Why the son of Yuri Nikulin took offense at his father for many years

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

The name of Yuri Nikulin is still familiar to many people today. In Soviet times, he was one of the most famous and beloved artists, and also the funniest and most charming clown that could be imagined. It was the popularity of his father that influenced the fact that Maxim Nikulin did not enter either a circus school or a theater institute. But it was far from the question of choosing a profession that caused the son's long grudge against his father.

Happy childhood

The son of Maxim, who was born in 1956 in a marriage with Tatyana Pokrovskaya, Yuri Nikulin loved madly and tried to spend as much time with him as possible. True, this very time for the talented clown and the artist was not so much. Somehow, the son thought that he usually saw his parents 2-3 months a year, the rest of the time they were on tour. At one time, Tatyana Pokrovskaya also became a clown so as not to part with her husband.

Maxim in childhood was far from the most diligent child, parents were often summoned to school, however, instead of them grandmother came more often, sometimes mother. But Yuri Nikulin appeared at school only once, at the personal request of his son and at the graduation party.

It seems that no one was involved in the upbringing of Maxim. As you know, personal example brings up much better than soul-saving conversations and moralizing. This is how it was in the family of Yuri Nikulin. The artist himself was an amazing person. When Maxim, after the death of his father, was asked to describe him in three words, only one thing was enough for the artist's son: nobility. He treated all people with the same warmth and cordiality, did not know how to shout either at his son, much less at his subordinates, when he had already become the director of the circus.

If he was dissatisfied with something in the behavior of his son, he would say reproachfully: "Well, what are you, boy?" And he subsequently treated his employees in exactly the same way. He scolded and asked how he or she could do this. The most terrible curse addressed to someone sounded very delicate: "You are a very strange person!"

What it means to be a circus performer, Maxim realized at the time when he was admitted to the hospital with a serious kidney disease. My father was on tour and constantly ran to call the hospital to find out how the operation went. And then he went into the arena to make people laugh again. Maybe this is why Maxim did not dream of becoming an actor or circus performer. And he understood clearly: he would definitely be compared with his father. As a result, he entered the journalism department of Moscow State University, then transferred to the evening department and went to work at Moskovsky Komsomolets.

Understanding

Yuri Vladimirovich had normal relations with his son, but only as an adult did Maxim Yuryevich admit that he had been offended by his father for many years. The whole point was that Yuri Nikulin always helped everyone. If a person turned to him, he could be sure that a famous artist would do everything possible and impossible for him. He could go to any official, bother about housing and health improvement, material assistance and the placement of children in a kindergarten. But at the same time he did not help his own son. More precisely, he did not interfere in his life.

Many years had to pass for Maxim to understand why his father acted this way. He just always kept his son in sight, was always there and could support, fix, prompt and come to the rescue at any second if the situation became critical. For others, he hurried to help, fearing to be late. At the same time, simple lovers of freebies often turned to him, and when relatives tried to open Yuri Vladimirovich's eyes, he was lost, doubted, and then said that he understood everything. But all of a sudden the person is telling the truth. And he helped anyway.

A special relationship developed between father and son at the time when Maxim began to work with his dad. Then the director-manager of the circus, Mikhail Sedov, was killed. His responsibilities also fell on the shoulders of Yuri Nikulin. Maxim, seeing how his father was sewn up in papers, agreements and contracts, volunteered to help him on a voluntary basis. At that time, he was still officially working as a special correspondent in Ostankino, and he came to the circus for a whole year in his free time from his main work. Later, Maxim Yuryevich left television and began to engage only in the circus.

At first, they tried to reproach Yuri Nikulin for placing his son in a “warm place”. But in the documentary film by Eldar Ryazanov, the director himself asked Yuri Vladimirovich a question about whether it was scary for him to put his own son in the place of the man who was killed. Yuri Nikulin then replied:

After father and son began to work together, they learned to understand each other even better. At the same time, it turned out that working with my father is much easier than with my mother. Because for a mother, a son always remains a little boy, no matter how old he is.

The work brought Yuri Vladimirovich and Maxim Yurievich closer together. They had time for serious conversations, which was simply not available before due to the constant traveling. Later, Maxim admits: in four years of working with his father, he learned more about his life than in his entire previous life. Yuri Nikulin could call his son in the evening, officially invite him to his office, and then sit with him over a glass of good alcohol and just chat.

Sometimes they argued, but as a result, they always found a reasonable compromise, although Maxim sometimes did not understand his father's principles. If someone did not justify the trust of Yuri Vladimirovich, he never again agreed to cooperate with him, even if there was a possible serious benefit. Maxim was more flexible.

Father has always been and remains for Maxim Yuryevich the standard in everything, in work, in relations with other people. Yuri Nikulin never interfered in his son's personal life, did not dissuade him from marriages, but he did not condemn divorce either. I was just always there and was ready to lend my father's shoulder.

Maxim Yuryevich believes that he took a lot from his father. When Yuri Nikulin was gone, and Maxim Yuryevich suddenly took the place of the general director and artistic director of the Moscow Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, he had a hard time. I had to re-establish contacts, negotiate, defend, defend.

He learned to philosophically perceive the phrase that, together with Yuri Vladimirovich, some special atmosphere left the circus. Maxim Yuryevich agrees, but adds: you still have to live and work on. Even though there is no one to replace Yuri Nikulin. He was just a genius, and Maxim was an ordinary person. And yet he hopes that he has become a worthy successor to his father's work.

Yuri Nikulin and Tatyana Pokrovskaya lived together for 47 years and shared everything that fell to their lot for two. They have always been together: at home, at work, on vacation. She became his guardian angel, and he became her reliable support, a wall behind which one could hide from any adversity.