"Hope Is My Compass" is Anna Delman's (1936-1982) most famous song. She was born in Soviet Central Asia, lived in the People's Republic of Poland, performed in Italy, and became the Soviet Union's leading and favorite singer. Anna Delman was born in Urgench, an Uzbek town near th

"Hope Is My Compass" is the most famous song by Anna Delman (1936-1982). She was born in Soviet Central Asia, lived in the Polish People's Republic , performed in Italy and became the Soviet Union's leading and favorite singer. Anna Delman was born in the Uzbek town of Urgench near the border with Turkmenistan. During those years, Siberia and Soviet Central Asia were home to a large number of Russians who came to Russia in the mid-18th century at the invitation of Catherine the Great .

In 1937, after her father was suppressed for his false condemnation of espionage and her uncle died in the Gulag, she, her mother and grandmother moved first to Kyrgyzstan, then to Kazakhstan and finally to Kazakhstan Siberia, trying to find out information about their relatives. Eventually, her mother married a Polishofficial, which caused her family to move to Poland. Anna studied geology in Wroclaw and participated in amateur art activities, which later turned into a profession.

Anna Delman first gained recognition as a singer in 1963, when she won second prize at the Sopot International Song Festival. A year later she won second prize at the Polish National Song Festival in Opol. She toured the Soviet Union for the first time with her Polish songs, and a Soviet record company offered to produce her first album.

Despite her popularity, she and her family live in very cramped conditions and she dreams of owning her own house. In 1966, she was offered a three-year contract in Italy, which she decided was an opportunity to escape poverty. In 1967, Anna performed at the Sanremo Music Festival and then gave concerts in several Italian towns. However, the producer tried to save money on everything and her driver, who was her accompaniment, fell asleep at the wheel during the night drive. Their car ran off the road and Anna was thrown 20 meters away from the car. She was found hours later in a pile of rocks with multiple fractures, and the driver suffered only minor injuries.

Anna spent 12 days in a coma and six months in a full-body cast, lying motionless on her back. "I was covered in plaster from head to toe and I cried and asked for them to be removed," she later recalled. When the cast was finally removed, she spent another three years relearning how to walk and suffered from headaches for the rest of her life. suffering. Later, in an interview with Moscow TV, she called the long period of recovery a "long time of freedom."

After the accident, Anna Delman returned to the stage and sang her most famous songs. The most talented Soviet composers wrote songs for her, and Anna's popularity returned. Later, Anna received contracts in Europe and the United States, but she preferred to perform at concerts in the Soviet Union, performing even when she was five months pregnant.

In 1980, she was feeling terrible at a concert in Moscow, and doctors made a horrific diagnosis: bone cancer , sarcoma . The treatment was difficult, but she continued to perform, appearing in public wearing sunglasses so no one could see her painful tears. In the last days of her life, when Anna could no longer get out of bed, she recorded the Psalms of David on a tape recorder. Anna died in the summer of 1982.

A street in her hometown of Urgench and a garden in Moscow are now named after her. Her husband, son and mother attended the opening ceremony in Moscow in 2003, and the songs she sang in the 1970s are still popular in Russia today.