STUDIOUS ALBUM
1991. Vinyl disc “The Star of Love”

VALERY GAVRILIN, composer: “I listened to Oleg and wept — so happy I was that another unique talent had been born in Russia. May God bless him with a happy life jorney, while the human love is already waiting for him.”

Russian Romances
Oleg Pogudin, voice
Mikhail Radukevitch, guitar
Vadim Repin, violin (12)

Recorded at Petersburg Recording Studio. St. Petersburg, 1991.

1. Your Green Eyes (B.Fomin/K.Podrevsky) 
2. Happiness Has Gone Forever (N.Harito/V.Shumsky) 
3. We’re Only Aquentances (B.Prosorovsky/L.Penkovsky) 
4. You Ask me For Songs (A.Makarov) 
5. Small Live Coals (B.Prosorovsky/N.Vilde) 
6. Times Will Change (B.Borissov) 
7. I Walk Out Alone to The Road (P.Bulakhov/M.Lermontov) 
8. Awaken Her not at Dawn (A.Varlamov/A.Fet) 
9. When I Met You (The Unknown Composer/F.Tutchev)
10. You’ve Forgotten (A.Oppel/P.Kozlov) 
11. Stars in The Sky (B.Borissov/E.Diterichs) 
12. Shine, Shine, My Star (P.Bulakhov/V.Chuevsky) 

Another references about O.Pogudin, placed on the cover of the disc:

“Oleg Pogudin sings with full sincerity: his is the voice of the heart. He is artistic and has a natural sensivity, a unigue timbre and a subtle musical taste that is entirely appropriate to these romances. We see in Oleg an outstanding musical personality and our mutual, true friend.” 

Marina Shagutch, Anton Baranovsky, Alexander Melnikov, Vladimir Mishtchuk, Vadim Repin, Laureates of international competitions

“Among the romances sung by the young singer Oleg Pogudin there is one called 'Happiness Has Gone Forever'. It was composed by my brother Nikolaj Harito, untimely deceased at the beginning of the century, who was the author of very popular songs as 'Chrysanthemums', 'Shades of the Past', 'Autumn Asters' etc, about fifty all in all.

I consider Oleg Pogudin's performance to be an ideal one. This very manner of singing was the custom among my brother's relations, friends and acquaintances. He himself sang in this manner, very cordially, with great faith in people and human passions, without a bit of pose or desire to deceive the public. The romance is truth itself, and it can be sung properly only by a good, upright human being.

I am astonished and very glad to know that the youth of nowadays remembers and loves romances and feels them so right and true.”

N.Lavrovskaya

“Surprisingly, in the nineties, a yound man sings Russian romances as if they were composed not a century ago but today, and for him personaly. His singing is not at all affected or stilted but expressed a full, unselfconscious faith in the songs and in humanity.

Oleg Pogudin, 22, being an actor by profession, graduated from a theatre institute and has played his first season at St.Petersburg Gorky Drama Theatre. He has had no cruel experience of army service or on a faraway building site but, as we all have, he has had another experience no less significant: he is a continuing witness of the new Russian revolution, and is constantly adjusting and coming to terms with this rapidly-changing situation, and trying to respond to it appropriately.

He has a broad repertoire in various languages, but it is his Russian romances that are central. The sympathy between the singer and his material is astonishing: Oleg's identification with these romances is total. That is why a certain circle of friends in St.Petersburg, all professional musicians, always listen to Oleg with close, critical attention. And these musicians, though young, are informed and discerning judges, being themselves prizewinners in international competitions and performers in concerts world-wide. Moreover, one of the romances recorded on this disc also enables us to hear the violin of one of them — Vadim Repin, an outstanding musician with a rapidly growing international reputation — and there is a unique partnership. Vadim Repin does not merely accompany Oleg Pogudin: voice violin partner each other on equal terms.

For many decades, Russian romances have enabled performers to inspire pure and generous feelings in the souls of their listeners. Then romance was taken by force from the youth, and subseqently was totally displaced by an imported mass culture. Life, however, has moved on, and the future will no doubt bring a mighty revival of interest in and love of romance, one of the sources of the spiritual life of man. Oleg Pogudin is one of those initiating this revival.”

/.Jvanovsky, president, the Swedish Club