The unthinkable happiness of the creator of "Well, wait a minute": A road-resort novel by Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The surname of Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin can be found in the credits of almost 80 Soviet cartoons. It was his hand that painted "The Scarlet Flower" and "Golden Antelope", "Cat's House" and "Wild Swans", but he also entered the history of Russian animation as a director-producer of many animated films, including the beloved "Well, wait a minute!" Few know: the inspiration for all the dance scenes in his creations was the wife of Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin, the ballerina Tamara Vishneva, with whom he lived together for almost half a century.

Animation as a vocation

Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin was born in 1927 in the family of an accountant and a housewife. He often went to the cinema with his parents and sister Lida, but ordinary films did not make the same impression on him that he got when he first saw animated films at a New Year's party at the House of Unions.

At the same time, 10-year-old Vyacheslav decided that he would definitely learn to draw cartoons. Moreover, he always drew well and enjoyed visiting the art studio in the House of Pioneers. Shortly before the start of the war, the father of the future cartoonist died of tuberculosis, and in 1942, his mother gave her son, who by that time was 15 years old, to a special artillery school.

Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin took a long time to get used to the discipline reigning in the school and even visited the guardhouse more than once. And at that difficult time, he continued to draw, designed the school wall newspaper, drew posters, but did not seriously think about animation. After leaving school, like all graduates, he had to enter an artillery school. But one day he saw the cartoon "Bambi" by Walt Disney and again remembered his childhood dream.

After leaving school, he did not get to the artillery school: due to health problems, Kotyonochkin was discharged. And then he heard an announcement on the radio that artists were recruiting for the Soyuzmultfilm studio. And he went there, taking a folder with his works.

In 1947, Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin graduated from animation courses at the Soyuzmultfilm studio and finally found his dream job. At first, he only drew cartoons, then he tried himself in directing. From the end of the course to the appearance of "Well, wait!" more than 20 years had to pass. And between these two significant events, another thing happened: he met a woman who made Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin happy.

Happiness on the second try

For the first time, the animator married shortly after the war, but this marriage turned out to be very short-lived, and even his daughter Natasha, who was born, could not save him. And with his future wife Tamara Vishneva, Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin met in 1954 on a train on his way to rest in Miskhor, where he was heading in the company of his friends.

Young people might never have met if Vyacheslav's friend, who got off the train in Kharkov, had not asked the animator to say hello to his friend, who was traveling in another carriage with her friends. Kotyonochkin immediately went to carry out an assignment from a friend, and almost instantly fell in love with a fragile girl, who was intended to be the same "hello".

Since the meeting, the young people have never parted. They spent a wonderful vacation in Miskhor, and after returning to Moscow, they immediately went to the registry office. They didn't need to check their feelings or stall for time: what was happening between them was too obvious.

The newlyweds settled in a room in a communal apartment in a house on Gorky Street. Tamara Vishneva, soloist of the ballet of the Operetta Theater, fluttered out of the entrance, like an unearthly vision. She never complained about the inconvenience, although she and her husband lived in a room partitioned off by curtains for three families, and even said that nine meters is very convenient, because everything is at hand. In this room, she showed her husband how to dance the mazurka, and here in 1958 the couple set up a small bed when their son Alexei was born.

Subsequently, the wife repeatedly demonstrated various dance steps to Kotyonochkin. According to the cartoonist's colleagues, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich succeeded in all the dance scenes in the cartoons thanks to his wife, who throughout her life surprised her husband with her movements and ability to revive music in dance.

And Tamara Vishneva became the prototype of the Atamansha in the cartoon "The Bremen Town Musicians". One of the animators of this film saw one of the ballerina's incendiary performances at the Operetta Theater and then reproduced the characteristic features in the heroine of the fairy tale.

Alexey Kotyonochkin, the son of an animator, recalled that watching the dancing parents gave him undisguised pleasure. In general, the relationship between the parents was very touching. For almost half a century, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich has not lost his youthful ardor and incredible respect for his wife.

But the cartoonist's father was quite strict. While his son was little, he gladly took him to zoos and museums, but when Alexei grew up, he was able to fully experience the "prohibitive upbringing" of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich. True, father and son still found common points of contact and never clashed. And they came to a consensus in the course of long conversations.

Once the father made his son a gift that was truly royal for those times. Alexey asked his father, who was going on a trip to the United States in 1975, to bring him one disc. And he gave a list of eight groups in the hope that at least one disc would still be brought by dad, despite all his dislike for rock. The list included Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and other very popular bands at the time. As a result, Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin brought a huge package, which contained records (half of which were double) of all groups from the list. It turned out that Kotyonochkin Sr., not knowing the language, simply handed the list to the saleswoman and said: "One disc!" She brought him one plastic of each group, and pride did not allow Kotyonochkin to buy only one.

Alexey Kotyonochkin, when he grew up, graduated from the Stroganov School and became a cartoonist, like his father. He was lucky to recognize his genius dad in all guises: as a father, a colleague, and later a friend.

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich valued the opinion of his wife very much, he even read the scripts of future cartoons to her and his son. True, if it was a matter of criticizing the author of the script, Kotyonochkin took it calmly, but he was very offended by comments in his own address. Once, for the coming New Year, at the request of his wife, he drew a monkey and stopped talking to his son after he noticed that the monkey in the picture was not very charming. However, the animator did not keep resentment for a long time and was more often in a good mood.

In the last ten years of his life, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich was very sick. He had diabetes, problems with blood vessels, and then gangrene developed … Doctors could not save him and in 2000 the great multiplier was gone. Tamara Petrovna, after his departure, could not come to her senses for a very long time. Only the attention and care of her son could bring her back to life.

For most modern parents, Soviet cartoons are associated exclusively with warm memories and eternal values. Many mothers and fathers are sure that only children's cinema, originally from the USSR, is able to give children the necessary baggage of moral values and knowledge.