For several years now, a story has been spreading on social networks about the noble deed of a Soviet artist that amazed his Japanese colleagues. We checked how true this story is.
Viral publications begin with the fact that one morning on the way to work, Yuri Nikulin witnessed a tragedy - a car hit a young woman and her six-year-old son at a pedestrian crossing. The boy, as it turned out, was not injured, but his mother died on the spot. Then Nikulin took off his jacket and covered the woman’s body with it to protect the child from the terrible picture. After this, the artist spent some time trying to console the boy, gave him his tie and eventually took him by taxi to his grandmother.
Because of this incident, Nikulin was an hour and a half late for a meeting with the Japanese delegation that had arrived in Moscow, and even violated the rules of etiquette: he appeared without a jacket and tie, wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The head of the delegation, Ito Kobayashi, and his colleagues considered Nikulin’s appearance and lateness an insult and defiantly left the Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard.
Only five years later Kobayashi learned the true reason for the artist’s lateness. Nikulin was invited to Tokyo, sending for him a plane that belonged to the Kobayashi company. In the office of the Soviet artist, they were met by 78 bowing Japanese men without jackets, without ties and in white shirts, the sleeves of which were rolled up to the elbows.
This story can be read on numerous information and entertainment resources (“Peekaboo", "New hearth", "I cried", "We", "Useful notes"), as well as on social networks. It has become widespread on Facebook - in particular, there are publications with 958, 453, 452, 377, 322 And 271 reposts at the time of writing this analysis.
“Verified” found no traces of this story in Nikulin’s autobiographical book “Almost serious", nor dedicated to the artist that from the series “Life of Remarkable People”, nor in other authoritative sources.
Some details of viral publications raise separate questions. So, judging by the open sources, Nikulin was avid He was a motorist and had to go to work by car - with the exception of the last years of his life, when he was driven to the Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard by a personal driver. From 1970 until his death in 1997, artist lived on Bolshaya Bronnaya, more than 2 km away to the place of duty. Google Maps estimates it will take a walker more than 30 minutes to complete this route.
Nikulin actually visited Japan - for example, in 1965 he refused from the leading role in the film "Beware of the Car" due to touring in this country. At the same time, the artist played a cameo in the film “Little Fugitive", which takes place in the USSR and Japan.
Nevertheless, usually foreign delegations are received in their offices by the heads of institutions and institutions, and Nikulin headed Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard only in 1982, at the age of 60, ending his career as a clown. Thus, the viral story is inconclusive, at least from a chronological point of view.
“Verified” did not find any information in open sources about a Japanese figure of the 20th century named Ito Kobayashi, who was in any way connected with the circus. Moreover, Kobayashi - eighth most common surname in Japan, and Ito - sixth (Ito is unpopular as a personal name).
After the story about Nikulin went viral, the publication Blitz.style I talked about it with the artist’s grandson - his full namesake. Yuri Nikulin Jr. stated: “As far as I know, this was not the case. It happens that he did something good, human - one said it, the second one, the third one added his own, the fourth one added more. And until the end it reaches such proportions. The story is beautiful, indeed. It’s been on the Internet for many years.”
Regarding “many years,” Nikulin Jr. is not entirely right. The case became famous on the Internet only in the spring of 2022. On March 28, the deacon shared the story on his LiveJournal blog Andrey Kuraev, and a few minutes later the blogger reposted the text with a link to the latter Dmitry Chernyshev (mi3ch). It was thanks to them that the story became viral in a short time.
As Verified found out, this story is for the first time appeared on the same day, March 28, 2022, in the “One Stop Story” community in Yandex.Zen. This page with 23,000 subscribers is run by a history and social studies teacher and part-time writer Vladimir Sedinkin from Kurgan. He confirmed his authorship in a conversation with Verified. Sedinkin's essay not for the first time is spreading across the RuNet under the guise of a real story and without indicating the author. However, the writer does not regret this. He is convinced that in difficult times, people need such good motivational stories - regardless of their truthfulness.
Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons
Read on topic:
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please let us know by highlighting the error text and clicking Ctrl+Enter.
