Anyone who has ever written poetry, composed a song, made a movie or painted a picture, knows that sometimes the original idea and the finished creation are completely different things. So the people's poet of Dagestan Rasul Gamzatov began to compose a new poem, shocked by his visit to the memorial to the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the story of Sadako Sasami, a girl with leukemia, who believed that her desire to recover would be fulfilled if she folded a thousand origami cranes from colored paper. These impressions were superimposed on the news of the death of the mother, received on departure from Japan, memories of a brother killed near Sevastopol, youthful lines about girls who recognize their dead loved ones in birds flying in the sky. This is how the poems were born, and then the song, named one of the most famous Ru world by the authors of the authoritative scientific collection "Cambridge Sculars Publishing". However, this poem would not have had that popularity if Rasul Gamzatov's classmate at the Literary Institute and participant in the Battle of Stalingrad, Naum Grebnev, would not have translated the poems written in Avar into Russian, the composer Yan Frenkel, himself a front-line anti-aircraft gunner, would not have written music, and Mark Bernes, having changed individual lines to emphasize their universal sound, would not have recorded a new song for the August 1969 issue of the sound magazine "Krugozor". The recording for "Krugozor" was the last in the life of the already seriously ill Mark Bernes. For the first time, the song "Cranes" performed by Mark Bernes sounded at a meeting of war veterans in the editorial office of the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda". Marshal Konev, who had gone through the whole war and was present at the meeting, even burst into tears. And the song began to live its own life. “This song has been living for fifteen years, and we can say that it has stood the test of time and has become the personal property of several generations of Soviet people,” in 1984, the poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky, who had been a front-line correspondent, wrote throughout the war. - "Cranes" is no longer just a song - it is a page of our history, a large lyrical and epic picture. " Since then, the song "Cranes" has been sung by Yuri Gulyaev, Iosif Kobzon, Valery Leontiev, Muslim Magomayev, Dmitry Hvorostovsky and even the Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services in the field of art Mark Almond. And, of course, Vasily Semyonovich Lanovoy, People's Artist of the USSR, Co-Chairman of the Immortal Regiment of Russia, performed it at his concerts more than once. “I was friends with Rasul Gamzatov for many years,” Vasily Semyonovich recalled. - He was a bright person. He was a man with great irony, self-irony. Surprisingly versatile, like any classic. " Hearing his poem "Dagestan Rooster" performed by Vasily Lanovoy, the poet entrusted him with the performance of the song "Cranes". And although Vasily Semenovich performed with her not so often, apparently, hesitating to compare himself with Mark Bernes, this song became one of the best and most beloved songs in Vasily Lanovoy's repertoire.