personalities
Notes: 61
"The Day's Over and You're Still Alive": an Anthem of 1990s Survival
Anatoly Germanovich Krupnov (1965-1997) was a Soviet and Russian musician, a virtuoso bassist, vocalist, composer, and poet. He was the founder and…
Academician Nikolai Gennadiyevich Basov (1922-2001)
Nikolai Basov, Nobel laureate and MEPhI graduate, the real scientist Zhorik needles Roman with as a parting joke.
Alexander Dmitriyevich Tsyurupa: the "Fainting from Hunger" Legend
Alexander Dmitrievich Tsyurupa (1870–1928) was a prominent Bolshevik who held key posts in the Soviet state.
Alexander Tinyakov: the "Damned Poet" of the Silver Age
Alexander Tinyakov (1886-1934) — the "damned poet" of the Silver Age, author of the scandalous poem "July has come: the bees are fucking." Biography…
Alexandra Nikolayevna Pakhmutova (b. November 9, 1929) and Nikolai Nikolayevich Dobronravov (1928-2023)
Alexandra Nikolayevna Pakhmutova (b. November 9, 1929) and Nikolai Nikolayevich Dobronravov (1928-2023) were a legendary creative duo of Soviet and…
Anatoly Kashpirovsky: the "Healer" of the Perestroika Era
Anatoly Mikhailovich Kashpirovsky (b. August 11, 1939) was a Soviet and Russian psychotherapist who achieved all-Union fame in the late 1980s through…
Andrei Mironov: the whirlwind of Soviet comic cinema
Andrei Mironov, the whirlwind Soviet comic actor and screen Ostap Bender, whose sudden death at 46 in 1987 shook the country.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Action-Film Icon of the 1980s-90s
Arnold Schwarzenegger, an American bodybuilder, businessman, and film actor of Austrian origin, became an action-movie icon of the late 1980s and…
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher, one of the best-known thinkers of irrationalism and the creator of the philosophy of pessimism. Born to…
Ayn Rand (Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, 1905-1982)
Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum was born in 1905 in St. Petersburg, into the family of a pharmacist. Her father, Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum, owned a…
Boris Grigoryevich Fyodorov (1958-2008)
Boris Fyodorov became one of the youngest ministers in Russian history -- at 32 he headed the RSFSR's finance ministry. His appointment came in the…
Brigitte Nielsen: Pop-Culture Icon of the 1980s
Brigitte Nielsen (née Gitte Nielsen, born July 15, 1963) is a Danish actress, model, and singer who became one of the most recognizable faces of…
Carl von Clausewitz. Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz
Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military theorist and author of On War, famous for defining war as the continuation of politics by other means.
Chris Rea, the British Singer-Songwriter
Chris Rea is a British singer and guitarist, popular in Europe and Russia. In the 1990s he reached the height of his fame with the albums "Road to…
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
Dante Alighieri (full name Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri) was born in Florence in the last third of May, 1265. His fate became tragically…
Dersu Uzala: the real taiga guide behind Roman's bitter joke about "the local Dersu Uzala"
The real Dersu Uzala, the Nanai/Udege hunter and guide who befriended explorer Vladimir Arsenyev and became the subject of Akira Kurosawa's…
Doctor Loder: the German physician behind Roman's "natural Doctor Loder" quip
The life of Justus Christian Loder, the German anatomist whose name may be the root of the Russian word for "slacker."
"Eastern Song" by David Tukhmanov and Onegin Gadzhikasimov
"Eastern Song," the 1968 hit written by David Tukhmanov and Onegin Gadzhikasimov, made famous by Valery Obodzinsky.
Fanny Kaplan: the Attempt on Lenin's Life
The would-be assassin of Lenin, and the darkly ironic joke buried in "running late like Fanny Kaplan for the works."
Fernandel (Fernand Contandin)
The French comic actor whose enormous, horse-toothed grin was famous enough in the USSR to need no explanation when the novel invokes it.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854)
Friedrich Schelling was one of the greatest German idealist philosophers, a figure of Romantic philosophy. Born into the family of a Protestant…
General Bobkov: the KGB's chief dissident-hunter who went to work for an oligarch
Filipp Bobkov, the KGB Fifth Directorate chief who hunted dissidents like Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn, and who later went to work for oligarch Vladimir…
The Singer Gilla and Her Song "Johnny"
Gilla (Gisela Wuchinger) is an Austrian disco singer known since the late 1970s. She worked with Frank Farian and recorded for Hansa Records. Her hit…
Grace Jones: Icon of Androgyny and the Avant-Garde
Grace Beverly Jones (born May 19, 1948, in Spanish Town, Jamaica) is a Jamaican singer, model, and actress who became one of the most recognizable…
Igor Kostolevsky: the Aristocrat of the Soviet Screen
The Soviet leading man whose aristocratic young face Roman sees in the landlord's haughty grandson.
Indiana Jones
A full article on Indiana Jones, the legendary adventurer-archaeologist. The origin, films, characters, and cultural impact of the famous franchise.
Jean-Claude Van Damme: the "Muscles from Brussels"
Jean-Claude Van Damme (real surname Van Varenberg) is a Belgian actor and martial artist who became one of the most recognizable action stars of the…
John Alec Entwistle (October 9, 1944 -- June 27, 2002)
The Who's bassist, nicknamed "Thunderfingers," and why plucking at fabric like guitar strings became shorthand for a certain kind of nervous, showy…
John Mayall: the Godfather of British Blues
John Mayall, the "Godfather of British Blues," and the Bluesbreakers lineup that launched Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor.
Kenny G
How a Seattle saxophonist's smooth-jazz instrumentals became the sound of middle-class comfort and prosperity worldwide in the early-to-mid 1990s…
Kimila Ann Basinger (b. December 8, 1953)
Kimila Ann Basinger is an American actress, singer, and model, born December 8, 1953, in Athens, Georgia.
Lavrenty Yemelyanovich Masokha (1909-1971)
Lavrenty Yemelyanovich Masokha was one of the most vivid figures in mid-20th-century Soviet cinema, whose career became closely tied to portraying…
Lev Prygunov: the actor Roman's mother adores, and the Canadian namesake he actually meets
The life and career of Soviet character actor Lev Prygunov, painter, poet, and friend of Joseph Brodsky.
Marisa Tomei (b. December 4, 1964)
Marisa Tomei (born December 4, 1964, Brooklyn, New York) is an American actress of Italian descent who, by 1995, had already become one of the most…
Michael Dudikoff: Star of "American Ninja"
Michael Dudikoff is an American actor, model, and martial artist, born October 8, 1954. He gained fame for the lead role in the "American Ninja"…
Mikhail Botvinnik: the Patriarch of Soviet Chess
The Soviet chess champion and founder of the "Botvinnik School" that produced Karpov, Kasparov, and Kramnik — Zhorik's nickname for a dorm-mate too…
Nemirovich-Danchenko
Why toasting "the great Nemirovich" and, separately, "the equally great Danchenko" is a joke — they're the same man.
Nigel Mansell — the «British Lion» of Formula One
Nigel Ernest James Mansell (born August 8, 1953) is an English racing driver, Formula One world champion in 1992, who became a symbol of endurance…
Oleg Dal: the melancholy face of the Soviet "superfluous man"
Oleg Dal, the melancholy Soviet actor of 'superfluous men,' whose Zilov became shorthand for detached, reflective disillusionment.
Pat and Patachon: the Comic Duo Who Conquered Silent Film
The Danish silent-film comedy duo Pat and Patachon (Fyrtårnet og Bivognen), international cinema's first "tall-and-thin, short-and-fat" double act.
Pope Urban II: the pontiff whose Clermont sermon launches Roman's dream campaign
The life and papacy of Urban II, initiator of the Crusades, from his Cluniac reforms to his fateful 1095 sermon at Clermont.
Promokashka
The sniveling small-time crook from a beloved 1979 Soviet crime miniseries, invoked to capture exactly how far the fund's once-glossy young landlord…
Rob Lowe: the Brat Pack face on the magazine handed to the surgeon
Rob Lowe's status as a Brat Pack icon and 1990s beauty standard, and why his photo made sense as a template for Roman's reconstructive surgery.
Samantha Fox (born April 15, 1966)
Samantha Fox (born April 15, 1966) is a British pop singer and former glamour model who, in the mid-to-late 1980s, was one of the era's leading sex…
Sergei Borisovich Stankevich (b. 1954)
Sergei Borisovich Stankevich was one of the most prominent politicians and intellectuals of the transitional period from the late USSR to the new…
Shirvindt and Derzhavin: a Legendary Duo of Soviet Variety Theater
Alexander Shirvindt (1934-2024) and Mikhail Derzhavin (1936-2018) met in 1946 as teenagers. Their friendship began in a Moscow courtyard on…
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski (1863-1938). An outstanding Russian and Soviet theater director, actor, teacher, theorist, and reformer of the…
"Unclench Like a Bird of Steel": a Line from Mayakovsky
A short, wry verse by the Russian poet Igor Guberman describes waking up some mornings feeling as alive as a bird wound up like a spring, ready to…
Sylvester Stallone: Star of "Rambo" and "Rocky"
Sylvester Stallone is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer, born July 6, 1946, in New York. Stallone became one of the iconic…
The Deputy: Yevgeny Leonov and "Gentlemen of Fortune"
Footnote to the chapter: By the Proma Building.
"The Redhead": Anatoly Chubais's Nickname
Anatoly Chubais, architect of Russia's 1992-94 voucher privatization — the "even the redhead doesn't understand it" behind Zhorik's joke about a…
Mitsuo Tsukahara: a Legend of Japanese Gymnastics
Mitsuo Tsukahara is one of the greatest gymnasts in history, a five-time Olympic champion and four-time world champion. Born in Tokyo, he trained at…
The Wind Blew From the Sea: the Natali song with the most disputed authorship in Russian pop
The tangled authorship history of Natali's "The Wind Blew From the Sea," one of the most enduring Russian pop hits of the 1990s.
"Money Begets Money": a Quote from Thomas Fuller
The seventeenth-century English clergyman and aphorist behind the line Zhorik quotes about money only ever coming from money.
"Titan Baikonur": the Rapper Bogdan Titomir
Bogdan Petrovich Titomir (born March 16, 1967) is a Soviet and Russian rap performer who became one of the most vivid figures in Russian pop music of…
Travis Bickle: a Portrait of Alienation in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver"
Travis Bickle is the antihero of Scorsese's "Taxi Driver." An analysis of the character, his symbolism, and his influence on cinema. A portrait of…
Uriah Heep: an Embodiment of Hypocrisy in "David Copperfield"
Uriah Heep, Charles Dickens's antagonist in David Copperfield, whose false humility became a byword for hypocrisy.
Viktor Stepanovich: the real-life Chernomyrdin the provincial directors resemble
A biography of Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russia's prime minister from 1992 to 1998 -- his rise through Gazprom, his brief stint holding full presidential…
Vlad Stashevsky: the 1994 pop hit playing on TV as Roman broods alone
How producer Yuri Aizenshpis built pop star Vlad Stashevsky and his hit "Love No Longer Lives Here" from a bet with a rival.
Woody Allen: the black-and-white filmmaker New York keeps reminding Roman of
The life and career of Woody Allen, the director whose New York became a genre of its own.
Голди Джинн Хоун (Goldie Jeanne Hawn, род. 21 ноября 1945)
Goldie Hawn — the Hollywood standard of feminine beauty that reached 1990s Russia through the video-rental boom