The Orthodox holiday of the Annunciation of 1947 in the Vashchilins family was marked by the birth of his son Nikolai, and for Soviet cinema, the birth of a man who later changed, or rather, embellished dozens of films with spectacular tricks. Nikolai Vashchilin is a man with an interesting fate, a master of sports in sambo, a stunt director and a young man who trained in the same company with V.V. Putin in the mid-sixties. And now he is a pensioner with a second disability group and an allowance of seven thousand rubles.
Childhood
The future stuntman was born in Leningrad on April 7 in the post-war famine. Mom worked as a dentist, and dad helped build the city destroyed by the Nazis, working behind the wheel of a truck. A peasant grandmother worked at the Academy of Sciences in a kindergarten, into which little Nikolai went, taking advantage of the privileges granted to her grandmother. So, the boy fell into the society of the intelligentsia.
When the time came, Nikolai went to school and was solemnly accepted as a pioneer for good study. The boy’s father, with the coming to power of N. S. Khrushchev, fell into the “Crosses” because of the statement that he deserved a better life. And since 1957, the mother, left alone with two children, a grandmother, was forced to seek additional income and go to individual receptions with people with a personal drill, fearing denunciations of her neighbors. For two years the family lived without a father, while he was serving his sentence in Komi.
Youth leisure
When the game of hide and seek, sand cakes and counters became uninteresting for the guy, the parents were worried about the child having free time. It was necessary to find a hobby. The first circle, in which my mother and grandmother Nikolai brought, became a music class on the button accordion. But the lack of hearing put a solid end to this endeavor. Then Nikolay Vashchilin tried himself as a ballroom dancer, skater, swimmer, photographer and basketball player.
The school years of the young man passed so actively and varied. Being in graduation, seventh grade, the guy met his first love. Her name was Rita. But they were not destined to stay together, with the passing of the last school exams and after the graduation evening, at the end of which they became adults, the love of Nikolai and Rita passed. The young man received a certificate with fives and one four, for his behavior.
Choice of profession
Talent with Kolya to present his own thoughts led the teacher of literature to his parents with a proposal to give the guy a decade. But mother said she was afraid to leave her son without a profession and livelihood. She was wounded during the war years, and she had a fear of death. Therefore, the guy needed to decide on a profession. So, he ended up in his father’s office and began to work as a loader.
After talking with the working class, Nikolai Vashchilin decides to go to an educational institution. He did not have enough math points for full-time study, and his mother transferred his documents to the evening department. From now on, Nikolai Vashchilin, a student at the College of Aviation Instrumentation. The biography of the guy from this moment gains hope for the intelligent future of an educated person. From the second year, Kolya works in a laboratory at the Institute of Electromechanics and after an excellent graduation from college he enters the Institute of Aviation Instrumentation.
Sambo wrestling
Nikolai Nikolaevich Vashchilin, whose photo has always been a role model for the young generation of sambo fighters, having failed to decide on his favorite pastime in his school years, in 1961 decides to go to the Dynamo boxing section. Having broken his nose at the first training, he goes to the sports organization "Trud", where they train martial artists for self-defense.
Training was three times a week, but studying at a college forced Nikolai to skip on Mondays. Loyal trainers allow the guy to attend missed classes in another group. There, N.N. Vashchilin meets V.V. Putin.
Active life, training, study have a positive effect on the appearance of the young man. He becomes strong, slim and tall.
Nicholas needed the fight not only for physical form, but also for confronting the yard gang, which could not forgive the former comrade for not wanting to communicate with them.
Achievements
The victory among the youths at the city championship was a ticket to the team for the training of sports masters. The idol for the fight with Kolya was Anton Geesink. Do not leave the young athlete thoughts to achieve the status of world champion in the chosen sport and visit Paris.
In his autobiographical book, Nikolai Vashchilin writes that a worthy defeat was difficult at the competition, because it was considered a public shame. At seventeen, the young man became the champion of Tallinn, and then the winner of the championship of the all-Russian society "Labor".
He showed his well-developed, precise technique at the competitions in Lviv, and Nikolai was included in the USSR national team. On his return to Leningrad, coach A. S. Massarsky sends Vashchilin to Peterhof to prepare for the fight among the masters of sports and arranges his ward in the crowd for the film “Three Fat Men”.
European competitions were approaching, the destination of which was Paris, but the unforeseen sore throat that appeared at Kolya the day before departure, caused the refusal to participate in them. However, sporting victories behind Vashchilin until 1976 were abundant.
Trials at Hamlet
There wasn’t enough money, the sport didn’t bring much profit, and the shooting seemed promising. After Nikolai was in the crowd at Three Fat Men, Alexander Samoilovich brought his ward to audition for participation in the film Shadow of Hamlet’s Father. Too plastic Kolya did not fit. But the meeting with filmmaker Grigory Kozintsev gave rise to yet another dream for Vashchilin - to create films. Then Kozintsev advised the guy to get a major education. In 1965, Nikolai tries to enter the theater as an actor. However, before passing the exams, the guy begins to doubt the choice and decides to postpone the idea of becoming an actor.
Nikolay Vashchilin: professional achievements
In 1964, Nikolai left to work for Lenfilm. He is attracted not only by additional earnings, but also by the opportunity to be in different eras, to get used to the role.
In 1969, the future stuntman falls on the set of King Lear. Having been in the bustle of cinema and in the company of Shakespeare's characters, Nikolai Nikolaevich remained in this dependence forever. For thirty years he has been performing stunts for fascists, pirates, Decembrists, knights, and bandits. He works with famous people such as Grigory Kozintsev, Nikita Mikhalkov, Vladimir Motyl, George Yungvald-Khilkevich, Igor Maslennikov, Andrei Konchalovsky.
Nikolay Vashchilin: stunt director, stunt performer
In 1974, Nicholas for the first time in the film "Romance of Lovers" appears in the role of stunt director and performer. There is a story related to this Soviet musical. To perform the trick - breaking the glass - one double stood out due to the deficiency of the glass attribute. But Nikolai Vashchilin - a stuntman with excellent technique of performance - is very believable and the first time made an episode.
At the same time, a talented stuntman begins to teach at the Department of Physical Education at the Theater Institute. G. M. Kozintsev blessed the guy to create programs for stunt training of actors.
Later, Nikolai graduated from graduate school at the Institute of Physical Culture and became a senior teacher in the development of tricks. Thanks to Nikolai Nikolayevich, for the first time in Soviet cinema before the filming of The Three Musketeers, permission was obtained to perform complex physical elements by the actors themselves without the help of understudies, and even to pay for these tricks.
Today N. N. Vashchilin lives in St. Petersburg, does not engage in professional activities. However, it produces interesting biographical books, one of which this article was written.