Valery Blumenkrants
Valery Blumenkrantz (15th of July 1936, Moscow, Russian SFSR) – from 1989 to 2008 member of the Board of Latvian Society of Russian culture, the promoter of Vladimir Vysotsky`s art.
Valery Blumenkrantz was born into the family of builder Semyon Blumenkrantz (1914–1989) and his wife Galina (née Arkatova) (1914–1989). Valery spent his childhood in Moscow. His father worked at the Main Administration of the Northern Sea Route and spent most of his time in the Far North and the Far East. In 1941, a daughter, Natalia, was born into the family. News of the outbreak of the war found Semyon Blumenkrantz on the Pacific coast. In the very first days of the war, he was drafted into the army. He fought near Stalingrad and at the Battle of Kursk. He finished the war in Czechoslovakia with the rank of major. After the war, he was admitted to the Frunze Military Academy, which he successfully completed in 1948. Until 1957, he served in the South Ural Military District, after which he was appointed to the headquarters of the Baltic Military District, where he completed his service with the rank of colonel. After retiring from military service, he returned to his original profession as a builder.
During the war, Valery’s mother evacuated with the children to Krasnoyarsk, and in 1944 they returned to Moscow, where Valery entered school.
In 1950, on his father’s advice, Valery Blumenkrantz entered the Saratov Suvorov Military School. After graduating, he served in various regions of the country. From 1960 to 1965, he studied at the Riga Higher Military Command and Engineering School. He served in military units until 1981, retiring from the army with the rank of major at the age of 45.
After leaving the army, Valery Blumenkrantz began working as a ship electromechanic at the fishing collective farm “Uzvara.” At the beginning of perestroika (the second half of the 1980s), he became chairman of the cooperative “Vizma.” When the Latvian Society of Russian Culture was founded in 1989, Valery Blumenkrantz was among its first members and in the same year was elected to its board. In 1997, a serious illness (stroke) forced him to give up active professional activity.
Among his various responsibilities in the Society, a large part consisted of design and exhibition work, which he had been engaged in since his youth. A few examples:
– In 1965, upon graduating from the Riga Higher Military Command and Engineering School, he prepared commemorative albums for each of his 25 classmates, dedicated to their years in Riga.
– In 1980, an exhibition titled “Track and Field at the Olympic Games,” prepared by Blumenkrantz, was awarded a silver medal at a philatelic exhibition in Kyiv.
– At the end of 2008, in cooperation with other members of the Society, he prepared an exhibition dedicated to the memory of Yuri Abyzov. The exhibition was shown in Moscow and Riga.
– Valery Blumenkrantz repeatedly organized exhibitions and memorial evenings dedicated to Vladimir Vysotsky. In 2012, he presented a reduced copy of his exhibition to Vysotsky’s widow, Marina Vlady, during her visit to Riga. The 2013 exhibition is referenced below.
– Together with his daughter Anna Arkatova, he prepared the photo album “A Non-Military Secret,” dedicated to the memory of his father and people close to him.
In 1961, Valery Blumenkrantz married Irina (née Vaskova).
The couple had two children: Anna Arkatova (born 1962), a poet, and Andrey (born 1970), an entrepreneur.
Tatiana Feigmane
Additional materials:
Фотоальбом памяти Юрия Ивановича Абызова
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