At the beginning of the 20th century, the name of Ivan Maksimovich Poddubny thundered throughout Europe, he was called “the champion of champions.” Over the 10 years of his sports career, the weight of his awards was equal to two pounds (32 kilograms). A village boy from the Poltava outback did not dream of such fame, but when it came, he enjoyed its fruits with pleasure: he squandered money, loved women, generously distributed alms and tips.
The beginning of a creative journey
Maria Poddubnaya began working as a director in 2013, when an entertainment channel was created on YouTube. His debut work was the animated film “Masya the Excavator.”
The next one was released was a video called “Lev’s Truck.” “Kapuki Kanuki” is the name of a video channel belonging to one of the popular. It was launched at the end of July 2011 by Maria Poddubnaya and Vladimir Nabatov.
At that time, Adrian Nabatov was 3 years old. Vladimir Nabatov held the position of director of the X-media Digital company, working in the direction of creating YouTube channels for:
- "Animmacord"
- "Fixikov"
- "Smesharikov".
Note: As for cartoons for kids, they were not available on YouTube. This gave Maria and Vladimir an opportunity to work independently on creating simple videos.
The main role was played by Maria. The success was colossal: within a year, the cartoons collected more than a million views, which prompted Vladimir Nabatov to leave his job and start his own business.
Vladimir Nabatov is the husband of blogger Masha Kapuki Kanuka
"A man of great strength and stupidity." The true story of Ivan Poddubny
It’s as if he came out of the myths about Hercules or from the epics about Ilya Muromets. The story of his life causes skepticism among many - well, this cannot be, it is implausible.
He was born in the Russian Empire, shone in the arenas of Europe and America, survived the German occupation, and at the end of his life he was awarded the title of Honored Master of Sports of the USSR... How all this fit into the life of one person is incomprehensible to the mind.
But, having gone through difficult trials, having known great glory, having experienced love and betrayal, Ivan Poddubny remained the same as he was at the beginning - a hero with the innocence and naivety of a child.
Russian professional wrestler and athlete Ivan Poddubny. Photo: RIA Novosti
He was born on September 26 (October 8, new style) 1871 in the village of Bogodukhovka in the Poltava region, into a Cossack family.
The Poddubny family was famous for its physical strength and power, and Vanya took after his ancestors. But if he got strength and endurance from his father, then from his mother he got a keen ear for music. This subsequently amazed his contemporaries - this musicality did not combine with the appearance of a strongman.
The strength of the Poddubny family did not make them rich, so from an early age Ivan was introduced to hard physical labor, and from the age of 12 he worked as a farm laborer.
At the age of twenty, Ivan went to seek his fortune in the city. According to legend, the reason for this was unhappy love - a rich neighbor flatly refused to marry his daughter to the “starved man”.
The strong man Poddubny easily got a job as a port loader, first in Sevastopol, and then in Feodosia, and did not think about any other career.
Thirst for fight
As often happens, chance changed everything. The circus of Ivan Beskaravainy came to Feodosia. An integral part of circus performances at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries were performances by strongmen and wrestling matches. So the Beskaravayny circus had its own wrestlers, with whom everyone was invited to compete.
Ivan, confident that he would not yield to the strongmen from the circus, tried his hand and... unconditionally lost.
Was Poddubny the strongest? →
It was then that he realized that wrestling is not just a competition between people who are strong from birth, but a whole science.
Ivan was overwhelmed by excitement and the desire to prove that he could become the best.
He began to systematically train, study wrestling techniques, and soon again entered the circus arena, where he won several victories over famous athletes at that time.
After this, he was hired as a professional wrestler by Enrico Truzzi's circus. Thus, at the age of 27, the brilliant career of Ivan Poddubny began.
Like most wrestlers at that time, he combined several roles. Poddubny demonstrated strength tricks, for example, this one: a telegraph pole was placed on his shoulders, on which ten people hung on both sides and, as a result, as a rule, the pole broke. The audience gasped in delight.
But the main spectacle, of course, was the fight. All of Russia soon started talking about Poddubny, since he had no equal in traditional Russian belt wrestling.
The judge is a scoundrel!
However, French wrestling, which was later called first classical and then Greco-Roman, was much more popular in the world. Poddubny switched to it, and in 1903 received an offer to represent Russia at the world championship in Paris.
The conditions of the tournament, in which 130 wrestlers took part, were very strict - the loser of at least one fight was eliminated. “Russian Bear” Poddubny stormed through 11 opponents until he met the idol of the French public, Raoul le Boucher.
The fight with the Frenchman almost turned Poddubny away from the fight forever. Fights at that time could last for several hours, until one of the opponents was laid to rest. The Frenchman, having failed to take Poddubny with the first onslaught, began to openly run from him. In addition, it turned out that he was coated with a fatty substance that prevented him from making grabs - this dishonest method, by the way, is still used by wrestlers. When Poddubny drew the attention of the judges to this, they only shrugged their shoulders. And after an hour of fighting, the victory was given to Le Boucher “for his beautiful and skillful avoidance of sharp techniques.”
This decision angered even the French public, and Poddubny, shocked by such dishonesty, wanted to end his wrestling career altogether.
Friends and colleagues had a hard time convincing the giant. But it must be said that, due to his character, Poddubny was extremely inconvenient for the organizers of wrestling matches - he basically did not conduct “fixed” fights and did not take bribes. Because of this, a couple of times his opponents even tried to organize the murder of Poddubny, but, fortunately, these plans fell through.
Why was Poddubny not an Olympic champion?
Le Boucher was rewarded at the international championship in St. Petersburg, where he again met with Poddubny. The revenge was cruel - the Russian wrestler twisted the Frenchman as he wanted. For twenty minutes he held his opponent, excuse me, in a knee-elbow position, while the audience whistled and hooted, until the judges took pity on Le Boucher. After this defeat, the French wrestler went into real hysterics.
Poddubny won the tournament, defeating another Frenchman, world champion Paul Pons, in the final in a two-hour fight.
Things were quite difficult with titles at that time. In professional wrestling, in one city or another, the tournament was declared a “world championship.” Poddubny won almost everywhere, but it is quite difficult to understand exactly how many times he was world champion.
But it is known that in the period from 1905 to 1908 he invariably won the most prestigious of tournaments - the World French Wrestling Championship in Paris.
At that time, the Olympics, which included wrestling, were already gaining popularity, but Poddubny’s way there was barred. The Olympics were then exclusively the domain of amateur athletes, and Poddubny was a professional.
“And with the personal... Well, just with the personal - hello...”
By 1910, the wrestler, who had won everything he could and earned a lot of money, was tired of the world of professional wrestling and decided to end his career. He left for his homeland, bought a house, land and began farming.
However, the businessman from Poddubny was useless, and besides, his wife’s demands quickly reduced his financial capital.
In general, the giant was catastrophically unlucky in love affairs. At the very beginning of his circus career, Poddubny fell in love with a 40-year-old Hungarian tightrope walker, an experienced and temperamental woman. Ivan was ready to marry her, but the Hungarian woman soon found herself a new boyfriend.
Then there was an affair with gymnast Masha Dozmarova. They were an amazing couple - a huge strongman and a fragile, almost ethereal girl. But on the eve of the wedding, a tragedy happened - Masha fell from under the circus big top and died.
Poddubny’s first wife was Antonina Kvitko-Fomenko, and it was she who squandered everything her husband earned, and at the height of the Civil War she completely ran away, taking with her some of her husband’s medals.
In 1922, Poddubny married the mother of the young wrestler Ivan Mashonin, Maria Semyonovna, and in this marriage he finally found personal peace.
Monument to Ivan Poddubny in Yeisk. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Karachun
American voyage of the “Russian bear”
On the eve of the First World War, Poddubny, whose finances sang romances thanks to Antonina, returned to the circus and again began to win victory after victory.
He also performed during the Civil War, although this time in his biography is perhaps the most mysterious page. Only one thing is known for sure - the simple-minded giant was too far from politics to join any of the parties, and at the same time he was equally warmly welcomed by whites, reds, and greens.
Already at the very end of the war in Odessa, Poddubny was almost shot by the Reds - the security officers confused him with the organizer of Jewish pogroms named Poddubnov, but, fortunately, they figured it out in time.
In 1922, Ivan Poddubny began performing at the Moscow Circus. Doctors examine the 51-year-old wrestler and shrug their shoulders - there are no complaints, his health is excellent.
In 1924, Ivan Poddubny received permission to go on a long tour of Germany and the USA.
Surprisingly, it’s a fact - the wrestler, who was well over 50, was in no way inferior to his rivals, who were old enough to be not only sons, but even grandsons.
In the USA, where the rules of wrestling were far from European and more like a street fight. Poddubny, however, quickly got used to it and continued to win, collecting full houses in Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
“The other day I had dinner with Poddubny - a man of enormous strength and the same stupidity,” - this description of the athlete was given not by anyone, but by the famous Russian writer Alexander Kuprin. The great wrestler was truly incredibly naive, which those around him took advantage of. When Poddubny, who was homesick, got ready to go home, the Americans actually deprived him of his earned fees - they say they remain somewhere in American bank accounts to this day.
How Poddubny worked as a bouncer for the Germans
Nevertheless, in the USSR Poddubny was greeted as a hero. Upon his return, the wrestler announced that he had completed his career and would henceforth be engaged in the popularization of wrestling.
He announced, and... did not complete it. He fought his last fight on the wrestling mat in 1941, at the age of 70. History does not know another similar example of athletic longevity in this sport.
In 1939, 68-year-old Ivan Poddubny participated in the parade of athletes on Red Square, and in the same year he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. Poddubny wore this award with pride, almost never taking it off, which a few years later almost cost him his life.
He settled in the small town of Yeysk on the shores of the Azov Sea. From many years of overload, his heart began to play tricks, but Poddubny did not turn to doctors, preferring traditional medicine. When the war began and the Germans occupied Yeisk, the wrestler refused to evacuate anywhere, saying that he had little time left to live and there was no point in running.
One day, a German patrol detained a middle-aged giant with a Soviet order on his chest on the street of Yeisk. The Nazis were taken aback by such impudence, but were even more taken aback when they found out who was in front of them.
Poddubny’s fame was so great that the occupiers did not touch either him or his award and, moreover, offered to move to Germany to train German athletes there.
If Poddubny had been more cunning, he probably would have thought before refusing, but the strongman immediately answered with a decisive “no.”
The Germans shrugged their shoulders and... left Poddubny alone. Moreover, in order for the strongman to earn a living, he was given a marker position in the billiard room.
Poddubny also worked as a bouncer in a bar for Hitler’s military.
This, of course, was complete surrealism: an elderly giant with a Soviet order on his chest with one hand throws the Fuhrer’s drunk soldiers out into the street. And the Aryans, who sobered up the next morning, run not to deal with the “Russian pig”, but to write a letter to their wife: “You know, dear, yesterday Ivan Poddubny himself threw me out onto the street!”
Bust of Ivan Poddubny in Yeisk. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / GennadyL
The giant was overcome by hunger
After the liberation of Yeisk, state security agencies conducted an investigation into Poddubny’s collaboration with the Germans and... did not find any crime, considering that the retired fighter had not betrayed his homeland in any way, and “commerce is just commerce.”
Moreover, in 1945, Ivan Maksimovich Poddubny was awarded the title of Honored Master of Sports of the USSR. This was Poddubny’s second title - in 1939, as a circus performer, he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.
Alas, all these titles did not help Poddubny in the post-war years. No, he was not persecuted for political reasons, the problem was different - for a normal life, the giant needed significantly more products than an ordinary person, and with the card system it was almost impossible to solve this problem.
Poddubny turned to local authorities, they helped as much as they could, but this was clearly not enough. In recent years, Poddubny has been selling his medals to buy food.
Perhaps if he lived in Moscow, everything would have turned out differently, but in small Yeisk the wrestler was left to his own devices.
One day, returning from the market, he fell and suffered a fracture of the femoral neck. Since then, the famous hero walked only on crutches.
Ivan Maksimovich Poddubny died of a heart attack on August 8, 1949 and was buried in the city park, next to the graves of soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War.
Later, a large granite stone was installed on his grave, on which it is written: “Here lies the Russian hero.”
Read a review of the film about Ivan Poddubny with Mikhail Porechenkov in the title role here >>
aif.ru
Personal life
Maria Poddubnaya believes that she is very lucky in her personal life. The girl married Vladimir Nabatov, whom she dated for several years. A year and a half later, a boy was born into the young family, who was named Adrian.
The husband helped his wife in everything. According to Maria’s close people, this event was the beginning of her mother’s creative idea while on maternity leave to create a children’s educational channel. In an interview, Maria said that she has an idea of the difficulties of raising children, which is why she decided to help parents by filming educational videos.
2017 brought an addition: a girl was born, who was named Bianca. From now on, all family members take part in the creation of videos, which brings parents and children closer together.
Childhood and youth
Masha Poddubnaya was born in the capital of Russia in 1981, on November 11. Since childhood, Maria showed special abilities for directing and scripts. At school No. 1262, the girl always took part in staging school plays. It was this experience in life that contributed to the further choice of profession.
After graduating from school, Maria chose a completely different educational institution than she dreamed of. Masha entered Moscow State University , where she studied at the Faculty of Foreign Languages. However, as you might guess, Maria Poddubnaya never worked a day in her profession.
Family income
One of the frequently asked questions concerns the monetary reward of the project. There is no exact information about the income of Masha Kapuki Kanuka yet. It should be noted that the project does not personally belong to Masha Kapuki Kanuki, and not all proceeds are sent to Maria Poddubnaya’s account.
Masha Kapuki Kanuki with her husband Vladimir and son Adrian
Although, given the huge number of views, subscribers to the channel, and comments, one can judge the high family income. You should also consider the money generated by advertising.
Note: Masha Kapuki Kanuki is promoting the channel as part of the largest “First Project”.
“I came out in height and face, thanks to my mother and father...”
It’s as if he came out of the myths about Hercules or from the epics about Ilya Muromets.
The story of his life causes skepticism among many - well, this cannot be, it is implausible. He was born in the Russian Empire, shone in the arenas of Europe and America, survived the German occupation, and at the end of his life he was awarded the title of Honored Master of Sports of the USSR... How all this fit into the life of one person is incomprehensible to the mind.
But, having gone through difficult trials, having known great glory, having experienced love and betrayal, Ivan Poddubny remained the same as he was at the beginning - a hero with the innocence and naivety of a child.
Russian professional wrestler and athlete Ivan Poddubny. Photo: RIA Novosti
He was born on September 26 (October 8, new style) 1871 in the village of Bogodukhovka in the Poltava region, into a Cossack family.
The Poddubny family was famous for its physical strength and power, and Vanya took after his ancestors. But if he got strength and endurance from his father, then from his mother he got a keen ear for music. This subsequently amazed his contemporaries - this musicality did not combine with the appearance of a strongman.
The strength of the Poddubny family did not make them rich, so from an early age Ivan was introduced to hard physical labor, and from the age of 12 he worked as a farm laborer.
At the age of twenty, Ivan went to seek his fortune in the city. According to legend, the reason for this was unhappy love - a rich neighbor flatly refused to marry his daughter to the “starved man”.
The strong man Poddubny easily got a job as a port loader, first in Sevastopol, and then in Feodosia, and did not think about any other career.
What will children learn on Masha Kapuki Kanuki's channel?
For 2.6 million subscribers, Masha Kapuki Kanuki’s channel offers educational cartoons and reviews of toys for every taste. Children learn information about working machines. In five-minute cartoons set to classical music, children learn simple everyday things. Kids will learn about airplanes and space cars.
Masha Kapuki Kanuki talks in detail and in an accessible way about the fuselage of the aircraft. Cartoons unobtrusively focus the attention of young viewers on counting to 10, shapes, and colors. Children are introduced to toys from famous brands. This happens in the form of an interesting game, which tells parents how to play it with their children.
Why was Poddubny not an Olympic champion?
Le Boucher was rewarded at the international championship in St. Petersburg, where he again met with Poddubny. The revenge was cruel - the Russian wrestler twisted the Frenchman as he wanted. For twenty minutes he held his opponent, excuse me, in a knee-elbow position, while the audience whistled and hooted, until the judges took pity on Le Boucher. After this defeat, the French wrestler went into real hysterics.
Poddubny won the tournament, defeating another Frenchman, world champion Paul Pons, in the final in a two-hour fight.
Things were quite difficult with titles at that time. In professional wrestling, in one city or another, the tournament was declared a “world championship.” Poddubny won almost everywhere, but it is quite difficult to understand exactly how many times he was world champion.
But it is known that in the period from 1905 to 1908 he invariably won the most prestigious of tournaments - the World French Wrestling Championship in Paris.
At that time, the Olympics, which included wrestling, were already gaining popularity, but Poddubny’s way there was barred. The Olympics were then exclusively the domain of amateur athletes, and Poddubny was a professional.
FAQ
Masha Kapuki Kanuki is often asked what prompted her to create cartoons for the little ones. The young mother said that while living in Turkey she was unable to find a job in Turkey, but women always had the need to work.
Two more factors played a positive role:
- Maria has a pedagogical education (English teacher).
- Great experience raising my son Adrian.
Maria Poddubnaya is distinguished, according to her friends, by her kindness, sensitivity, and generosity, which can be seen in her creative works
Thirst for fight
As often happens, chance changed everything. of Ivan Beskaravayny came to Feodosia . An integral part of circus performances at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries were performances by strongmen and wrestling matches. So the Beskaravayny circus had its own wrestlers, with whom everyone was invited to compete.
Ivan, confident that he would not yield to the strongmen from the circus, tried his hand and... unconditionally lost.
Was Poddubny the strongest? →
It was then that he realized that wrestling is not just a competition between people who are strong from birth, but a whole science.
Ivan was overwhelmed by excitement and the desire to prove that he could become the best.
He began to systematically train, study wrestling techniques, and soon again entered the circus arena, where he won several victories over famous athletes at that time.
After this, he was hired as a professional wrestler by Enrico Truzzi's circus. Thus, at the age of 27, the brilliant career of Ivan Poddubny began.
Like most wrestlers at that time, he combined several roles. Poddubny demonstrated strength tricks, for example, this one: a telegraph pole was placed on his shoulders, on which ten people hung on both sides and, as a result, as a rule, the pole broke. The audience gasped in delight.
But the main spectacle, of course, was the fight. All of Russia soon started talking about Poddubny, since he had no equal in traditional Russian belt wrestling.
Reviews from parents
The overwhelming majority of parents' reviews of Masha Kapuki Kanuki's video express delight and gratitude to the creators.
Tatyana Mikhailova, 24 years old, Tula: “Nice picture, clear sound, good theme.”
Valeria Ostapenko, 24 years old, Kiev: “When on maternity leave with a three-year-old child, half an hour of personal time is often not enough. And here Kapuki Kanuki cartoons come to the rescue. What are the advantages: modernity, positive charge, amazing developmental moments. Many reviews also point to the aesthetics of the musical design and interesting stories.”
“And with the personal... Well, just with the personal - hello...”
By 1910, the wrestler, who had won everything he could and earned a lot of money, was tired of the world of professional wrestling and decided to end his career. He left for his homeland, bought a house, land and began farming.
However, the businessman from Poddubny was useless, and besides, his wife’s demands quickly reduced his financial capital.
In general, the giant was catastrophically unlucky in love affairs. At the very beginning of his circus career, Poddubny fell in love with a 40-year-old Hungarian tightrope walker, an experienced and temperamental woman. Ivan was ready to marry her, but the Hungarian woman soon found herself a new boyfriend.
Then there was an affair with gymnast Masha Dozmarova. They were an amazing couple - a huge strongman and a fragile, almost ethereal girl. But on the eve of the wedding, a tragedy happened - Masha fell from under the circus big top and died.
Poddubny’s first wife was Antonina Kvitko-Fomenko, and it was she who squandered everything her husband earned, and at the height of the Civil War she completely ran away, taking with her some of her husband’s medals.
In 1922, Poddubny married the mother of the young wrestler Ivan Mashonin, Maria Semyonovna, and in this marriage he finally found personal peace.
Monument to Ivan Poddubny in Yeisk. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Karachun
Filmography
As a screenwriter, Maria Poddubnaya acted when creating cartoons:
- "Lev's Truck"
- "Smart cars"
- "Gruzik's Store"
As a director:
- "Smarta and the miracle bag"
- "Smart cars"
- "Lev's Truck."
“Smart cars” is one of the projects of Maria Poddubnaya (Mashi Kapuki Kanuki)
As a producer:
- "Numbers in a cube"
- "Excavator Masya."
American voyage of the “Russian bear”
On the eve of the First World War, Poddubny, whose finances sang romances thanks to Antonina, returned to the circus and again began to win victory after victory.
Article on the topic
Why did Poddubny’s wife run away from him and why did the wrestler work as a bouncer in a bar? He also performed during the Civil War, although this time in his biography is perhaps the most mysterious page. Only one thing is known for sure - the simple-minded giant was too far from politics to join any of the parties, and at the same time he was equally warmly welcomed by whites, reds, and greens.
Already at the very end of the war in Odessa, Poddubny was almost shot by the Reds - the security officers confused him with the organizer of Jewish pogroms named Poddubnov, but, fortunately, they figured it out in time.
In 1922, Ivan Poddubny began performing at the Moscow Circus. Doctors examine the 51-year-old wrestler and shrug their shoulders - there are no complaints, his health is excellent.
In 1924, Ivan Poddubny received permission to go on a long tour of Germany and the USA.
Surprisingly, it’s a fact - the wrestler, who was well over 50, was in no way inferior to his rivals, who were old enough to be not only sons, but even grandsons.
In the USA, where the rules of wrestling were far from European and more like a street fight. Poddubny, however, quickly got used to it and continued to win, collecting full houses in Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
“The other day I had dinner with Poddubny - a man of enormous strength and the same stupidity,” - this description of the athlete was given not by anyone, but by the famous Russian writer Alexander Kuprin. The great wrestler was truly incredibly naive, which those around him took advantage of. When Poddubny, who was homesick, got ready to go home, the Americans actually deprived him of his earned fees - they say they remain somewhere in American bank accounts to this day.
"Project" today
At the moment, the “First Project” includes about 100 video blogs, the most popular of which have collected several billion views. In 2014, the company launched the production of the animated film “Lev’s Truck,” intended for viewing by three-year-old children. The popularity of the cartoon was so great that it was translated into 9 languages.
“Lev’s Truck” is one of Masha Kapuka’s famous projects
In Russia, the Karusel channel acquired the rights to broadcast the cartoon. The popularity of the channel for kids in 2021 brought the First Project a profit of more than 10 million rubles.
The judge is a scoundrel!
However, French wrestling, which was later called first classical and then Greco-Roman, was much more popular in the world. Poddubny switched to it, and in 1903 received an offer to represent Russia at the world championship in Paris.
The conditions of the tournament, in which 130 wrestlers took part, were very strict - the loser of at least one fight was eliminated. “Russian Bear” Poddubny stormed through 11 opponents until he met the idol of the French public, Raoul le Boucher.
The fight with the Frenchman almost turned Poddubny away from the fight forever. Fights at that time could last for several hours, until one of the opponents was laid to rest. The Frenchman, having failed to take Poddubny with the first onslaught, began to openly run from him. In addition, it turned out that he was coated with a fatty substance that prevented him from making grabs - this dishonest method, by the way, is still used by wrestlers. When Poddubny drew the attention of the judges to this, they only shrugged their shoulders. And after an hour of fighting, the victory was given to Le Boucher “for his beautiful and skillful avoidance of sharp techniques.”
This decision angered even the French public, and Poddubny, shocked by such dishonesty, wanted to end his wrestling career altogether.
Friends and colleagues had a hard time convincing the giant. But it must be said that, due to his character, Poddubny was extremely inconvenient for the organizers of wrestling matches - he basically did not conduct “fixed” fights and did not take bribes. Because of this, a couple of times his opponents even tried to organize the murder of Poddubny, but, fortunately, these plans fell through.
