While Alla Pugacheva blew out 77 candles in Limassol, Philipp Kirkorov in Moscow marked the day at 9:00 a.

m. with a 58‑second Stories montage that stitched together footage from the snow‑white 1998 clip "Luna" and intimate family photos—him holding Alla as she wears his trademark shirt oversized and he a gilded jacket—and signed it with the line "first on the record, then in the passport," a knowing nod to the "Alla" record and their 1994 marriage certificate; their union lasted 21 years and ended a decade ago, yet, as he has admitted, he cannot sing "Do svidaniya" without a hitch, and although he had recently said he does not congratulate exes, Alla is an exception—eternal, not an "ex"—so the video calls her only great and beloved. Shot in his home studio beneath a 1996 Cyprus poster showing Alla in a black beret leading him toward the stage, Kirkorov whispers "I believe we will meet again" with a faint Bulgarian roll of the r that followers recognized as the little childlike melody Alla once praised; according to reports, a mutual friend—the same person who drove Kirkorov to Russia for their first date in 1994—sent the clip to the birthday woman, who watched it muted because doctors have warned against eye strain and read the subtitles: "Happy birthday, Alla!"—a message that made her smile, like receiving a note from a distant shore where she had once been younger than the children are now. Maxim Galkin, her current husband—recently labeled a "foreign agent" and her fifth spouse—posted a photo with a cake bearing 77 and the caption "Красотке 77!," but the internet trained its gaze on Kirkorov, praising him as "more honest than anyone" for preserving the past in HD rather than erasing it; by midday the clip had 1.7 million views—the same figure as the cassette sales in 1994 of their duet "Dve zvezdy"—and fans calculated that their shared concerts, flights and shoots total some 77,000 hours, declaring that "today we closed the circle." In Limassol, hearing "Luna" drifting through an open window, Alla turned toward the sea and softly sang the final line with her former husband—"I don't hold you, but I don't let you go"—and, this time, no one hit a false note.
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