You can search far and wide, but it’s hard to find a Ukrainian who does not know Ostap Bender, a fictional con man character from two popular Soviet novels. Ukrainians continue to quote his classical aphorisms to this day, sometimes unknowingly.
Ostap Bender is, after all, the main character in two books by Ilya Faynzilberg and Yevgeniy Katayev, each better known by their pen names Ilf and Petrov. The books are called ‘The Twelve Chairs’(Dvenadtsat stulyev) and ‘The Golden Calf’ (Zolotoy telyonok).
Like many other cities that feature in the books, Kyiv has its own monument to one of their main characters. Odesa, Zhmerynka and Berdyansk are other cities where characters from these books are immortalized in bronze.
WHAT
The statue of Mikhail Panikovsky, also a fictional character as Bender’s teammate, stands proudly on 8 Prorizna Street, just a five minutes’ walk from Khreshchatyk metro station. Panikovsky stands right on the very spot where Ilf and Petrov described him as making his living by pretending to be a blind man, he begged and pick pocketed gullible citizens walking by.
Before Kyiv got its own statue in honor of Panikovsky, there was a memorial plate hanging on the building on the corner of Khreshchatyk and Prorizna, marking the exact place where the great cheat worked in Ilf’s and Petrov’s books. If you look at the current statue carefully, you will notice a pickpocket gesture. Panikovsky’s head is turned right, and if you stand close enough to the statue in the left, his hand will end up in your pocket.
Panikovsky’s own left pocket bulges with coins, and his left foot seems to be in a hurry to step on a coin. There is another little secret about the statue. As the legend goes, if you put a coin under his left foot, it will disappear. To see if it actually happens, you will have to check it out for yourself.
WHO
‘The Twelve Chairs’ was published in 1927, and ‘The Golden Calf’ came out four years later. They still remain on the ‘must read’ list of many Ukrainians and Russians. ‘The Golden Calf’ follows con man Ostap Bender on a fortune-seeking trip in Soviet Russia and Central Asia. It takes place in the 1930s. Bender and his new friends, Mikhail Panikovsky and Shura Balaganov, pursue a secret millionaire, Aleksandr Koreiko, who has a suitcase of hard currency, which he amassed through corrupt means. He is now keeping a low profile, and waiting for the collapse of the Soviet Union so he can make use of his fortune.
In the novel, Panikovsky is a satirical impersonation of a petty criminal of those days in the Soviet Union. Bender calls him “a person without a passport.” Here’s a classical Panikovsky quote: “I went to Khreshchatyk Street in Kyiv with my trick, wearing black glasses and pretending to be a blind man, and asked a gentleman to help me to cross the road. By the other side of the road, the gentleman had neither a watch nor a wallet.. I used to bribe a policeman on the crossroads of Khreshchatyk and Prorizna with five rubles per month, and he let me work.”
Panikovsky’s surname is supposed to reflect his character. While pursuing Koreiko, Panikovsky tends to panic and make mistakes. The ‘The Golden Calf’ book has two different endings. But in both of them, Panikovsky ends up badly. He does not get his share of the loot, and dies in a car accident chasing Koreiko.
The book was turned into a movie several times, and some of its aphorisms are still in everyday use. For example, if you hear about “horns and hoofs,” – it’s a reference to Bender’s cover-up firm. “Children of Lieutenant Schmidt” are cheats and their father is an imaginary character.
The first film based on the book came out in 1968, and was black-and-white. The statue of Panikovsky in Kyiv looks like Zinovy Gerdt, a well-known Russian theatre and cinema actor, who played Panikovsky part in that movie.
You can find more about the book at: www.russianlife.com/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=183&aff=28259, www.siberianlight.net/the-little-golden-calf.
You can read a part of ‘The Golden Calf” in English for free at www.idlewords.com/telenok.
Kyiv Post staff writer Iryna Prymachyk can be reached at [email protected].
