"A man of great strength and stupidity." The true story of Ivan Poddubny. About everyone and everything Le Boucher

by Notes of the Wild Mistress

In 1903, the famous Russian athlete Ivan Maksimovich Poddubny went to the world championship in French wrestling, which took place in Paris. 130 athletes from all over the world attended the tournament. Despite the fact that this was Poddubny’s first world championship, he had a good chance of winning.

The beginning of the tournament was successful for the Russian; he confidently won eleven victories in a row. In the twelfth fight he had to meet with the French wrestler Raoul Musson, nicknamed “le Boucher” (The Butcher). The twenty-year-old athlete was a favorite of Parisian wrestling fans. He began his sports career at the age of thirteen and quickly gained popularity in the wrestling world. Raul quit his job in a butcher shop and became a professional wrestler.

The Frenchman was 12 years younger than his opponent, with a height of 188 centimeters and a weight of 120 kilograms, he had enormous strength, while being distinguished by speed and agility. But Poddubny clearly had no intention of giving in to the young Frenchman.

Surprisingly, the fight continued. The referees made a truly “Solomon” decision: to stop the match every 5 minutes and wipe the French wrestler dry. But the oil came out again along with sweat.

This is how the “slippery” Raoul le Boucher managed to survive until the end of the fight. Strange as it may seem, it was he who was recognized as the winner “for beautifully avoiding receptions.”

The Russian Athletic Society sent Raul an offer to meet Poddubny again, promising a prize of 10,000 francs if he wins. But he was able to escape here too: he delicately refused to fight again.

However, the wrestlers met a year later at the next world championship in St. Petersburg. The revenge was cruel - the Russian wrestler held his opponent for 42 minutes, in a knee-elbow position, while the audience whistled and hooted, until the judges took pity on Le Boucher.

Raoul le Boucher's life ended tragically. During Ivan Maksimovich’s tour in Italy, de Boucher “ordered” Poddubny from local bandits. This conspiracy was overheard by another French fighter, Aimable de la Calmette, and was killed on the spot. But Poddubny simply scattered the bandits. And, although the “work” remained unfulfilled, the bandits began to demand payment from the customer. He refused to pay, for which he received a fatal blow to the head with a rubber truncheon. It was announced to the public that Raoul de Boucher had died of meningitis. He was barely 24 years old.

Ivan Maksimovich Poddubny

Fact No. 1. Revenge of Ivan Poddubny

At the dawn of the 20th century, Ivan Poddubny showed the whole world that the strongest people live in Russia. People from all over the world associated his physical appearance, character, and unheard-of victories with the country where he was born. Russia can be heard in the very name of the invincible fighter.

The twenty-year-old athlete was a favorite of Parisian wrestling fans. He began his sports career at the age of thirteen and quickly gained popularity in the wrestling world. Raul quit his job in a butcher shop and became a professional wrestler. The Frenchman was 12 years younger than his opponent, with a height of 188 centimeters and a weight of 120 kilograms, he had enormous strength, while being distinguished by speed and agility. But Poddubny clearly had no intention of giving in to the young Frenchman.

A few minutes after the contraction began, Ivan’s hands suddenly began to slide over Raoul le Boucher’s body. The Parisian easily escaped from Podubny’s powerful grips. Ivan Maksimovich addressed the judges, saying that his opponent was oiled. The referees examined the French wrestler and admitted that his body was indeed covered with oily sweat. It turned out that Le Boucher had anointed himself with olive oil. Surprisingly, the fight continued. The referees made a truly “Solomon” decision: to stop the match every 5 minutes and wipe the French wrestler dry. But the oil came out again along with sweat. This is how the “slippery” Raoul le Boucher managed to survive until the end of the fight. Strange as it may seem, it was he who was recognized as the winner “for beautifully avoiding receptions.”

Poddubny was shocked not even by the fact that he was undeservedly and brazenly removed from further competitions. Having spoken for the first time, he realized that even at such a representative, authoritative forum in the face of many hundreds of spectators watching the battle, the triumph of the blackest lies and human dishonesty was possible. This lesson will forever make Poddubny an implacable, uncompromising enemy of “dirty sport.”

Raoul Boucher

In St. Petersburg they knew about the Paris incident, but, not wanting a major scandal, they telegraphed a proposal to the panel of judges to repeat the duel between Poddubny and Raoul, promising the latter a prize of 10,000 francs if he won. But the Frenchman naturally refused.

However, Paris turned out to be only the starting point for further clarification on the carpet of the “Russian bear” and the favorite of the French. Fate kept bringing them together - people who, in their convictions, personified the light and dark sides of sports.

Raoul Le Boucher, a strong, technical wrestler, was able to fairly evaluate Poddubny. It was clear that he would not be able to cope with him in open combat. I didn’t want to lose the title of public idol, French sports star. And when a year later Raul came to St. Petersburg for the International Championship, he offered Poddubny a bribe of 20 thousand francs.

The revenge was brutal. This proposal, which the strange Russian considered offensive, cost the “star” twenty minutes of standing on all fours while the audience whistled. “This is for cheating! This is for olive oil!” - Poddubny said. He released Raul only at the insistence of the judges...

Fact No. 2. Gifts for the “leader” for his 70th birthday

In December 1949, all advanced humanity, as it was customary to say then, celebrated the 70th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. On this occasion, a ceremonial meeting was held at the Bolshoi Theater on December 21.

Stalin on the presidium with Mao Zedong, Bulganin, Ulbricht and Tsedenbal, December 21, 1949

To this day, no one can say exactly how many gifts were presented to the “leader of the peoples,” but as many as 17 halls were allocated in the Museum of the Revolution to display them. And lists of gifts were published in the Pravda newspaper until Stalin’s death, that is, for more than three years.

Here are just a few of the huge number of gifts:

♦ On December 20, 1949, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council was issued on awarding J.V. Stalin with the Order of Lenin.

♦ In Czechoslovakia, the highest Carpathian peak Slovak Štít was renamed Stalinský Štit.

♦ In addition, the leader received 3 cars as a gift from the Czechoslovak people: Skoda 1101, Minor and Tatraplane. The country also issued two coins in denominations of 100 and 50 crowns, dedicated to the hero of the day.

♦ From the proletariat of France, Stalin was presented with a silver “Dove of Peace” with the engraving: “French workers will never fight with the workers of the USSR.”

♦ The Bulgarian city of Varna was renamed Stalin, although in October 1956 the city returned its previous name.

♦ In the aviation workshops of the Polish city of Lodz, workers made an original telephone set: it was shaped like a globe, the tube was made in the shape of a hammer, and the lever was made in the shape of a sickle.

♦ A small silver chest and five keys to it were delivered from friendly Mongolia to Moscow. The hint is transparent: the five keys symbolized the five continents.

♦ A small but tasteful gift was presented from Chinese rice farmers: a grain of rice with a portrait of Joseph Vissarionovich.

♦ From the residents of Stalingrad, Stalin received a model of the T-54 tractor, and from the miners of the Suchansky basin - an album in the form of a coal block with a report on his achievements. A saber made from the famous Zlatoust steel was delivered from Zlatoust for the anniversary. The checker depicts a panorama of the Battle of Stalingrad.

♦ In his youth, Stalin was fond of poetry and even published several of his poems in Georgian newspapers. A poetry collection by Joseph Vissarionovich was being prepared for the anniversary, but he personally ordered the work to be stopped. Why remains unknown.

♦ Another interesting fact: on November 30 of the same year, 1949, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill turned 75 years old. Joseph Vissarionovich sent him 75 bottles of cognac as a gift. Churchill liked the gift so much that he said: “It’s a pity that I’m not turning 100 years old!”

♦ One of the most controversial gifts is a poem by poetess Anna Akhmatova dedicated to Stalin on his birthday:

Let the world remember this day forever,
Let this hour be bequeathed to eternity.
The legend speaks of a wise man,
That he saved each of us from a terrible death.

The whole country rejoices in the rays of the amber dawn,
And there are no barriers to pure joy, -
And ancient Samarkand, and polar Murmansk,
And Leningrad was saved twice by Stalin

On the birthday of a teacher and a friend
They sing a song of bright gratitude, -
Let the blizzard rage around
Or mountain violets are blooming.

And they echo the cities of the Soviet Union
All friendly republics of the city
And those toilers who are strangled by bonds,
But whose speech is free and whose soul is proud.

And their thoughts fly freely to the capital of glory,
To the high Kremlin - fighter for eternal light,
From where the majestic anthem rushes at midnight
And to the whole world it sounds like help and greetings.
December 21, 1949

Fact No. 3. Shmenkel Fritz Paul - German soldier and hero of the USSR

Fritz Paul Schmenkel

Hero of the Great Patriotic War. Legendary person. An ardent communist who fled to the front and killed 150 Germans. They promised a fortune for his head. Meet Fritz Hans Werner Schmenkel, a purebred Aryan anti-fascist.

Fritz Hans Werner Schmenkel, known in Soviet historiography as Fritz Paul (Paulevich) Schmenkel, was born in the German Empire on February 14, 1916. His father, Paul Krause, worked in a brick factory and was an ardent communist. Because of his views, he died in 1923 at the hands of the Nazis. In the early 30s, young Fritz decides to follow in his father’s footsteps - he joins the ranks of the Communist Youth International of Germany.

In 1938, Fritz Schmenkel was drafted into the army of the Third Reich. But Fritz did not remain in the ranks of the Wehrmacht for long. Taking part in hostilities in Poland in 1939, he constantly conducted anti-fascist propaganda, for which he was expelled from his unit and placed under arrest. Two long years later, after the so-called “repentance” for what he had done, he was prematurely reinstated in the ranks of the army of Nazi Germany and ended up on the Eastern Front, where he wanted to go with all his might. Even then, Fritz Schmenkel decided to radically change his destiny!

Fritz deserted from the Wehrmacht at the end of November 1941 with one goal - to join the Red Army. For several weeks he hid in the Smolensk region, knocked on the houses of local residents and spoke only three words that he knew in Russian: “Lenin, Stalin, Telman.” And the doors opened... For food and lodging, Fritz helped the villagers with their household chores.

One day, a fugitive anti-fascist was captured by the SS. However, partisans from the Kalinin detachment “Death to Fascism” came to the village and destroyed the Nazi garrison. Fritz was threatened with imminent and inevitable execution. But the villagers told the partisans about the fate of the anti-fascist and saved him from death. For a long time, the partisans did not trust Fritz, kept him under constant surveillance, and did not give him weapons.

At the end of winter 1942, the partisan detachment was attacked by the Germans. Fritz was unarmed and at the beginning of the battle could not provide support to the partisans. But, having picked up the rifle of one of the dead, with one precise shot he killed a German who was conducting aimed fire from cover. So Fritz Shmenkel became a full-fledged fighter in the “Death to Fascism” partisan detachment, where he was called Ivan Ivanovich for the sake of conspiracy.

The partisans were famous for their raids on the territory of the Smolensk region, Belsky and Nelidovsky districts of the Kalinin region. Fritz Schmenkel was the initiator of many desperate attacks and participated in many dangerous partisan operations.

During his 14 months in the partisan brigade, Shmenkel destroyed about 150 fascists and brought three prisoners. The German command announced a fantastic reward for his head at that time - 25 thousand marks (the car in Germany cost about a thousand marks). A punitive operation called “Shooting Star” began against the “Death to Fascism” detachment.

In 1943, Shmenkel met soldiers of the Kalinin Front with his comrades in liberated Bely. Later that year, he was seconded to the intelligence department of the Western Front, where he underwent special training and was appointed deputy commander of the Pole sabotage and reconnaissance group. For the exploits accomplished in its ranks, he was nominated for the Order of the Red Banner. One day, Fritz was thrown deep behind enemy lines in Belarus, from where he transmitted valuable information. At the end of 1943, Fritz, along with two intelligence officers, went missing for 20 long years...

The work of searching for intelligence officers began quite by accident - in 1961, when the case of a traitor who led a punitive detachment operating near Bely was being investigated. As it turned out, this detachment was defeated by the “Death to Fascism” brigade and Fritz Schmenkel personally led this operation. The investigation was led by the head of the investigative department of the KGB for the Kalinin region, Major Ryabov. Partisans who fought with Shmenkel in the Belsky and Nelidovo forests and local residents were interviewed. More than a hundred requests were made to various organizations, and foreign archival materials were studied.

After three years of searching, we managed to find out that Fritz Schmenkel was captured by the Nazis in Belarus and shot on February 22, 1944 near Minsk. Based on these data and everything that was already known by that time about Fritz Schmenkel’s personal struggle against fascism, for his services to the Soviet Union, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was posthumously awarded the Order of Lenin with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The memory of this unusual heroic fate is still alive today - a street in Nelidovo is named after Shmenkel, a memorial plaque was installed in Minsk, in 1978 the film “I want to see you” (German: Ich will euch sehen) was shot at the German film studio DEFA, supporting roles in which famous actors of that time Peter Velyaminov and Yugoslav Gojko Mitich played.

Fact No. 4. Where did disabled people disappear after the Great Patriotic War?

A few years after the end of the war, disabled people, who were an integral part of the picture of everyday life in Soviet cities, began to disappear from the streets, begging at train stations, markets, in front of cinemas and in other public places and leading an antisocial lifestyle. And there were a lot of them - according to statistics, 2,500,000 disabled people were demobilized, including 450,000 with one arm or one leg.

From a letter from the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs S.N. Kruglov to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee dated February 20, 1954:

“The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR reports that, despite the measures taken... such an intolerable phenomenon as beggary still continues to occur... The police in cities and on railway transport detained beggars: in the second half of 1951 - 107,766 people, in 1952 - 156,817 people, in 1953 - 182,342 people... Social security bodies and local Councils of Workers' Deputies do not pay due attention to the work to prevent and eliminate beggary, do a poor job of placing beggars in homes for the disabled and the elderly... Of the 35 homes for the disabled and boarding schools, the construction of which should have been completed in 1952, as of January 1, 1954, only four houses had been built...

The fight against beggary is also complicated by the fact that some of the disabled and elderly beggars refuse to be sent to nursing homes, and those who are employed often leave them without permission and continue to beg.

In order to prevent crime and eliminate beggary for disabled people who have not found their place in peaceful life and began to wander, drink and beg, the state decided to take them away from large cities to special boarding schools.

One of the most famous special sanatoriums for the disabled was located on the island of Valaam. Since 1950, everyone who, having returned from the front as cripples, was thrown to the margins of life, was brought there. At times the number of wards reached 1000 people.

All these people were erased from the annals of “historical memory.” And it is still quite difficult to find out the truth about those who whiled away their lives in special boarding schools for war veterans. Many cripples deliberately hid their real names: they so much did not want to show their loved ones their ugliness, the helplessness that the war awarded them...

Fact No. 5. The mystery of Turgenev's brain

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, physiologists tried to unravel the secrets of genius by studying the brains of great people - measuring volume, weighing, counting the number of convolutions. It turned out that among the geniuses, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev had the largest brain: his brain weighed 2012 grams, which is almost 600 grams more than the average weight. How did the great writer differ from other outstanding people? And why, after all, does Turgenev have a heavier brain than all the great people? It is known that he was tall (192 cm), and large people tend to have larger brains. However, Mayakovsky, an equally tall man (191 cm), had a brain that was a full 300 grams lighter than Turgenev’s. But Turgenev, unlike Mayakovsky, who passed away young, died at the age of 68 (young people’s brains are always larger and heavier; in old age they lose weight).

The mystery of Turgenev's brain tormented researchers for many years. And only relatively recently a hypothesis has emerged that brings us closer to the solution. Perhaps the large weight of the brain “insured” the writer from epilepsy, to which he was genetically predisposed.

As often happens, the solution was found unexpectedly...

For almost twenty years, the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University has been raising mice with different brain weights... As a result of many years of research, scientists have been able to establish that the role of brain weight in the level of intellectual abilities in mice is very large. The average weight of a mouse brain is 400-500 milligrams. To obtain offspring with a large brain mass, mice whose brain mass was larger than average were crossed with each other. In this way, it was possible to develop a line of mice whose brains were 75 milligrams heavier than usual. Interesting that animals with heavier brains found a way out of the maze much faster and solved other tasks assigned to them better than their relatives.

The next stage was the following: how animals with large brains react to toxic substances that cause seizures and to irritation of the brain with electric current. And it turned out that they have seizures much less frequently than animals with normal-sized brains. And this is not unexpected. The thing is that the brain is a self-regulating system, and a more complexly organized large brain is more difficult to “confuse.”

One might ask, what does cramping have to do with it? After all, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev did not suffer from epilepsy, like, for example, Dostoevsky or Flaubert. However, we should not forget that epilepsy is a disease in the manifestation of which a hereditary predisposition to seizures plays a huge role. Therefore, very often this disease can be traced not in one, but in several generations of one family, as was the case in the family of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. However, it is known that the writer’s father’s brother, Alexei Nikolaevich Turgenev, suffered from epilepsy. And one of Turgenev’s brothers also suffered from epilepsy. And in general, in the Turgenev family there are very often epileptoid characters and patients with epilepsy.

But Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was spared epilepsy, and his outbursts of anger did not occur often (however, at one reception, where everyone spoke French, he got angry and began shouting loudly: “Baba! Turnip! Shovel!”, reminding those present of the sound of their native language).

Why didn’t Turgenev inherit the tendency to epilepsy, which was clearly visible in his relatives? This is where it’s time to remember the extraordinary mass of his brain. Maybe that's what it's all about? If large brain mass prevents the development of seizures in animals, then surely something similar can happen in humans! Perhaps natural selection “honed” this unique feature in the Turgenev family for more than one generation. As a result, such a brilliant person as Ivan Sergeevich appeared. It turns out that the huge mass of the brain “insured” him from the development of the disease. And all the positive traits of an epileptoid character - perseverance, efficiency, ability to achieve a goal - he retained and was able to develop in himself more than anyone else.

Thus, an interesting hypothesis was born that sheds light on the “mystery of Turgenev’s giant brain.”

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Ivan Poddubny showed the whole world that the strongest people live in Russia. People from all over the world associated his physical appearance, character, and unheard-of victories with the country where he was born. Russia can be heard in the very name of the invincible fighter. And the whole life of the “champion of champions” fits into an exclusively Russian plot, where the happiness of victory, national glory and the tragedy of oblivion merge into one inseparable whole.

The Poddubnye were from the Zaporozhye Cossacks. 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.

Ivan was born in the Poltava province in 1871. After the firstborn, the Poddubny couple had three more sons and three daughters. Ivan, as the eldest child in a family where they were accustomed to counting pennies, was accustomed to hard peasant work from childhood and performed it jokingly. Fellow villagers were not surprised that he threw bags of grain onto the cart as if they were filled with hay. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: the head of the family, Maxim Ivanovich, was himself of heroic stature and Herculean strength.

Many years later, being a world-famous champion, Poddubny will say that the only person stronger than him is his father.

For his son, Maxim Ivanovich became both the first coach and the first opponent. On holidays, to the delight of the villagers, they fought. 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. Sometimes Maxim Ivanovich, sparing the pride of his teenage son, was generous and gave in. Never again will Ivan have such noble rivals; fierce, cunning, dishonest ones will appear...

Crossing lines of love and talent

A heartfelt drama forced Ivan to leave his native place: Alenka Vityak, the daughter of a wealthy owner, with whom he had his first love, was not given for him, a poor man. Ivan went to Sevastopol. The big guy was immediately hired as a loader for the Greek company Livas. A fourteen-hour working day, when Poddubny scurried back and forth along the gangway with pounds of sacks, did not seem so exhausting because of the hope of earning more money, returning to the village and taking Alena for himself.

However, everything turned out differently. Transferred to the port of Feodosia, Ivan settled in a rented apartment with two students from nautical classes. His neighbors turned out to be inveterate athletes, and it was from them that Poddubny learned what physical exercise and training system were.

And then the circus of Ivan Beskorovainy came to Feodosia. The troupe, along with the usual characters: jugglers, “rubber girls” and sword swallowers, included famous athletes and wrestlers, whose portraits adorned all the city cabinets. The posters said that anyone could compete with them.

Fate, as they say, pushed Poddubny in the back: after watching several circus performances, he volunteered to fight with professional athletes and suffered a brutal defeat.

This provoked the future hero. He realized that strength alone is not enough. We also need sports equipment. Realizing this was costly: from now on until the end of his life, Poddubny will not leave his body alone, will not rely on his truly phenomenal data. Strength, like any gift of nature, requires work, self-restraint, and discipline in return. He set himself a severe sports regime: exercises with 32-kilogram weights and a 112-kilogram barbell. He doused himself with cold water, ate a special diet, and completely and forever gave up alcohol and smoking.

Sport has become the core of life for Poddubny. He considered the circus to be the best place to demonstrate his talents; besides, performances in the arena could bring in good money. He settled with the Greek office to become a professional wrestler. At the beginning of January 1898, twenty-seven-year-old Ivan reappeared in Sevastopol.

The ex-loader became a wrestler in the circus of Italian Enrico Truzzi. His first performances brought him fame. Tall, beautifully built, with clear, courageous facial features, the wrestler quickly acquired fans and admirers.

He was amazing in the arena. They placed a telegraph pole on his shoulders and ten people hung on both sides until the pole broke. The storm of applause after this number brought only a condescending smile on his face. After such a trifle warm-up began what Poddubny entered the arena for - the original Russian belt wrestling: the 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 of the new circus star, young ladies cut them out as souvenirs, and went to performances with bouquets of flowers for their idol.

The idol’s heart turned out to be quickly occupied by the fatal circus diva Emilia. A lady in her late forties, but an insanely temperamental Hungarian tightrope walker, made the girlishly innocent image of Alenka fade in Ivan’s memory.

Poddubny learned what the passion of a mature, experienced woman in amorous affairs is. He was completely bewitched, offered his hand and heart, not suspecting that he was not the only owner of the beauty’s charms.

Meanwhile, a fellow villager who happened to be at a circus performance and caught something from the local rumors brought Maxim Ivanovich sad news that his son, in the most “disgraceful” form, in tight tights, was throwing weights instead of getting down to business. And besides, they say that “he was lured by a Hungarian girl who walks a tightrope in their circus. He seemed to be planning to marry her.”

Soon Poddubny received a letter from his brothers: “Father is angry with you and threatens to break the shaft on you. It’s better not to come for Christmas.”

He already had no time for the holidays: the insidious tightrope walker ran away with a rich admirer. And he, having decided to get rid of difficult memories, moves to Kyiv.

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.” You can treat this statement as a joke, but there really are many dramatic pages in the hero’s biography.

In the troupe of the Kyiv Circus of the Nikitin brothers, with whom Poddubny signed a contract, he met a lovely young creature - Masha Dozmarova. He could have sat her in his palm, she was so tiny and graceful. A warm feeling filled the giant. Poddubny understood what it was like—a sinking heart. But it, powerful, not losing its rhythm under superhuman loads, froze when he, raising his head, watched what tricks Masha was performing on her trapeze under the circus dome. The love was mutual. Poddubny decided to get married and called the girl his bride.

Everything ended in an instant. Poddubny was waiting for the Mashin number to end behind the heavy drapery separating the stage. Suddenly a dull thud and women's squeals were heard. Jumping out into the arena, he saw a prostrate body. He picked him up. Masha was dead.

Bound by contract, Poddubny went out in public without the slightest desire. The Kiev arena became a place of terrible memories for him. In order to be alone with himself for as little time as possible, he became a frequent member of the athletes’ club. The Kiev intelligentsia gathered here - lawyers, doctors, and simply influential people in the city. They were all very keen on French wrestling, which gave the opportunity for greater maneuver on the mat and required not only strength, but also dexterity, excellent body control, and special fighting tactics.

Poddubny then met A.I. Kuprin, who was often seen at the athletes' club. The writer appreciated in Poddubny not only a nugget, an amazing work of nature, but also a man of great inner strength.

Unable to forget about his grief, Poddubny was thinking of ending the circus and returning to the Feodosia port. However, as we know: “God whiles away eternity with our drama; he himself composes, stages and watches.”

Self-affirmation

A telegram received from St. Petersburg brought a turning point in Poddubny’s life. He was invited for an important conversation. What does all of this mean? Ivan Maksimovich more than once re-read the name of the person whose signature appeared on the telegram: the chairman of the St. Petersburg Athletic Society, Count Ribopierre.

In essence, Poddubny was happy about this telegram only as an excuse to go somewhere and for some reason. He took a ticket to St. Petersburg.

Both the telegram and the interest of G.N. Ribopierre in the man who recently carried sacks on the Crimean piers, surprising the spectators of a traveling circus, had its own explanation. At the beginning of 1903, the count received an offer from the French sports society to send a representative of Russia to participate in international competitions for the title of world champion in French wrestling.

It turned out that Poddubny had been in the observation zone of the founders of the athletic society for quite a long time; there were enough reports about his victories in their piggy bank for the candidacy of the Cossack hero to seem the most suitable. Poddubny admitted to the count that he had only recently been engaged in French wrestling, to which he received the answer: he would have the best coach, Monsieur Eugene de Paris, and three months to prepare.

Training began immediately. The Frenchman, himself a former professional wrestler, did not spare his ward. All techniques were practiced until they became automatic.

130 wrestlers, including world celebrities, came to the championship in Paris. The conditions of the competition were tough; a single defeat deprived the player of 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 his opponent of cheating, the panel of judges, although they were convinced that olive oil had been applied to Raul’s body, decided to continue the fight, and to wipe Poddubny’s “slippery” opponent with a towel every five minutes. Such a decision sounded like a joke, but that’s exactly what happened.

In St. Petersburg they knew 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. However, Paris turned out to be only the starting point for further clarification on the carpet of the “Russian bear” and the favorite of the French. Fate kept bringing them together - people who, in their convictions, personified the light and dark sides of sport. Raoul Le Boucher, a strong, technical wrestler, was able to fairly evaluate Poddubny. It was clear that he would not be able to cope with him in open combat. I didn’t want to lose the title of public idol, French sports star. And when Raul arrived in St. Petersburg for the International Championship, he offered Poddubny a bribe of 20 thousand francs. This proposal, which the strange Russian considered offensive, cost the “star” twenty minutes of standing on all fours while the audience whistled. “This is for cheating! This is for olive oil!” - Poddubny said. He released Raul only at the insistence of the judges...

Another Frenchman, world champion Paul Pons, a tall athlete, known for his virtuoso mastery of all wrestling techniques, which he brought down on his opponent with lightning speed that did not allow him to come to his senses, became a much tougher nut to crack for Poddubny.

Actually, this game was to become the main event of the championship. The Ciniselli brothers' circus, with its audience of three thousand, seemed ready to explode from the previously built-up tension.

The premonition of an easy victory over some guy who was not awarded a single medal, after a humiliating loss to the laughter and hooting of the entire hall, Raoul left Monsieur Pons. A world champion, an experienced man, he understood that his victory would not be easy.

In the first minutes, the opponents seemed to be eyeing each other: the fight was sluggish. The public, rooting for “ours,” did not understand what happened to Poddubny. His style was already known to experts: the giant from the Poltava region never waited to be attacked. He was the first to go on the offensive and worked with all the muscles of his powerful body. However, this time Poddubny’s actions were justified: before him was a world champion, a wrestler he had never seen. In a matter of minutes it was necessary to understand his tactics and find his weaknesses.

Everything that happened next is known from the words of an eyewitness - then young, and later one of the most famous trainers, Boris Eder: “Pons was unlike ordinary Pons. No one had ever treated him as impudently as Poddubny, he threw him around the arena... Pons did not 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 dropped 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 wring out.”

Five minutes before the end of the two-hour fight, Poddubny put the world champion on both shoulder blades. The victory was still very difficult, and the tension literally clouded my consciousness. Ivan recalled that for a moment he lost control of himself. Having pressed his opponent to the carpet, he lay on it until he was dragged away by his legs. Something unimaginable was happening around. Bouquets, student caps, caps, and ladies' gloves were flying into the arena. The audience rose from their seats. It was no longer a general cry of jubilation, but a roar that, as they said, reached Nevsky Prospekt. “I did my job,” said the Russian hero. He did not disgrace Russian honor. The French will remember me for a long time.” The cab driver, who was carrying the winner that night through a lively corridor of people standing from the Ciniselli Circus along the streets and the Liteiny Bridge, amid applause and cries of “Hurray,” turned to his rider: “Who are you, master, who will you be, pray tell?” ..."

Golden Five Year Plan

At the beginning of the twentieth century, all of Europe was captured by interest in the new “queen of sports” - wrestling. Schools, societies, and athletic clubs sprang up like mushrooms after rain. A whole cohort of wrestling celebrities appeared. Competitions were held very often, and the public flocked to them. 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.

But in the same year in Paris they were preparing to hold international competitions for the title of world champion. And Ivan Poddubny already knew for sure what goal stood before him.

And again Paris... The competition for the title of world champion took place in the famous Parisian theater "Foli Bergere". It was a show of the wrestling elite. Among the 140 best representatives of this sport were several world champions of past years. Fantastic sums were bet. The little-known name of the Russian athlete did not appear on the list of those on whose victory bets were placed.

And Poddubny moved towards his cherished goal uncontrollably, confidently laying down those who stood in the way of this truly triumphant procession.

Here is another, already third, meeting with Raoul le Boucher. With wild anger they look at the Poddubny eye and this time the defeated enemy. “You will pay for everything with my blood,” Raoul wheezes.

The Paris championship ended with Poddubny's triumphant victory.

Ahead was a long tour of Italy, performance at wrestling competitions in North Africa. He is seen in Belgium and Germany, where he defeated first-class German strongmen. All this creates a real sensation. The “Golden Five-Year Plan” from 1905 to 1910 turned Poddubny into a legend.

And in Nice, where he, already a six-time world champion by that time, was invited to a two-week performance, the figure of his longtime acquaintance Raoul le Boucher loomed on the horizon.

One day, Poddubny was surrounded by four strapping guys who began to say that the Russian wrestler could treat the fans to champagne. In each of them, Poddubny noticed a knife hidden in his shirt sleeve. Realizing that he, unarmed, could not cope with them, he decided to use cunning and invited them to his home, to which the Apaches (hired killers) readily agreed.

Deciding to buy time, Poddubny made the right move. On the way he met an acquaintance. Poddubny indicated with an imperceptible nod to the subjects following him. Fortunately, he understood everything and turned to the police station.

Upon entering the house, Poddubny told the guys that he would now turn on the light, and with a throw he pulled out a pistol from under the mattress. They were taken aback when they saw a gun pointed at them, and two policemen behind them.

Soon rumors spread that Raoul had died suddenly of meningitis. The truth was that the Apaches, 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.

This incident and a number of similar ones did not relieve Poddubny from the painful feeling that sport was increasingly falling into the hands of businessmen, people without conscience and honor. “They traded wrestlers wholesale and retail, and discussed in advance the amount for which the athlete had to lie down on the mat at some point,” he recalled. And the press, which shamelessly named the fee that a word of praise would cost? Poddubny’s straightforward peasant nature was offended by this. Not tolerating fraud, he quarreled with entrepreneurs, broke contracts, gaining fame for himself as a man with a difficult, quarrelsome character.

Increasingly, Poddubny refused to compete. From the second half of 1910, he retired from active work in the sports arena.

Olympic discipline
The sport in which Poddubny was to maintain the prestige of Russia originated in Ancient Greece. And soon wrestling became so popular that the second sport after running was included in one of the first Olympic Games. The baton of Ancient Hellas was picked up by the Romans, among whom this sport became very popular and subsequently acquired the name Greco-Roman wrestling. Having fallen into decline due to attacks by the church in the Middle Ages, it was revived again in the 19th century. In 1848, the first International tournament was held in Paris with the participation of wrestlers from Germany, Italy, Turkey, Russia and, of course, France. Perhaps in memory of this event, Greco-Roman wrestling began to be called French. In 1896, the charter of the St. Petersburg Athletic Society was approved in Russia, and a year later the first All-Russian Championship was held. It became the start of French wrestling in our country, the popularity of which went far beyond the borders of the northern capital. In French wrestling, unlike freestyle, only the upper body works. The fight ends when one of the opponents falls, that is, when one wrestler manages to put the other on his shoulder blades, at least for half a second. In the USSR, the All-Union Committee on Physical Education and Sports in 1948 decided to call French (Greco-Roman) wrestling classical. In 1991, they returned to their previous name - Greco-Roman wrestling.

Landowner from Krasenovka

Poddubny, who had wandered around towns and villages to his heart’s content, unbearably wanted to live his own home. Changes in his personal destiny also pushed him to this decision. In the forty-first year of his life, Poddubny married a woman of dazzling beauty, actress 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 a grand scale. Regardless of costs, he bought plenty of land, gave it to all his relatives, and built an estate for himself and his beloved Antonina. The peasant bone made itself felt; it occurred to him to start a mill and an apiary.

Poddubny lived in this rural idyll for three years. True, he turned out to be not a very dexterous landowner. In a word, the farm was bringing nothing but losses, and the money was running out.

Poddubny stepped onto the carpet again. He was seen in circus arenas and on the stage of summer theaters. It became increasingly difficult for him to earn a luxurious living for the demanding Antonina: the champion’s sports form was no longer the same, and the years were taking their toll. From his tours, Ivan Maksimovich brought his wife money that was not at all what she dreamed of. Now Krasenovka seemed to her like a beautiful trap, where she had fallen, flattered by the championship gold, and most of all by what Ivan had left lying in overseas banks.

Some troubled times were coming. The revolution broke out. Poddubny had little understanding of the balance of forces that were fighting for power and promising the most wonderful life soon. But so far we have had to observe something completely different.

During a wrestling competition, which was once organized by her great admirer, the head of a large tobacco company in Berdyansk, Poddubny was almost put up against the wall by the Makhnovists who swooped in. In Kerch, a drunken officer nearly 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.

During a tour in Odessa in 1919, he learned that his Antonina had run away with a Denikin officer, taking with her a fair amount of gold medals from the treasured chest.

This news literally knocked the giant 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.

A few years later, the fugitive reported herself. She asked me to forgive. Poddubny said: “Cut off.”

And again the wrestling mat

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 surprised: after training or performances, Poddubny did not even notice slight fatigue of the heart muscle. “Ivan the Iron” they called him. Poddubny had a phenomenal organism that allowed him to instantly develop energy like an explosion.

Once, during a circus tour in Rostov-on-Don, Poddubny dropped in to see a young wrestler, his namesake, Ivan Mashonin, whom he had mentored as a boy on the right wrestling path. Now, at the table set by his mother, a nice, pretty widow, they spent long hours drinking tea and talking. The tour had not yet ended, but Poddubny had already realized that seeing Maria Semyonovna every day had become necessary for him.

It was not difficult for such a hero to persuade her. The widow accepted the marriage proposal, although she did not exactly understand the full meaning of this name Ivan Poddubny. For him, finding a family was of great importance. At the insistence of Maria Semyonovna, he, a non-religious person, even married her. Having no children of his own, he treated his stepson with paternal tenderness. As the head of the family, Poddubny considered it his duty to support his wife and son in a dignified manner. But in Rostov-on-Don, where he stayed, he couldn’t count on big earnings. And so he decides to tour abroad. But in Germany, where he arrived and scampered around for a year, the same story repeated itself: deception haunted him. He was promised huge money for a deal with the impresario. Victory over him, albeit fake, remained a dream for the wrestlers. His very name, even decades after his first victories, still meant some almost mystical absolute power. Anyone who could cope with it would be instantly turned into a demigod by the press and advertising.

“I tell them: “Have you forgotten Poddubny? Whoever puts it under him I will lie down.” And they answer: “Well, it’s up to you, if you don’t agree, you won’t fight.” I'm going to another circus. Then to another city, to a third. It's the same everywhere. They have a trust. The wrestlers fight, and the owners decide who should put whom down,” Poddubny recalled.

And he signed a contract with a Chicago entrepreneur. Upon arrival in America, however, 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: 54-year-old “Ivan the Terrible” challenges daredevils to a duel.

But there were pitfalls here too. Very quickly Poddubny realized that classical wrestling, which has a code of its own rules, is not interesting to Americans. On the carpet they wanted to see a spectacle of blood flowing, bones cracking, and fighters screaming in pain.

What was taken for sports wrestling here turned out to be its degeneration. At its height was the fame of Ed Lewis, nicknamed the Strangler for his practiced headlock technique, which forced an opponent to surrender under the threat of being strangled. Realizing that he had to be prepared for anything, including real savagery, Poddubny urgently mastered the skills of freestyle wrestling.

The very first contractions lived up to the worst expectations. His opponent, a Canadian, whom he laid on the carpet and pressed with his chest, grabbed him by the mustache, for which, however, he immediately paid...

Having brilliant meetings with famous wrestlers, 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, even unveiled, aroused in him a feeling similar to disgust. And he decided to terminate the contract, losing a lot of money. No amount of persuasion or promises from the entrepreneurs helped.

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 the Leningrad port, where Maria Semyonovna came to meet her husband, she was surprised by the huge crowds of people eager to see the legendary hero.

A grand celebration was organized in Poddubny’s honor, 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...

In Leningrad, Poddubny released a statement that “due to his advanced years, he decided to leave the profession of a wrestler.” According to him, his goal in life now will be to popularize classical wrestling among young people, to pass on his vast experience to them in order to “find a real successor among Russian wrestlers.”

In 1934, it was forty years since the port of Feodosia's loader entered the carpet. He still hasn’t left him, laying him on his shoulder blades much younger. The history of wrestling does not remember such longevity. How can he not remember such a long glory passed on from generation to generation?

Poddubny took part in the physical education parade on Red Square in 1939. Lived at the Moscow Hotel. Together with their sports colleague, 1939 USSR wrestling champion Alexander Senatorov, they walked in front of the Mausoleum, went down to St. Basil's, and then the people, not paying attention to the young champion, recognized Poddubny. The police could not do anything about the crowd pressing on all sides. Senatorov recalled: “I see that things are bad: they will crush Poddubny or completely crush him. I have a trained eye. I previously served in the police. I say: “Ivan Maksimovich, let’s save ourselves!” He looked and answered: “You have to tick, Sasha.” I don’t remember how we got out of this mess...”

In the same 1939, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Poddubny was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor “for outstanding services in the development of Soviet sports.”

Towards the end

Poddubny spent the last 22 years of his life in Yeisk on the shores of the Azov Sea. This is Yeisk today, a resort city of 100,000 with healing mud that is, as they say, not inferior to the advertised mud of the Dead Sea. Before the war, the cozy town was quiet and sparsely populated. The Poddubnys' house stood on a high cliff above the estuary.

But the war began. In August 1942, the Germans entered Yeysk. This period in the biography of the “Russian hero Ivan Poddubny” is either not covered at all, or the authors get off with unintelligible phrases. However, as often happens, folk memory has the ability to store information, albeit not always accurate, subjective, but still allowing, at least in general terms, to restore the missing link in the past. And in Poddubny’s biography this missing thing turned out to be bitter and tragic.

Seventy-year-old Poddubny did not want to evacuate: “Where to run? Dying soon." His heart really began to ache. Not trusting medicine, he was treated with tinctures of Kuban steppe herbs.

In the very first days of the occupation, he was detained by people from the Gestapo. They saw an old man calmly walking along the street in a battered straw hat, an untucked gray shirt and with a five-pointed star on it - the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, which Poddubny never took off.

Nevertheless, the old man with the star was released from the Gestapo. Glory saved Poddubny - his name was well known there. Moreover, he soon began working as a marker in a billiard room because he had to feed his loved ones. But since there was a bar nearby, Poddubny threw out the players who had too many, like kittens, out the door of the billiard room, thus fulfilling the role of bouncers.

According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, residents of Yeisk: “the rowdy Krauts were very proud that Ivan the Great himself was putting them out on the street. One day a representative of the German command came to Poddubny and offered to go to Germany to train German athletes. He refused: “I am a Russian wrestler. I will remain that way." And Poddubny got away with this statement. The Germans bowed to his strength and worldwide fame.

It was rumored that local old men quietly came into Poddubny’s billiard room to listen to our radio. In February 1943, Red Army units entered Yeysk. Denunciations rained down on Poddubny, saying he worked for the Germans. The NKVD took charge of Ivan Maksimovich. They conducted a thorough check and found no evidence of collaboration with the Nazis. As for the billiard room, it was classified “as a purely commercial establishment.” Of course, Poddubny was lucky: it didn’t cost anything to convict him and send him to a camp. This magical surname apparently had an effect on the hottest heads of SMERSH.

After the liberation of Yeisk, Ivan Maksimovich traveled to nearby military units and hospitals and spoke with his memoirs.

The times were not easy. The people were starving The ration on which the whole of Yeisk sat could not even to a small extent satisfy the needs of the fighter’s powerful body. 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.

The Germans gave him 5 kilograms of meat per month. Now he often came to the director of the Yeisk bakery. He never refused the old man a piece of bread. If Poddubny was sent from Krasnodar an additional sugar ration for a month, he 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.

Always a generous nature, unmercenary, he became stingy. Having poured flour into a box, he put fingerprints on it so that no one could take even a pinch. Such small details, better than all lengthy descriptions, give an idea of the last stage of the life of the most famous and invincible of Russian heroes.

But somewhere in the West there were huge sums in Poddubny’s accounts that he did not use, which were of great interest to his distant relatives.

...The old man’s legs could no longer support him. One day, returning from the market, he fell. Doctors diagnosed him with a closed femoral neck fracture. The powerful organism now refused to help: the bone did not heal. He was only able to use crutches to get to the bench that his wife placed at the gate. Here he could at least talk to people passing by.

Poddubny died in 1949 at the seventy-eighth year of his life. Those who knew their family said that for the Poddubnys this was not an age - people died there far beyond a hundred years. There was a stocky family, eternal...

Having received a telegram from Moscow “Bury as it should be,” the coffin with Poddubny’s body was installed in the building of the sports school. He was buried not in the cemetery, but in the city park, where the graves of the pilots who died here remained from the war years. They put up a simple fence, writing on a board with red lead: “Ivan Poddubny.”

Soon this entire area was covered with grass. Local goats and cows grazed here quietly and peacefully. But one day it was reported on the BBC that in the city of Yeisk, in desolation, almost wiped off the face of the earth, there is the grave of Ivan Poddubny - a man whom no one could lay down. Then the authorities began to look for the burial site and erected a granite monument. Carved on a black stone: “Here lies the Russian hero.”

Probably, the names and faces of the past come back to us not by chance or even on the occasion of a special anniversary, but when there is a social need for it. It is intangible, but the fact of its existence cannot be denied. In our life today, when everything seems to have a price and price, the figure of Ivan Poddubny is not only an unsurpassed sports phenomenon, but a reproach. Even very young people feel this, who recently wrote about him like this:
“Among professional wrestlers there were the concepts of “chic” and “bur.” 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 is determined... Poddubny never lay down on his shoulder blades by order of the championship organizer.

For this alone, we, who spend most of our lives in “chic,” are obliged to remember Poddubny.”

And there is nothing to add to this.

Lyudmila Tretyakova

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 away 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 with cold water, diet, giving up 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 of the new circus star; 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. The best coach, Monsieur Eugene de Paris, was assigned to Ivan, and he was given three months to prepare. In Paris, 130 professional wrestlers were waiting for him.The conditions of the competition were tough - a single defeat would deprive the player of the right to further participation in the competition.

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 Raoul’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 did not 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. This was the wrestling elite - 140 of the 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 a grand scale. 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 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, a few years later, the ex-wife came forward 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. A grand celebration was organized in Poddubny’s honor, 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.

How Raoul Le Boucher “defeated” Ivan Poddubny

In 1903, the famous athlete Ivan Maksimovich Poddubny went to the world championship in French wrestling, which took place in Paris. 130 athletes from all over the world attended the tournament. Despite the fact that this was Poddubny’s first world championship, he had a good chance of winning.

Surprisingly, the fight continued. The referees made a truly “Solomon” decision: to stop the match every 5 minutes and wipe the French wrestler dry. But the oil came out again along with sweat.

The Russian Athletic Society sent Raul an offer to meet Poddubny again, promising a prize of 10,000 francs if he wins. But he was able to escape here too: he delicately refused to fight again.

However, the wrestlers met a year later at the next world championship in St. Petersburg. The revenge was cruel - the Russian wrestler held his opponent in a knee-elbow position for 42 minutes, while the audience whistled and hooted, until the judges took pity on Le Boucher.