty" either.
"What was bringing you together besides figure skating?"
"I can tell honestly why he became a friend for me. I hate stupid people, people who have no desire to do anything in this life, people who are uneducated. As for him, even his messages were a pleasure for me. There were no mistakes, all the commas were in right places. Now many people make mistakes because of the T9 function. Denis could build a good sentence, could string two words together. Just an educated man with an enormous heart. I really respect many-sided people. He did so many things - he wrote scripts and music, he was a photographer. I like such people, I want to socialize with such people. As for him - I don't know why he liked me."
"What was the secret of his irrepressible energy? Sport is time consuming and challenging, that could be enough for him - he had done a lot, hadn't he?"
"You see a similar person in front of you. I don't know another way to live, I want to do something. Television, theater, movies. Why, actually? Yet I can't do without that. It is interesting for me, I have a desire. And he had a desire and interest. He had a rest, he had trainings, yet he wanted to try something else. I understand him. We don't know another way to live."