Poddubny personal biography. Ivan Maksimovich Poddubny - our great fellow countryman
Ivan the Terrible, Ivan the Terrible, Ivan the Bolshoi, Ivan the Invincible. He is Old Man, Russian Bear. He is also a longshoreman, champion of champions in classical wrestling among the professionals Ivan Poddubny. Height 184 cm, weight 118 kg, chest volume 134 cm, biceps - 44, neck - 50... “If he doesn’t throw it, he’ll break it,” his opponents said about him. In 40 years of performances, he has not lost a single competition. And he fought until he was seventy! And no one over the years managed to pin Poddubny to the carpet with spatulas.
Many books have been written about the eminent wrestler - carefully edited and censored. They describe in detail sports path fighter - and not a line about his life in the years Civil War. About the fact that in 1919 Poddubny was almost shot by anarchists in the Zhytomyr circus. In Kerch, he was miraculously not killed by a drunken officer who hit him in the shoulder.
Nowhere is it described in detail about the personal life of Ivan Poddubny. About the fact that his first love, the gymnast Mariyka, crashed in the circus arena. His wife, actress Kvitko-Fomenko, ran away with a White Guard officer, taking with her all his medals. And the second wife, a bagel seller, kept the mighty Poddubny with a tight rein all her life, often shouting: “You can’t have fun with French women...” Behind this phrase hid the secret of why the wrestler could not have children. For refusing to continue the tour, the American impresario slipped him a beauty sick with syphilis.
During the Great Patriotic War, in the first days of the occupation, Ivan Poddubny ended up in the Gestapo. Under the Germans, in order to feed himself, he began working as a bouncer in a billiard room. After the war, Poddubny’s case was handled by the NKVD. They spared the old man, but did not forgive him. IN recent years before his death he was constantly malnourished. The famous wrestler died almost penniless...
Years later, the archivists of the seaside city of Yeisk, where the wrestler lived for the last 22 years, decided to reveal the truth about Poddubny to us. Several generations of enthusiasts collected priceless documents, certificates, extracts, and most importantly, truthful, previously unpublished memoirs of Poddubny’s contemporaries.
“Artist, circus performer, Ivanushka the Fool”
Curtains embroidered with yellow sunflowers. There are huge pumpkins in the entryway. On the shelves there are pots with grips, on the table there are dumplings, lard, dumplings with garlic. “Eat cabbage soup!” - the black-browed hostess offers us in a sing-song voice. A quiet chant can be heard from the slightly open window: “There’s a cherry orchard there...”
In Poddubny’s family nest - the village of Krasenovka, in the Poltava region, every second resident can call himself a distant relative of Ivan Maksimovich.
On the farm they speak with respect about the strength of their eminent fellow countryman: “He could easily carry three men on his back.” When Ivan Poddubny was asked if he had met people stronger than himself, he answered with his characteristic frankness: “On the carpet, no. But in life... my father was much stronger than me!”
“Ivan’s father, a mighty Zaporozhye Cossack, used to take a loaded cart by the shafts and drag it up the mountain, while the horse just walked, rearranging its legs,” Trofim Krivonos, a resident of the village of Krasenovka, once recalled.
Yes, the Poddubnys’ entire family was made up of heroes,” confirms 83-year-old grandmother Alena. - Ivan’s brother, Mitrofan, served in imperial troops, where only heroes were selected. Little sister, Evdokia, on the gulna was not inferior to anyone. It used to be that he would take off the guy’s hat, run up to a barn made of logs, or, in our opinion, a chest of drawers, lift a corner from the stones, put that hat on him and stand there laughing. The guys then push, pull out the hat together, but all in vain!
In the village they told us that as a boy, Ivan Poddubny fell in love with his second cousin Olenka Vityachka. She was married to a man named Nikitchenko, who said “it looks like this” after every word. And the corresponding nickname stuck to his wife. So that the boy “wouldn’t be foolish,” his father sent Ivan to his grandfather in Bogodukhovka. And soon the seventeen-year-old hero left his native place, went to work, became a loader in the Sevastopol port, where his life began. sports career.
“I gave birth to a joke! - Poddubny’s father raged in front of his wife. “Admire how your son has become,” he shook a newspaper sheet where his son Ivan was depicted in tights. “An artist, a circus performer, Ivanushka the fool...” Maxim Ivanovich will never come to terms with his son’s choice. Even when he helped the family financially, even when he became the world champion! Even then, from his native Krasenovka, Ivan received letters from his brothers: “I don’t even want to hear that, Ivan, having become a fighter... The stinks are rotting so much and it seems like I’ll break the shaft on your neck.”
The villagers remember how Ivan once came to the village with a little girl, “three times his size,” pretty girl- acrobat Mariyka. The young people wanted to get married. But in Voronezh, during her performance, Mariyka was unable to perform a difficult somersault and crashed in the arena. After burying the girl, Ivan decided to leave the circus.
“Sports Heart”
Doctors who examined Poddubny’s cardiac activity after training never ceased to be surprised: the wrestler did not even notice slight fatigue of the heart muscle. “Ivan Zhelezny has a “sports heart,” experts stated. Poddubny was able to develop energy like an explosion at the right moments and not lose courage in the most difficult and dangerous moments of the struggle.
Having received an offer from the St. Petersburg Athletic Society to take part in the international championship, he went to Paris. Having won 11 victories, he stumbled against the French champion Raoul le Boucher. Experienced in behind-the-scenes fighting, the Frenchman used the Turkish method to treat the body with olive oil, which was absorbed into the dry skin and then released along with sweat, making the body imperceptibly slippery. No matter how hard Poddubny tried, he could not catch the Frenchman escaping from his powerful grasp. Boucher then won on points against Ivan Poddubny. But already at next year Ivan Zhelezny took revenge, winning the title of world champion in French wrestling and receiving main prize- 10 thousand francs. And then the vengeful Raoul le Boucher hired bandits. Poddubny miraculously survived. Hiding from killers, the wrestler was forced to abandon his tour of Italy and hastily move to Africa.
Championships were replaced by tours. Poddubny fought in sports arenas, in circus arenas, and on the stages of summer theaters. Tired of fraudulent paid competitions, where everything was based on deception, collusion, and bribery, at the age of forty Poddubny decided to leave the arena. He arrived in his native Krasenovka with a two-pound chest of gold medals and a dazzling beauty - his young wife, actress Antonina Kvitko-Fomenko.
In the vicinity of the village, Ivan the Invincible bought 120 acres of black soil, at the same time allocated considerable plots of land to all his relatives, built an estate, started two excellent mills, an apiary, and a fashionable stroller. But his father Maxim Ivanovich did not rejoice for long that “the dissolute eldest son had finally returned to peasant labor.” A couple of years later, Ivan Poddubny went bankrupt. He burned one of his mills out of spite younger brother, he sold the second, like the estate, to pay off a debt to his competitors, the owners of the surrounding mills. Rural life bored Ivan Bolshoy, who was accustomed to the light of the stage and the filled circus hall. Exclaiming: “Let him put it down if he can!” - He stepped onto the carpet again. And his wanderings began throughout Russia and abroad, where people flocked to see the world-famous wrestler.
Residents of the village recall the story of Poddubny himself, when “his performances began at the moment when the Reds were the owners of the city, and ended after the arrival of the Whites.” In 1919, Poddubny was almost shot by drunken anarchists in the Zhytomyr circus. He fled, leaving his things behind, wandering around without money. And a little later, in Kerch, a drunken officer shot at him. Then in Berdyansk he had an unpleasant meeting with Makhno. In 1920, he visited the dungeons of the Odessa Cheka, where every second person who did not take the side of the revolutionary proletariat was shot. Fortunately, Poddubny was recognized and released in peace.
The bullets did not take Ivan the Great - he received a blow in the back from his own wife.
Grandmother Alena recalls that rural life Panna Antonina didn’t like her - changing clothes several times a day, she rushed around the house, not knowing where to go. When Denikin’s men ruled the village, she, taking with her all her husband’s sports medals, fled from Krasenovka with a white officer. Later she repented and wrote to Ivan: “Forgive me, Vanya, I’ll crawl all the way to you on my knees.” But where is it? Cut off.
“Under the Germans, at the Poddubny meat processing plant they began to give out 5 kg of meat”
Having traveled to 14 countries, Ivan Poddubny settled in the quiet seaside Yeisk with his second wife, Maria Semyonovna. I met my betrothed while on tour in Rostov-on-Don. She was the mother of the young wrestler Ivan Mashoshin. The no longer young woman worked in the bakery. She was friendly and homely. When a 40-year-old wrestler proposed marriage to a simple Russian woman, she put forward the condition: “We must get married.” And completely indifferent to religion, Poddubny went to the altar.
Why Ivan Bolshoi settled in provincial Yeisk, archivist Natalya Ginkul explains:
The wrestler's contemporaries recalled that, having traveled extensively around the world, Poddubny remained essentially a village peasant. He wrote with difficulty and neglected punctuation marks, except periods. He was not a delicate person either - he could “in a lordly manner” give a person unequal to himself two fingers to shake. It was easier for him to kill a dozen grenadier officers than to learn how to use a knife and fork. Only among the peasants and artisans did he feel comfortable. Green, quiet, provincial Yeisk reminded him of his native village in the Poltava region, where he spent his childhood and youth. Having heard a saying dear to his heart - “backing” of local residents who mixed Ukrainian words with Russian ones, Poddubny decided to buy a house in a seaside town. I chose a place - on the very side of the road, near the estuary, above the cliff.
The war found the seventy-year-old fighter in Yeisk. In August 1942, the city was occupied by the Germans. Ivan Bolshoi did not evacuate - when they asked why, he waved it off: “Where to run? Dying soon." During those years, his heart began to ache. Poddubny did not trust medicines - he made friends with the Shcherbinovsky Cossack healer, paramedic of the First World War Kharchenko, and was treated with tinctures from the Kuban steppe herbs.
Poddubny never hid the fact that in the first days of the occupation he was detained by the Krauts from the Sonderkommando “10-s”, which in the city was called the Gestapo. The fighter walked around the occupied city with the Order of the Red Banner of Labor attached to his shirt. Locals they recalled that in Yeisk there were two people who received such an award. The Germans killed the female drummer in a gas chamber. But Ivan Bolshoi was not touched. Moreover, Poddubny soon began working as a marker - a bouncer in the city billiard room.
My uncle, shoemaker Lukich Zozulya, with whom I was raised, helped Ivan Maksimovich manage the billiard room during the occupation,” recalls Poddubny’s godson, artist Yuri Korotkov. - It was arranged in a sailor’s club, opposite the Yeisk sanatorium. There were three tables there. Poddubny went to work to feed his loved ones. His powerful body required a huge amount of calories.
Ivan Maksimovich could take a loaf of bread, cut it in half, spread half a kilo butter and eat it in one sitting, like an ordinary sandwich,” recalls Evgeny Kotenko, whose father, a photographer, was a friend of Poddubny. - During the war, we all ate whatever God sent us: carrots, beets, corn...
Under the Germans, at the meat processing plant, Poddubny began to be given 5 kilograms of meat per month,” Yuri Korotkov continues to recall.
Local old men often came to Poddubny’s billiard room to listen to the radio quietly. They recalled: when the Germans, having drunk heavily in the nearby buffet, fell into the billiard room and began to make a fuss, Ivan Maksimovich threw them out the door like kittens.
The rowdy Fritzes were very proud that Ivan the Great himself was putting them out on the street with his own hands, recalls Evgeniy Kotenko. - One day a representative came to Poddubny German command, offered to go to Germany to train German wrestlers. Ivan Maksimovich was categorical: “I am a Russian wrestler. I will remain that way.” And Poddubny got away with this statement. The Germans worshiped the strength and glory of the world famous wrestler.
Under the hood of the NKVD
When our troops returned to Yeysk in February 1943, there were hot heads among the army SMERSH - they wanted to convict the old man and send him to prison, recalls Evgeniy Kotenko.
Local residents recalled how denunciations rained down on Poddubny: “He worked for the Germans!”; “Served the Nazis!”
The authorities took up Poddubny’s case. In the archive we found a memorandum from the head of the Yeisk city department of the NKGB, Alexei Ivanovich Porfentyev, to whom, due to the nature of his service, information was flocked about the actions of the punitive intelligence agencies located in Yeisk and its region during the occupation. After conducting a series of checks, he wrote in a sweeping hand: “Nothing compromising in Poddubny’s hostile behavior in the occupied territory was established.” No evidence of collaboration with the Nazis was discovered by the authorities. It was officially established that the notorious billiard room existed as a purely commercial establishment.
After the liberation of Yeisk, Ivan Poddubny began traveling to nearby military units and hospitals, promoting sports, and speaking with memoirs. In a separate large folder we found a stack of thanks from various military officials.
After the liberation of the city, a card system was in effect in Yeysk. From a shabby archival folder we take out a yellow piece of paper on which is written in chemical pencil: “To the Yeisk City Council of Working Workers' Deputies from Maksimovich. Honored Artist of the Republic, Order Bearer Ivan Poddubny. According to the book I get 500 grams. bread, which I lack. I ask you to add another 200 grams so that I can exist. October 15, 1943.”
Poddubny became so hungry that his broad nature became invisible, he became terribly tight-fisted, recalls Yuri Korotkov. - Having poured flour into a box, he put fingerprints on it so that no one could take even the crumbs.
The City Executive Committee issued Poddubny food vouchers in the canteen and cards for receiving dry rations according to the letter “B,” recalls Evgeniy Kotenko, whose father was friends with the eminent wrestler. - In those years, such cards were given only to very necessary specialists.
Old-timer Vartkes Adamyants, who in those years was the chairman of the Yeisk sports society “Spartak”, in turn, recalled:
Poddubny was a member of our society. Both he and I were sent monthly additional sugar rations from Krasnodar. I used to get a teaspoon of pleasure and stretch it out for a month. And he eats it in one day and says to me with a laugh: “There is no more sugar...” And he curses loudly: “They brought me to poverty, I sold all the medals.” Of course, his body was not like everyone else’s. To maintain such a powerful body, it was necessary to eat well. But which of us ate well then? Ivan Maksimovich loved pilaf, dairy foods, eggs, potatoes “in skins” and especially the ordinary Russian radish.
Old-timers recall that Poddubny often came to the director of the Yeisk bakery. He never refused the elderly athlete a piece of bread.
After the war, it turned out that Poddubny was not forgiven for the billiard room.
He was still active, performed with the program “50 years in the circus arena,” corresponded, made appeals, signed himself like this: “Russian Bogatyr Ivan Poddubny.”
“In the post-war years, we saw a different Poddubny,” recalled old-timer Pyotr Kryukov. - Ivan Maksimovich’s shoulders sank, resentment froze on his face. He has aged a lot and has become haggard. He wore an untucked gray shirt. The Order of the Red Banner of Labor invariably hung on his chest. On his head is a straw hat. The city knew that he was ill during the war from malnutrition. To survive, he removed one gold medal after another from his ribbon and sold them off.
The oldest residents of Yeisk recalled that after the war Poddubny was no longer advertised anywhere. Those who held high positions in the city tried to avoid him. In 1947, he had a particularly hard time. Yeychan residents had difficulty recognizing the haggard old man on crutches as a former hero. Maksimovich weakened. His legs literally couldn't support him. While returning home from the market one day, he slipped and fell. Doctors diagnosed him with a closed femoral neck fracture.
Maksimych’s bone did not heal for a long time, recalls Sergei Akhapkov. - Until his old age, he exercised with weights. And here, encased in plaster, for a long time didn't get out of bed. The wrestler’s heart began to play havoc. As boys, we often saw Poddubny at the gates of his house. Baba Masha pulled out a bench for him, he hobbled towards her on crutches and sat down heavily. Everyone passing by bowed to him and asked about his health. Satisfied, he happily communicated. This is what I have lived for the last two years.
House on the roadside
A crooked road, flooded with water, leads us to house No. 153 on Sovetov Street, where Ivan Poddubny lived for more than 20 years. Once solid two-story house Now he's a big ass. The windows of the first floor were half buried in the ground and became a basement. Hosted in legendary house two families who came from the Urals. They did not know Ivan Maksimovich.
Former tenants of Poddubny live in a nearby house. In the post-war years, he offered part of his plot to a young couple - the artist Imma Sirota and her husband, a military doctor - to build their own house.
Ivan Maksimovich and his wife Maria Semyonovna were already sick people in those years,” says Imma Georgievna. - To write a statement or letter, being both illiterate, they called me or my sister Yulia. While dictating the message, Poddubny continually swore and straightened his reddish mustache. They say that on the mat he was sharp and swift, but at home we saw him sedate and slow. Until his death, he did not take alcohol into his mouth, and could not tolerate the smell of tobacco.
“Goats grazed on Poddubny’s grave”
In 1949, in the seventy-eighth year of his life, Poddubny’s “sports heart” failed.
Early in the morning of August 8, my grandfather began to light the kerosene stove, leaned over and suddenly became covered in sweat and began to choke, recalls Poddubny’s grandson Roman. - With difficulty he called his grandmother and began to say goodbye. Until his last minutes he remained fully conscious.
Ivan Zhelezny, like his friend, Kazakh wrestler Hadji-Mukan, died of a heart attack.
Local authorities did not know how to bury Poddubny - with or without honors. When his famous fighter friends came to say goodbye to Ivan the Invincible in God-forgotten Yeisk, they gave the order from Moscow: “Bury as it should be.” The coffin with Poddubny’s body was installed in the building of the sports school, where there was a German church before the revolution.
They interred the eminent fighter in the city park, where dead pilots were buried during the war. They put up a simple fence and wrote in red lead: “Ivan Poddubny.” And soon the entire surrounding area was overgrown with grass.
After his death, the fighter’s grave was abandoned, literally wiped off the face of the earth, goats and cows grazed there, he recalls oldest resident Yeiska Vartkes Adamyants. “And then the BBC broadcast: “In the city of Yeisk, in desolation, is the grave of Ivan Maksimovich Poddubny, whom no one in the world could lay down.” And when requests from abroad began to be sent to look for Poddubny’s burial place, the authorities erected a granite monument on the wrestler’s grave.
Later, the building of a typical swimming pool was given over to the Poddubny Museum, which now ekes out a miserable existence: the halls are not heated, the roof is leaking. Stored in storage huge amount materials, but there is no money for the design of exhibitions.
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In the Azov region we often heard the name Poddubnykh. All of them were only the namesakes of the wrestler. Ivan Maksimovich had no direct heirs. His adopted son Ivan gave up the fight. After graduating technical university, he worked for many years as the chief engineer of the Rostov automobile assembly plant. During the war, during a raid by German bombers, Ivan died. Grandson Roman also tried his hand at wrestling, but never became a professional. In the navy, during the war, he was seriously wounded. In 1953, after the death of Maria Semyonovna, Roman sold his grandfather’s house and settled in Rostov-on-Don.
Everyone and everyone is trying to cash in on the connection to Poddubny’s name. In the archives of Yeisk we found many requests from distant relatives fighters who still hope to find Poddubny’s accounts in foreign banks. It is known that the millions earned by the wrestler during two years of touring America were never awarded to the athlete. The wrestler’s relatives are sure that in 1927 the American embassy transferred them in the name of Ivan Poddubny to one of the banks in Switzerland.
Among professional wrestlers, the concepts of “chic” and “bur” existed. The first meant working for the viewer - an artistic demonstration of spectacular techniques. The “chic” ending was known to the wrestlers in advance. In the “drilling” fight, the strongest was determined. Here they could already fight “ugly”... Poddubny never lay down on his shoulder blades by order of the championship organizer.
Only for one thing is we, conducting most of living in “chic”, we must remember Poddubny.
Height – 184 cm; Weight – 139 kg; Neck – 50 cm; Biceps - 46 cm; Chest – 138 cm; Waist - 104 cm; Thigh – 70 cm; Shin – 47 cm.
Ivan Poddubny took after his father, a huge Zaporozhye Cossack. Their ancestors fought in the troops of Ivan the Terrible, defending Rus' from the Tatars, and under Peter I they fought with the Swedes near Poltava. Born in Poltava province in 1871. There were four brothers and three sisters in the family - naturally, as the eldest, Ivan had to work physically since childhood. Being of heroic stature and Herculean strength, he threw bags of grain onto the cart as if they were filled with hay. With their huge father, Maxim Ivanovich, who became his son’s first coach, to the delight of the village residents, they fought right on the street. Both strongmen, surrounded on all sides by a close wall of fellow villagers, took each other by the belts and did not let go until someone was lying on their shoulder blades.
Poddubny left his native place because of a love drama - the girl he loved was not given for him, for a poor man. He went to work in Sevastopol. He worked as a loader at the Greek company Livas, then transferred to the port of Feodosia and lived with two students of seafaring classes. His neighbors turned out to be inveterate athletes, and from them Poddubny learned what a training system was.
Soon he was already going to the Ivan Beskorovainy circus to measure his strength with famous athletes and wrestlers - anyone from among the spectators could do this. The first match ended in loss. This forced Poddubny to start training. He set himself a strict sports regime: exercises with 32-kg weights, a 112-kg barbell, dousing cold water, diet, quitting tobacco and drinking. Thus, with defeat, Ivan Poddubny’s sports career began.
He went to work in the circus of the Italian Enrico Truzzi, which was based in Sevastopol. This is where the performances have already become a triumph. Poddubny had phenomenal strength, a wonderful athletic figure and clear, courageous facial features. He was shocking in the arena. They placed a telegraph pole on his shoulders and ten people hung on both sides until the pole broke. But that was just a warm-up! Then began what Poddubny entered the arena for - the original Russian belt wrestling: rivals threw leather belts over each other's waists, trying to knock them down. Poddubny had five minutes to fight his opponents. Newspapers printed portraits nova circus, Ivan was the idol of Crimea. He had fans, he forgot his old love, an affair with an adult, insidious Hungarian tightrope walker now worried his heart. Meanwhile, rumors reached my father that Ivan, in the most “disgraceful” form, in tight tights, was throwing weights instead of getting down to business. The brothers said: “Father is angry with you and threatens to break the shaft on you. It’s better not to come for Christmas.” And since the tightrope walker abandoned the wrestler, Poddubny went to Kyiv to disperse the sadness.
They said that when asked if there was anyone in the world who could defeat him, Poddubny answered without hesitation: “Yes! Women! All my life, I, a fool, have been led astray.”
This was only partly a joke, since in the biography of the hero there are a lot of dramatic moments related specifically to matters of the heart. During a performance at the Kiev Circus, his fiancee, tightrope walker Masha Dozmarova, fell to her death.
Immediately after this bitter event, Poddubny received a telegram from St. Petersburg. The chairman of the St. Petersburg Athletic Society, Count Ribopierre, invited him for an important conversation.It turned out that the French sports society asked to send a representative of Russia to participate in international competitions for the title of world champion in French wrestling. It was 1903. As it turned out, Poddubny came to the attention of society, and he was offered to go to Paris. Ivan was assigned the best coach- Monsieur Eugene de Paris, and were given three months to prepare. In Paris, 130 professional wrestlers were waiting for him.The conditions of the competition were tough - a single defeat deprived the right to further participation in the competition.
All of Paris was talking about the championship. Seats in the theater "Casino de Paris" were taken with a fight. The unknown “Russian bear” won eleven fights. Poddubny, who was already 33 years old, was facing a fight with the favorite of the Parisians, the twenty-year-old handsome athlete Raoul le Boucher. From the very first seconds of the fight he launched a frantic attack and soon became exhausted. Poddubny could only put it on his shoulder blades, but the Frenchman slipped out of his hands like a fish. It became clear that Raoul was lubricated with some kind of fatty substance. In response to Poddubny’s protest, who accused the enemy of cheating, the panel of judges, although convinced that Raul’s body had been marked olive oil, decided to continue the fight, and to wipe the “slippery” opponent Poddubny with a towel every five minutes.
During the hour-long fight with Raul Poddubny, he failed to put the Frenchman on his back, although he clearly had the advantage. Even the spectators who were rooting for their compatriot were indignant when the judges, who recognized Raul’s fraud, still awarded him the victory “for his beautiful and skillful avoidance of sharp techniques.” In St. Petersburg they learned about the Paris incident, but, not wanting a major scandal, they suggested by telegraph to the panel of judges to repeat the duel between Poddubny and Raul. But the “winner” categorically refused.
Now fate constantly brought enemies together - the “Russian bear” and the treacherous Frenchman. When Raul arrived in St. Petersburg for the International Championship, he offered Poddubny a bribe of 20 thousand francs. For this, Poddubny put the Frenchman on all fours in the ring and held him for about twenty minutes while the audience whistled. He released Raul only at the insistence of the judges.
And here’s how an eyewitness describes Poddubny’s fight with another opponent, world champion Paul Pons:
“Pons was not like your average Pons. No one had ever treated him as impudently as Poddubny, he threw him around the arena... Pons didn’t have to make a single move, he barely had time to defend himself from Poddubny. By the end of the fight, it was a pity to look at Pons: his bloomers had come down, as if he had suddenly lost twenty centimeters at the waist, his T-shirt had ridden up, crumpled and turned into a rag that you wanted to squeeze out.”
Five minutes before the end of the two-hour fight, Poddubny put the world champion on both shoulder blades. The audience rose from their seats. It was not even a jubilant cry, but a roar that, as they said, reached Nevsky Prospekt.
At the beginning of the 20th century, all of Europe was captured by interest in wrestling - “the queen of sports. Schools, societies, athletic clubs, celebrities, competitions, queues, betting. Poddubny was invited to all major competitions. In 1905, in St. Petersburg, he received the first gold medal in his life and a large cash prize. His next step is international competitions for the title of world champion.
The World Championships took place at the famous Parisian Folies Bergere theater. It was the wrestling elite - 140 best representatives. Fantastic sums were bet. There were no bets on Poddubny. And in vain - it was he who won! A triumphant victory and already the third over Raoul le Boucher!
The six-time world champion was scheduled to have his fourth meeting with Boucher's longtime enemy in Nice. But there was an attempt on Ivan’s life... If not for his intuition and physical strength, four mercenaries would have killed him, apparently by order. Soon rumors spread that Raoul had died suddenly of meningitis. The mercenaries, although they did not complete their work, demanded money from the customer of the murder. Raul refused them and was beaten on the head with rubber sticks, which is why he died.
Poddubny began to have a different attitude towards the sport, realizing that wrestlers were being traded, and the sport was falling into the hands of businessmen. The straightforward Poddubny was offended by this - he did not tolerate fraud, quarreled with entrepreneurs, broke contracts, gaining fame for himself as a person with a difficult, quarrelsome character.
Ivan refused to compete in the second half of 1910. At the age of 41, he married the dazzlingly beautiful Antonina Kvitko-Fomenko. Together with her and a two-pound chest of gold medals, he showed up in his native village of Krasenovka and decided to start a farm on wide leg. Regardless of costs, he bought plenty of land, gave it to all his relatives, and built himself and his beloved Antonina an estate with a mill and an apiary.
The revolution broke out. Poddubny had little understanding of the balance of forces fighting for power. During a wrestling competition in Berdyansk, he was almost pushed up against the wall by the attacking Makhnovists. In Kerch, a drunken officer almost killed him by hitting him in the shoulder. Ivan admitted that sometimes he began performances in front of the Reds and ended them in front of the Whites.
In 1919, Antonina ran away with a Denikin officer, taking with her a fair amount of gold medals from the treasured chest. This news literally knocked Poddubny off his feet. Ivan Maksimovich refused food, lay in bed all day, and stopped recognizing his acquaintances. Much later, he admitted that he was on the verge of real madness. When in a few years ex-wife announced herself and asked for forgiveness, Poddubny said: “Cut off.”
In 1922, Ivan Maksimovich was invited to work at the Moscow Circus. He was already in his sixties. The doctors who examined him never ceased to be amazed: Poddubny was absolutely healthy. “Ivan Zhelezny” - they called him.
On a circus tour in Rostov-on-Don, Poddubny meets the mother of the young wrestler Ivan Mashonin and proposes to her. The widow accepts him and they get married in the church. To support his family, Poddubny goes on foreign tours to Germany. By this point, all the athletes are already working in cahoots with the impresario. Poddubny is immediately offered an unfair fight and a loss for a lot of money - everyone wants a sensation, a victory over the “Russian Bear”. He abandons Europe on principle and goes to America. Here, too, the matter almost fell apart - according to American laws, athletes over thirty-eight years old could only go on the mat with the permission of a special medical commission. Poddubny underwent a thorough examination. His health was found to be consistent with being forty years of age. The advertisement screamed: 52-year-old “Ivan the Terrible” challenges daredevils to a duel.
In America, they did not practice French wrestling, but wrestling without rules - everyone wanted to see the spectacle: blood, cracking bones, screams and pain. In the very first fight, the Canadian opponent grabbed Ivan by the mustache, for which, however, he immediately paid.
Having brilliantly met with the champions of America and Canada, Poddubny fought in Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. He drew full houses. But the local morals, the very merchant spirit of the sport, aroused in him a feeling of disgust. And he decided to terminate the contract, losing a lot of money.
Poddubny's American tour was covered in the Soviet press. Quite clearly they relied on him as the embodiment of the strength and power of the country of victorious socialism. In honor of Poddubny it was arranged grand celebration, in which all the famous athletes of the city took part. The news that on June 17, 1928, the unfading “champion of champions” would fight on the open stage of the Tauride Garden instantly spread throughout the city. All police cordons were broken by the start of the competition. The trees were surrounded by boys who had heard from their grandfathers and fathers about a man who had come into real life, seemingly from the pages of epics and fairy tales.
During the years of fascist occupation, Poddubny lived in Yeisk. His name was familiar to the Nazis who captured the city. 70-year-old Poddubny refused to go to Germany and train German athletes, saying: “I am a Russian wrestler. I will remain so” and defiantly continued to wear the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
Popular rumor called him the Russian hero, the Champion of champions, Ivan the Terrible. But no matter what fantastic power was attributed to him, he was an ordinary person with your habits and worries. Today, on the 143rd anniversary of the birth of Iron Ivan, we’ll talk about his 7 weaknesses.
The first love of the smart young man was the daughter of wealthy neighbors Alenka Vityak, who was not given in marriage to the poor man Ivan. So, in his early 20s, he set out to earn a comfortable living. At first he worked as a port loader in Sevastopol and Feodosia, and then he began performing as an athlete in the circus. A tall, beautifully built wrestler, laying his opponents on his shoulder blades, quickly acquired fans and admirers.
Poddubny decided to look for his passions in his own team. So he became interested in the tightrope walker Emilia, a Hungarian by birth, a cunning and cunning woman. The temperamental circus performer completely eclipsed the image of Ivan’s first love; he was even going to marry Emily, but... he was not the tightrope walker’s only suitor. He preferred a rich suitor.
The next object of the hero’s love was gymnast Masha Dozmarova. Their feelings were mutual, but the fragile girl’s life was cut short on the eve of the wedding. Poddubny could not come to his senses for a long time and even decided to give up the fight. There were too many things here that reminded him of his ex-fiancee.
In 1910, Poddubny married a woman of dazzling beauty, actress Antonina Kvitko-Fomenko. I decided to live the life of a rural landowner. He brought all his awards and medals to his native village, bought a large land plot, built a manor and a mill, and kept bees. But a cozy family nest did not work out: the farm brought only losses, and the money quickly ran out. In 1919, his flighty wife abandoned him and ran away with a White Guard officer, taking with her almost all the medals of the titled wrestler.
Three years after Antonina’s betrayal, Poddubny finally found what he had been looking for for so long. He married the mother of the young wrestler Ivan Mashonin, Maria Semyonovna, with whom he lived until the end of his life, and treated her son with paternal tenderness.
2. Gullibility
“The other day I had dinner with Poddubny, a man of enormous strength and equal stupidity,” wrote Alexander Kuprin. For all his gigantic qualities, Ivan was childishly naive and trusting; it was easy to deceive him. During his American tour, he signed contracts without knowing their contents at all. As a result, the cunning Yankees came up with a way to save their money. To receive his half a million dollars, Poddubny had to take American citizenship. He had no intention of betraying Russia, so he returned to his homeland with nothing.
His naivety was also evident in public life. The beginning of the twentieth century was marked political struggle. He was not a supporter of the Whites, the Reds, or the Greens, but they all greeted him equally enthusiastically. In the years Stalin's repressions and he suffered. In 1937, he was arrested and spent a year in the prison of the Rostov NKVD department. Stalin's henchmen did not stand on ceremony with the famous fighter, torturing him with an electric soldering iron, demanding to know the account numbers and addresses of foreign banks in which he could keep his savings. A year later, Ivan Poddubny was released.
3. Intractability
Ivan Poddubny, a Russian hero, was one of the few fighters who could afford not to participate in custom fights. Even when he agreed to lose, he left both the organizers and his opponent in the cold. Therefore, he made his reputation through fair fights. Those who wanted to profit from the name often resorted to setup. At one time, another wrestler performed under the name Poddubny.
4. Relationship with father
The only person whom Poddubny recognized as stronger than himself was his father. And in general, all the men in their family were distinguished by physical qualities. Ivan's grandfather lived to be 120 years old. Poddubny got his wrestling grip from his father, who, for fun, could stop a cart by the wheel. When Poddubny became a professional wrestler and began performing in the circus, this extremely upset his parent. He even told his son through his brother that he would “hit him with the shafts” for such shameful behavior. Before Ivan received global recognition, he had to not only abandon the idea of returning to his native land, but also wander around the circuses.
5. Body
Until the last days of his life, Poddubny trained daily. The body had to be “kept” in excellent condition physical fitness. In 1922, Ivan Maksimovich was invited to work at the Moscow Circus. He exchanged fifty, and the doctors were surprised how, after many hours of training or performances, the athlete did not even notice slight fatigue of the heart muscle. “Ivan Zhelezny” - they called him. Poddubny had a phenomenal organism that allowed him to instantly develop energy like an explosion. This same body played a cruel joke on the wrestler. A wrestler's nutritional needs were disproportionately greater than those of an ordinary person. During the hungry years of the Great Patriotic War Poddubny suffered from malnutrition. He wrote to the Yeisk City Council: “According to the book, I receive 500 grams of bread, which I lack. I ask you to add another 200 grams so that I can exist. October 15, 1943." He asked Voroshilov for help, but never received an answer from Moscow.
During the years of occupation, the Germans gave him 5 kilograms of meat per month; the director of the Yeisk bakery never refused Poddubny a piece of bread. Even if they sent him an extra sugar ration for a month from Krasnodar, Ivan ate it in one day. To support himself, he bought medals one after another. Sometimes, from malnutrition, he fell into bed and lay for several days to gain strength.
It was noticeable that the eternal feeling of hunger, the inability to saturate one’s body, which was far from being the same as everyone else’s, left its mark on it. After the war, they saw a different Poddubny: with slumped shoulders, with an expression of sadness and resentment frozen on his face.
6. Financial shortsightedness
Poddubny's life consisted of financial ups and downs. At the zenith of his fame, when he received ten times more than other fighters, Poddubny could afford almost everything. If a wrestler knew how to manage money wisely, he could provide himself comfortable old age. But Poddubny had no ability for commerce: for three years, the farm in which Poddubny invested his capital and on which he entrusted high hopes, went broke.
The hard years had taken their toll: somewhere far away in the West his money remained, but in his homeland he simply existed, while away last days, barely supporting your body.
7. Political illiteracy
Ivan Poddubny was never interested in politics and avoided talking about it. “I don’t interfere in their politics, I don’t bother anyone, let no one bother me.” During the Civil War, the fighter did not take either side. It seemed that fate was protecting him: in 1919, drunken anarchists almost shot him in the Zhytomyr circus, in Kerch he barely escaped the bullet of a drunken white officer, and a year later he simply miraculously escaped from the basements of the Odessa Cheka. His fame spread throughout the world. During the years of occupation, even the Nazis did not touch it. Despite the fact that the Germans allowed him to open a billiard hall at a military hospital, Poddubny did not accept their offer to be a coach in Germany. Knowing the integrity and honesty of Ivan Maksimovich, after the liberation of Yeisk the NKVD did not consider him a traitor; moreover, they used the old man to inspire the soldiers.
And the manager Memorial Museum I. M. Poddubny (Yaysk Krasnodar region) Natalya GINKUL told AiF about those pages of Poddubny’s life about which very little is known - about how Ivan Maksimovich got along with different authorities.
Makhno and the Cheka
From 1910 to 1912 Poddubny did not engage in professional sports - he was tired nomadic life. He lived in his homeland, bought land in the Poltava province, built two mills... But things didn’t work out, and besides, brother Mitrofan burned one of them down while drunk.
Since 1913, Poddubny was again in the arena, his career was not interrupted even by the First world war. But with the beginning of the Civil War, there is less and less accurate information about Poddubny, and more and more legends about him. It is known that he is touring again, performing in circuses in Zhitomir and Kerch, in territories controlled by both the Whites and the Reds. There is, for example, a legend about how Ivan Maksimovich ended up with the Makhnovists and fought in Berdyansk with the most powerful Makhnovist - a certain Gritsko. Poddubny, naturally, laid him down on both shoulder blades, which greatly upset Nestor Makhno.
They said that once he was almost shot by mistake in the Odessa Cheka - they took him for the organizer of Jewish pogroms named Poddubov, who was also a fighter...
All that is known more or less accurately about that period is that in 1920, his first wife, Antonina Kvitko-Fomenko, left Ivan. Apparently she ran away with some white officer, taking most of her husband’s gold awards. During the Civil War, Poddubny did not take either side. Apparently, the famous wrestler did not fully understand why some Russian people kill others with such frenzy.
After the Civil War, Poddubny worked in circuses in Moscow and Leningrad. During a benefit performance at the 1st Moscow Circus, for example, he demonstrated the following trick: a wooden telegraph pole was placed on his shoulders, and those from the audience clung to the ends of this pole. They were “strung” until the pole broke under their weight, like a match.
In 1924, Poddubny toured in Germany, in 25, having signed a two-year contract with an American entrepreneur, he left for the USA. For two years, Poddubny, with the consent of the State Circus, worked in the New World, representing there Soviet Union. There were no diplomatic relations between our countries then. According to Poddubny’s recollections, the American public differed from the domestic one in having somewhat greater passion and thirst for blood: it is no coincidence that their current fights without rules - wrestling - grew out of free American wrestling. Poddubny was a six-time world champion in French wrestling, which later began to be called classical, and now Greco-Roman. Nevertheless, Poddubny quickly mastered the tougher techniques of American freestyle wrestling - the tour took place with great success. He lost only once - to American champion Joe Stecker.
Billiards and the Germans...
Shortly before the war, Poddubny settled in Yeisk on the shore Sea of Azov. From August '42 to February '43, the town was occupied by German and Romanian troops. Poddubny stayed at home - either he didn’t have time, or he didn’t want to evacuate. He worked as a marker in a billiard room opened in the city with the permission of the occupation authorities. Allegedly, this job was offered to Poddubny by the Germans themselves - many Wehrmacht officers as boys ran to the performances of the hero from Soviet Russia and remembered him for life. But for this period there is also a problem with documents - you can only rely on eyewitness accounts. For example, Evgeny Kotenko, the current first vice-president of the Academy mining sciences, who was 12 years old in 1942, said that when tipsy Germans started making noise in the billiard room, Poddubny took them by the collar and threw them out like naughty kittens. At the same time, the Germans were allegedly even proud that it was not an unknown bouncer who put them out the door, but Poddubny himself. Considering that, according to numerous eyewitness accounts, Ivan Maksimovich openly wore the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, received in 1939 from the hands of Kalinin, on his chest throughout the occupation...
...and again the security officers
Oddly enough, after the liberation of Yeisk, the NKGB did not apply repression against Ivan Maksimovich. We have documents stating that I. M. Poddubny passed the appropriate check and was not noticed in any discreditable actions. So the rumors that after the war the Soviet authorities almost deliberately starved him to death are untrue. It’s just that the powerful body of a professional wrestler required some calories, but the rationing system, which lasted in the USSR until the end of 1947, offered completely different ones. IN better times Poddubny ate two loaves of bread at lunch, and according to the card, dependents and children (Poddubny no longer worked - in 1945 he was 74 years old) were given 400 g per day. Poddubny even received additional rations from the authorities, however, he could eat enough sugar for a month in a day... He and his wife did not feel any particular need for money (Poddubny married for the second time in 1924) - they big house, which has survived to this day, tenants quite often rented housing. After Poddubny’s death from a heart attack in 1949, by decision local authorities He was buried in the city park, which now bears his name. In 1971, on the occasion of the centenary of Ivan Maksimovich, the Poddubny Museum was opened nearby.
Ivan Poddubny is a professional wrestler, athlete and circus performer. A legendary man whose performances were sold out in Russia, France, Italy, Germany and America. Ivan Maksimovich Poddubny was born on September 26 (old style) 1871 in the village of Bogodukhovka, Poltava province.
Its remarkable physical strength Ivan inherited it from his father, a descendant of the Zaporozhye Cossacks. The future strongman was accustomed to hard peasant labor from childhood and began working as a farm laborer from the age of 12. Ivan's mother had a beautiful voice. His keen ear for music was passed on to his son. On Sundays, the hero Poddubny sang in the church choir.
At the age of 22, the guy left his native village for Crimea; love pushed Ivan to take this step. Alena, the girl whom Ivan loved, grew up in a wealthy family, so her father was categorically against marriage with the poor Poddubny. Ivan dreamed of earning a lot of money, getting rich and returning to the girl, but soon after leaving, the young man forgot about her. For 3 years, the future athlete worked as a loader in the ports of Sevastopol and Feodosia. There Poddubny met sailors who talked about the training system.
Sport
Poddubny entered the ring for the first time in 1896, when the Beskaravayny circus toured the Crimea. From that moment the athlete’s sports career began. Longshoreman Ivan followed the athletes’ performances with interest. After the performance, the entertainer addressed the audience with an offer to take part in the duel. Poddubny came out and surpassed the titled athletes who performed “on the belts”. The start of a wrestling career was made.
In 1903, the chairman of the Society of Athletes in St. Petersburg invited Ivan Poddubny to participate in the World Championships in Paris. In 3 months the wrestler had to master the French style of wrestling. The training was intense.
In Paris, the “Russian Bear” competed against titled athletes. Ivan Maksimovich won 11 fights, but lost to the Frenchman Boucher. Before the fight, Boucher resorted to a trick - he lubricated his body with oil so that his opponent’s hands would slide over it. The judges awarded the victory to Boucher, and Ivan Poddubny received a lesson for life. Since then, Ivan has become an ardent opponent of dirty methods in the ring.
In 1905, the international championship was again held in Paris, and Ivan’s victory at it was triumphant. Over the next 3 years, the streak of winnings continued. Poddubny was invited to competitions in different countries. Journalists wrote about the athlete only as a “champion of champions.” The hero's life was spent traveling, but he dreamed of own home, family and in 1910 decided to leave the sport.
Circus career
Poddubny returned to the circus arena at the age of 42, working first in Zhitomir, then in Kerch. In 1922, when Ivan Poddubny was already 51 years old, the strongman was invited to join the Moscow Circus troupe. After a medical examination, doctors stated that the athlete was in excellent health and had no contraindications.
Then there was work at the Petrograd Circus. Heavy financial situation forced Ivan Poddubny to agree to tour Germany and America. The performances were sold out, but in 1927 the athlete decided to return to Russia. It is assumed that in the USA the wrestler earned a lot of money, which remained in an American bank account.
Ivan Poddubny performed in the circus until he was 70 years old, and this was the artist’s personal record.
Personal life
Ivan's first love for a girl from his native village was short-lived. More likely, not even love, but youthful infatuation.
For the second time, the athlete fell in love with the tightrope walker Emilia. The girl was older and more experienced than Ivan, she subtly played on the feelings of the young man, forcing the athlete to indulge her whims and caprices. Soon a rich admirer appeared on Emilia’s horizon, with whom the woman left.
After Emilia fled, Ivan moved to Kyiv. Here the man met the fragile gymnast Mashenka. Miniature girl responded to the man in return. The couple made plans for the future, but fate decreed otherwise. During the performance, Mashenka fell off the trapeze and crashed.
At the age of 40, Ivan Poddubny married for the first time. His wife was the beautiful Antonina Kvitko-Fomenko. The couple bought a plot of land, built a house and started a farm. The marriage lasted 7 years, until Antonina met an officer and ran away with him - at this time Poddubny was touring in Odessa. A few years later, Antonina wanted to return to her husband, but the man did not forgive her.
Last love Ivan Poddubny is the widow Maria Mashonina, the mother of his student. The strongman was shocked by the beauty and sensuality of the woman. The couple lived on the shores of the Azov Sea, in Yeisk, where they bought a house after American tour athlete. With Maria, the Russian hero lived to death. Poddubny had no children, but Ivan Maksimovich treated Maria’s son with paternal tenderness.
Death
Poddubny died on August 8, 1949 from a heart attack. The food rations that were given out in those years were not enough for the athlete’s body to function normally.
After the champion's death, the wife was able to pay for a simple grave without a monument. And only when the press wrote that the champion rested in a grave overgrown with weeds, a monument was erected to Ivan Poddubny. The inscription on the tombstone reads: “Here lies the Russian hero.”
- Since childhood, Ivan Maksimovich established a strict sports regime. The wrestler was 185 cm tall and weighed 120 kg. Poddubny’s contemporaries repeatedly said that the strongman constantly carried with him a steel cane weighing 16 kg. By 1910, the athlete had already won a large number of awards and trophies. It is assumed that by that time the total weight of the athlete’s badges and gold medals was equal to two pounds.
- In 1919, drunken anarchists tried to shoot Poddubny in the Zhytomyr circus. A similar incident occurred later in Kerch. The fighter was shot by an officer who was in a state of alcohol intoxication, and a year later the athlete ended up in the dungeons of the Odessa Cheka. The dark streak in Ivan Maksimovich’s life was continued by his wife’s betrayal.
- The wrestler grew his famous mustache in 1898. The man agreed to such a radical step after listening to the advice of Kyiv circus performer Akim Nikitin. He advised the athlete to change his appearance, pointing to the roots of the artist, who came from the Zaporozhye Cossacks. Then it appeared famous photo Poddubny with a mustache, in a Circassian coat with a dagger and gazyrs.
- When Poddubny turned 53 years old, the wrestler lost to Ivan Chufistov, a famous Ryazan wrestler. After a difficult fight, Ivan Maksimovich said to his opponent:
“Eh, Vanka, I didn’t lose to you, but to my old age.”
- During the Great Patriotic War, the athlete remained in the territory that was occupied German troops. Despite this, Poddubny continued to wear the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. The Germans respected the celebrity’s merits, even allowed the strongman to open a billiard hall at a military hospital, and also offered to go to Germany to train local athletes, but he answered briefly:
“I am a Russian wrestler. I will remain that way.”
- In 2014, the film “Poddubny” was released, telling about the life of the legendary wrestler. According to the plot, the film repeats in many details the Soviet film “The Fighter and the Clown”, which was created in 1958.
- Became popular documentary“The tragedy of the Strongman. Ivan Poddubny,” in which the creators talked about interesting facts from the life of the legend.
- When the athlete died, an order came from Moscow to bury Ivan Maksimovich with honors, but the “king of fighters” (nickname of Ivan Poddubny) ended up behind the cemetery fence. Until the early 70s, the athlete’s grave remained abandoned, until Air Force employees reminded everyone about tragic fate legends. Today the folk trail to the hero’s grave is not overgrown.