My childhood was carefree and almost magical… Days passed cheerfully, filled with friends, books and, of course, our childhood games. I was born and grew up in a family of doctors, in a beautiful four-story apartment building located opposite the Azerbaijan cinema, and under our apartment at the time there was a jewelry store. The house was surrounded from all sides by amazingly beautiful buildings and fashionable stores – a marvelous grocery store, fragrant with sweets and spices, where you could find everything your heart desired, not far away was the Old Department Store, near our favorite garden – Parapet with carousels and important fat pigeons, and just a few minutes away from the house was the Boulevard. And the people who lived and strolled in that part of town were beautiful, well-dressed, and exquisitely polite. The world around me was truly beautiful, so I associate Baku primarily with beautiful architecture and beautiful people. 

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My first conscious childhood experiences are from 1938-1939. Although my parents hid it from us, I well remember the uneasy, oppressive tension that reigned in the house at that time… We lived in a huge communal apartment on the fourth floor. Our neighbors were Germans and Russians, and right across from us lived an educated family of Kazan Tatars. When I visited them, I was struck by their huge library and by the head of their family – an imposing, very educated man who wore pince-nez–people like him were considered “from the old days” back then. One night he was taken away… A week later his wife was also arrested. Their children – son Eldar and daughter Delara, whom I was friends with, were evicted to an old aunt, who lived in the same communal apartment, in the kitchen, in some dark, blind alcove. I continued to be friends with them, and all the time I was carrying food for them from home, trying to feed them somehow. Though we were still rushing along the yard balconies and stairs, playing and laughing, I, as they say, with all the fibers of my little childhood soul, felt the hopelessness of their grief… And then it turned out that my father had also been waiting to get arrested.

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Naturally, my parents never discussed the subject in front of us. At that time I didn’t even know that my father had once been an officer in the tsarist army – he hid it all his life, and I only found out about it after his death, from his memoirs. Many years later I was told that he asked his friend to take care of us in case he was arrested… But Dad was lucky… And we children went on living a carefree life – running, jumping, playing tag and hide-and-seek.

Adjoining our yard was the wall of the building that once housed the union of the construction workers of Azerbaijan. One day we saw the back gate swing open and piles of books thrown out – either there was a revision, or they were simply getting rid of untrustworthy publications (in Stalin’s times many books were republished because the names of people who were considered “enemies of the people” had to be taken out).

We were just in the yard at that moment, and of course we couldn’t miss such an event. At first my brother and I simply watched as our friends began to lug these books around their homes in heaps, but then we became bored with the position of onlookers and briskly joined in this fascinating activity.

In this pile my keen little girl’s eye discerned the impressive volumes of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia – it was the 1925 or 1927 edition, and my brother and I dragged home a pretty decent number of books. Thus, in our already good library, unexpectedly, an encyclopedia appeared, of course, incomplete, scattered, but memorable…

My first school years were full of changes, as a result of which girls and boys were finally separated, and I went from School 1 to School 134. I was quite an active and active child, and in addition to school I studied music and ballet.

In my childhood it was not customary for a child to just hang around – in addition to school, absolutely all children attended some clubs, sports sections, but in my life a special place was occupied by music. I must say that at that time everyone was fond of music, especially in educated families, where it was a tradition to teach their children to play the piano or the violin. And we had a luxurious German Bekker piano at home, and my mother dreamed that I would learn to play it.

But I got crazy about ballet, so I enrolled in a choreography school, which was not hard to do at that time. As for the music school, I was very lucky to have Leyla Khanum Muradova as my teacher, the mother of the later famous musician Elmira Nazirova. Leyla Khanum was a woman of exceptional kindness.

I remember one day there came a point where I wanted to quit music, but she said to me: “You know what? You’re still “eating black bread” (I mostly played etudes and scales at the time)… Wait, don’t quit… Once you get to the “cake,” you won’t want to quit yourself…” And it turned out to be true – when I got to the works of Chopin and Rachmaninov, I couldn’t let go of the music. It was like something happened to me… To be honest, it was quite a difficult moment in my life, because I was literally torn between school, music and ballet. But my dad forbade me to do ballet, saying: “No! No ballet!” Moreover, it was said so strongly and categorically, that I did not even dare to argue with him, though I was surprised, because my father was an amazingly kind and gentle man. But then he tore up my tutu…

But my love for ballet remained with me my whole life. I was so fond of it that I didn’t miss a single performance. Later, when I was already in music school, my entire scholarship went to buying flowers for the prima ballerina Gamyar Almaszade, who was my idol. And then it so happened that I got acquainted with her and her husband, famous conductor and composer Afrasiyab Badalbeyli, and was even often invited to their house. Interaction with Gamyar Almaszadeh, whom friends and acquaintances called Tamara khanum, was bright, interesting and truly festive. Very delicately and unobtrusively she managed to open new horizons for me. Besides being an unsurpassed prima ballerina and an incredibly beautiful woman, she had aristocratic manners, and communication with her quietly and tacitly educated me. Tamara khanum had an amazing talent for explaining in a few phrases what would take an entire magazine article about the rules of good manners and a sense of style, which I, because of my young age, was not yet fully aware of, despite the fact that I came from a fairly well-doing and wealthy family.

In our circle, for example, it was considered bad taste to wear ready-made clothes or store-bought shoes. We had our own dressmaker and our own shoemaker. He would come to our house, we would choose the style of our future shoes, then he would take the measurements, then bring some dummy, try them on, and in a few days the shoes would be ready, and, more often than not, everything was just perfect. It felt so natural to me that I couldn’t even imagine – how is it possible to wear ready-made dresses or shoes? It seemed to me at the time that they were meant for people who were modest and poor. At that time even in the most fantastic dreams we could not assume that someday there would be boutiques of the world’s leading couturiers in Baku, and we did not know such names then. “I first saw Chanel No.5 at Tamara khanum’s house. I do not know where she got it from, and although at that time I was not very fond of perfume, this divine scent overwhelmed me. I remember she had a gorgeous white organza blouse with wide sleeves. The same blouse I saw on Maya Plisetskaya many years later… She was a true trendsetter of Baku beau monde, and, probably, it is no accident that after each rehearsal or performance she was accompanied by a crowd of enthusiastic fans… It always seemed to me that such people as Tamara khanum knew much more than others, and I am grateful to fate that I was lucky to communicate with this incredibly interesting person.

I’ll never forget my first trip to England. I remember going into a store and seeing gorgeous gold-embroidered brocade. It was impossible to resist such beauty, but I could only afford a piece for a blouse. The salesman was kind enough to measure more fabric than I expected, so I had enough for a dress. At one of the premieres, dressed in this stunning gown, I met Gamyar Khanum. She looked at me carefully and complimented my taste, but when she met me a second time in the same dress, but elsewhere, she said: “My child, you can’t wear a dress like that twice.” And once again I was convinced that she had a truly royal vision of the world…

The years of study at School 134 left a very bright trace in my life. In addition to the fact that this school was considered one of the best in Baku, we had a terrific principal – Appolinaria Pavlovna Sedova, whom we called Apulka behind her back. I have a very funny episode connected with this nickname. One day my father came to school and addressed her as “Apulia Pavlovna”… (At home he always heard that we called her so among ourselves and decided that it was her name). And I stood beside him and almost fell to the ground with shame. Appolinariya Pavlovna was the epitome of strictness and discipline. Our obligatory hairstyle at school was braids – no curls or bangs. And God forbid, if any of the girls arbitrarily changed their braids for something else! There was a terrible reprimand… I still remember our teachers, though many years have passed.

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When I got to tenth grade, and I did very well in school, I realized that I could try for the gold medal [awarded for all-excellent grades to highschool graduates].

The only thing I was lame on was my Russian spelling, so I asked my mom to hire a teacher to tighten it up a bit. Mom was very surprised – private teachers at that time were almost from science fiction. But I still managed to convince her.

After studying for a couple of months, I graduated with honors and quite unexpectedly got a gold medal, because we had quite a few strong students in our school. And then suddenly, at the graduation party Appolinaria Pavlovna announces: “Our little star, Renochka Efendizade, gets a gold medal.”

The most interesting thing is that I didn’t even realize that it was me – all the way through I was Rena Efendiyeva.

Then, when I went to her and asked her why I had had my certificate spoiled, Appolinariya Pavlovna answered that it was written in my birth certificate, but when I was sent to first grade, they wrote it down as it was then customary – Efendiyeva (back then they tried to hide the ending of the last name “zade” because it gave away the belonging to a certain social stratum that was quite far from the proletarian roots).

This is how I became the only one in the family with the last name Efendizade. It turned out later that my father was Efendizade in his youth, but then he changed the ending so as not to cause unnecessary questions…

At that time, a gold medal was a kind of “golden key” – the doors of any institute were open to you, and without exams.

I chose architecture and entered the Department of Architecture of the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute, which I have never regretted. The Industrial Institute was an exemplary university where famous architects and engineers taught. The rector at the time was Gojayev, whom everyone was terribly afraid of.

There was a strict discipline at the institute, and, of course, smoking was strictly forbidden. I remember how our fellow student, Slava Pokrovsky, swallowed an already lit cigarette when he was caught by Gojaev… In those years there were wonderful new year’s eve parties at the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute, which everyone tried to attend, and I got tickets for my friends from other institutes as well.

Contact with architecture, which I equate with art, gave me a special vision of the world, a special knowledge and worldview. But I have never regretted studying music either. I am eternally grateful to all my teachers, including my music literature teacher, Zakhar Iosifovich Stelnik. He told us about world music so passionately and interestingly that I can still remember by heart the scores of almost every opera, ballet and symphony… There were never empty seats in the opera house; there was always a full house, even beyond opening nights. But somehow we managed to get into it: we managed to get some passes or counter-tickets through friends, found a place and often sat on the stairs because we had no money for a ticket. And now… Now, unfortunately, everything is different… 

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It so happened that, studying in Baku, I always felt some kind of internal dissatisfaction. I dreamed of going to the Moscow Institute of Architecture — the best architectural institute in the country, but my parents would not let me go. After some time I managed, albeit on the sly, to get transferred. I studied in Moscow for the last three years and lived in the dormitory of MARKhI. It was a two-storied hut with a telephone in the entrance hall, where my mother called every day. But in spite of bad living conditions it was warm and cheerful there. Studying in Moscow was very interesting, because everyone was obsessed with architecture. After formal classes we still sat in the library or took extra classes in drawing and sculpture, and on Saturdays and Sundays we all went to draw en plein air.

I must say that all my fellow students dreamed of staying in Moscow, because there is a different life there, a different rhythm and scale. Of course, I also wanted to stay in the capital, but I also understood that I came to study in order to later work in Baku for the benefit of my homeland. At that time I was such a patriot, almost like in the movie “Kidnapping, Caucasian Style”: “sportswoman, Komsomol girl, beauty.” My feelings were totally devoid of pathos, it was just a responsibility to the city that I loved and loved very much. In short, I decided to return home, especially since a call came from Baku to work at the State Construction Committee. Upon my return I was sent to AzerDovlatLayiha (Azgosproekt), where I was very well received. I formed a circle of friends who were crazy about architecture – those were talented architects Shafiga Zeynalova, Yusif Kadimov, Zeinab Gulieva – all graduates of the Moscow Institute of Architecture. We argued about the problems of construction in Baku, participated in various competitions. I remember our joint work on the competition project of building Azadlyg Square, then Lenin Square. We worked at Zeinab’s apartment, staying up late into the night and argued endlessly, and Shafiga, the oldest and wisest of us, tried to reason with us. She was a wonderful person and a talented architect. I remember how she, already terminally ill, still went to the construction of the Party Archive building, which was her last project, designed together with Yusif Kadymov, and made the necessary adjustments.

My boss at AzerDovlatLayiha was academician Useynov, another outstanding person whom I had a chance to meet and even befriend to some extent. Besides being an outstanding architect who built many wonderful buildings in Baku, including the Nizami Museum, the Nizami Cinema, the Akhundov Republican Library and others, he was a super-intelligent man who had great taste and manners He was a teacher who knew life well, and could always suggest the right thing to do. It was him who, in 1956, when architecture came to stagnation and standard design reigned, advised me to go to a doctoral program. And I went to graduate school at the Institute of Architecture and Art and then stayed there to work and write books about architecture and architects, which is very interesting to me.

And, of course, my husband, the famous Azerbaijan theater director Tofig Kazimov, was a very unusual and interesting person. At the Azerbaijan Drama Theater, he staged many plays, including “Antony and Cleopatra”, “Hamlet” and Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”, staged in Azerbaijan for the first time in the world, which even in England had not been staged then! In general Tofig was undoubtedly “a head above” all of us, but we, as true contemporaries, did not quite understand it then… Gradually I got acquainted with all of our outstanding artists. My husband staged plays by Bakhtiyar Vagabzadeh, Ilyas Efendiyev, worked with composers Tofig Kuliev, Kara Karaev, Emin Sabitoglu. Sometimes in the evenings we had a terrific gathering; besides, Tofik Kuliev was our neighbor on the stairway.

Before my marriage I hardly ever went to Azdrama, but here I became insanely interested in watching the process of Tofig’s creative search. I consider myself very lucky in life – at first I had friends who were architects, people who were creative, spiritually rich and talented. We had constant arguments and debates on the subjects of architecture, because the period of our friendship coincided with the formation of architecture in Azerbaijan. Tofik introduced me to the world of theater, where I discovered a whole new world unknown to me before. And in the evenings he would read to me the poems of his father, Samad Mansur, which had never been published anywhere.

One day the chief engineer of AzerDovlatLayiha turned to me with a rather unexpected request: “You are the daughter-in-law of the great Azerbaijani poet Samad Mansur. I ask you to bring me his poem “Rəngdir”. “How do you know it if it has never been published?” – I wondered. “We Azerbaijanis know his poems by heart,” he replied modestly. I told Tofig that, and he rewrote some of his father’s manuscript for me.

…

Then he and I had very interesting evenings when Tofig told me about how he had been present at the meeting when Khrennikov had destroyed Shostakovich, and the latter, standing on the stage, cried and kept repeating: “Yes, yes, I am to blame, I am to blame…”. It made such an enormous impression on Tofig that he hated the Soviet regime.

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In the ’60s and ’70s, Tofig was friends with Rostropovich, who used to visit us. One day my husband asked Mstislav to get something for him, and one day the phone rang at our house: “Tofig, if someone you know goes to Moscow, have them come to me.

I’ll pass something on to you.” “Rena, are any of your colleagues going to Moscow?” – Tofik asked me. “Yes,” I said, “one of our employees seems to be going on a business trip. “Listen, ask him to stop by Rostrop (that’s what my husband called Rostropovich), he’ll give him something for me.

So my colleague did, and Rostropovich handed him a big box for Tofig. To be honest, I was terribly nervous, because at that time Solzhenitsyn was living at Rostrop’s dacha, and I thought that he had sent Tofig some unpublished works… When we opened the parcel we marveled – there was a two-story box of chocolates, but when we took off the top layer, under it was a gun and cartridges! It turns out that one day Tofig told Rostropovich that he dreamed of having a gas pistol.

So Rostropovich sent him a gas pistol with gas and tear gas bullets. My astonishment was boundless: “Tofig, why do you need a gun? “What for? What kind of man is that without a gun? Now I can protect you”… Such an extraordinary man was Tofig Kazimov – a great director, a wonderful husband and an amazing father…

I always argue with those who say there are no intellectuals left at all. Well, how could that be? Aren’t we left? Despite my huge, eventful life, I never, however, fall into a state of hopeless depression and nostalgia for bygone days. Today many people complain about the dominance of newcomers, believing that this destroys the spirit and traditions of Baku.

But since time immemorial, people came to the city from the countryside to study. My father, for example, came from the village of Salakhly, Gazakh district. However, he was not a peasant’s son, and by that time he had already graduated from the Gori Seminary and served in the tsarist army. Dad was an incredibly well-mannered and deeply intelligent man, but his roots were from the village! And this is a normal process.

True, then the best people came to Baku, there was not such a mass exodus. In any case, everyone who came to Baku, one way or another, will absorb the culture of this city. This is an irreversible process, occurring against human will. And if a person wants to achieve something, he just has to strive forward. My older brother was a professor at Leningrad University.

I remember him telling me about a colleague of his: “You know, Rena, he’s a very smart, bright man, but his face begs for a brick! And he once told me that despite all his success and knowledge, only his great-grandchildren would be real intellectuals. I hope that the same will happen to all the newcomers, and in the third generation they will definitely become intellectuals and real Baku citizens.

Source:

“Galereya Bakhrama Bagidzade. Rena Efendizade: ‘Segodnya mnogie setuyt na zasil’e priezzhikh, schitaya, chto ot etogo propadaet dukh i traditsii Baku” [Galery of Bakhram Bagirzade. Rena Efendizade: ‘Today many complain being overtaken by the newcomers, believing that this destroyed the spirit and traditions of Baku’] (interview with Rena Efendizade), 1 News, 19.01.2013: https://1news.az/news/20130119104154366-Galereya-Bakhrama-Bagirzade-Rena-Efendizade-Segodnya-mnogie-setuyut-na-zasile-priezzhikh-schitaya-chto-ot-etogo-propadaet-dukh-i-traditsii-Baku