Zaikin Ivan Mikhailovich (1880-1948).

Born on November 5 (17), 1880 in the village of Verkhneye Talyzino, Kurmysh district, Simbirsk province (now Sechenovsky district, Nizhny Novgorod region).

In childhood and youth, he experienced want and poverty. I had to work from the age of 12. IN youth dreamed of becoming as strong as his father, a well-known fist fighter on the Volga. Soon luck smiled at him when he got a job with the millionaire merchant brothers Merkulyev in Tsaritsyn, where they maintained an athletic arena. From this arena, the champion wrestler Ivan Zaikin went to the “people”. In 1904, the Merkulievs sent him to the All-Russian Amateur Championship, where Zaikin won the first prize in weights. From this year he became a professional athlete and wrestler. His wrestling debut took place in Tver.

Ivan Mikhailovich was considered a student of Ivan Poddubny. Many strong wrestlers, having met with this champion champion - Poddubny, then avoided this "pleasure". The wrestler Zaikin met Ivan Maksimovich on the carpet 15 times, starting from Voronezh in 1904 to Tiflis in 1916. Poddubny, as you know, taught by a simple method: "For one beaten, they give two unbeaten."

Ivan Mikhailovich was a very versatile person, he was friends with Kuprin, Gorky, Chaliapin, Blok, Alexei Tolstoy, Kamensky. Zaikin was also friends with Rasputin. He met him through the Tsaritsyno priest Iliodor. The one who built the Holy Spirit Monastery. And when Rasputin was stabbed by a resident of Tsaritsyno Khionia Guseva, Zaikin sent him a letter: "I pray to God for the strengthening of your mental and physical health."

Once, on tour in Odessa, he saw an airplane soaring in the sky and decided that he would definitely become an aviator. At that time, pilots in Russia could be counted on the fingers. It was possible to earn money on demonstration flights, and Odessa merchants Ptashnikovs became Zaikin's sponsors.

The athlete took aviator courses in France and became the ninth Russian pilot. In 1910, Ivan Zaikin made a series of demonstration flights around the cities of Russia on an airplane owned by the Ptashnikovs. He was attracted by the risk, new sensations in aviation. And perhaps he would have continued a successful career as an aeronaut, if not for the fatal accidental promise to ride on a fragile airplane by the familiar writer Kuprin, the owner of the same large figure and heavy weight. They met again in Odessa, where Zaikin no longer acted as an athlete, but as an aviator. Wrote circles over the airfield to the delight of the public, rolled the brave. The writer Kuprin was also on the podium.

“At this time, God knows why, I raised my hand up and waved my hand. Noticing this, Zaikin naively and good-naturedly stretched the crowd, came up to me and said: “Well, then, Leksandra Ivanovich, shall we fly?” - the author of “Olesya” and “Garnet Bracelet” who miraculously escaped later wrote in his essay “My Flight”. Someone put a fur hat on the writer, and now Zaikin and Kuprin are going to the airplane. They took off, turn and suddenly ...

At first I saw Zaikin a little below my head. Suddenly I saw his head almost at my knees. Neither I nor he (as I found out later) had a feeling of fear for one second. With some strange, indifferent curiosity, I saw that we were being carried to the Jewish cemetery, where there were thousands of up to three people in a cramped space ... " Kuprin said. At this moment, Zaikin turned sharply, taking the airplane away from the crowd, apparently deciding to sacrifice two lives, but save a few more. If the airplane had crashed into the spectators, the victims would have been unavoidable. Fortunately, both the pilot and the passenger survived. But Zaikin no longer rose into the sky. Sponsors Ptashnikovs took away his aircraft, the failed aviator was forced to return to the arena. And the writer Kuprin reproached himself for a long time and publicly admitted that he and only he alone was to blame for the crash of the airplane and hoped that Zaikin was not offended by him.

From 1928 until the end of his life he lived in Chisinau, in Bessarabia, then owned by Romania, and annexed to the USSR in 1940. Organized " sports arena"- Ensemble of professional athletes-wrestlers. Their performances, which took place on the territory of Bessarabia and Romania (in Chisinau, Orhei, Ganceshti, Iasi, Galati), were of a spectacular and educational orientation. Superbly built, strong and dexterous heroes were excellent agitators physical culture And healthy lifestyle life. On July 20, 1930, while performing the Living Bridge trick in Ganchesti, he received a serious injury to his shoulder and head, and suffered another serious injury in Ploesti. He took part in the wrestling tournament in 1934 in Riga.

In December 1945, when the 60th anniversary of national athletics was celebrated, the famous hero was invited to be honored in Leningrad. Here he met with famous wrestler and referee I.V. Lebedev, which made an indelible impression on the audience.

On November 22, 1948, at the age of 69, Ivan Mikhailovich Zaikin died. He was buried at the Central (Armenian) cemetery in Chisinau. In the memory of grateful descendants, he remained a pioneer of aviation, the brightest representative of national athletics.

In 1975, the feature film "The Ballooner" about I.M. Zaikin was shot.

I.M. Zaikin during the period sports career.

Lev Matsievich with a passenger, the famous wrestler Ivan Zaikin.

Aviator I.M. Zaikin at his airplane is talking with Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich.

List of sources:
B.A. Porfiriev. Wrestlers.
A.A. Svetov. Ivan Zaikin.

For your long life Ivan Zaikin received many high-profile nicknames and enthusiastic epithets. Volga Bogatyr, Air Captain, King- these are just the most famous of the wrestling and stage names of the great Russian strongman, a student of the legendary Ivan Poddubny - Ivan Mikhailovich Zaikin. The life story of this outstanding athlete will be discussed in our article.

"Volga hero".
The beginning of the life of Ivan Zaikin

Your first nickname "Volga hero" the athlete received not by chance. Ivan Mikhailovich Zaikin was born on November 5, 1880 in the village of Verkhnee Talyzino, Simbirsk province (now Nizhny Novgorod region) in a large family of a Volga barge hauler and a famous master of fisticuffs Mikhail Zaikin.

By a strange, if not mystical, coincidence, little Vanya was the only surviving child in the family after a terrible cholera epidemic. Since childhood, our hero has become accustomed to hardships and hardships. At the age of 12, he first tried on a burlatsky strap, helping his father in his hard work. Mikhail Zinovievich often took his son with him to fist fights. Vanya enthusiastically watched how famously he cracked down on his rivals, dreaming of becoming just as strong and invincible.

Hard barge work, and later the work of a loader, tempered the character and strengthened the body of the future wrestler. By the age of 22, Ivan Zaikin had become a real hero, to match his father. Realizing that in the outback he is doomed to oblivion and poverty, the young strong man leaves his parents' house and moves to Tsaritsyn (Volgograd).

In order to somehow make ends meet, the young man takes on any hard work. Huddles in a tiny closet allocated by the owner of the bakery. As payment for accommodation, every morning he carries a huge 300-kilogram wagon with bread to the market, harnessing it instead of a horse. Glory of amazing power "Volga hero" disintegrated fairly quickly. They even print a short article about him in the local newspaper, which, by a happy coincidence, catches the eye the right people. The well-known Volga industrialists and passionate lovers, the Merkuliev brothers, take Zaikin under their wing. The strongman learns to read and write and wrestling techniques.

The beginning of a sports career.
Acquaintance with Ivan Poddubny

First sports success comes to "Volga hero" in 1904. Thanks to the sponsorship of his patrons, he goes to the All-Russian Weightlifting Championship, from where he brings gold medal. Here on his life path meets a strong man and wrestler Ivan Poddubny, the fame of which was already beginning to thunder around the world. For Zaikin, he becomes a mentor and a good friend.

Thanks to enhanced training and advice from Poddubny, Ivan Zaikin in the same year becomes the winner of the All-Russian Amateur Wrestling Championship and enters sports elite of Russia. In 1908, he declares himself already at the world level, becoming the world champion in classical wrestling. On the way to the final, he defeated 120 wrestlers from different parts of the globe.

In 1909, Zaikin accepted the challenge of the famous circus artist Stanislav Zbyshko-Tsyganevich. The Polish strongman promised to pay five hundred rubles to anyone who could stand against him for half an hour. From the very first minutes of the fight, it became clear to Stanislav that his opponent was far from simple. Fortune was on the side of the Russian athlete, and in desperation the Pole resorted to a vile trick, tearing Ivan's ear. Booted by the public, he was forced to admit his defeat and pay the due reward.

For my wrestling career "Volga hero" lost only 10 fights, and all of them were lost to one person. Poddubny once composed a playful poem dedicated to his friend, in which he remarked: “You fighter big, but after me the second. In fact, Ivan Maksimovich treated his student with great respect, one of the few who was always ready to go out on the carpet with him. Most of the foreign wrestlers who experienced the power of the "Russian bear", as a rule, refused new fights with an invincible champion.

The first fight between Poddubny and Zaikin took place in 1905. Then the teacher easily coped with his protégé, laying him down with a beautiful throw on the shoulder blades. In total, they had 15 joint fights, five of which ended in a draw. And the longest sparring between them was recorded in 1908. The fight lasted more than an hour, and by a fair decision of the judges, the victory was awarded to Poddubny.

"King of Iron"
Incredible power stunts
Ivan Zaikin

In parallel with his career as a wrestler, Ivan Zaikin tours around the world, demonstrating miracles of strength. For his incredible abilities, the athlete was awarded the nickname "King of Iron" In front of the astonished audience, he calmly paced around the arena with a 400-kilogram anchor over his shoulders. With one little finger he lifted a two-pound weight, tore thick chains, tied a poker in a knot, weaved ties from sheet iron, lifted a bar above his head, for which 10 people clung. On boards laid on his body, a truck with passengers drove by. This trick almost cost the strong man his life: in 1930, at one of the performances, the wheel of a car slipped off the floor and almost crushed his head. Only thanks to his good health, the athlete managed to recover from the consequences of a serious injury and return to the arena again.

Ivan Zaikin: passion for aviation

Another passion of Ivan Zaikin was aviation, thanks to which he earned another high-profile pseudonym - Air Captain. In 1908, while on tour in Odessa, the athlete saw an airplane soaring in the sky and since then he has been inspired by the idea of ​​mastering the art of piloting. Before, he had already had a chance to take to the air in a balloon, although that flight almost ended in failure for him. Due to improper operation, the balloon rapidly began to lose height and fell into the sea. As a result, Ivan Zaikin, with two aviator friends, was saved by a passing ship.

"King of Iron" goes to France to study flying. In 1908, his cherished dream came true - he became a certified pilot and returned to his homeland in triumph, wiping his nose to skeptics who believed that a semi-literate native of a peasant family could not master the wisdom of aviation skill. With the help of sponsors, Ivan Zaikin acquired his own airplane, on which he soon went on a tour of Russian cities. His air shows were as successful as his power shows, attracting thousands of viewers.

In November 1910, he returned to Odessa to demonstrate piloting skills to the local public. To the sky with "Captain of the Air" sent by his close friend, a well-known writer Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin. For a while the flight was normal, but then the heart of the winged machine suddenly stopped beating. The brave aviators miraculously survived after falling from a 40-meter height. Kuprin later described his unsuccessful experience of conquering the air element in the essay "My Flight". And Zaikin after that incident forever tied up with aviation, not wanting to tempt fate anymore.

Return to the arena.
last years of life

The reputation earned over the years of work helped Zaikin to continue his wrestling career. Return to the arena for "King of Iron" crowned with great triumph. In 1913, at a tournament in St. Petersburg, he became a two-time world champion in French wrestling, winning in 37 fights, with one draw. Since 1916, he again goes on a world tour, demonstrating his unique physical abilities.

During a tour of the United States in 1925, representatives of the yellow press, as if competing in the art of slander, vied with each other to discuss the personality of Ivan Zaikin and question him. The offended athlete stops performing and leaves America, vowing never to return there again.

He decides to leave big sport. In 1928 he moved to Chisinau, where he continued to work as a circus performer. However, in 1934 "Volga hero" briefly returns to the wrestling mat to win his last tournament held in Riga. At that time, Ivan Mikhailovich was already 54 years old, which did not prevent him from defeating young and far from weak rivals.

Second World War found him in the territory occupied by the enemy. And again, the famous athlete had to remember about hunger and deprivation. To survive, he had to sell some of his awards. After the war, he was finally able to return to his homeland, for which he yearned for the years spent in occupation. In 1945, he received an invitation to celebrations dedicated to the 60th anniversary of national athletics, where he met another legendary athlete - the famous wrestler Ivan Vladimirovich Lebed you m. IN last years "King of Iron" lived a quiet measured life, training young athletes.

Ivan Mikhailovich Zaikin died on November 22, 1948 at the age of 68 years. Buried in Chisinau. During his long and eventful life, he made acquaintance with many famous personalities, including Maxim Gorky, Alexander Blok, Alexei Tolstoy, Fyodor Chaliapin and even Grigory Rasputin.

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Today marks the 138th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding wrestler and aviator Ivan Zaikin. The famous athlete spent his last years in Chisinau.

The name of Zaikin was preserved by the capital street in the lower old town, which was so named under the Union. It was on this street that the house where Ivan Mikhailovich lived with his wife stood.

Previously, before the revolution, the street was called Kamenolomnaya - stone was mined there for the construction of houses. The adits that have remained in the thickness of the earth until now are mistakenly considered today to be a kind of "underground city".

The very name "Kamenolomnaya" seems to match Ivan Zaikin, a stone man, unbending in life, but at the same time kind and sympathetic, who helped many, especially children. During the period of the Romanian occupation, the street had a different name - Dragos-Voda, which is also symbolic.

Zaikin died on November 22, 1948. His body was buried at the Central Orthodox (Armenian) cemetery. The grave of the famous Bessarabian can be found there to this day.

Zaikin, who was considered a student of Ivan Poddubny himself, a favorite of thousands and thousands of sports fans and an example for those who profess a healthy lifestyle, for many of us is already almost mythology.

A native of Chisinau, and now a resident of Israel, Semyon Katsyv, remembered one thing interesting fact. Biographers of Ivan hardly mention him. But we can safely say that thanks to such memories, the historical figure associated with Bessarabia and modern Moldova becomes closer to the younger generation of Chisinau residents.

Here is the story.

"We lived in a semi-basement room along Kagulskaya Street, 5-a, together with my father, mother and sister. I loved listening to my father's stories about his childhood and boy friends. I went to school and just went to first grade. It was 1965. And once dad told me a story about how in the post-war 40s all boys and girls had a patron - Ivan Zaikin, who taught them a lot of good things and who never parted with his cane with incomprehensible holes and a huge yellow lion head instead of a knob. And when they asked him what kind of holes they were, he answered that there were diamonds, and the lion's head was gold. Everyone laughed together, but he just smiled.

Years have passed. In 1991, my whole family and I immigrated to Israel. One fine evening in the 21st century, my wife Firushka and my children were with their parents. The 1975 film "The Ballooner" was on TV. And suddenly dad exclaimed: "Uncle Vanya! Uncle Vanya!" The film was about the world champion in freestyle wrestling Ivan Zaikin. We all stared at the screen. And now comes the moment of Zaikin's farewell to the public and residents of the city in the Odessa circus before his departure to Paris, where he was going to study flying. Many come out to the arena and present gifts to him as a keepsake. Representatives of the merchant class appear and give Zaikin a cane adorned with diamonds and a golden lion's head instead of a knob. I looked at my father - he was crying ... ".

This story about Zaikin and his cane, about the fact that the famous wrestler and world champion, after all, did not fantasize, but spoke the truth, is valuable for its uniqueness.

It can be assumed that the diamonds with which the cane was encrusted were sold by Zaikin during difficult years. Indeed, financially advantageous performances did not always take place, especially since the athlete earned several severe injuries, after which, obviously, rehabilitation was required, so for some time the doctor was strictly forbidden to go to the arena.

... And, after reading this memoir and remembering the image of Ivan Zaikin, captured in many photographs and newsreels, one can even imagine how an elderly wrestler, honestly telling young friends about the history of his cane, smiles good-naturedly, and perhaps with pity in his eyes, seeing the cheerful disbelief of post-war children in such facts. After all, then, not just precious stones - sweets and, in general, good nutrition for a few more difficult years remained available to these boys and girls only in pictures ...

Four facts about Ivan Zaikin:

- In addition to wrestling fights, he also performed with athletic numbers. He carried an anchor for 25 pounds (409.5 kg) around the arena on his back, a barrel for 40 buckets of water, lifted a neck with a dozen spectators, and so on. He lay down in the arena, and a car with passengers drove along the boards on his chest. An I-beam was bent on Ivan's shoulder, and he twisted ties out of sheet iron. With these numbers he toured in Europe, Africa, America and even Australia.

- He was friends with Alexander Kuprin, Maxim Gorky, Fedor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Alexei Tolstoy and even Grigory Rasputin. He met him through the Tsaritsyn (Tsaritsyn - now Volgograd) priest Iliodor. When Rasputin was stabbed by a resident of Tsaritsyno Khionia Guseva, Zaikin sent him a letter containing the following words: "I pray to God to strengthen your mental and physical health."

- In 1910 he became an aviator, made a number of demonstration flights. This career ended in failure. In Odessa, the famous writer Alexander Kuprin became a passenger of Zaikin's airplane. Big weight both led to the fact that the plane began to fall. Fortunately, both Zaikin and Kuprin survived, but Ivan Mikhailovich's sponsors have since stopped any joint undertakings with him.

- Moved to Chisinau in 1928. He organized the "Sports Arena" - an ensemble of professional wrestlers. Their performances, which took place on the territory of Bessarabia and Romania - in Chisinau, Orhei, Hincesti, Iasi, Galati, were of a spectacular and educational orientation. Superbly built, strong and agile heroes were excellent agitators of physical culture and a healthy lifestyle.

The life of the legendary Russian strongman Ivan Mikhailovich Zaikin could become the plot for an exciting adventure novel, and the author would not even have to invent anything special, the events that actually happened to him would be quite enough for the book.

Ivan was born on November 5, 1880 in the Simbirsk province in the family of Mikhail Zaikin, a well-known strongman and fist fighter in the district. Vanya had a dream - to become as strong as his father. Moreover, not in order to perform in the circus arena, but to pull the burlatskaya strap and work as a loader on the pier. The weak were not accepted there, and Ivan simply could not imagine another way to feed himself.

The Zaikin family had many children - Ivan had thirteen brothers and sisters. But, hunger and epidemics mowed down almost everyone. Only two Ivan and one of his sisters survived. During the cholera epidemic, seven of his brothers died on the same day. At the age of 12, the boy had to join the burlatskaya artel, and then get hired as loaders.

Interestingly, Ivan Zaikin received his first fee for performing in the circus arena in Saratov, where he managed to find work for a while. A wrestler named Snezhkin performed at the local circus and offered ten rubles to any of the spectators who could hold out against him on the carpet for at least one minute. The challenge was accepted by a young loader Ivan
Zaikin and, to the delight of the public, put 10 rubles into his pocket in a minute.

But, the first serious success came to Zaikin in 1904. An invitation to the All-Russian Weightlifting Championship came to Tsaritsyn. Merkuriev considered that the only one of his pupils who can adequately represent his city is Ivan Zaikin. Unexpectedly, the young debutant won first prize in the kettlebell lifting tournament. thereafter
success, he decided to become a professional athlete.

He left the Merkuriev Arena in Tsaritsyn and began training under the guidance of Ivan Poddubny. And soon Zaikin signed a contract with the Nikitin Circus, with whom he went on tour around the Volga region. Zaikin recalled that Nikitin offered him such an amount for performances that he could not even dream of.

In 1908, Zaikin went to the World Professional Wrestling Championship, where he took second place, losing only to his teacher, Ivan Poddubny. Having achieved international fame, Ivan Mikhailovich began to try his hand at organizing his own wrestling championships. They were held with great success, but Zaikin, at a tournament in Odessa, suddenly saw the flight of a balloon and set himself the goal of becoming an aeronaut. He even made a flight with Sergei Utochkin, though not entirely successful - the balloon landed in the water.

Involuntary bathing did not cool Zaikin's passions - in 1910 he went to France to take courses there from the famous aviator Henri Farman, and to get permission to drive was no longer hot air balloon, but by an airplane. The competition for Farman's courses was huge, but the loud fame of Zaikin helped - he was accepted. True, he soon committed a desperate act, for which he was almost expelled.

One weekend, Ivan, who decided that he had mastered well not only theory, but also practice, decided to make an independent flight. To do this, he had to buy wine in order to treat the mechanics well, who let him on the plane. The novice aviator took to the air successfully, but during the flight he suddenly remembered that he had no idea how to land an airplane.

With difficulty, he managed to land on the airfield, where the angry owner, Henri Farman, was already waiting for him. He was ready to beat Zaikin for arbitrariness, however, he understood well that he had no chance in such a fight with a famous athlete. Soon Farman changed his anger to mercy and gave Zaikin a diploma giving the right to independent flights.

Returning to Russia, Zaikin began to arrange demonstration flights, receiving good money for this. In October 1910, he even set a Moscow record for flight duration, being in the air over the city for more than 54 minutes. Zaikin himself planned to bring the record to 1 hour, but had to land due to engine problems.

True, the career of the aviator Zaikin did not last long. Once he took to the air in Odessa with his friend - the writer A. I. Kuprin. A strong gust of wind threw the airplane to the ground, Zaikin and Kuprin escaped with bruises, but a huge amount was required to restore the apparatus. Zaikin decided not to get into debt, and his friends tried to dissuade him from further flights, urging him not to tempt fate. Soon Zaikin returned to the circus arena as an athlete.

He again triumphantly performs at wrestling tournaments, not forgetting to also surprise the audience with power tricks. He tours Europe and the USA, and the revolution in Russia found him in Chisinau. Here he bought a house and decided to stay for a long time. In the twenties, he went out on the carpet less and less, speaking mainly in the circus of Chisinau with power numbers.

In 1930, journalists from Chisinau even "buried" Zaikin. He performed in the arena with a very difficult number: lying down, he held a platform on his chest, along which a truck weighing one and a half tons drove. The car suddenly stalled, crushing the athlete. There were reports in the newspapers of Chisinau about his death, but, fortunately, he survived, and after a long treatment he returned to the platform again.

In 1934, Zaikin even left Chisinau for a while - he went to Riga, where he won the wrestling tournament. Despite the fact that he was already 54 years old. In 1940, Chisinau became part of Soviet Union. Considering the great merits of Ivan Mikhailovich in sports, the Soviet government granted him a pension and awarded him the title of "Honored Master of Sports of the USSR".

In 1945, celebrations were held in Leningrad dedicated to the 60th anniversary of weightlifting in Russia. Zaikin was also invited there. Many famous athletes gathered in the hall, whose names thundered all over the world even before the revolution. At that time, Ivan Mikhailovich was already ill, the numerous injuries received both on the athletic platform and during flights affected him. The great Russian athlete died on November 22, 1948 in Chisinau. In the same city, he was buried in the Central (Armenian) cemetery.