Today, the most popular singer in Russia lives in Israel. In the fall of 2022, Alla Pugacheva, who had long since retired from the stage, moved with her family to Caesarea, received a new passport and closed her last company in her native country. Here, in addition to concerts, she also earned money by selling perfumes, shoes, and even chips under her own brand. What the Prima Donna left in Russia and what she lives on now – in the material of the “Company”.
28 million per hour
Alla Pugacheva began performing on stage as a teenager: she went on her first tour in the fall of 1965 with the song “Robot”. They didn’t bring her any money, but they helped a 16-year-old music school student get on the radio, where composer Vladimir Shainsky heard her voice. He gave her his song “How would I fall in love”, which began her professional career as an artist.
In 1975, Pugacheva represented the USSR at the Golden Orpheus international song contest in Bulgaria. The singer performed “Harlekino” there, triumphantly winning first place. She returned home already in the status of an aspiring star and released her first solo mini-album – it sold about 14 million copies. Two years later, the artist received permission from the Mosconcert to perform solo performances in the USSR and beyond.
In February 1978, the singer released the album “Mirror of the Soul”, which became one of the best-selling in the country. In the same year, the film “The Woman Who Sings” with Pugacheva in the title role was shown in the theaters. The picture became a rolling hit, it was watched by more than 70 million viewers. Although critics differed in their assessment of the singer’s acting, readers of the Soviet Screen magazine named her the actress of the year.
In the 80s, Pugacheva released several more hits – “Old Clock”, “A Million Scarlet Roses”, “Iceberg” and many others. By the end of the decade, Alla Pugacheva became one of the main voices of the Soviet stage and the most frequently touring star abroad.
How much the artist earned in the Soviet years is unknown. According to music critic Sergei Sosedov, Pugacheva’s fee was 47 rubles 50 kopecks. “It was a huge amount for a concert at that time,” he said.
In the early 90s, the artist took a break from her musical career and took up her “Song Theater”. This was Pugacheva’s first business project, which she launched with her ex-husband Yevgeny Boldin. The production center was looking for young talents (composers and performers) and helped them in their promotion. In 1997, Pugacheva returned to the stage with the song “Call me with you.”
The singer released her seventeenth and last studio album, Invitation to Sunset, in 2008. A little later, the artist announced her retirement from the big stage. Since then, Pugacheva has given only rare performances, while remaining one of the highest paid Russian artists. According to the promoters, a corporate party with her participation can cost about 350 thousand euros (about 28 million rubles).
Until 2015, Pugacheva was traditionally included in the rating of the 50 most influential stars in Russia according to Forbes. In 2005-2019, the singer and her family earned about $205 million. However, in recent years, the magazine has ceased to follow her income due to the inability to even approximately estimate their amount.
Perfume, chips and pyramid scheme
At various times, Pugacheva developed several business projects, but not all of them were successful. The production center “Song Theater” in 1992 ceased to be profitable and soon closed. In the same period, Primadonna, together with the French Sogo, was engaged in the production of perfumes under the Alla brand. In 1995, their sales amounted to 200,000 bottles per month, but the project was closed that same year. As Pugacheva herself admitted, she earned almost nothing from him because of her legal illiteracy.
The singer suffered another failure in the financial market in the early 1990s. Then she invested $ 1.7 million in the famous pyramid “Lord”. Pugacheva knew the founder of the company, Valentina Solovieva, who was later convicted of fraud.
The firm’s investors were other Russian pop stars – Lolita Milyavskaya, Valery Meladze, Philip Kirkorov, Nadezhda Babkina and others. In total, more than 16,000 Russians suffered from the Vlastilin pyramid, losing $2.67 million. They could not return the money.
In 2001, Pugacheva bought one of the workshops at an enterprise in Krymsk, where she began to produce chips under the AB brand. Five years later, the plant went bankrupt and was sold for 600,000 euros. In addition, the artist also had media assets. Since 1993, the singer has published the Alla magazine. It closed in 1998, and only a few issues have been published. In 2007, Radio Alla was also launched, opened by Pugacheva together with the Prof-Media company. It worked for about four years.
The shoe business, which Pugacheva launched in 1997 together with Ekonika, can be called relatively successful. In the 2000s, the company earned about $3.5 million a year, of which Pugacheva received $300,000-450,000, Kommersant wrote. Shoes under the Alla Pugachova brand are still sold on Russian marketplaces. And Ekonika itself belongs to entrepreneurs Andrey Iliopulo, Vadim Kirillov and Sergey Sarkisov.
In 2006, a new “Alla Pugacheva Song Theater” appeared. Its founders were the co-owner of the Russian Sea company Maxim Vorobyov (33%), his partner Mikhail Kenin (33%), Pugacheva (17%) and her daughter Kristina Orbakaite (17%). Since 2020, the sole owner of the theater is the owner of the Kassir.ru service Evgeny Finkelstein.
Pugacheva was also the founder of ABP LLC. In 2021, the company’s revenue amounted to 3.2 million rubles, and in pre-pandemic 2019 – 73.2 million rubles. In November 2022, the singer filed for the liquidation of the company. Now in the Russian Federation she has only the status of an individual entrepreneur.
Emigration and foreign agency
In the spring of 2022, Alla Pugacheva left for Israel with her family. Unlike her husband Maxim Galkin *, the singer did not make public statements about Russia’s actions in Ukraine. However, in September last year, when the Ministry of Justice put him on the list of foreign agents, Pugacheva said that she was in full solidarity with her husband. The artist also asked “to enroll her in the ranks of foreign agents of her beloved country.”
After that, the police began to check the Prima Donna “for discrediting the Russian army”, the Federation Council called for the confiscation of her property, and pro-government journalists lashed out at the singer with criticism. Pugacheva herself answered this way:
“What a blessing that those people whom I always could not stand hate me. If they liked me, it would mean that I sang and lived in vain. <...> Let them grind their teeth. THEY WERE SLAVES, BECAME SLAVES.”
Like Pugacheva, her husband was included in the rating of the most successful stars in Russia. In 2021, Maxim Galkin’s income was estimated at $3 million. The main income of the showman was brought by performances and television projects. The fee for a corporate party with his participation could be 50 thousand euros.
In Russia, Galkin owned the MG Lab advertising agency. Its revenue in 2020 amounted to 8.9 million rubles, and net profit – 3.2 million. In 2021, the company was no longer profitable, and in May 2022 it was liquidated.
Now the showman continues to actively give concerts abroad and seems to be experiencing a new wave of popularity among the younger generation. Excerpts from his speeches are often scattered on Twitter, and social network users note: the comedian can finally afford to joke about topics that were previously banned. According to some media reports, Galkin earns about 75 thousand euros for a concert in Europe.
