Looking for Snegurochka, He Found a Corpse: A Yakutsk Father Frost's Wild Stories

Former actor of the Alexander Pushkin Russian Theater Vladimir Gonoshenko has been transforming into the main symbol of the New Year — Father Frost — for more than 20 years. He visits people in a red robe and with a «cotton wool beard» to delight both children and adults. But sometimes such visits end in embarrassment for him. Vladimir told 14.RU about the most trashy incidents that have happened to him on the eve of the New Year.

In his own words.

«Everything Around Was Drenched in Her Blood»

I was at one of Yakutsk«s drinking establishments that had invited me to congratulate their clients. I was supposed to go around the VIP booths — and there were many — people were already pretty drunk. The establishment gave me the task: congratulate everyone, take photos, and leave. And so the photo process had already begun, all the guests gathered around me, when one lady — very drunk, the most active one — decided to stand on a chair behind me.

Well, she started clambering onto it and fell flat. She fell directly with her front teeth onto the edge of the tabletop. And as she fell, with her hands or something else she knocked down the plasma screen that was hanging behind her. The plasma screen was also smashed to pieces. I«m in shock, people are in shock, the lady»s teeth are all knocked out, everything around is drenched in her blood, fortunately, I wasn«t hit. And then immediately the girl»s aggression, most importantly, is directed at me, Father Frost. It turns out, I«m to blame for everything — I broke that plasma screen, and I»ll also pay for her teeth to be fixed. But then security arrived, reviewed the surveillance camera footage, and, of course, the situation was resolved.

«Out of the Corner of My Eye, I Notice a Corpse»

I recalled another rather creepy, trashy, downright extreme story. It was more than ten years ago, when I still had a Snow Maiden.

The Snow Maiden and I accept an order and for some reason, I can«t even remember why now, we confuse the apartment. We stand, knock, it turns out we»re already on the wrong route. We don«t know yet that we»re going to the wrong place. And it just so happens that an adult and his child live there, with the same names as the client. Well, let«s say, the parent Alexander opens the door, and there»s a child there, Tanyusha.

But the apartment is in complete chaos. It«s just a total den. Not a den, but a super-den. And this poor child is wandering around in there. The Christmas tree, of course, is not decorated. But the names match, the address too, we think.

They immediately go: «Oh, Father Frost!», back and forth, everyone in a drunken stupor. We perform the program. And I, while leading the round dance, near the exit to the balcony, out of the corner of my eye, observe something rolled up either in a carpet or linoleum... the corpse of an elderly person. Can you imagine, it«s bitterly cold outside, he»s frozen, already all of that corpse-like color. Well, I«m sort of calming myself down, thinking maybe it»s some wax figure or something from Halloween. The Snow Maiden assured me I was hallucinating.

When we were leaving, we asked to be paid for the order. And then it became clear we had come to the wrong place. The names had just coincided. And I would have forgotten this story, would have believed it was my imagination, a hallucination. But literally two or three days later, in the Friday issue of the newspaper «Yakutsk Vecherniy» («Evening Yakutsk»), I read that on Kirov Street, in this building where we were, the head of the family had discovered the corpse of his elderly father on the balcony.

I don«t know who saw it all, how, under what circumstances it was reported to the police. The fact is that the father — a drinking buddy — died, I don»t know the cause of death, but the son rolled him up in a carpet and put him on the balcony «until better times,» accordingly, didn«t report it anywhere. That was such a creepy story.

They Didn«t Want to Ruin the Child»s Holiday

Once, the Snow Maiden and I were ordered for a home visit, and there was a very cramped one-room apartment, all cluttered with furniture. We somehow, in a small patch of free territory, try to lead a round dance — me, the Snow Maiden, the child, and the mom. It wasn«t even a round dance — we were just shuffling in one spot. And I, either with my staff or my costume, snagged a blanket, I»m walking-walking-walking and dragging it off. And under this blanket, can you imagine, lies a paralyzed grandmother.

My first thought was that she was completely dead, because she was lying with her eyes closed. I immediately remembered that balcony. The grandmother turned out to be paralyzed. Apparently, they covered her up, thinking she would go unnoticed. That«s how much they didn»t want to ruin the child«s holiday, but to do something New Year»s, that they hid the grandmother. And then such an awkward moment.

I, of course, didn«t bat an eye, the woman immediately corrected this awkward situation: covered the grandmother up again. But nevertheless, I got scared then, a reevaluation of values occurred: what is life, death, and so on. Such thoughts ran through my head.

«I Don»t Know a Damn Thing, Grandpa«

Once I worked for an advertising agency, and before the New Year we took on the obligation to visit several addresses on behalf of the city administration and congratulate children from troubled families.

And so we arrive at one of the addresses, knock, no one opens. Then the mother came to the door and hit us with a torrent of the most colorful swearing: «Who are you? What Father Frost?! Who?! What?!» We understand this is a troubled family, so we patiently ask, where is such-and-such boy.

The woman finally gave up, tired of swearing, apparently, and says: «He»s at work.« We didn»t understand: «What work?» «At the Housing Maintenance Office,» she says. Okay, we arrive, ask about the boy, and they tell us he went out to an accident. We«re perplexed: what accident, we»re talking about a kid! But we go, in short, to the address of this accident, arrive, and see our boy. It turns out he was working as a welder without documents. Can you imagine? And he was fixing a man-made disaster — a leak somewhere, pipes had burst.

We look, it«s definitely our 14-year-old kid, tall, lanky, you can see from his eyes, from his gaze, that life has already taught him. I go up to him with a gift, smiling, say: »Recite a little poem for me!« The kid says he doesn»t know any poems. And I again: «Well, grandson, tell your grandpa something at least!» He switched into tough-guy mode, looks at me and answers: «I don»t know a damn thing, grandpa.« That phrase of his stayed with me for life.

Later, many years later, when I was trying to find myself a Snow Maiden, a girl responded to one of the ads. We agreed that I would come to her house to talk, discuss the work plan. I came, knocked on the door, and that very boy, who many years ago worked as a very young kid on the heating mains, opens the door for me. Of course, I didn«t tell him anything — under what circumstances we had met before — but I noted to myself that the kid had grown up, and everything was good for him now: he became the head of a family, he has a car, his own home, and a beloved wife.

Night-time Snow Maidens

Also, when I was composing an ad to find a Snow Maiden, something else happened. I composed it correctly, didn«t add a single extra word: »Father Frost is looking for a Snow Maiden for work during pre-holiday and holiday days, pay by agreement, irregular schedule,« and so on.

Immediately, calls and messages from girls with strange questions poured in. At first, I didn«t understand what they wanted from me. The realization came when I asked one of them to send a photo — well, I needed to visually understand if the girl was suitable for the role of Snow Maiden or not. And that»s when they started sending me photos... And these were far from just «nude-style»! But completely naked, and they were such... indecent ones.

It turned out, as I understood later, night butterflies, prostitutes to put it simply, were responding to my ad. Can you imagine? They thought it was an ad recruiting women of easy virtue. And there were so-o-o-o many of them! That is, of potential Snow Maidens, maybe one or two per hundred responded. Even fewer.

All the rest were overwhelmingly prostitutes. That«s when I realized what was what, and who had been bothering me with calls all this time. I just wanted to find a Snow Maiden and work for the New Year, and it turned out like this.

Since then, Vladimir Gonoshenko has worked as Father Frost without a Snow Maiden. But even alone, he doesn«t lack orders, and in his profession, he is considered the best in Yakutsk, he is called just that — the Chief Father Frost of the city. Vladimir admitted in an interview with 14.RU that perhaps someday he will publish memoirs in which he will tell about all his adventures over more than 20 years of work.