Vladimir Spartak Yekaterinburg Biography

This is an elderly but brisk tattooed man who lives in a house more like an art object. You could see him at exhibitions of contemporary art and in the film by Alexander Hunt “Intersason”, where he played a shaman, covering his teenagers who escaped from the house. Spartak since childhood was engaged in creativity. He began to draw in the fourth grade, and later began to write poetry and even published collections at his own expense.

At the same time, according to him, he managed to work in the police and in a mental hospital, and then he himself turned out to be her patient. But perhaps all these are myths that Spartak spreads and talks about himself. A lot has already been written about him: journalists of different stripes like to visit an extravagant artist and poet to take interviews. But the hero is so informative that it barely fits into traditional journalistic materials.

We decided to make his portrait and try to understand whether he is hiding behind his own image or lives sincerely. It is easy to recognize the home in the way on the way: plastic carnations stick out on a fence barbecue wire, and the house is painted with aphorisms, which Spartak composes. For example, “Thunderstorm is the pulsation of the unknown”, “Army is a fist of the state” or “bread - patriotism of the mind”.

And of course, “Life is the feat of the heart” is the artist’s life motto. From a painted hut, the same decorated man comes out to us. His whole body in tattoos, light blue eyes run back and forth, without focusing on anything, the same defocused and his speech. Spartak in seventy, he has no teeth at all, he is dressed in colorful clothes, shines of sneakers decorate multi -colored ropes, and on his finger a glass ring that imitates the eyeball.

Spartak invites us inside and asks not to be afraid of “little dogs”, which are actually not at all small, but completely well -fed. Dogs are called Vovka, Natasha, and a cat runs nearby, also Spartak. He drives the largest dog with shouts: “Vovka, leave! Vovka, bastard! The man inconsistently repeats that he did not have time to call someone and his phone junk. He talks about some thirty minutes and DK Lavrov.

And only after a while we understand that we arrived inappropriately, despite agreements. Spartak, it turns out, we must go to the city to prepare for the exhibition. This Saturday, he will show his work in an abandoned hangar in the Zheleznodorozhny district. The conversation is clearly not glued. The first attempt to take the interview is ridiculous, the artist does not want to answer questions.

What to scratch there, you will not go around 30 minutes. You still ask questions. This is not humanly called. I still warned there on the street, ”Spartak is offended. But we agree to meet again. The weather has changed a lot - cold autumn with a piercing ice wind is felt in the air. Spartak meets us in the hallway of his house and praises for courage that they were not afraid to come again and independently come to his house.

There is a feeling that throughout our last meeting, he tried to intimidate us with his screams and gestures, as if he would hit now. I probably wanted to experience us for strength. Today he is no longer so fussy, politely offers us tea and talks about the Saturday exhibition, which the security forces suddenly arrived and dispersed everyone. Lighting was removed.

They put a culture in the trash and observe whether it will survive or not. Che, did not know what? He constantly repeats the whole conversation: “Che, did not know what? Later, police officers also entered the building, so soon the organizers were forced to stop the event. Although many work of artists remained on the territory and people came to look at them in the evening.

Spartak at the exhibition "Armachon" brewing tea, Spartak talks about his animals. It turns out that there are more of them than we saw on the first day. He has four cats on the windowsill: the main cat Spartak, two kittens without nicknames and their mother, also nameless. The artist, of course, named himself in honor of himself. He says that he lives like the same ancient Greek Spartak - Vladimir took his pseudonym in the year when he watched the film “Spartans”.

So the cat, according to him, also lives, although he is much calmer than his master. Spartak dogs Natasha Dark and Vovka in the last house of Spartak had as many as 13 animals, considering the famous goat Marusya, which the artist sheltered when she was still small. An unusual pet organically fit into the life of Vladimir. Spartak walked around the city with her and went to exhibitions, attracting more and more attention to himself.

Once a goat cut her neck strongly, because of which Vladimir had to spend money on her treatment. Now Maroussia, because of the injury, lives in a shelter near the Mayakovsky park, where Spartak goes to visit her. He is reluctant to recall about the old house either from sadness or from nostalgia. It was a parental house on the sorting in which he lived for 15 years.

The house was also written out by various aphorisms, and inside it was one more installation with drawings and photographs. True, burned in March, and now a new residential complex is being built in its place - a classic story.It is still unknown whether it was a deliberate arson or some kind of malfunction. Old house of Spartak on sorting. During this time, he completely arranged it in his style, and in the yard he made a dwelling for dogs.

Now the artist is trying to understand where to get money for a new boiler, which costs 50 thousand rubles to heat the house. Vladimir himself receives only a pension - eight thousand rubles a month. Sometimes relatives help him, whom he prefers not to talk about. He hardly receives fees for his work and participation in exhibitions. Sometimes he separately bought paintings from him, but this is very rare.

More often, Spartak gives them, but some use it. What are the fees? I alone made 11 exhibitions, the twelfth was on the roses of Luxembourg, 18, in the museum of naive art. They had to give two paintings. They made an exhibition at the university. They took them out on three cars, I told them: “What do you think I will give you everything? How will it be? Once, Spartak had a Utube channel “Spartak Show” for almost 13 thousand subscribers, on which he laid out videos about the life of an artist, history and pranks with his own participation.

In the video, he talked about art, and in the pranks he approached the girls and rolled his goat Marusya on the tram. He also did not receive anything from him, because all the money from monetization went to the director and the operator. I haven’t communicated with them for several years. One lives in Georgia, the other Jew with fake documents for a journalist.

So he stuck to Innocent Sheremet. I did not receive a penny. But for each clip, I said some conclusion, I trained, ”says Spartak. Now Vladimir mainly earns due to filming in films. For example, in the year he played a shaman, nicknamed, a holey in the film by Alexander Khant “Intersason”, for which they paid Spartak. More recently, he went to Vladivostok, where he played a janitor in the new film of Hunt.

He fought in Vietnam, lay in a psychiatric hospital and helped Roizman about his biography, Spartak tries not to frankly.

When we ask him how and when he became an artist, he begins to rage again. He asks to kiss or at least to be allowed to kiss my leg. But something to pull out of his fluent speech still happened. At school in Spartak, he was a three -year -old. And he began to draw in the fourth grade. He claims that he was engaged in pantomime for 30 years, but in terms of time it does not work out very much.

After all, besides this, he allegedly managed to fight in Vietnam and served in the police for three years. According to him, he even has a medal for participating in hostilities in Vietnam, but it is not clear whether it is real. On our questions with doubts, he calls the foma unbelievers and again says: “What are you, did not know what? He did not have crusts to confirm this, but the Soviet uniform remained, which is dusting in the closet.

I painted there, ”says the artist. He says that he was in the capture group when Roizman arranged raids on drug dealers. I even have poems dedicated to him, I gave him three paintings, ”says Spartak. Spartak also said that he worked in a psychiatric hospital for a whole year, and then he seemed to even stay a hospital with a patient.