The Soviet leader's personal photographer shows off his work in an exhibition at the Historical Museum.
A popular joke about Leonid Brezhnev ran like this: "Why is the central swimming pool closed? Because they're developing a photograph of our leader". Frequently mocked for his fondness for self-aggrandizement, the Soviet leader was indeed immortalized in hundreds of photographs, most of them taken by one man, Vladimir Musaelyan.
Now, the photographer has searched through his archives to present around 130 portraits of Brezhnev at an exhibition called "The General Secretary and The Photographer", which opened this week at the Historical Museum.
After being hand-picked by Brezhnev from the photo corps, Musaelyan spent 13 years traveling around the Soviet Union and abroad with him, sometimes spending months away from home, and capturing leaders from Fidel Castro to Richard Nixon with his lens. His last portrait of Brezhnev was taken 2 1/2 months before the leader's death in 1982.
"He trusted me absolutely and completely", Musaelyan said in an interview Monday. Nevertheless, the photographer did not describe their relationship as one of equals. "It was impossible for us to be friends", he said. "We had a good relationship".
Sitting in his memorabilia-filled office at the Itar-Tass photo agency, where he has worked for more than 40 years, Musaelyan pointed to a signed portrait of Brezhnev hanging on the wall. On it was inscribed a quote from the leader: "May the art of Soviet photojournalists always serve good and peace".
Musaelyan, who is now 67 years old, still adheres to the same formula. While a recent drama series concentrated on Brezhnev's relationship with an attractive nurse and web sites compile lists of jokes about his faltering speeches, the photographer's attitude to his former employer has not changed.
"He never humiliated us", Musaelyan said. "I stood in front of him without groveling".
He said he had been asked to sell photographs of Brezhnev taken when the leader was "in a feeble state" but had always refused. One of the exhibition's organizers used to work for Brezhnev's security team, and Musaelyan said the leader's nieces and grandchildren had been invited to the opening.
Pulling open drawers in his office, Musaelyan took out photographs of Brezhnev on a shooting expedition – "he was an inveterate hunter" – and with his wife at the dacha, with their large pigeon loft in the background. Somewhat unexpectedly, many shots show the leader dragging on cigarettes. "He used to try to give up", the photographer said.
One of the photographs shows Brezhnev wearing a tracksuit and white vest, leaning back on the rail of a yacht. "He used to say, 'I look like Alain Delon here'", the photographer recalled.
The collection also comprises family photographs that Brezhnev gave to Musaelyan. There is even a framed self-portrait that Brezhnev took using a timed shutter release during World War II. In it, a young man in a military tunic holds a curved pipe.
The exhibition at the Historical Museum marks what would have been Brezhnev's 100th birthday in December. Curiously, it was organized with financial support from the Liberal Democratic Party, which is the only political organization that is celebrating the anniversary, Musaelyan said. He added: "There is nothing more vile than plebeians stamping on a ruler who has already died".
Naturally, Musaelyan was a member of the Communist Party – otherwise he could not have risen up the ranks of Tass – and he says he never tore up his party card.
Which is not to say that he's unwilling to profit from his photo archive. He has published an album of photographs that will be presented at the exhibition, and he has a web site with photographs for sale. He plans to leave his archive to his son, a photographer and businessman.
He is also fairly tolerant of modern reinterpretations of the Brezhnev era. A recent drama series on Channel One, "Brezhnev", was well-acted, he said, but it showed some episodes that never could have happened. The fictional Brezhnev kept Marlboro cigarettes – which he didn't smoke – in a hollowed-out book written by Vladimir Lenin. That would have been "sacrilege", the photographer commented.
Recently, Musaelyan spent several hours talking to journalist Leonid Parfyonov, who is filming a documentary series about Brezhnev that will be aired in December on Channel One.
The photographer began working at Tass in 1960 and lived for a time with cosmonauts at Star City. He took pictures of all the Soviet leaders starting with Khrushchev, he said. Yury Andropov was "almost inaccessible", while Konstantin Chernenko he knew "very well", and he had "good relations" with Mikhail Gorbachev.
He has also pictured Boris Yeltsin – "he didn't impress me" – and Vladimir Putin, though not as a personal photographer. On Putin, he was more guarded. "He is the president of a great country, and the attitude to him should be a corresponding one".
Though still accredited as a State Duma photographer, today Musaelyan mainly works as a consultant to young photographers at Itar-Tass. Asked if he enjoyed this job, he paused and said: "No. It's not interesting".
"The General Secretary and the Photographer" (Gensek i Fotograf) runs to Dec. 19 at the Historical Museum, located at 1/2 Red Square. Metro Ploshchad Revolyutsii.
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