my kindest clown

Children and adults crowded in the big Zlatoustinskiy Lane. A girl in a striped clown outfit – usually Caramel’s pseudonym – this role is spinning a “plate”. Whoever drops it will have to name three films with the participation of Yuri Nikulin. So on Sunday, an excursion to the museum of the famous circus and film artist began. On the day of memory of Yuri Nikulin.

The museum is located in the building of the Regional Public Charitable Foundation for Assistance to Circus Artists “Circus and Mercy”. It is small, one might say chamber, but how much love and warmth is collected in it! It contains photographs, frames from films, archival materials. Here are front-line photos – and Yuri Nikulin went through two wars, the Soviet-Finnish and the Great Patriotic War. Here are albums with stamps and candy wrappers. The first hobby was in those days for many, the second – a rarity. The tour schedule includes Japan, Australia and other countries. A large panel with film frames and photographs of his clown reprises. Model of the old circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. And awards, awards, awards…

Unfortunately, it is the reprises that are forgotten the fastest. If Nikulin’s films are still popular, then who now remembers his performances on the back of a short-legged dark horse – the horse thanks to which he met his wife Tatyana?

“We decided to celebrate Yuri Nikulin’s Memorial Day so that young people do not forget him,” said Irina Zaitseva, executive director of the Circus and Mercy Foundation. – There is a need for this! One girl wrote a research paper on the topic “My kind clown”. And there we saw the statistics that she cited. It turned out that the guys, her classmates, know very little about Yuri Vladimirovich. Therefore, we decided to hold such an open day every year. This year we made it creative, attracted clowns, students from the Rumyantsev Circus School, as well as guys from the Yuri Nikulin Circus Art School. And they talk about Yuri Vladimirovich precisely at the suggestion of young people.

Here is a sad Pierrot in front of the audience. Pierrot deftly juggles the rings, then throws up and catches four maces at once. It’s hard to believe that this virtuoso juggler is a schoolgirl. Under the classic white make-up hides a delicate girlish face.

The little spectators looked with admiration at Pierrot, at the dexterous equilibrist, who, with the help of an ordinary chair, showed miracles of balance. Especially for illusionists. They were already students of the circus school.

It’s strange, the performances are funny, the audience laughs merrily. But for some reason it stings his eyes and something rolls up to his throat.

Yuri Nikulin… He hasn’t been with us for 25 years, but it’s hard to believe. Pupil Pencil, not just a circus clown, but also a talented film artist. A man with a huge heart and a big soul.

However, this is the essence of the clown. To become a clown, it is not enough to make up your face, go on stage and fall. You also need to be able to reach out to everyone, to make sure that every viewer perceives this fall as their own. No wonder they say that the clown is the soul of the circus. A circus can be without animals, without jugglers, gymnasts and strongmen – but there is no circus without clowns.

Just like there is no king without a jester.

And there is no people without buffoons.

“The circus is a very kind place,” says Maxim Nikulin, artistic director of the Moscow Nikulin Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. – In the circus, nationality, skin color, faith does not matter … Only love, kindness and mercy are important.

These three words – love, kindness and mercy – guided the whole life of Yuri Nikulin. He was an incredibly happy person. He went through two wars and the blockade of Leningrad. During his lifetime – the glory and love of the whole country. He left, not knowing senile weakness, weakness and impotence.

“We were also lucky,” says his son, Maxim Yuryevich Nikulin. We knew him, we lived with him.

And the grandson adds: “It’s just a pity that there are very few …”

But a person is alive as long as he is remembered. And for this it is necessary to tell children about a simple, funny clown, Yuri Nikulin.

I would like to repeat his motto: “Long live all that thanks to which …”

Yana MAYEVSKAYA.

Author’s photo

See also an interview with Maxim Nikulin on our channel

or read on the website