Film premiered 50 years ago Leonid Gaidai “Ivan Vasilyevich is changing his profession.” In the same 1973, he became the leader of the Soviet box office.
Today, almost everything is known about the picture. However, the fate of the main character of the tape is just unknown. What happened to her after the movie was released? Where did she go?..
“Yes, we have Pochechuev!”
It would be in vain to think that the main characters of the legendary comedy are Bunsh’s house manager (Yuri Yakovlev), apartment thief Miloslavsky (Leonid Kuravlev) and engineer-inventor Shurik (Alexander Demyanenko). Without a time machine, there would be no cinema at all! It is she who is the culprit of all the adventures that arise in the course of the film. For many years, no one wrote about her at all. But she deserved it. Like none of the artists.
Let’s start with the fact that the shooting of “Ivan Vasilyevich” was about to start, but the main character – the time machine – was still not there. Leonid Gaidai ordered her invention to the design bureau of the Research Institute in advance. Six months have passed. Money spent, but no car. That is, something appeared, of course, something resembling a supercomputer. But he didn’t fit into the picture of comedy. In addition, Shurik would hardly have invented such a time machine in an apartment. So, we needed a more compact, almost desktop version. Seeing Gaidai’s despair, someone suddenly said: “Yes, we have Pochechuev! ..”
Vyacheslav Pochechuev at that time he was finishing work on his last film Alexandra Ptushko “Ruslan and Ludmila”. And the whole studio admired the imagination and talent of the artist-sculptor, who created a fairy-tale forest, the talking head of a knight, the throne and decoration of the Chernomor Palace…
Pochechuev needed money, Leonid Gaidai needed a speedy solution to the problem. Two days later, the sculptor brought a drawing with a charcoal pencil. But when he unfolded the Whatman sheet, the director almost fainted. The device was a bunch of small flasks, tubes, balls, levers, buttons, mirrors … And on the side – the steering wheel. “This is to orient the car in space as it scratches through time,” the artist explained. In response, the “harmful bespectacled man,” as Pochechuev called Gaidai, seems to have said something harsh to the “inventor.” But there was no time to choose. Yes, and nothing. And Pochechuev was extremely eloquent: “I convinced that the car would glow, puff and gurgle – a real invention of Shurik would turn out.”
Leonid Iovich had to agree to what is, so as not to disrupt the filming schedule. An urgent order for the execution of the necessary parts flew to the glass factory in Klin. To help Vyacheslav at Mosfilm, a locksmith and a technician were allocated. And two weeks later, the miracle of inventive thought was already glowing, puffing and gurgling. As Pochechuev promised. For which he received 40 rubles. “For the invention of the time machine,” the document read.
“Come to us in Lespromkhoz”
By the way, Pochechuev got to Mosfilm by accident … “Artist” in childhood, then “Polytechnic”, studying with artists Lev Zhegin (son of the famous architect Fyodor Shekhtel) and Boris Efimov. Publication of cartoons in the magazines “Crocodile”, “Soviet Union”, “Spark”, “Soviet Cinema”. And finally, the exhibition on the Kuznetsk bridge, where Pochechuev … was late. All the walls were occupied by more efficient ones, Vyacheslav put his works on the floor. And when the jury discussed the works and the audience entered the hall, it turned out that Pochechuev’s works were scattered on the floor like garbage…
Taking this as a sign of fate, the artist went to look for a new road and, thanks to an acquaintance, got a job … as a laboratory assistant at a seismic station at Cape Shipunsky.
It was beautiful Kamchatka. And work in the technological expedition of the Institute of Physics of the Earth of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Three times a day, the artist took readings of instruments, changed the paper in the recorders. And in his free time he began to cut wood. Yes, he was so carried away that he soon presented an exhibition of his handicrafts – right in the yard, in the snow. “Angler’s Cat”, “Head of Gorgon Medusa”, “Deer”… The characters were made with love, irony. They made me smile. Then – two exhibitions in Petropavlovsk, then – in Moscow, at Mosfilm. It was there that the storyteller Ptushko noticed a unique master …
But even after successful work on film projects, life continued to throw surprises at Vyacheslav. In 1976, an exhibition of his works was held on the Arbat, and one of the visitors wrote in the guest book: “If you want to work with wood to your heart’s content, come to our timber industry: Komi ASSR, the city of Blagoevo, a Soviet-Bulgarian enterprise.” It wasn’t a joke.
“And no one above me…”
Together with my wife Lena and daughters Pochechuev went to the North. “The material is the Egyptian pyramids,” he wrote in his diary. – I climb on them and bastard. Two years flew by unnoticed. The family returned to Moscow, to a small apartment, and with them – uprooted stumps, butts with burls, burls and hollows. Almost a whole car of “firewood”. What should I do? Slava and Lena bought a house in the Vladimir village, moved all their “wealth” there. And a new stage in the biography of the sculptor Pochechuev began.
The artist lived in a sparsely populated place for 20 years. Earn random orders. In “Durov’s Corner” he was given a job … as a fireman, and he painted the walls there. They took me to school … as a janitor, and he designed the gym. In Kuzbass, he set up a children’s town, although there was an entry in the labor record: “miner” …
Sometimes there were even buyers for his soulful “pieces of wood”. And it seems that it was here that Vyacheslav Valentinovich was happy. “My village, Sergeevo, is a true refuge. Here is a real uncomplicated life, freedom. And no one above me, no bosses, customers … ”He read philosophical literature and created, created. He made more than a thousand works of wood. Many of them are today in museums and private collections. Not only in Russia, but also in Europe, across the ocean…
Unfortunately, in 1999, a fire broke out in the village, Pochechuev’s house burned down, and with it – 20 of his works. At this time, the widowed artist was already living with an old acquaintance, Natalya Nikolaevna (for many years they were friends with their families). She also lost her husband, and a new family arose by itself. Vyacheslav Valentinovich continued to work, creating original cycles: “The Fate of a Man”, “Good and Evil” and sculptures captivating with their warmth: “The Thinker of a Local Scale”, “My Thoughts, Thoughts”, “Two-faced Joyful Man”…
After his departure to another world, Natalya Nikolaevna held several exhibitions, and gave many of her works to museums. She wrote a book about her late husband. So after the death of the Artist Pochechuev gained real fame. But nothing is known about the fate of the time machine he invented …
