Potemkin, Boris (1933-1978) Russia

Boris Leizerovich Potemkin was born into a Jewish family in 1933 and was the middle son of three. His mother played the piano, and all the children received a basic musical education, but the future composer never graduated from a music school. He studied at the sanitary engineering faculty of the Leningrad Engineering and Technical Institute. After graduating, he worked as an engineer.
In his spare time, he wrote poems and set some of them to music. After several of his songs had become known and he had been discharged from the institute, he performed as an artist himself, among others under the patronage of the Leningrad Philharmonic.
He wrote the song "Our Neighbor" in 1965, which became very popular at home and abroad in the following years. The song first became famous through the well-known Soviet singer Edita Piekha. It is still very popular today. In 2012, the Italian DJs Gary Kaos and Rico Bernasconi released a single with a cover version of the song "Our Neighbor" with singer In-Grid as the interpreter.
Boris Potemkin died in Leningrad in 1978.