Obituary: Muslim Magomayev

Yesterday, on 25th October, 2008, the famous baritone opera and pop singer of Azerbaijan, and a legendary idol of entire (ex-) Soviet Union, Muslim Magomayev has died at the age of 67. He was born in Baku in 1942 and was the grandson of another Muslim Magomayev, a great Azeri composer, and a friend of Uzeir Hajibekov, with whom they were born on the same day, and with whom they founded the european-type classical music of Azerbaijan.

In 1962, at the age of 20, Magomayev (grandson) first appeared in Moscow where he performed within the frameworks of the Days of Azerbaijani Culture. He sang two musical pieces in a gala-concert on the USSR's main stage, the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, and became a celebrity on a spur of the moment and a pop and opera "star" for several generations of Soviet citizens.

In 1997, in recognition of Magomayev's professional successes, a Russian astronomical society named two planetoids of the solar system in honor of him and his wife, Tamara Sinyavskaya, a prominent Russian opera singer.