'Field of Miracles' - 30 years: who invented the game, where did Yakubovich come from and why the show is still watched
'01.11.2020'
Source: Medusa
In October 1990, the game "Field of Miracles" appeared. For several years, the "capital show", inspired by the best American quizzes, has become a locomotive of television advertising, a symbol of entertainment air and - on the eve of the presidential elections in 1996 - the largest platform for political PR. In the XNUMXs, Field of Miracles ceased to be a progressive program. Since then, it looks more like a village fair: they basically do not guess the words, but sing, treat each other with homemade preparations and give gifts. Especially for "Jellyfish" journalist Alexander Morsin watched dozens of issues of "Field of Miracles" of different years, talked with its creators and participants - and told the incredible story of this game.
Most of the summer of 1960, 15-year-old Leonid Yakubovich spent on a scientific expedition in the Siberian taiga, sitting on one or another stump in shorts, tarpaulin boots and a wind jacket. Every morning he covered his left and right legs with different mosquito ointments to test their effectiveness. As soon as the gnat flew to Yakubovich, he entered in his diary the number of bites and the exact time of the insect attack. The results of the experiments were sent to Moscow, to the Central Institute of Epidemiology, engaged in the development of new repellents, including for reindeer herders.
“There is a stopwatch in your left hand, a notebook in your right, you sit down and write for six to seven hours,” the host of the Field of Miracles recalled that expedition 35 years later. By that time, Yakubovich was already known to millions of TV viewers, and he himself was accustomed to grueling recordings of the show, to which residents of the most remote corners of the country still flock to Moscow. Including reindeer herders.
CHAPTER 1. Leaves at the drum
“Field of Miracles is a game for everyone. For schoolchildren and academics, housewives and even parliamentarians. Anyone who knows Russian can become a participant in it, ”a voiceover presented a new Soviet TV quiz show in October 1990. The whole country knew the man who appeared in the frame - it was the presenter Vladislav Listyev. For the past three years, he has been the star of perestroika television along with other members of Vzglyad, a program that debated social issues and included protest rock.
In the spring of 1990, Vladyka's members went to France to film a special live broadcast. In a Parisian hotel, Listyev was shown a program, the participants of which alternately turned a multi-colored wheel, divided into sectors, and received money for correctly guessed letters. The head of "Vzglyad" Anatoly Lysenko invited Listyev to write down the main elements of the show on paper, since he himself "did not understand any belmes in French." A hastily drawn up summary contained the principle of the game, prizes, decorations and the image of the presenter, Lysenko recalled.
The program was called The Wheel of Fortune. It was a local adaptation of the American game Wheel of Fortune, invented back in the 1970s. The French "Wheel" was shown for only three years, but like in other countries licensed for the show, it became a national hit. Lysenko suggested Listyev to transfer the program to the domestic broadcast. Six months later, a quiz with a drum appeared on Soviet television. Later, the former head of Vzglyad Lysenko admitted: “Everything we did, we always stole, but in a special way”.
This story about a Parisian hotel formed the basis of the most widespread version of the appearance of the "Field of Miracles". Its retelling is found in most articles, programs and documentaries dedicated to the game, including those released by order of Channel One. But it seems that everything was different.
Paris and Moscow versions
Lysenko announced that the show was "stolen" after Listyev's death in 1995. Later, the details of the transformation of "Wheel of Fortune" into "Field of Miracles" were included in a series of "Vzglyad" books by the journalist and one of the correspondents of "Vzglyad" Evgeny Dodolev - in particular, in the publication "Vlad Listyev. A field of miracles in the land of fools, ”and again, according to Lysenko. Listyev himself did not talk about the trip to France in any of his interviews or public statements.
According to an alternative version, the idea of a new game show based on the "Wheel of Fortune" format was suggested to Listyev by an acquaintance who had recently returned to Moscow from Australia. In March 2020, this was confirmed by the widow of Listyev, Albina Nazimova, in the film of the YouTube project "Editorial Office" by Alexey Pivovarov. “By the time the Field of Miracles appeared, we knew nothing about the Wheel of Fortune,” says Nazimova. “We had comrade Alexei Murmulev, who, sitting in a cooperative Georgian cafe, said that there is such a game program, there is a drum and how it looks approximately”. There is no commentary by Murmulev in the film "Editorials".
Despite the fact that the name of Alexei Murmulev came second after Listyev in the credits of each issue of "Field of Miracles" for several years, almost nothing is known about his role in creating the program. In open sources, he is called the producer of entertainment shows "As easy as shelling pears", "Fear Factor", "Culinary duel" and others. The meeting described by Nazimova is not mentioned in the memoirs of Yevgeny Dodolev and Anatoly Lysenko.
Meduza tracked down Murmulev and compared the “Parisian” and “Moscow” versions.
Rebus crossword
In the summer of 1990, the small enterprise Vzglyad, owned by the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, became the independent television company VID (Vzglyad and Others), the first private structure in Ostankino. The backbone of the star team actually disintegrated, and each of its members took up their own projects for the new TV season. According to Listyev's recollections, Vladimir Mukusev was supposed to do the Man of the Year program, Dmitry Zakharov was going to lead the Vedi historical program, and Alexander Lyubimov supervised Vzglyad and negotiated the launch of MTV in Russia. Listyev was instructed to create a "quiz-type entertainment program."
Listyev's entourage knew that he was in search of ideas and recommended people who could help. On the advice of the actor and showman Igor Ugolnikov, Alexey Murmulev, a young diplomat-orientalist who had an internship in Vietnam and lived for a year after that in Australia, became one of Listyev's “consultants”. As a student, Murmulev participated in the recording of several issues of "Morning Mail" and "Merry Children" - advanced youth programs that began to experiment with form earlier than others. In Australia, Murmulev collaborated with one of the Sydney channels.
“I asked: 'What kind of game does Vlad want?' Ugolnikov replied that so far no one knows, but something in the form of a crossword puzzle that needs to be solved like a rebus,” Murmulev tells Meduza. Listyev was interested in how popular foreign television projects look like - he did not want to do it "in the Soviet way".
“I have compiled a shortlist of four to five American and Australian programs that could be useful to us,” says Murmulev. - There was Wheel of Fortune, The Price is Right, Letʼs Make a Deal. Absolutely consumerist programs with prizes-goods, where everything was based on the host's charisma and the will of chance. You could become the owner of a car for a penny, and buy a kitchen brush for a lot of money. There was a quiz show called The Pyramid. I understood that there was no need to come up with a fundamentally new and even less a rebus-crossword puzzle. The most optimal thing was to take the best moments from the top shows and put them together. "
Murmulev knows about the "Parisian version" of the appearance of the "Field of Miracles", but Lysenko is not sure of the decisive role. “The Wheel of Fortune is not a secret. Everyone knew about him, although at that time very few people saw. Lysenko often traveled abroad and could see the Wheel in France, but before we met this format had not been put into Vlad's head, "Murmulev tells Meduza.
According to him, if Lysenko wanted to realize his idea as a co-author, he would have done it. However, this did not happen: from 1990 to 1992, when Murmulev worked at Pole, he never saw Lysenko either on the set or during the editing. At the end of 1990 Lysenko left Vzglyad and became the head of VGTRK.
Brainstorming in Murmulev's apartment
In addition to Listyev, his wife Albina Nazimova and Alexei Murmulev, Igor Ugolnikov and director Mikhail Lakshin participated in the discussion of a new project in a cafe on Petrovsky Boulevard. Murmulev recalls that he explained the rules on his fingers and drew diagrams on his knee: "We started at seven in the evening, by midnight we were asked to leave, and we went to my house."
The brainstorming session lasted until late at night. By the morning the skeleton of the future program was ready: they took the drum and guessing words from the Wheel of Fortune, and the black box from The Price is Right. “Wheels were not invented, neither did the bicycle. We watched a lot of programs, mostly not me, - Listyev said in an interview. “I saw the very same Wheel of Fortune when Field of Miracles had been on the air for two years already.”
On the same night, the program had a name (they did not want to call it “Wheel of Fortune” for reasons of precaution). “We walked from time to time. I wanted something luxurious, foreign. What did you dream about in the late Soviet Union? Money, wealth, winning the lottery, - continues Murmulev. - The first option that suited everyone was Capital. Boldly, freshly, and Marx was pricked. And then, as usual, they started talking about the country, like everything is foolish. " Igor Ugolnikov also recalled this moment in Ksenia Sobchak's film about Listyev: “I shouted 'Field of miracles in the land of fools!' We bury gold coins! Vlad said: “Field of miracles! And then keep silent "".
The next day, a prototype of a drum with sectors appeared in Murmulev's apartment. “I personally sat with a compass and a ruler, I drew a circle myself,” Murmulev tells Meduza. The first decorations continued the motives of "The Adventures of Pinocchio", where the wasteland with rubbish was called the Field of Miracles. “We collected old washing machines, century-old televisions, all the trash from the warehouse. They painted it in approximately the same color and put it on the back, ”said Tatiana Dyuzhikova, the sound engineer of the program, in an interview. The “black box” was the accordion case found at the dump.
According to the Kommersant newspaper, VID tried to reach out to representatives of King Bros., which owns the rights to Wheel of Fortune, and discuss the purchase of a licensed model of the show. "However, the owners of" Wheel of Fortune "were of little interest in the Russian TV market," the newspaper noted in 1995.
How the Indians exchanged gold for glass beads
Listyev did not see himself as the host of the new show, insisting that he was engaged in it as a producer - he persuaded Igor Ugolnikov to stand behind the drum. He refused, accepting the offer of VID's competitor, the television company "Author's Television", which promised complete creative freedom to create "any" program. Sketch show "Oba-na!" Ugolnikova came out almost simultaneously with "Field of Miracles" and became, perhaps, the most crazy project in the entertainment broadcasting niche. “Vlad took offense and began to conduct the program himself,” Sobchak summed up Ugolnikov in an interview.
Taking the place of the presenter out of despair, Listyev agreed with the VID company that within a year he "puts the transmission on its feet and leaves." In addition, he remained one of the hosts of Vzglyad, so he had to appear on the screen in Friday prime time twice: before the evening news in the Field of Miracles and after in Vzglyad. “He considered himself a journalist, not a showman,” Murmulev says. “He didn't know he was perfect for this type of quiz. He had a formed television charisma - calm, confident, intelligent. For a Western show, this is a classic look. "
The power of this image came in handy in another. Perhaps the main problem of the "capital show" "Field of Miracles", which Listyev had to solve personally, was the search for sponsors willing to provide prizes for the players. “I had to go to businessmen and persuade them to give prizes for no one knows what. In fact, they gave for me, because they trusted to some extent, ”he explained in 1992. To play the car already in the first issue, Listyev himself went to Togliatti to AvtoVAZ.
The largest first sponsors of the Fields of Miracles were American companies B&D and Coca-Cola and Latvian perfumery manufacturers Dzintars. “We just prayed for them. Coca-Cola in exchange for advertising gave their refrigerators for drinks, T-shirts, caps, jumpers - and we were happy. It's Coca-Cola! - says Murmulev laughing. - Nobody thought that it was worth a penny. Remember the stories of how the Indians exchanged gold for glass beads? This is about us. "
Absolute fun
Today, according to the rules of the game, the host asks the players a question, the answer to which is hidden by the signs on the scoreboard. Participants take turns calling letters, spinning the drum and trying to guess the word. But this was not always the case: in the first issues of "Field of Miracles" there was simply no presenter's assignment, the participants opened the tablets at random, without any leading questions - and tried to guess the word only by letters. This distinguished the game from other quiz shows, where the leader was usually a person with a broad outlook, good memory and reaction.
So, on the one hand, "Field of Miracles" equalized the chances of each participant to win, on the other hand, it did not try to engage in education and intellectual development of the audience, as in "What? Where? When?" and "Brain-ring". Murmulev recalls that they wanted to add an element of randomness to the Soviet quiz: “You can be very smart, but you are unlucky - you know the word, and the result is 'transition.' Pure lottery ".
Later, the presenter's tasks appeared in the game. The words that tens of millions of people guessed every week were chosen by the graduate of the philology department Natalya Chistyakova. Before becoming the permanent editor of the quiz, a girl with encyclopedic knowledge was an assistant to the presenter: her duties included opening letters on the scoreboard and giving out prizes.
The very first participants in the "Field of Miracles" learned about the filming of the new program from the episodes of "Vzglyad". To get behind the drum, applicants had to send to Ostankino a crossword puzzle they had compiled, their photograph and a story about themselves. Plagiarism, it was stipulated in the announcement, will not work: all unscrupulous authors were waiting for "exposure" (according to Murmulev, in fact, they did not have any opportunity to check all these applications - they just wanted to alert the viewer).
“Somehow I couldn't sleep, there was nothing to do, and I drew a small crossword puzzle,” recalls Valery Kovrizhin, a participant in the first edition from Tomsk, in a conversation with Meduza. - I sent it, went on a business trip, and then suddenly a telegram that I passed the competitive selection, asking to confirm my participation. I agreed and flew. "
However, in "Ostankino" they were not ready for the appearance of the players: no one had booked rooms in the hotel at the television center, the date of filming was constantly shifting. "Leaves fidgeted," says Kovrizhin. He himself, three days before the recording of the first program in September 1990, stayed with relatives.
Elena Sukhanova, a participant from Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), was mistakenly sold a ticket not to Moscow, but back. Remembering that the creators of the game promised to compensate the travel expenses in a telegram, she bought another ticket. However, nothing was returned to her either before or after the recording of the program. Appeals to the accounting department of the VID company did not help. “Apparently, someone took advantage of this,” Sukhanova complained to Meduza.
The authors of crosswords from Yerevan, Leningrad and Odessa also received an invitation to the first game. Alexey Murmulev himself brought two participants from Moscow to the recording.
He also suggested to Listyev to invite a special person to shoot, on whom, as the experience of Western shows showed, the mood of the audience in the studio depends: in front of the "Motor!" he was supposed to cheer up the audience. Listyev turned to a familiar entertainer, and he "coped brilliantly in 15 minutes." In the following episodes, Listyev was engaged in "swinging" the hall himself.
Pole Miracles was the first Russian show where the audience was prepared for the air. Another innovation of "Fields" is shooting several issues in a row, "in batch". This is what allowed The Field of Miracles to become the first weekly TV quiz show in the country - before it, entertainment programs like What? Where? When?" or "Morning Mail" were published no more than once a month.
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An awkward silence over the drum
The day before the recording, Listyev and Murmulev rehearsed the first release with participants and spectators. “Someone was drumming up the drum in the studio at that time, everything was done at the last minute,” show participant Yelena Sukhanova told Meduza. The rehearsals were supposed to liberate the players and the presenter, but hopes were not justified: the first episodes consisted of half awkward pauses and gazes at the scoreboard. While the drum was spinning, nothing happened: the players did not say hello, did not give gifts to the presenter, and did not demonstrate their talents.
Leaves could be distracted, forget the word and leave the frame to spy on the scoreboard. “He felt embarrassed, he was tense,” assures Kovrizhin. Once Listyev got dirty on the sweater in which he had come to record, and the program editor Valentina Pimanova urgently ran to wash it. According to colleagues, in those days the host of the “capital show”, where scarce goods were given for the right word, did not even have “good beautiful shoes”.
Listyev's project was in doubt. “I don’t know why we fell in love with this program. Honestly, I can't imagine, - he was surprised in an interview. - No studio, I am in some kind of sweater completely numb, crazy home-made scoreboard. Horror, country club. "
Nevertheless, viewers were able to estimate the intensity of the game already from the first release. Valery Kovrizhin, a 41-year-old doctor from Tomsk, refused the money in favor of an unknown prize in a "black box". “I couldn't take money, that is, buy myself and disgrace the whole country. Mercantile spirit, all these money matters are not our upbringing, ”he explains to Meduza. "Although the family did not understand me." Listyev's last rate was three thousand rubles, which were brought to the studio, which was three times the size of Kovrizhin's six-month salary. And the prize was a children's soft toy. “Here it is, kept as a keepsake,” says the owner of the plush dog and waves it at his webcam during an interview with Meduza.
Another soft toy became the first gift to the host of the "Field of Miracles" - the world's only museum of gifts to a TV program starts counting from it. Listyev received pennants of factory workers, badges of pioneer camps and peasant bast shoes - for 30 years this stream of people's love and gratitude has not dried up.
Sometimes the players didn't pick up their gifts. “Once we were playing a yacht or sailing boat, but the winner could not take it. The sailboat stood in the technical corridor, and I remember how it was shrinking before our eyes, - says Murmulev. - First they removed the lights, then the trailer on which it stood, then something else was missing. And the player simply did not know what to do with the yacht. He is an ordinary city dweller, there is no summer residence, he does not like to swim - where is she to him? "
Leaves leaves the show
Simultaneously with his work in the "Field of Miracles" Listyev remained a correspondent and presenter of "Vzglyad". Sometimes the mind of the showman and the mind of the journalist fused in a strange way. For example, to a player's on-call performance like “Vladimir Tolkachev, 40 years old, an architect from Omsk”, Listyev could add: “Supporter of radical changes in economics and politics”. He asked the players where they were during the August putsch and what they wrote in letters of support to Boris Yeltsin.
In the fall of 1991, Listyev announced his departure from the "Field of Miracles" and the search for a new presenter. Preference was given to girls "to play on the antipode." A competition started in the program, in which anyone could take part - he invited the best Leaves on the air and left them alone with the public at the end of several episodes. The audience was supposed to name the "successor", but it never came to the promised vote: Listyev was not satisfied with any of the candidates.
Alexey Murmulev also received an offer. He refused, remembering the man who had already warmed up the audience at the Fields of Miracles studio. The future CEO of Channel One, Konstantin Ernst, also knew him. In the late 1980s, Ernst filmed a plot for the program "Vzglyad", in which a man was caught washing a sign with the name of "his" street in Leningrad. It was Yakubovich Street.
CHAPTER 2. The same entertainer
Vlad Listyev met Leonid Yakubovich at the house of the famous artist and presenter Andrey Dneprov in the late 1980s. There, according to the recollections of the viewers, a heavily drunk Listyev once tried to throw himself out the window. “We grabbed him at the last moment and pulled him out,” said Alexander Lyubimov.
In 1991, Listyev, who had already given up alcohol, suggested that Yakubovich take his place at the drum. Even during the launch of the program, he was skeptical about it: "How is it - after" Look "some kind of wheel?" Yes, and at first I did not believe the proposal: “It seemed that Vlad was crazy,” he wondered. He remembered that the first hidden word in the history of the program in October 1990 was the word "joke" - and waited for a catch.
By that time, the professional experience of 45-year-old Yakubovich seemed exotic even to the guests of the bohemian house of Dneprov. At various times, Yakubovich worked as a turner at an aircraft plant, a screenwriter, a host of auctions and beauty contests. The humorist Vladimir Vinokur began with his monologues; Yakubovich “bombed” for two years after work and took the waiters home from the neighboring pub; for nine years he played in the old KVN; finally, a base of mosquito ointments was tested on it. Perhaps this is the only person in the history of television who got into the Friday prime time of the country's most popular channel without any experience on the screen.
According to Murmulev, Listyev did not immediately agree to make Yakubovich the host. A one-time swing in the audience is not the same as a multi-hour recording of several issues of Fields. But who else could have raised the bids for the black box as skillfully as the auctioneer? Who better than a scriptwriter could predict the course of the game two steps ahead? Who looks organically in a company with assistant models, if not a presenter of beauty contests? “The case with Yakubovich is, in my opinion, one of the most striking television discoveries. Well, at the beginning we didn't understand Vlad's decision. Then he said: “I answer,” admitted Ivan Demidov, director of the pilot episode of Fields of Miracles and host of Muzoboz.
“When he entered somewhere, everyone understood that there was a star nearby. He knew exactly how to draw attention to himself, ”one of the program's former employees tells Meduza. - Plus efficiency. Shooting a "package" is unbearable for the whole team, but the person who stands under the lamps and sees the spinning drum is the most difficult of all. At the same time, I do not remember a single breakdown. "
Yakubovich remembers. This happened after the recording of the first episodes. According to him, due to the tension and fear of doing something wrong, he "shouted madly into the microphone," after which he decided that "television is not his." “I looked at this man with caution. He was too scrupulous and fussy, ”recalled the line producer of“ Field of Miracles ”Karen Abrahamyan. - In the first six months we had serious conflicts. He didn't like how we work according to Vlad's old scheme. " Karen Abrahamyan refused to talk to Meduza.
Yakubovich often repeated in interviews that since his arrival in the studio there is “no more television”: since 1991, neither the director nor the producer have intervened in the course of the game for the sake of “a better picture”. “I am working and you are filming. Exactly how it does not concern me, I will find out during the editing ”, - the presenter explained the distribution of roles at the site.
Another fundamental difference of the new "Field", according to Yakubovich, was communication: the focus of the game shifted from the mechanical guessing of words to conversations with the participants. “This should be a program not about what they play, but about those who play,” the presenter defended his vision. "Then it's a completely different story, not a TV spinner."
Endless commercial break
To become the most popular program in the CIS, which is regularly watched by two-thirds of all TV viewers, the Field of Miracles took less than two years. It takes less than six months to become the show with the most expensive advertising on Russian television.
“If for the first editions Vlad went to the sponsors, then two or three months later they came themselves. We weren't looking for anyone else, we were just choosing who would offer more, ”Alexei Dronov, first director of the program, told Meduza. According to him, advertising was everywhere: under the word on the scoreboard, in the screen saver of the program, on the drum sectors, on the sides in front of the audience - like in hockey. On the air of one of the programs, Listyev asked his assistant: "Natasha, where did you get your hair done so wonderfully?" - "At the hairdresser." “Well, I understand that I’m not at home. Which one? " - "In" Zhen-Shen "". - "Oh, this is a good hairdresser."
The cost of this advertisement depended on the dollar exchange rate and was constantly changing. “We understood that Western sponsors came to us and for them one hundred dollars is one hundred dollars, just currency, not a panacea [for inflation],” continues Dronov. - We watched the ruble fall and added 15–20% [to the rate]. The result was the price per minute of advertising. It seems to me that then everyone sculpted prices in a way. " However, the most spectacular advertising at first was at the Russian financial pyramids: Hoper-Invest bought out a giant banner, MMM raffled off gold bars in its sector, and then Ferrari cars.
By the mid-1990s, the "commercial break", turned into a meme by Yakubovich, was the most popular platform for advertisers. Only other projects of the VID company could compete with it: "Muzoboz", "Tema" (it was initially led by Listyev) and "Star Hour". According to Karen Abrahamyan, the line producer of The Field of Miracles, the audience of their program by that time in the CIS reached 200 million viewers.
“As the head of the VID TV company, my official salary is one million rubles. But, believe me, this is very little money for such a super-expensive city like Moscow, ”Listyev admitted in an interview in 1993.
CHAPTER 3. The most offensive defeat in the history of the "Field of Miracles"
The hundredth edition of "Field of Miracles" took place in the circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard and fully corresponded to the spirit of the place. Artists and clowns entered the arena, Yakubovich flew under the dome, kissed the chimpanzee and rolled head over heels down the stairs to the music of a live orchestra.
In this issue, Listyev thanked his colleague for "picking up the banner that almost fell out of his hands." “If Cyril and Methodius just invented Russian letters, then Listyev and Yakubovich taught the people how to get Japanese equipment with their help,” the “Odessa gentlemen” joked during the break.
The winner of the program, a geography teacher from Magadan, Pyotr Kapustin, tried to win a super prize - a red foreign car (having made a circle around the arena, the Volvo-850 stopped three meters from the player). The host's last assignment: "What is another name for the water sparrow?" The man guessed the first three letters and was ready to name the word. Yakubovich asked not to rush. “Complete silence in the circus! Exactly one minute, ”he repeated several times. - I asked for complete silence! Absolute silence! " Looking around, Kapustin made it clear to the public that he did not need any tips. "Minute!" - said Yakubovich. Finally, the long-awaited and correct answer was: "Olyapka".
However, while Kapustin was silent, someone in the audience had already shouted this word. Yakubovich banged the drum with his fist: “Stop! Stand up! Who said that?! - the presenter exploded. "You have deprived a man of his car!"
After replacing the task, Kapustin gave the wrong answer and was left with nothing. The red Volvo has gone backstage.
“I didn’t experience tragedy, but when Moscow businessmen said that '12 lemons fell off,' I began to think about the loss,” Kapustin admitted to local television.
After returning from the recording of the game to Magadan, Kapustin became a national hero - the whole city rose to defend his fellow countryman. “Madness began, it was our Maidan,” says the player’s daughter Polina in an interview with Meduza. - Collective letters from factory workers, teachers and doctors were sent to Pole Miracles. They wrote to my father from all over the country, the envelopes bore 'Magadan, Kapustin.'
The local press came out with the headlines "Our Man in the Field of Miracles" and talked about "a beggar school teacher who was publicly robbed and humiliated by the light of Jupiters." The authors called for a boycott of the TV show and accused its creators of collusion with the Musa Motors car dealership - the game's sponsor. Nobody doubted that “the hint” was suggested. The audience was embarrassed by the presenter's demand to wait for a pause and the theatrical escalation of the situation. Kapustin's acquaintances assured that Yakubovich needed "absolute silence" for everyone to hear the cry.
“We don't play such games. It was the purest ridiculous incident, "Karen Abrahamyan, who was then the deputy director of the program, commented on the reproaches. According to Yakubovich, this was "the most offensive defeat in the history of the Field of Miracles."
“The guy was very nice. Smart, honest, everyone liked him, but the whole audience heard the hint. A Musa Motors representative was behind the scenes and insisted that we return the car. Yakubovich was in favor, and so was I. He really deserved it, - recalls the first director of "Field" Aleksey Dronov - Vlad was against it. He said: “We are not givers, but a quiz show. Give another task: if we win, we give it back. " He was very tough in this regard - there are rules, you have to act according to them. "
At home, Kapustin discovered that the household appliances won in the circus turned out to be defective. This finally undermined the confidence of local residents and became the reason for new appeals to Ostankino.
A week later, the story about the teacher and the dipper reached the central newspapers. “In an instant, your program could become what it will never become now: the standard of the highest justice,” wrote the journalist of Komsomolskaya Pravda Vladimir Mamontov. In the wake of the protests, the Magadan TV company decided to launch its own quiz “Lucky Constellation”. Its first participant was to be Pyotr Kapustin.
Meanwhile, Moscow came up with the idea of giving Kapustin a consolation prize from a sponsor. The postscript with the awarding ceremony had to be completed with the participation of the hero; he was again called to Ostankino “to receive a prize for winning the anniversary game“ Field of Miracles ””. “The program will cover the costs of the ticket and accommodation,” the telegram said (available to Meduza). Kapustin traveled from Magadan to Moscow for the second time, believing that the “prize” was the Volvo that the whole country was talking about.
On the first ever filming program, recorded two weeks after the events in the circus, the man received three bottles of wine instead of a car. The "circus" episode went on air with the finished final, in which the Magadan man receives his consolation prize. In the same fragment, after Kapustin was awarded, the sponsor invited the Pole Miracles TV show to record a Christmas special in Barcelona. Kapustin was reimbursed for the cost of a second trip to Moscow - and was offered to take part in the Spanish crossword competition in order to take part in the Barcelona edition. Kapustin tried it, but he didn't win the trip to Barcelona.
After the second trip to Moscow in Magadan, Kapustin was asked: "So you have a car?" “No — not even a washing one,” he replied.
“None of the players felt real human attention from the organizers. During the game, no one shook hands with us, we were left to fend for themselves with our prizes, ”he said. "They just need us there as a background for showing commercials."
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After Vlad
In 1995 Leonid Yakubovich received the TEFI award in the nomination "Best Host of an Entertainment Program". In the ORT screensaver - a kind of gallery of the channel's top officials - Yakubovich went after KVN host Alexander Maslyakov and announcer Igor Kirillov, television legends who had been working on TV since the 1960s.
The newspaper "Argumenty i Fakty" called "Field of Miracles" "a guaranteed living wage - not bread, but spectacular." The TV game now has a newspaper, desktop and virtual version; the show was parodied and filmed more than once. “Leni [Yakubovich] had unreal fame then. This is absolutely his project, he felt very good in it, - says the first director of the program Alexey Dronov. - It seems to me that thanks to Vlad, he pulled out a golden lottery ticket. According to Konstantin Ernst, Listyev believed that Yakubovich surpassed him as a presenter, and attributed the success of the successor to his production successes.
By that time, Yakubovich himself had already hinted for several years and openly declared that he was ready to leave the project - "one might say, retire." On April 1, 1994, a "farewell release" of the program was even released, furnished as a collection of rumors and tales about Yakubovich - one of these rumors was his imminent departure from "Field". Vladislav Listyev was jokingly named the new host of the quiz.
On the air of the program "Sharks of the Pen" in 1996, young journalists accused Yakubovich of star fever and "contempt for the audience." "Are these crazy newspaper ratings, astronomical fees, endless gifts, the possibility of super-prestigious vacations, exotic hobbies and other things much more expensive for you than the self-esteem that you trample on the TV screen every minute?" - asked one of the participants of the "Pen Sharks". “Well, what should I answer to such a statement? - said Yakubovich. "I won't do anything."
Most often, the presenter's poorly concealed irritation became the reason for criticism. Yakubovich could ridicule the excitement of a player from the provinces, ask a resident of Chernobyl about "lead cowards" and support the unemployed single mother who fell under the layoff with the words: “You were cut right. You are bankrupt - [like] your factory. " Awkward moments also arose in conversations with the children and grandchildren of the players. “Do you have a VCR? Have you seen the [erotic film] Emmanuelle? " - Yakubovich asked the teenager in one of the issues. Leonid Yakubovich declined to comment on Meduza.
The creators of the show explained Yakubovich's ambiguous reactions by fatigue - from dressing up in the frame and graphomaniac poems, as well as from homemade pickles, endlessly transferred to the Museum of Fields of Miracles. “If this were so, then both the program and my rating would slide lower and lower. And the program is just getting up, ”retorted the host in the same“ Sharks of the Pen ”.
Our days
In 2009, the thousandth issue of "Field of Miracles" was released. The drum was covered with gifts and treats, as if it were a huge table in the middle of an agricultural fair. Since then, he looks like this almost always. A couple of years later, Leonid Yakubovich celebrated his 20th anniversary as the host of the Field of Miracles, about which he later wrote in one of his poems: “It’s even strange to look. But it is so given by fate, for 20 years I have been standing at the drum, like a sentry's mausoleum. "
The first director of Fields, Elena Kharchevnikova, tells Meduza: “When I was at the recording of the 25th anniversary edition, I realized that this was a completely different product, not what we were doing. We filmed a quiz with elements of a show, now it's a show with elements of a quiz. But it was done well - and the viewer loves it. "
In 2015, Channel One presented the first summary statistics for Fields of Miracles in the entire history of the program. Players from 43 countries took part in it, who sent 7800 greetings and guessed 5700 words. During the filming, three drums were changed, the audience watched 3900 commercial breaks, and the participants won 110 cars and 20 apartments. Yakubovich received two tons of pickles and XNUMX liters of alcohol as a gift.
In the summer of 2020, Yakubovich called himself a "hostage of the image" and complained that the stereotypes of the public interfere with his "stage existence." However, he is not going to leave the program. “If I wanted to quit, I would quit,” he said in an interview with RTVi.
“Basically, there is only one person who can recommend me to change something or do something differently. One, - says Yakubovich and pulls his index finger up. - And it's 30 years old. Ernst ".
