Жан Татлян | en

Jean Tatlian was born in an Armenian family in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1943. He was the youngest of three children. In 1947 the family moved to the USSR, to the Armenian SSR and then to Abkhasia. As a schoolboy, Jean bought himself a guitar with the money he earned from painting houses. He studied guitar at the Sukhumi Philharmonia and wasn't 16 yet when was already earning money from concerts in nearby republics, in which he performed songs by French and Italian chansonniers. Later he studied in a workshop of variety art in Kiev, where at 19 years of age (not yet 18 according to other sources[5]) he was noticed by the conductor of the State Armenian Orchestra, Konstantin Orbelian, who invited him to join the orchestra as a soloist in a tour across Ukraine. Around the same time, in the early 1960s, came his first success, with the song "Street Lamps" ("Уличные фонари"). He wrote the song and just took his guitar and came to television, where they shot a video for it. The song became popular. After a while Tatlian moved to Leningrad. He loved the city and lived there from then on.[6] In Leningrad he founded his own orchestra and would give 350-400 concerts per year[5] working with Lenconcert (a concert association that organized concerts in Leningrad) up until the late 1960s. In the late 1960s – early 1970s, following a disagreement with a female director of the Orel Philharmony,[7] Jean Tatlian was practically banned from any concert activity[8] (and also, from the very beginning, he was de facto banned from leaving the Soviet Union), and in 1971 immigrated to France.[9]

Among the songs Jean Tatlian is most known for are: "Street Lamps" ("Уличные фонари"), "Autumn Light" ("Осенний свет"), "Song About Water Drops [During a Thaw]" ("Песня о капели"), "Old Tower" ("Старая башня"), "Starry Night" ("Звёздная ночь"),[10][11] "Воздушные замки", "Бумажный голубь", "Осенние следы", "Ты поверь",[7] "Самая красивая", "Свет маяка", "Ласточка".[12] He also was the original performer of the song "Best City in the World" ("Лучший город Земли", about Moscow; composed by Arno Babajanian), that is best known in the version sung by Muslim Magomaev who recorded it a year later.[7][13] .