Humorous duet "Tarapunka and Plug" - stars of the Soviet stage

Artists Yefim Berezin and Yury Timoshenko are a duet that was familiar to every Soviet citizen. Even during the Great Patriotic War, they performed in the images of a bathhouse attendant Mochalkina (played by Tymoshenko) and a cook named Galkin (performed by Berezin). When the war ended, they created new images for themselves: Berezin became a fitter, Shtepsel, and Tymoshenko became an amusing policeman Tarapunka. Paired entertainer grew into pop performances with heroes with ridiculous names - Tarapunka and Shtepsel.

Best performances and films of the creative duo

"Smeshany Concert", "Exactly 20 with a hook", "We took a stage for a decade", "From and to" and other performances were very popular with the audience. There were also comic comedies with famous characters, and the actors were both directors, writers, and executors of the main roles in the tapes "Tarapunka and Plug under the Clouds" (filmed in 1953), "The Adventure with Tarapunka's Jacket" (1955), the famous "Plug Marries Tarapunka "(1957). And the film "The Smelly Adventures of Tarapunka and Plug" became a truly Soviet classic. They were filmed in the films "Merry Stars", "We Rided, Rides ...", "Easy Life".

Grateful spectators wrote letters from all corners of the country with the address on envelopes: "Where - Moscow, the Kremlin, to whom - Tarapunka and Plug." In letters they were not only thanked, but also wrote complaints about bureaucratic arbitrariness, they asked to criticize defective goods and even return husbands to their families.

Plug and Tarapunka in real life

Tymoshenko and Berezin on the stage were all perceived as a single and indivisible organism - Plug and Tarapunka, photos with both of them were decorated with postcards and covers of Soviet magazines. But in reality, the actors were the complete opposite of each other. Yuri Timoshenko was a kind of addictive, erratic, with an explosive temperament, a big child, adoring there are bagels with milk. If he was asked about the nationality of Berezin, he could hit the asker. When Tymoshenko was asked somehow why he and his colleague and friend are still not in the party, he said: "Drive the bastards out of the party, and we will come to you". Berezin, on the contrary, is reserved, calm and reasonable, a wonderful family man, excluding any adventures. Tymoshenko was fond of fast and fast, whether women or brands. I could give up everything and fly to Siberia for some extremely rare brand, I could take a day and a night to learn English and learn it in three months.

Long life friendship

The brain center in the duet was Efim Berezin, who knew not only the replicas of his character but also Tymoshenko's remarks, often forgetting them, so he often gave clues during the speech: "You seem to want to ask me ...?" When Yury Timoshenko was buried, Yefim Berezin said over the coffin of a friend: "I wanted so much to say, but for the first time in my life I forgot the text." Their unique friendship in life and on the stage, their amazing union "Tarapunka and Plug" lasted for fifty years. Both studied at the Kiev Theatrical Institute, both during the war went from Kiev to Berlin. When the war was over, both went to the capital for the All-Union Contest of Variety Artists. Having become laureates, friends did not leave until the very end of their creative and life path.

Achievements of great actors

It was said that Tymoshenko even initially refused to confer the title of Honored Artist, saying: "Or two, or no one." The title was appropriated to both. People's artists of Ukraine, they also became two people, and they never gave the people's artists of the USSR. Twice the famous duet was nominated for the award of an honorary title, and both times all documents on the presentation disappeared in an incomprehensible way. Learning that to submit documents for the title of People's Artists gathered for the third time, Tymoshenko in categorical form said: "We have enough. We do not want any more. We have ranks - "Tarapunka and Plug". And up to now their names are remembered by all people who lived in the USSR.