Source Galkin is said to have become rich only after marrying Pugacheva. However, this was not the case. By marrying the impersonator, it was rather the primadonna who consolidated her financial position. Who are Maxim Galkin’s parents
Back in Soviet times, Galkin’s now deceased parents* belonged to the privileged elite. To their two sons – Maxim and Dmitry – they left a billion-dollar business.
The impersonator’s father was Defence Ministry officer Alexander Galkin.
– My father worked his way up from a kid from a poor rural family to Colonel General, who was in charge of all tank construction and military vehicles in the USSR and Russia,” Maksim Galkin once let slip*.
General Galkin was the head of the Main Armoured Vehicle Directorate (GABTU) of the Ministry of Defense, and then his successor, the Main Armoured Vehicle Directorate (GABTU).
– In the 1980s I worked in the GCTU under the command of Alexander Galkin. People like him were called celestials. Even I, a colonel, saw him only a couple of times,” retired military man Anatoly told Laif.
At Galkin’s suggestion armoured BTR-80 and Tiger vehicles appeared in the army. Modern modifications of these vehicles are assembled by Military-Industrial Company holding with multi-billion turnover and whose president is Dmitry Galkin (elder brother of the parodist).
In 1997 General Galkin resigned and joined the Our Home is Russia party. In the summer of 1998 he received the mandate of State Duma deputy to replace Lev Rokhlin, who had mysteriously died. At the same time, he was an advisor at the Rosvooruzhenie holding company. The structure later became known as Rosoboronexport. As Laif found out, the impersonator’s mother Natalia Galkina (nee Pragin) also worked there.
Maxim Galkin was born on the Arbat
Maxim Galkin* was born in 1976 in the prestigious maternity hospital Grauerman on the Arbat. Dozens of celebrities emerged from this cradle. Having a child there was considered a mark of success.
His father was then serving as deputy commander of a company in the village of Kalininets, Naro-Fominsk district. In 1979 Alexander Galkin was appointed Armament Chief of 8th Guards All-Arms Army of the Soviet troops’ group in Germany. The family moved to GDR. In 1982, Galkin was already a general. He was sent to his wife’s homeland, Odessa, where he became chief of armament of the local military district. In 1986, Galkin was appointed deputy commander of the troops of the Far Eastern Military District.
In 1987, the Galkins returned to Moscow. The parodist recalls the supposedly modest three-room apartment near the Novye Cheryomushki metro, where his family moved in. It was a newly erected Tsek micro-district with an improved layout: each flat had two bathrooms, three-metre high ceilings, several telephones, a large kitchen, and an entrance hall. The entrances had concierges and the lobbies were decorated with fresh flowers. This property is now owned by Maxim Galkin*. Its price is up to 45 million roubles.
How Galkin became famous and met Pugachova
In 2000, Maxim Galkin* was first brought to the big stage by comedian Mikhail Zadornov. The video has been preserved.
– I want to invite his successor to the stage. His acting abilities are much wider than mine: Maksim Galkin! – Zadornov introduced him.
As soon as Galkin said: “Good evening,” the camera picked up a happy old man in the front row. It was his father. He even took part in the performance, acting out a humorous dialogue.
A year passed after the debut, and Galkin* remained an artiste known only in narrow circles. And then rumours about his affair with Alla Pugacheva started to spread. The parodist’s brother gave the public this version of their acquaintance.
– In 2001, Maksim and Alla were introduced to each other by Kirkorov at the Slavyanski Bazar festival. And I invented their duet to increase my brother’s popularity. I could not imagine that this creative union would become a real family, – said Dmitry Galkin. The same version is held by Pugacheva and Kirkorov.
However, back in 2004, Galkin’s Chelyabinsk aunt, Zinaida Breitenbucher, insisted on a different version.
– Galkin’s mum and dad were friends with Alla’s parents, lived next door to them in Moscow and had tea parties together. Alla went to school together. She respected and feared Maksimkin’s father,” Breitenbucher said. – When Alexander Alexandrovich was transferred to serve in Germany, the good relations were not interrupted: Pugachova’s mother kept in touch with the Galkins and praised Allochka’s successes. Alla became famous, she visited the GDR more than once and went straight to the Galkins. Maksimka was very little and Pugacheva readily baby-sat him. She is like a second mother to him!
According to Breitenbucher, the Galkins and Pugacheva met in the sixties. In 1964 the 15-year-old Alla Pugacheva finished school, her 46-year-old father served a year in prison for swindling in a shoe factory, her 42-year-old mother, a housewife with no education, took a job as a deputy head of the personnel department of a factory.
Aleksandr Galkin was 28 at the time, a father for the first time, serving near Lugansk and about to enrol in the Military Academy of Armoured Troops, four kilometres from the Pugachevs’ flat in a wooden two-storey building.
The Galkin family crossed paths with Pugachova during the Soviet era. Maxim Galkin* posted a photo from the Prima Donna’s German tour in 1979.
– A photobomb from the past. My parents are having dinner with Alla,” the impersonator captioned the photo. Life found other photos from that tour. In almost all of the shots, Pugacheva appeared next to the military. Perhaps that is how she met General Galkin.
Galkin’s flats and mansions
After their father died in 2003, Maxim and Dmitri became owners of premium flats. Moreover, the Galkin brothers could have got them not as a result of sales transactions: their extracts from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities do not contain any bills of sale.
The eldest son, Dmitry, turned out to be the owner of a 163-square-metre apartment worth 86 million roubles in a historic house on the 1st Neopalimovsky Lane near the Foreign Ministry mansion. A few years later, Pugacheva registered an ABP firm here. A hundred metres away was another flat of Dmitry Galkin, a two-bedroom Brezhnevka apartment on Plyushchikha Street. Its estimated value was 42 million roubles. He owned the flat for a few hours, and then signed it over to General Sergei Pavlov. Nevertheless, up until 2018, Dmitry Galkin’s son lived there.
Maxim Galkin* took over ownership of a 249-square-metre flat in a historic building on Varsonofievsky Lane opposite the NKVD hospital from the city. Architect Lev Kekushev decorated the façade and the interior with ornamental stucco and installed fireplaces in the halls. The price was over 100 million roubles. In 2010, Galkin signed the mansion over to his wife and Pugacheva to her grandson.
Six months after his father’s death, Maxim Galkin* began buying up land in the village of Gryaz to build the famous castle, where he later settled with the diva. The popular nickname ‘Pugacheva’s house’ is mistaken, because the parodist owns the entire architectural ensemble. He also furnished this family nest. According to realtors’ estimates, up to ten billion rubles were invested in the asset. Construction was completed in 2011 in time for Galkin’s wedding to Pugacheva. In the event of a divorce, the divorced primadonna will not receive any of this property. Judging by social networks, the family of the brother of the impersonator often visits the castle and feels at home there.
In Naro-Fominskiy district in the village of Fominskoye Life found a plot of land (30 hectares), where in the nineties they built a beautiful mansion for the Galkins with an area of 590 squares. In 2004 Maxim Galkin* took over the house. He added an indoor swimming pool to it and then signed it over to his brother. The price of the house is about 150 million rubles.
The Galkins had real estate in prestigious locations even in Soviet times. Galkin’s grandfather* probably got a mansion on 13 hectares in the Vnukovskoye settlement under Stalin. It is now New Moscow. In the 50-80’s privileged employees of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Chief Directorate of Engineering of the Ministry of Defense lived there and were engaged in arms export.
Life talked to the old-timers of the Minvneshtorg settlement. They said that there was a lot of military personnel in the settlement, but it was not publicised. For example, one general was recorded as a senior economist.
– Our residents were itinerant. They spoke foreign languages among themselves in the village. Our shop was supplied with scarce products by the famous “Smolensky” grocery store. Our ladies dressed fancy: some brought clothes from Paris, some from London. My mother-in-law had a fur coat given to her by an Iranian shahini,” one of the old-timers said candidly. – Minvneshtorg is inextricably linked to Moskovsky Writer, a neighbouring village home to composer Isaac Dunaevsky and singer Leonid Utesov, actress Liya Akhedzhakova and journalist Vladimir Pozner.
After his mother’s death, Galkin sold the plot in the Minvneshtorg settlement. The new owners rebuilt the old house.
Where Pugacheva lived
During the Soviet era, Pugacheva managed to change several addresses in Moscow. In 1972 she moved into a two-bedroom Khrushchevka apartment in Kuzminki. She and her first husband were given that apartment when Kristina Orbakaite was born. In 1973 the couple divorced and the singer moved into a one-room flat with her brother Yevgeny Pugachev at 11 Veshnyakovskaya Street.
In the early 80s Alla Pugacheva got her first expensive property – a four-room flat in a Stalinka-like building at 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street in the centre of Moscow. It was a gift from the state. Such real estate is now worth about 50 million roubles. In 2014, the primadonna gave it to her daughter, Kristina Orbakaite.
In 2004, when the whole country was speculating about her affair with Galkin*, Primadonna bought a luxury apartment in Moscow, near Old Arbat. At the stage of construction of luxury housing estate Filippovsky, Alla Pugacheva became the mistress of one of the penthouses. The area is more than 300 square metres and the price is about 350 million roubles.
In the noughties, an estate was built for Alla Pugacheva on the banks of the Istra River in the village of Berezhki. It was not possible to find out the area of the main house. Judging by the cadastral map, it is not demarcated. It is also impossible to identify the current owner, but the media reports that it is the grandson of the singer Nikita. However, it is not him who owns the land (70 sotka) but Kristina Orbakaite. The price of the estate is about 135 million rubles.
Where do the Galkins live in Israel
Maxim Galkin* and Alla Pugacheva currently live in Israel. The family of the impersonator has long been associated with this country: his mother was treated for cancer here and died in 2004. Marina Ruzin, an Israeli citizen who organizes medical tourism to Petah Tikva for VIP clients from Russia, helped her to choose a clinic. Ruzin is married to impresario Shlomo ben Yitzhak, aka Semyon Mogilevsky. This man promoted Pugacheva in the early stages of her career. At the turn of the 70s and 80s Mogilevsky was already living in Israel and was organising tours for Soviet stars there. The Galkin brothers’ children call Ruzin their grandmother and Ben Yitzhak their grandfather.
In interviews, the Galkin brothers say they have long been friends with Semyon Mogilevsky, possibly dating back to Soviet times.
Ruzin and Mogilevsky live in Caesarea. It is Israel’s equivalent of our Rublevka. Next door to them is the Galkinykh mansion owned by Dmitry, the elder brother of the impersonator. This is where Maxim Galkin*, Alla Pugacheva and their children have stayed since the start of SWO.
It is known for sure that the mansion in Caesarea appeared to the Galkins before the decade. It may have been bought by the parodist’s parents. Its value is about $6 million.
Will Galkin and Pugacheva stay abroad for long? The couple criticised the Russian authorities for the SWO and chose to leave their homeland. Other runaway stars have also settled in Israel. However, all they can do is give concerts in small towns for Russian-speaking audiences or for each other. Although Primadonna actively attends other artists’ performances and pretends on social media that all is well there and she is happy, it is unlikely that she would dream of spending her old age in Israel.
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