Kurchev Nickolai Fedorovich

   Collectioner, registrar and chronicler of bard and amateur songs.
   Born August, 5, 1911 in Asha Cheljabensk region.
   In 1931 moved to Leningrad.
   Graduated from Polytechnical Institute.
   1937 - mountain-climber. 1939 - instructor of mountain climbing.
   Had been working in mountain camps as a wireless operator till 1990. During these years he collected many examples of alpinists' folklore.
   His wife Anna Mikhailovna Khmelina (Zhelandovskaia) had been working as an instructor of mountain-climbing since 1936.
   In war time she worked in blockade Leningrad, awarded with medals "For Leningrad Defence" and " For heroic labour during the Great Patriotic War".
   Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War N.F. Kurchev was on military servise in blocade Leningrade. Awarded with the Great Patriotic War Order and a number of medals.
   After war worked as an engineer, than a head of a laboratory, a chief of scientific reserch group. Retired on a pension in 1972.
   In the end of 1972 took a great interest in bard and amateur songs and began to collect them and also information about musical events in Leningrad and other towns.
   In the course of years his collection grew into archives with a number of tapes, photoes and articles about bard songs. Work with the archives is going on and the collection is growing.
   N.F. Kurchev's archives and record library are widely used for recording cassettes and CDs, for arranging books, etc.
   For example the materials collected by Nickolai Fedorovich laid the foundation for the book called "From a camp-fire to a microphone" about the history of amateur songs in Leningrad (1996).
   Another book "Mountains in our hearts" assembled by N.F. Kurchev will soon be released in Saint-Petersburg. It is the result of more than 60 years of work. The book includes a number of songs sung by mountain-climbers and mountain-skiers of different generations. Of course one can find the songs of Yuri Vizbor, Vladimir Vysotsky, Valentin Vikhorev, Ada Iakusheva and Gennady Vasiliev in it.

   Portrait - photo by Y. Bogdanov (Saint-Petersburg)

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