The reason is more interesting than it seems.
The film “Operation Y” and Shurik’s other adventures” is memorable not only for its comic moments, but also for the touching story of Shurik’s love for the good girl Lida. True, in “Prisoner of the Caucasus” she is replaced by the charming Nina, but youth is characterized by fleeting feelings and frequent romances.
But in the comedy “Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession,” Lida again appears before the audience. More precisely, the actress who played her in the first part. Now she has become the legal wife of engineer Timofeev. But her name is not Lydia, but Zinaida.
Considering that the audience considers Shurik to be the same character in all three films, a logical question arises: why was his beloved renamed? The most popular theory is simple: Gaidai was not particularly worried about the logic of the development of the universe. So I selected women’s names at random, and approved the same actress because she fit the type well.
There is also a second version. She’s more convincing. Lida became Zina because this was required by the original source of “Ivan Vasilyevich” – namely, the play by Mikhail Bulgakov. In it, Leonid Iovich dared to change only two names: engineer Timofeev, who became Shurik from Nikolai, beloved by the people, and Yakin. In the literary work he is not Karp, but Arnold. But the director left the wife of the inventor of the time machine as Zinaida.
