August 26, 2009 marks the 90th anniversary of the signing of the decree on the creation of state circuses in the RSFSR - the "birthday" of the Soviet and now Russian circus. Currently, about a dozen circus dynasties are known in Russia.

A dynasty (from the Greek dynasteia - domination) is a series of generations passing on professional skills and traditions from one generation to another. Among the most famous circus dynasties in Russia are the Durovs, Zapashnye, Kio, Filatovs, Kantemirovs, Bagdasarovs.

The younger brother, Igor (1944-2006), unlike Emil, prepared for a circus career from childhood, consistently and purposefully. His mother was the main assistant in the performances of Emil Kio Sr., and after his death, the entire repertoire, props and equipment of his father passed into the hands of Igor. These are the famous numbers "Burning a Woman", "Turning a Woman into a Lion", "Sawing a Woman".

The Filatov dynasty dates back to 1836. It was in this year that the permission of the governor of Nizhny Novgorod was issued to work on the market square to Filat, the guide with the bear, and his wife, the servant of the monkeys. The founder of the dynasty - Ivan Lazarevich Filatov (1873-1956) - trainer of predatory animals, as well as the founder of the zoo circus system in the USSR. Ivan Filatov and his wife Taisia ​​Yakovlevna (grotesque rider) had 13 children, two of them continued the circus dynasty - Maria Ivanovna Filatova (married to Kornilov) and Valentin Ivanovich Filatov (1920-1979).

The world fame of the dynasty was brought by the attraction "Bear Circus" created by Valentin Filatov in collaboration with directors Georgy Venetsianov and Izyaslav Nemchinsky in 1949.

The successors of Valentin Filatov's traditions were his two daughters - Lyudmila and Tatiana - and their husbands.

In 1975, a new program "Circus of Animals" was created, including the numbers "Exotic Group of Animals" under the direction of Honored Artist of the USSR Lyudmila Filatova, "Leopards and Horses" under the direction of Valery Filatov (husband of Lyudmila Filatova (real name Datsyuk), "Indian Elephant" under the direction of People's Artist of Russia Tatyana Filatova, "Acrobatic Sketch with Chimpanzees" under the direction of Honored Artist of Russia Alexander Gorin (husband of Tatyana Filatova) and the great attraction "Bear Circus" by Valentin Filatov. In 1979, the program included a new number "Illusion with Trained Animals "under the leadership of Yulia Filatova (granddaughter of Valentin Filatov, daughter of Lyudmila and Valery Filatov).

In 1994, the program was split and two teams were created: the first included "Bear Attraction" and "Indian Elephant" (leaders Tatiana Filatova and Alexander Gorin), the second - "Exotic Group of Animals" and "Leopards and Horses" (leaders Lyudmila and Valery Filatov). In 1998, the number "Bears - acrobats" was created under the direction of Andrei Klykov (husband of Yulia Filatova), who joined the team of Lyudmila and Valery Filatov.

In 2001, Yulia Filatova and Andrey Klykov formed a new collective "The Circus of Animals" named after People's Artist of the USSR V. I. Filatov, where they were completely redone and re-staged with new musical and stage designs, trick compositions: "Exotic group of animals", " Bears are acrobats "," Leopards ".

In 2002, Yulia Filatova was awarded the title of Honored Artist of Russia.

The Bagdasarov circus dynasty originates from the grandfather of the now famous trainers Karina and Artur Bagdasarov - Nikolai Andreevich Yazev, who began his work in the arena as a gymnast in 1937.

The father of Arthur and Karina - Mikhail Ashotovich Bagdasarov - spent his entire childhood in the circus, at the age of sixteen he already worked as a uniformist (he helped to carry out and remove equipment from the arena). At the age of 18, he began working as a trainer with Margarita Nazarova, People's Artist of the RSFSR. In 1979, Mikhail demonstrated his own attraction based on the Armenian epic "David of Sasun" with the participation of lions, tigers, panthers, jaguars, leopards and pumas.

In 1991 a new attraction "Tigers-Show" with 18 Ussuri tigers was released. In this attraction, Bagdasarov began to work with his daughter Karina. Two years later, the son of Mikhail Bagdasarov, Artur, also took up training.

In 2003 Karina and Artur Bagdasarovs were awarded the titles of Honored Artists of Russia.

The Bagdasarov Tigers have starred in many films. The most famous of these is the Striped Flight.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

On Thursday, September 22, at the 79th year of his life, the trainer Mstislav Zapashny, one of the most prominent representatives of the oldest circus dynasty in Russia, died. NTV tells about who the Zapashnye are and how their circus dynasty became famous.

Read below

Walter and Mstislav Zapashnye

Mikhail and Lydia Zapashnykh had five children: Sergei, Walter, Anna, Mstislav and Igor.

Mikhail did not want his children to work in the circus, he hoped that they would receive a good education and therefore, in principle, did not take them on tour. However, during the Great Patriotic War, 16-year-old Walter and 6-year-old Mstislav had to perform acrobatic performance in the Saratov circus in order to feed their families. After the war, the boys stayed in the circus and performed in a variety of genres: clowning, aerial gymnastics, horse riding, motorcycle racing, animal training, and taming predators.

And although over time the brothers began to perform separately, both came to training.

By the way, it was Walter Zapashny who first saddled a lion on the arena and created the attraction "Among the Predators", in which tigers, lions, panthers and lynxes simultaneously participated.

And Mstislav graduated from the directing department of GITIS and became famous not only as a trainer, but also as a director of circus programs. So, in 1977, he created the only performance in the world where elephants and tigers were in the same cage; in 1996, the artist received the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art for him. No less famous is the heroic-historical circus performance-pantomime of Mstislav Zapashny "Spartacus", which has no analogues in the world in terms of the scale of the production. From 2003 to 2009, Mstislav Zapashny held the position of general director of the Russian State Circus.

Dynasty founders

The founder of the circus dynasty of tamers, gymnasts and acrobats Zapashny was the clown Carl Thomson, who toured back in tsarist Russia under the pseudonym Milton. Thompson's daughter, Lydia, from the age of 15, performed in the circus as a rider and gymnast, and her husband Mikhail Zapashny gave the dynasty a well-known surname.

Mikhail Zapashny was born in 1900 and had nothing to do with the circus - he worked as a port loader in the small seaside town of Yeisk. The wrestler Ivan Poddubny invited him to the arena, who noticed the remarkable strength of the young man. So, Mikhail began to practice in the genre of French wrestling and for some time performed under the pseudonym Orlyonok. Later he became interested in power acrobatics and became especially famous with the number "Acrobats-snipers", an element of which was shooting from a small-bore rifle.

Edgard and Askold Zapashny

Edgar and Askold Zapashny are the most famous continuers of the family tradition, the children of Walter Zapashny. At the age of seven, the brothers first entered the cage of predators and since then have worked in a variety of circus genres. Now they are successfully touring the country. Received a number of circus awards, recognized as "The best circus artists of the year", since 1999 - honored artists of Russia, and since 2012 they were awarded the title of national.

Their older sister Maritsa also became a circus performer, the only black panther trainer in the world. In addition, Askold and Edgard have a huge number of cousins ​​and sisters, all of them are somehow connected with the circus and perform on the arena independently of each other.

Zapashny trainer dynasty

This dynasty dates back to pre-revolutionary Russia. The showman's parents are Tatiana and Walter Zapashny, who specialize in training wild animals. Elder brother Edgard also works in the field of circus art. Askold Zapashny spent his childhood behind the scenes of the circus and at the age of 10 he could work with lions and go into their cage.

Biography

The artist was born on September 27, 1977 in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. He is a representative of the famous circus dynasty, in which there are many famous animal trainers.

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When the brothers graduated from high school, their parents decided to temporarily move to China, where a summer arena in Shenzhen was built for their performances. It was 1991 when the country was going through hard times. Tours in the Asian state allowed the family to save the animals from certain death, because they had nothing to feed them, and impressive sums of money were required for their maintenance. Since then, the brothers have decided to go blonde in order to stand out from the dark-haired Chinese.

The Zapashny brothers took over the baton of family success. With their shows, they have traveled almost the whole world. The artists visited Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Japan, Belarus. Despite the stormy touring activity in Russia and abroad, Askold managed to graduate from GITIS, received a diploma with honors. He speaks fluent English and Chinese.

Zapashny began his career in the circus with relatively simple numbers: juggling on a horse, performances with trained monkeys. Askold Walterovich owns many other types of circus arts, such as walking on a tightrope, acrobatics. He has been performing with wild animals for many years; in 1998, his father gave his sons the number Among Predators. The artist perfected his skills so much that he managed to get into the Guinness Book of Records, having made the longest jump on horseback. This number is considered deadly.

Zapashny turned out to be successful producers, they own the Zapashny Brothers Circus. Their list includes many shows that have gone down in the history of show business in Russia. Askold Zapashny himself became the owner of the titles "Honored Artist of Russia" (1999) and "People's Artist of Russia" (2012). For some time now he has been the artistic director of the Bolshoi Moscow State Circus. The Zapashny Brothers Circus prepares a variety of performances for the audience, which include performances of equilibrists, acrobats, clowns and trapeze artists. However, the numbers with trained lions and tigers are the trademark of their company. However, there are other animals in the show programs of this circus: parrots, dogs and horses.

One of the areas of career development for Askold Zapashny is television. He often appears in popular shows, participates in television competitions and games. Askold starred in the program of the First Channel "Ice Age - 4", where he studied figure skating, working in tandem with the athlete Maria Petrova.

The artist is an active participant in the social and political life of Russia, is one of the confidants of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. He can often be seen among celebrities signing petitions and appeals to citizens and various politicians in the country.

Personal life

Since 2009, the artist has been married to a woman named Helene. He has two daughters: Eva and Elsa. Zapashny does not like to talk about his personal life, rarely gives interviews in which he talks about his wife and children. The reason for this state of affairs is the threats from fans that his family periodically receives. Teenage girls who are in love with the trainer sometimes promise to pour acid on his wife. Even about the fact of marriage, Askold Zapashny told reporters after the wedding took place. The couple's relationship developed rather slowly, at first the artist was not sure that he had found his soul mate.

At the time of meeting her future husband, Helen was an Israeli citizen and studied at the University of Minsk as a doctor. She served in the Israeli army, tried working as a model, and worked part-time in stores. After the wedding, the artist's wife began to take care of her family and children.

Askold is a year and a half younger than Edgar, and his daughters were also born with a small time difference. Eva is a little more than a year older than Elsa. The artist admits that he dreamed that his children had a small age difference. But he did not try to put pressure on his wife in this matter, Helen herself went to meet his dream. He hopes that someday the daughters will continue the dynasty, and is already thinking over numbers for the future Circus of the Zapashny sisters. Happy dad himself chose names for his daughters, trying to make them sonorous and beautiful. Indeed, in the world of show business, such things are of great importance. And Zapashny Jr., like his entire family, has plans to raise and educate the heirs of his circus empire.

The Zapashny family has always been famous for a large number of misunderstandings and conflicts. Dni.Ru decided to figure out why people who are closest not only by blood, but also in the cause of their whole life cannot always live in harmony.

The dynasty of circus performers dates back to 1900. Then Mikhail Zapashny was born, and five years later - his future wife Lida, who, by the way, was also the daughter of the famous circus artist at that time - the clown Carl Thompson.

Mikhail, on the other hand, had nothing to do with the circus and came to the arena quite by accident, immediately after the end of the civil war. The future great artist worked as a port loader; the famous wrestler Ivan Poddubny invited him to try his hand at the circus. Judging by the written memoirs of contemporaries, Poddubny immediately noticed the unprecedented power and strength of Zapashny.

By the age of 30, Mikhail had several high-profile numbers, with some of them he later performed with his sons - Walter, Mstislav, Sergei and Igor. For almost the entire Second World War, the three youngest sons of Zapashny and daughter Anna were in besieged Leningrad under the supervision of their grandmother. The artist's wife did not have time to return from the tour before the city was surrounded.

In 1954, the Zapashny brothers in full force released the number "Acrobats-Voltigeurs". To this day, he is recognized as the brightest and most talented circus performance in the world.

The first public scandal associated with the Zapashny family thundered during the divorce of Mstislav from Dolores. The couple have been together for over 25 years. Later, Dolores gave several interviews, in which she admitted that she did not regret the years she lived with the great artist, but in their family life, everything was not so rosy. And it all began very touchingly: Zapashny, as he could, supported Dolores after the death of her husband and offered to participate in his number. Of course, the friendship soon developed into a romantic one. Zapashny left his first wife, Inna Abakarova, for Dolores.

After Dolores and Mstislav parted, evil tongues said that he left the family for the sake of his next wife, Irina. But as it turned out, initially the reason for the breakup was not so much another woman as banal jealousy. As Dolores said, Mstislav Sr. was always jealous of her, almost from the first day of their acquaintance. But then they were both not free.

Nevertheless, after the divorce, Mstislav and Dolores maintained friendly relations. After all, they had behind them not only many years of joint work, but also family life with two common children - Mstislav Jr. and Helen.

In 2008-2009, the complex relations of the younger generation of the dynasty were also revealed. The sons of Walter and Mstislav do not get along with each other to this day. Edgard with Askold and Mstislav, of course, are forced to meet from time to time. But more and more often each of them admits that they consider the other side too arrogant. In an interview seven years ago, Edgard Zapashny spoke ambiguously about Mstislav Jr.

"He is his father's son. We have met several times and I know how dismissive he is of us."

Currently, Edgard and Askold perform at the Zapashny Brothers Circus, which they founded. Mstislav is engaged in his own career, without interfering with his cousins. The idea of ​​the famous act in which tigers waltz on balls belongs to his father, Mstislav Sr.

Mstislav Jr. also has a difficult personal history. According to official information, Mstislav Mstislavovich has eight children. From an early age he teaches three of them to the arena. So, in 2007, Mstislav performed with his ten-month-old son, and the eldest son at that time was already starting a career as an acrobat. By the way, another loud scandal is associated with the eldest son: after the divorce, the boy stayed with his mother, but after some time he ran away, decisively declaring that he would live only with his father.

Of course, it is very, very unfortunate that members of such a talented and famous family do not always get along with each other, or even do not want to communicate with each other at all. However, there were times when things were different. According to sources close to the Zapashny, earlier the founder of the dynasty, Mikhail Sergeevich, liked to collect the whole family. After his death, this mission passed to Mstislav Mikhailovich, but, unfortunately, the artist could not properly rally everyone. And even more so - to make peace.

The last years of his life Mstislav Mikhailovich spent at the resort with his wife Irina. The death of the maestro is a great loss for all the luminaries of circus art. Mstislav's ingenious numbers "Elephants and Tigers", "Flight to the Stars", as well as the pantomime "Spartak", invented by Mstislav, will remain for a long time not only in the memory of spectators, but also in circus programs all over the world.

On Thursday, September 22, at the 79th year of his life, the trainer Mstislav Zapashny, one of the most prominent representatives of the oldest circus dynasty in Russia, died. NTV tells about who the Zapashnye are and how their circus dynasty became famous.

Read below

Walter and Mstislav Zapashnye

Mikhail and Lydia Zapashnykh had five children: Sergei, Walter, Anna, Mstislav and Igor.

Mikhail did not want his children to work in the circus, he hoped that they would receive a good education and therefore, in principle, did not take them on tour. However, during the Great Patriotic War, 16-year-old Walter and 6-year-old Mstislav had to perform acrobatic performance in the Saratov circus in order to feed their families. After the war, the boys stayed in the circus and performed in a variety of genres: clowning, aerial gymnastics, horse riding, motorcycle racing, animal training, and taming predators.

And although over time the brothers began to perform separately, both came to training.

By the way, it was Walter Zapashny who first saddled a lion on the arena and created the attraction "Among the Predators", in which tigers, lions, panthers and lynxes simultaneously participated.

And Mstislav graduated from the directing department of GITIS and became famous not only as a trainer, but also as a director of circus programs. So, in 1977, he created the only performance in the world where elephants and tigers were in the same cage; in 1996, the artist received the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art for him. No less famous is the heroic-historical circus performance-pantomime of Mstislav Zapashny "Spartacus", which has no analogues in the world in terms of the scale of the production. From 2003 to 2009, Mstislav Zapashny held the position of general director of the Russian State Circus.

Dynasty founders

The founder of the circus dynasty of tamers, gymnasts and acrobats Zapashny was the clown Carl Thomson, who toured back in tsarist Russia under the pseudonym Milton. Thompson's daughter, Lydia, from the age of 15, performed in the circus as a rider and gymnast, and her husband Mikhail Zapashny gave the dynasty a well-known surname.

Mikhail Zapashny was born in 1900 and had nothing to do with the circus - he worked as a port loader in the small seaside town of Yeisk. The wrestler Ivan Poddubny invited him to the arena, who noticed the remarkable strength of the young man. So, Mikhail began to practice in the genre of French wrestling and for some time performed under the pseudonym Orlyonok. Later he became interested in power acrobatics and became especially famous with the number "Acrobats-snipers", an element of which was shooting from a small-bore rifle.

Edgard and Askold Zapashny

Edgar and Askold Zapashny are the most famous continuers of the family tradition, the children of Walter Zapashny. At the age of seven, the brothers first entered the cage of predators and since then have worked in a variety of circus genres. Now they are successfully touring the country. Received a number of circus awards, recognized as "The best circus artists of the year", since 1999 - honored artists of Russia, and since 2012 they were awarded the title of national.

Their older sister Maritsa also became a circus performer, the only black panther trainer in the world. In addition, Askold and Edgard have a huge number of cousins ​​and sisters, all of them are somehow connected with the circus and perform on the arena independently of each other.

Zapashny trainer dynasty