Arnie's only trip to the USSR

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In 1988, Arnold Schwarzenegger visited the USSR. The trip had three goals: to star in the Moscow scenes of the action movie "Red Heat", to buy an ermine coat for his wife, and to shake hands with the great Soviet weightlifter Yuri Vlasov. How did Arnie manage to do all this in three days?

Schwarzenegger first visited the USSR in 1942. True, it was not Arnold, but Gustav, his father, and he came to us as an enemy, in the ranks of the Wehrmacht, Hitler's army. He participated in the battles on the Leningrad front, was lucky - he was wounded, but survived, returned to his native Austria, and, it seems, avoided the problems associated with membership in the NSDAP - soon after the war he became the chief of police in the town of Tal, near Graz. And in 1947 his second son was born - Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger.

The idol of the youth of the 80s, Arnold Schwarzenegger flew to the Soviet Union in February 1988 for only three days - to shoot the Moscow episodes of the film "Red Heat". Shooting on location in Red Square, despite the seemingly received permission to shoot in “the heart of our Motherland”, was semi-legal - they were filmed quickly and on a hand-held movie camera.

Having filmed the necessary few episodes (in addition to Red Square, they filmed a scene in the Sandunov Baths), Schwarzenegger spoke at a press conference at the Sovetskaya Hotel for a limited contingent of journalists. However, communication with the press took place at a fast pace, and the questions were more often asked by the film actor, and not by reporters.

Schwarzenegger spent almost the entire press conference standing: it was probably difficult for a powerful man to sit on the chair provided. Powerful hands, like sledgehammers, were constantly at eye and lens level of seated photojournalists. They enthusiastically filmed the mighty hands of Mr. Olympia with wide-angle optics. We could only guess what mountains of muscle were hiding under the trendy checkered jacket of the Terminator. There was hardly any talk about the creative plans of the film group and the secret filming in Moscow. But Schwarzenegger told in some detail which couple of points of the short-term program in the capital of the USSR worried him most of all: buying an ermine coat for his wife and meeting with the famous weightlifter Yuri Vlasov. Since the Hollywood star did not move an inch in solving these problems, Arnie, as it turned out, turned in his tickets to America.

The overseas guest read a short lecture to the Moscow journalists on the advantages of ermine fur, recalling that none of the furs known in the world can surpass the ermine in whiteness and softness. For a real American, an ermine coat surpasses any attire in terms of aristocracy, it is real chic, the highest level of demonstration of one's own importance and prosperity. Often in the United States, brides' shoulders at prestigious weddings are covered with ermine fur coats - a symbol of sophistication, purity and purity. The performer of the role of the ruthless cyborg killer added with extraordinary sadness that 400 animals were required for an ordinary ermine fur coat, and 50 thousand ermine skins were used for the ceremonial mantle of British King George! And all this was said because TV journalist Maria Shriver, Schwarzenegger's wife and President Kennedy's niece, who remembered from childhood family conversations about Russia and book portraits of Russian tsars in ermine robes, forbade her beloved husband to return from Moscow without a fur coat. That is why the actor asked the press for help, as journalists, in his opinion, know everything and can do everything.

The question of where you can buy an ermine fur coat or cloak in Russia has puzzled the fifth branch of government. The first thing that came to mind of the writing and filming fraternity was an offer to visit the Beryozka currency store. However, this idea caused laughter among the advanced part of the audience, who understood the intricacies of currency transactions, then still illegal. As it turned out, in early January 1988, the USSR government, during the campaign "for social justice in the fight against privileges", announced the liquidation of the Berezka chain of stores and the trading system for currency and checks. So the loving husband of Schwarzenegger was in the wrong time and in the wrong place with his capitalist desires. But the situation was saved by an official from Goskino, who reminded everyone of the mysterious organization "Torgmeh". In those days, "Torgmeh" was not known to a wide circle of Soviet people. It was a secret trade and production association that worked to provide the Soviet political and cultural elite with high-quality fur products. At the time of Schwarzenegger's arrival in Moscow, "Torgmeh" was actively functioning, so the order of the famous actor's wife was fulfilled. Maria Shriver took an honorable place among the clients of "Torgmeh" - the wives of Politburo members, ministers and Soviet actresses, and in her sunny California all the next 23 years of marriage she was treated kindly by this incredibly light and soft snow-white fur.

Another unsolved Moscow problem of Schwarzenegger was a long-term dream of meeting the famous Soviet weightlifter Yuri Vlasov. Arnold told the surprised journalists that in September 1961, as a 14-year-old teenager, he came to Vienna for the World Weightlifting Championships. Yuri Gagarin was already the idol of young Arnie, but the Russian hero Yuri Vlasov, the winner of the fight between the most powerful people on the planet, overshadowed the image of the first cosmonaut. At an acquaintance, the young man was taken to the locker room to the Soviet athletes, and he personally shook hands with Vlasov! Schwarzenegger admitted that from that moment Vlasov became his idol, thanks to which he seriously took up weightlifting, and then athletic gymnastics. “Vlasov was always by my side. I flew to Moscow with the thought of definitely meeting this legendary man. - With these words, Schwarzenegger ended the press conference, patriotically pressing his hand to his heart.

Here, for a modern young reader, alas, it is necessary to make a remark about who Yuri Vlasov is, because "now many do not know the names of the heroes." Since the end of the fifties, when Yuri Vlasov shattered all world records in weightlifting, the unofficial title of "the strongest man in the world" was entrenched in him. A gold medal at the Olympics in Rome in 1960 made Vlasov an international celebrity. Vlasov weighed over 120 kg, but unlike most heavyweights, he was not fat and looked fit. The fluent conversational French champion, combined with an interest in literature and history, amazed his contemporaries, who were used to seeing weightlifters as "living cranes." A full-page portrait of Vlasov was published in the most popular American magazine Life, and at Yuri Petrovich's house there was a plump volume in a homemade binding with an inscription on the spine - "foreign magazines about me."

However, by 1988, dramatic changes took place in Vlasov's life. He took the silver at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics as a personal defeat and after a few years left competitive sports. Vlasov dreamed of becoming a writer and learned to write as fiercely as he had once trained - on the verge of self-torture. Old sports injuries soon escalated. Vlasov underwent a series of severe operations on the spine, turned out to be practically disabled, but stubbornly pulled himself out of weakness and ailment by training according to his own method. In addition to this, endowed with a polemical temperament, obstinate character and lack of a habit of honoring rank, Vlasov gained a reputation as a "free-thinker and troublemaker", "an uncomfortable person."He was not outright banned, but just from a certain moment they stopped mentioning and noticing him, trying to tamp the great champion into the space of purely private life. In February 1988, he was still in unspoken disgrace.

Arnold persisted - I want to meet with Vlasov, period! Employees of the USSR Sports Committee stood up, but during the day they found Yuri Petrovich, who did not really understand what Mr. Schwarzenegger wanted from him. The historic meeting took place in the Athletics gym on the third floor of the House of Pioneers of the Kalininsky District, located at 14. Lefortovsky Val, 14. It was hard to imagine that the Hollywood actor would meet the Olympic weightlifting champion at this address. But the reality of what was happening was believed when I saw in the darkness of the gym, hung with portraits of famous bodybuilders, the figure of a bearded man surrounded by athletic girls-gymnasts. Yuri Vlasov, as befits a disciplined champion, arrived at the House of Pioneers in advance. The great weightlifter explained Schwarzenegger's obligatory desire to see Vlasov in Moscow by tribute to the famous bodybuilder for the Olympic champion. Great athletes always have something to talk about … However, Vlasov admitted that he absolutely did not remember the handshake of young Arnold at the Vienna championship.

The alleged meeting of the legendary athletes was as secret as possible, there were only two or three photographers, they leisurely filmed Yuri Petrovich at the window in a dark corridor. The painful anticipation of the meeting was exploded by the American smile of Schwarzenegger. They lit all the lights in a gym filled with exercise machines, kettlebells and barbells. The translator simultaneously uttered words of admiration and gratitude to Vlasov, enthusiastically expressed by Schwarzenegger, who never ceases to smile.

Then everything was opened and remembered! The first meeting in 1961 was already vyingly discussed by both athletes. The Olympic champion admitted that the words of moral support that Arnie remembered so much in the Viennese locker room and that drastically changed his life and career were spoken by Vlasov to hundreds of boys who were starting to go in for weightlifting. Do not be shy, do not spare yourself in training, do not be afraid of big names - all this was the alphabet of any sports profession. Although Vlasov remembered a thin and lanky teenager, whom his friend, the Austrian weightlifter Heltke, asked to be mentally “pumped up” and supported in sports, for a long time he could not connect the image of this young man with the world famous bodybuilder.

The owner of the most beautiful and impressive muscles in the world took off his leather jacket and offered Yuri Vlasov a playful arm wrestling competition.

The muscle ball, rolling out from under the short sleeve of Schwarzenegger's shirt, caused a deep sigh of admiration in the women's half of the gym. Yuri Petrovich, taking off his jacket, supported the idea of a duel solely for the sake of creating a historical photograph. My photo briefing by the renowned weightlifter in the dark corridor of the House of Pioneers was not wasted!

Then the girls-bodybuilders performed - with a demonstration program of training with a barbell and other heavy objects that turned out to be in the hall, after which everyone went to be photographed for memory.

The general photo of the members of the Athletics Club shows Terminator's steel arms wrapped around the inflated but fragile shoulders of young athletic models, who, probably, have retained in the memory of their muscles the idea of real masculine strength.

In parting, Arnold Schwarzenegger gave everyone his iron handshake.

The archive of the great weightlifter contains a photograph of Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1988 with an autograph: "Yuri Vlasov, my idol, with best wishes."

All witnesses to that visit of Schwarzenegger recall the amazing benevolence and tact of this giant. In the pioneer gym "Athletics" he tried out a couple of homemade exercise machines. Releasing the handle of the upper block, he said: "It's a very good machine!" And he explained that he did not just want to say something pleasant, but was completely sincere: in his youth in the provincial Austrian Thal, the sports equipment was worse. Only the Russian off-road terrain once infuriated the Terminator. Bumping his head against the roof of a car that had fallen into a hole in the road with a wheel, Arnold said in a low voice: "Yes, I will never come to this country again …"

And this is exactly what happened. In 1996, Schwarzenegger visited Moscow again, but “that country” had not existed for five years.

Arnold Schwarzenegger on Red Square in Moscow in 1996