"The manner of performance was very different from the others: they sang softly, played small hand instruments. And the main thing - the repertoire, the group chose well-known folk and favourite songs ‘Posylala mena mati’, ‘Oy u gayu pri dunayu’, ‘Neshe Galya vodu’, ‘Oy pid vishneu’, ‘Tisha navkrugi’, ‘Chom ti ne priyshov?’ and many others. The texts were searched in archives, collected and adapted for their performance. Most Ukrainians knew these songs and willingly sang along, supported the performers with applause at concerts.
On TV screens, the Marenichs' performances first appeared in 1978, and since then their popularity has been growing. In 1979 ‘Melodiya’ released the first record with a TV version on ‘Ukrfilm’. In the same year each of the collective ‘Trio Marenich’ received the title of Honoured Artist of the rsfsr, the award was a trip to Cuba. Although they were never released abroad. They also participated in Eurovision, where they represented soviet Ukraine, performing with the songs ‘Oy u gaiu pri Dunayu’, ‘Nese Galya vodu’. Popular soviet singer Muslim Magomayev even envied the fame of the Marenici and said in an interview that he would like to give the Azerbaijani song the same wings as the Marenici gave to the Ukrainian song.
It is not known how the fate of the trio would have turned out, if not for the group's unwillingness to play by the unwritten rules of ‘court behaviour’ existing at that time. They refused to perform at a big government concert because Antonina was ill, as well as to perform songs under a phonogram. Then did not take part in the moscow Olympics in 1980-81, did not want to perform patriotic soviet songs. Gradually, the trio's recordings were removed from radio and television, and concerts were allowed only in Volyn. Perhaps, it played a role that Valeriy Marenich loved the songs of the Sechevoy Riflemen and willingly performed them. But the fact that the star of the trio rolled up is a fact, their disappearance from the musical Olympus gave rise to rumours that the ‘Trio Marenich’ emigrated abroad. In fact, they only managed to tour to Poland once in a while and once to North America in 1992.
The legendary trio was remembered in 1994, when they celebrated the 20th anniversary of their group with big concerts in the capital's ‘Ukraine’ palace. They lasted another 9 years, and in 2003 each of them was awarded the title of People's Artist of Ukraine. But a year later the group broke up, Valery Marenich began to give solo performances, as well as his partners."
- Dana Oleynikova - kryvyi-rih-trend.in.ua
