Almost a documentary novel that you are going to read is the first step to create a screenplay and shoot a film based on Mitya Shilov’s life, my school friend and colleague on some not very successful Internet projects and a fellow from KVN team of the school №15 (now gymnasium №7) of the city of Krasnoyarsk. Before starting work on this story I took a series of interviews with Mitya, his wife Tanya, their son Vanya, his parents Sergey Ivanovich and Marina Anatolevna, talked to some of the characters from Dmitrii Shilov’s channel on Youtube and took part in the filming of one of the videos in autumn 2017 (“12 years together with Tanya, the countryside party”). So the book will have a lot of information about which viewers of the Internet TV channel Raddy (or as Vaduysha says, the so-called “RAddyson”) haven’t known before.

This book is based on real events that happened in Krasnoyarsk in the late XX – early XXI centuries but is not a fully documentary research. The names of some characters have been changed, however, the essence and sequence of events and the places of actions are quite real. The author has reserved the right to think up some details for beauty and coherence of the narrative. If you recognized yourself on these pages and you didn’t like it, then it’s absolutely nothing. I didn’t mean you, it seemed to you. Also, I really wanted to make my home city Krasnoyarsk one of the heroes, to show some details of urban life of the 90s and the 2000s. The life around us is becoming the history so fast that it’s a pity to forget it but nice to remember. This is one of the purposes of this book.

The book “From bankrupt to millionaire” is not retelling videos from Youtube channel of Dmitrii Shilov, these videos can be seen by anyone today. On these pages you can find out how Mitya got into big debts and then not only got out of them but got rich. By the beginning of 2019 more than 600 thousand users are subscribed for Dmitrii Shilov’s Youtube Channel and the monthly income of Mitya is measured in thousands, sometimes even tens of thousands of dollars. Whether you like it or not (Mitya has more than enough haters) but Dmitrii Shilov’s life is a real success story in the modern world of Russia in 2010-s. A story is worth of being told and continued!

I did not even try to keep up with the events of the life of Dmitrii Shilov because he makes content almost every day. Today he is flying somewhere, tomorrow he is shot somewhere, the next day he is moving to Moscow… If you are interested in his life, welcome to the Internet. This book is a little bit different and what it is about you can easily understand yourselves.

This story has two versions of the beginning and yet there is no end because the main character is alive and safe and is not going to stop at what he has reached. That is what we all want him to do. I’ve been thinking for a long time which option of the beginning to leave, but then I decided to keep both – you can choose what you like more. I wrote this pRADDYslovie (Introduction) more for myself because at the beginning of any text the author explains for himself why he began to write. And now everything is for you.

The beginning №1
“Millionaire’s Morning” #2018

The border of Eastern and Western Siberia, January. In the city-millionaire Krasnoyarsk Epiphany frosts are especially severe because the Yenisei River in the city does not freeze “thanks to” the dam of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station. Uncovered by ice even in minus forty degrees, polynia stretches for hundreds of kilometers as an open wound, changing the climate of the whole region. The powerful river like a bear who has forgotten about winter hibernation, continuously breathes, producing frosty vapor around. Ice patterns on the trees are beautiful but the wet frost is always ready to get under any fur coat and to freeze the warmest places. At other times of the year, Krasnoyarsk may be governed by the mayor, but winter is definitely ruled by cold. It is especially uncomfortable in the city in the early winter morning: the Sun still does not think to rise above the horizon, and the pale spots of lantern light do not disperse but only strengthen the surrounding gloom. In such weather a good owner won’t let even a dog go out. The most conscious dogs also feel sorry for their owners and not to go outside they urinate somewhere in themselves. It is great to watch such winter from somewhere from fabulous Bali or Phuket island where many citizens of Krasnoyarsk like to spend winter. Of course, those who can afford it.

A large block of new ten-storey panel buildings on the right Bank of the Yenisei river near Oktyabrsky bridge is called Severniy Proezd. Such blocks of flats on analogies with “Khrushchev” and “Brezhnev” project houses could be called “Putinki”, but cunning vodka producers took a bright word for their commercial needs. In one of the closed courtyards of the neighbourhood there is a children’s rink, which is filled with water from a hose every winter in the morning by a tall plump man in a dark jacket and a sports hat – the usual “average” Siberian, as the lovers to sit with beer on the bench say. At first glance, he lives like everyone else – a wife, a child, a car, the bustle of life, in which we all gradually sink with the course of time. But for some reason his life is constantly watched through the Internet by hundreds of thousand people but he does not feel any embarrassment from such attention to his person, but he always supports this interest and he even makes very good money. However, he does not keep this money: it was he who became the sponsor of the hockey team, decorated the yard rink with coloured lights, filled the pits on the road, arranged a children’s holiday, helped an acquaintance to pay the loan, gave the disabled man a wheelchair and did a lot of good deeds, not getting into someone’s pocket or the budget of his native city… He seems to be very kind. May be he is a Deputy? Yes, he was also a candidate, but fortunately, he didn’t manage to open the door to the authorities with a kick. Don’t dream another’s dream, it will come true. You must find your own one.

So, the rink is filled, and famous in many countries of the world a videoblogger with the audience of more than 600 thousand subscribers winds the hose and goes home to wake his son up to school. Then he will go to measure the next ten thousand steps, train in the gym and plan funny trips and funny gatherings for new videos. Everything that will come to our hero to the mind while walking, will certainly become a video content in the story of his Instagram, where there are only tens of thousands subscribers. And then it’s time to pick up his son Vanya from the school, his wife Tanya will come back home from work, and they need to discuss the next journey to exotic countries and shooting in an entertainment project at the Federal TV channel. And, of course, he will not forget to shoot a few commercials with himself in the lead role without leaving home and to send them to the cutting. These worries are not typical for the majority.

Another day of Dmitrii Shilov from the channel “Raddyson” or Raddy begins in the distant and frosty Krasnoyarsk. The day, which will be watched as usual by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. And all his winter problems can be described with a quote from the movie “Summer”: “You have a beautiful problem, such problems are very rare.”

The beginning №2 “Bankrupt’s Morning” #2011

It’s autumn 2011, another heavy morning. To be frank, not morning but the afternoon —it’s half past twelve. For those who get up early and go to work, it is lunch. And for someone who is a bankrupt, the time has stopped. The heart is constantly beating like after a long run, the body keeps going hot and cold, the mouth is dry, but only alcohol wins sleeplessness. I wish I had a bottle of beer. And two bottles would be better. But three bottles would be best of all. Of course, “Ayan” beer, because there is no money for better one… Mitya remembered the time when you could drink abakanskoe beer with pleasure but over recent years all neighboring Khakassia seems to take a leak under the lids with a deer. The situation with money is even worse because now it is not clear – whether you have at least one rouble of your own money or all your money doesn’t belong to you for many years ahead?

The terrible, sticky state of a man who owes everyone, a man, who is not guilty, but is forced to apologize every time to justify himself and endure the humiliation. Mitya has lived in such state for two months: since he was grifted for six million rubles, the surrounding world has changed once and for ever. It was “a reliable partner” who stopped to answer the calls first, he is the con-man at the same time. But some time later thinking of all meetings at the office of a big and reliable trade company, Mitya realizes that all negotiations with this man were not in the office, but in the car. Damn dusty Mitsubishi Lancer became a hearse for all Mitya’s plans’. And short beeps on the other end became a funeral march…

What to hope for – for Tanya’s salary? For your parents help? Is it possible to give back 200000 dollars if you get a job and if you earn 30 thousand roubles a month? Mitya calculated in his mind and it turned out that if you give back 30 thousand a month, you can pay off for 16 years and 8 months… And finally to celebrate the new 2029 year without debts, hurrah!… And if at night to unload carriages, it will be possible to get out of debts within 15 years. However, Mitya thought about it yesterday. And the day before yesterday. And what did he come up to? But to nothing. 200000 dollars mean owing six roubles to each citizen of Krasnoyarsk. And what if everyone really gives him six roubles? People will not get poor and Mitya will solve his problems. Begging is a brilliant startup for a young healthy man. There seems to be some kind of institution of bankruptcy. Yes, Mitya would graduate from this institution with two excellent diplomas. Or with one red hole in the back of the head at the bottom of the Yenisei… Though, nothing of the kind, you must live in any case.

The clock on the wall was ticking in the usual rhythm: tick, tick, tick… Quartz, battery powered, they even measured the time pathetic, without the usual “tock” Not “tick-tock, tick-tock,” but “tick, tick, tick.” Another hint that the life is all “not so.” The hell with the watch. It only reminds once again that the time is working against you.

A phone becomes the main enemy of a bankrupt immediately. There are no good calls, only bad ones. Creditors and banks demand money, the friends who lent you money very quickly go into a group of creditors, and relatives…. The relatives first condole with you even with caution and then call less and less. For a lot of people you have died or just left far away though you keep living in the same house. At present for many people money has become equal to vital energy. First of all, you are your Bank account, your solvency, your reliability expressed in a simple cash balance. Mitya’s balance stood at the level of “minus six million”. It is “minus two hundred thousand dollars” (at the rate of 2011). The amount in dollars seems smaller but you don’t feel easier from it.

At that time Mitya was looking at the ceiling or the walls for weeks remembering his life. The life where everything was so happy and cloudless. The dreams took him to the distant Soviet childhood from gloomy 2011, when the words “glasnost” and “perestroika” started to sound everywhere, and instead of children’s clubs video shows appeared with Bruce Lee, “American ninja” and endless series of “Tom and Jerry”. These mental journeys were very comforting because everything was simple and clear…

Part one. “Life like anyone else has”

“Don`t shame us!“#1980—1992

The Shilovs lived well in Soviet times and were “happy” speaking the language of those times. Mitya’s father, Sergei Ivanovich, was a goalkeeper of the legendary team “Yenisei”, he became the hockey champion of the USSR six times and went to the competitions very often and abroad too. From his trips dad brought beautiful sports uniform, cool skates, foreign gum and Pepsi-Cola. Mum, Marina Anatolyevna, worked in the library of plant “Krastsvetmet” for many years and if Mitya got his character and sport interest from his dad, but interest to people and sociability is the contribution of a loving mother.

There were always a lot of people around Mitya, although nobody could call him the “pack leader”, a naughty and good-natured boy from an early age was considered to be a joker and the soul of the company. Yard life appreciated the ability to respond firmly to insults and assaults, Mitya always tried to turn all conflicts into jokes and to stay out of trouble. Someone thought it was weakness or cowardice but his guys knew Mitya is funny and non-conflict. It was Mitya. Of course, the street brought him up but our hero chose himself what lessons to learn and which to ignore.

The best friend of Mitya from the early age was Maxim Nazarov. Their friendship started in the kindergarten. At that time Mitya with knowledge of the matter told the boys that the film on our televisions can be stopped and rewind and Max did not believe him because in the mid 80’s the video recorder was an unheard luxury for Krasnoyarsk. Surprised by his distrust, Mitya invited his friend home and with the help of his mother he showed a tape of “Tom and Jerry.” When the button was pressed, Tom and Jerry ran in the opposite direction, Maxim was so amazed that since then he has always been somewhere close to Mitya. You need to get closer to people who own such miracles. That’s why later when Mitya enthusiastically wrote the subjects of the films that he “watched on video”, Max always confirmed it and added a couple of details from himself. In fact, the parents allowed Mitya to watch only cartoons. Moreover, six years after Mitya’s birth, daughter Dasha was born in the Shilovs’ family. You never know what you can see in American movie show, it is not for children. And cartoons – it’s safe, in “Tom and Jerry” cartoons, like in the USSR, “there is no sex.”

Before going to school, Maxim asked his mother to put him in the same class with Mitya and she finally gave in. At school there were another friends, for example, Andrei Glazkov, who was called Dryunya in the yard. Dryunya was a serious man, who was fond of weightlifting, and in high school he even became the President of the school. Now we have the only President but the best, and in the 90s almost every school had its own President and in school agitation there were a lot of intrigues not less than in the real elections. But it is a subject of an absolutely different story.

School life #1995

Mitya’s school was located in the street named after the newspaper “Krasnoyarsky worker” in two buildings of Stalin project. The three-storey building of primary school was connected with the passage to a four-storey building for secondary and high school. The name of the nearest bus stop for public transport was not very creative. Yes, that bus stop is still called “School”.

Mitya (as well as the author of these lines) was lucky with his school as educational establishment, not bus stop. As they say, “every cloud has a silver lining”, and “the evil” in the 90-ies was the economic situation – every closing industrial plant in Krasnoyarsk turned the whole area at once into a centre of poverty and crime. And the number of dying enterprises in those years was counted in dozens. The life of many people turned into the survival and the convulsive search for themselves in a dramatically changed country. And “the good” was the fact that several creative people saw themselves in the role of teachers and went to work at the same school. Rather born to be teachers, but mostly to have a small but stable income. So at school there was a theatre studio, Economics classes, a school choir, and as a result of the successful performance at computer festivals, the whole classroom of modern at that time 486 computers. During the day these computers were used for the preparation of reports and presentations, and in the evenings – for network games in Doom and Warcraft. Agree, not every teacher will trust his “dunces” the keys from a classroom where there is valuable equipment. And Yuriy V. Bazygin trusted us.

One of our favorite teachers, Grigory Petrovich Oliyanchuk, was the captain of KVN team in the Teacher Training University. It is quite natural that the KVN team soon appeared at school №15. And it’s more natural that Dmitry Shilov appeared in that team who was famous all over the school with his clown tricks in the lessons. The teachers made an absolutely right decision that as the energy of the guy was overflowing with energy, it was necessary to turn it into a peaceful direction. Everybody at school loved stand-up comedians and at the end of each term there was a concert where the performance of the team of KVN was very funny. And school guys were joking as they could – parodied Bogdan Titomir and the group MAXX, danced “Lambada” in ridiculous suits, showed synchrobuffonades and miniatures from the endless series “Brothers acrobats”. But one day they even went with a concert to the orphanage of a nearby village Berezovka. In humorous battles with the neighbouring schools there were even bright wins, and only one – absolutely unfair! – defeat. Mitya went to school with pleasure and only sport distracted him from communication with his friends – hockey with a ball, where he was a field player first and then, like his father, he became a goalkeeper. To be honest, the school years were.

#2011

Mitya was always surprised that many people are afraid of each other – they don’t want to go to the stage, to speak in public or consider jokes something unworthy. And the same people, sitting in the hall, laughed and they applauded everything that Mitya and his friends showed on the stage! The same things happened later – at the University, at work, in the hockey team… Everybody wanted joy and fun, but few people were joyful and merry. From the early childhood Mitya heard from his parents: “Do not shame us!”, “Do not ask for trouble!” Looking around, he understood that he was not the only who was brought up in the Soviet style but most of his friends were too. The main thing in the life of a Soviet man was not to stand out, to be like everyone else, not to draw too much attention to yourself. The same clothes, the same salaries, the same words about socialism, but nobody believed them by the end of the 80’s…

Mitya loved and respected his parents but their “trainers’ aims” were not suitable for him. There were no standard ways out from that situation. When you owe six million roubles, it’s not possible just to make jokes… You had to be absorbed in thought and find what can help. Or vice versa – to look around and to understand something? Or may be to do both?.. Past life and past experience didn’t prepare him for this situation.

Game console #1993

One day dad brought Mitya the dream of millions of Russian children —game console “Dandy”. A little bit later, these game consoles appeared in each house but the first computer battles in “Tanks” and “Duck hunting” among Mitya’s friends happened while visiting the Shilovs. Since the console had only two joysticks, Mitya often called Max to play. It was impossible to stop paying and then the most reliable mechanism – the strict voice of mother switched on:

– Guys, stop playing! You’ll discharge the tube! And you will spoil your eyesight!

– Well, mum!

– Without any “mum”! Maxim also has to go home, his parents are waiting for him!

I wonder where all mums in the world have the invisible way to connect with other mums? At that time there was no chat in WhatsApp, even not everybody had telephones but somehow mothers felt each other. All right, we’ll have to stop playing. Having connected the antenna wire to the TV-set instead of the console cord, Mitya saw a report about the firing of the White House in Moscow on the screen. It was October 1993. In Moscow Studio, Vlad Listiev, Leonid Yarmolnik, Lia Akhedzhakova and Garik Sukachyov and some other famous people appeared one after another. They all looked into the camera with anxiety and called for peace.

But in Krasnoyarsk it was so peaceful, so Mitya responded childishly:

– Max, look, what a goat! – “goat” in Krasnoyarsk is called something funny – they play “Tanks” in Moscow too!

“Well, I don’t know how it will end, Mitya.

“Whatever they do but not to burn power unit.”

– They’ve burned down the White House, haven’t you seen?” And they have enough power in Moscow for a hundred years. They take everything from us – Yeltsin, Gaidar and Chubais. My parents said we were so poor here because of Moscow.

Mother didn’t support political conversations. First of all the child must learn.

– Come on, Maxim, do your homework! You’ll discuss about politics after all. You are not Vlad Listiev! Program “Theme”, “Spotlight of perestroika”!

– Mum!

– And you also, do your homework! Nobody will do Algebra for you! Whoever shoots somebody, it is necessary to learn well! If you become an engineer, you’ll stay at the rear of the armor, no matter what happens in the country.

Max said goodbye and left, and Mitya, despite of growing maximalism, listened to his parents again. And very soon from another trip dad brought him “Sega Mega Drive 16 bits”, after which he didn’t want to return to simple “Tanks”. But the country did like to play “Tanks” – the war in Chechnya began in 1994. Thousands of recruits from all over Russia were sent there and parents of guys – school leavers realized that their sons had to enter the university but not to get into the army…

12 Järgmine

Dmitrii Shilov: from bankput to millionaire

pRADDYslovie (Introduction) from the author #2019

The beginning №1“Millionaire’s Morning” #2018