Why singer Nikolai Trubach fled Russia and became Mikola

Forgotten singer in Russia Nikolai Trubach unexpectedly showed up at the festival Limes of Vaikule. There he began to sing and speak Ukrainian, and now calls Russia, which gave him fame and money, a “madhouse.” Life.ru found out what his family’s true reasons were for fleeing Moscow.

How the Trumpeter was resurrected at the Vaikule festival

At the “festival of Russophobes” by Laima Vaikule, Laima RendezVous Jūrmala, held in Latvia, a once popular artist in Russia, Nikolai Trubach, performed. The organizers introduced him as the Ukrainian performer Mikola, on stage he sang his latest songs written in Ukrainian, including singing a duet with the hostess of the event about “kava tsikava” (“interesting coffee.” — Note Life.ru).

Trubach also tried to give comments to journalists on a language that he had obviously already forgotten well. A native of the Nikolaev region, carefully remembering/choosing his words, spent six whole minutes telling how proud he was of his native nation, its love of freedom and Europeanness. After the “Russian madhouse,” they say, Ukraine is the place for him.

Who helps Trubach after his flight from Russia

In the same interview with Ukrainian journalists, given following the results of the Vaikule festival, the musician said that from now on he writes songs exclusively in Ukrainian, there is already a whole album of them and with them in Nezalezhnaya Trubach plans to go into circulation with the help of one of the local media magnates Anatoly Evtukhov.

Evtukhov is a native of the Dnepropetrovsk region; he made his fortune by rebroadcasting popular Russian FM radio stations in Ukraine (the now defunct Hit-FM, Russian Radio and Chanson).

Anatoly Evtukhov in front of the Office of the President of Ukraine

It’s funny that his ties with Russia may be even deeper – at one time in his small homeland they said that the future king of Ukrainian radio broadcasting made his first big money back in the dashing 90s. He made money by buying for next to nothing from employees of local enterprises the products given to them as wages—metal kitchen utensils—and selling them in markets in prosperous Moscow, for which he allegedly even received the nickname Tolik the Pan.

Today, like other major players in the Ukrainian media market, Evtukhov clearly demonstrates his commitment to European values ​​and patriotism – on his pages on social networks you can see videos with covers of Bandera songs performed by Nazis with machine guns.

This same approach to the new reality is passionately supported in his media empire. However, now this is a general trend – many modern Ukrainian politicians and businessmen, being ardent fighters against Moscow, began by going to the Russian capital as if to work – for money, experience and connections.
According to Trubach, the businessman is closely involved in producing the musician and has recently been actively rotating his songs on the air of his radio stations. Perhaps the resurrection of a thoroughly forgotten singer at the Vaikule festival is also the work of Evtukhov.

Among all the festival participants, Vaikule Trubach found a place only at the edge

Why Trumpeter disappeared from the Russian stage

In Russia Nikolay Kharkovets (this is Trubach’s real name) disappeared from the rotation back in the 2000s. It happened unexpectedly – in fact, at the peak of fame. After this, fans of his work could sometimes go to the artist’s performances in small clubs and restaurants, and occasionally he appeared on Moscow radio stations, where he gave interviews and played something live.

Later, the reason for Trubach’s departure from the big stage became known: one day during a tour, the singer became seriously ill – he contracted double pneumonia. Due to the fact that the artist dealt with treatment carelessly – between performances – it led to serious complications. At some point there was even talk of removing one of the lungs. As a result, the singer lost his voice and, during a long period of rehabilitation, learned to speak again. As a result, Trumpeter, in his own words, reconsidered his life plans and abandoned show business in favor of his health and family.

With the beginning of the Northern War, the musician packed up his belongings and left for Spain. He lived there for the first time of his emigration, so that after 32 years spent in the “madhouse” in Moscow, he could “put his soul in order.” After 4 months, the family moved to London. During this time, Trumpeter practically did not appear in Russia: he attended his daughter’s wedding and in the fall of 2022 he came to the funeral of his partner in the songs “Blue Moon” and “The Nutcracker” Boris Moiseev. The artist was in such a hurry that he did not even bother to solve a number of serious problems that he had accumulated shortly before fleeing Russia.

Nikolai Trubach and his wife Elena Virshubskaya

How Trubach’s wife left tens of millions of debts in Moscow

In recent interviews, Trubach states that he left Russia for political reasons – they say, how can one live in a country in which “they were forbidden to sing “Blue Moon” (the famous hit sung in a duet by Nikolai Trubach and Boris Moiseev in 1997). After After fleeing, the artist strictly refused to perform in Russia and Belarus.

However, it seems that there may be a certain amount of slyness in these words. The interrogation at the border could well have taken place not so much because of the artist’s views, but because of his wife’s multimillion-dollar debts – Elena Virshubskaya. At the moment, on the FSSP website you can see three enforcement proceedings ongoing against her for a total amount of just under 20 million rubles.

Mikola Trubach is allegedly happy with his new life

And this is not the entire debt – part of it was repaid by Nikolai Trubach’s apartment, located a step away from Kutuzovsky Prospekt – a three-ruble apartment with an area of ​​72 square meters was located in one of the five-story buildings on Studencheskaya Street.

The scandal with Virshubskaya’s debts happened literally six months before the start of the SVO. The 55-year-old editor-in-chief of one of the Russian television channels regularly borrowed money from her work colleagues, her management, and even her housemates. Each time these amounts ranged from one to several tens of millions of rubles.

The woman was in no hurry to pay off her creditors, but she moved into a brand new black Mercedes registered to her husband with a beautiful five sevens in the room. As the victims themselves said, when asked about the timing of repayment of the debt, Virshubskaya was rude and threatened suicide – they say, then you won’t get anything at all.

As a result, the borrower was first asked to leave her job, and later lawsuits fell on her. Trubach was allegedly the last to know about his wife’s adventures—when the scandal spilled over into the public sphere. The couple was evicted from the apartment by court, and she went under the hammer to pay part of the debt. Virshubskaya tried to save her with the help of a friend, to whom she allegedly owed this housing. Both filed a corresponding lawsuit, but lost the case.

There are three enforcement proceedings on the FSSP website, dated 2019, 2020 and 2022

The rest of the debt, judging by the bailiff service, is still unpaid. It looks like it won’t happen anymore, because Trubach and his family left Russia for political reasons. For the victims, the situation is complicated by the fact that both spouses, having lived in Moscow for 32 years, remained citizens of Ukraine and did not receive Russian passports. As, by the way, are some of their relatives who now live in the Lipetsk region.