I never knew I was colored. I was about 5 or 6 years old when I felt weird about it. It happened when I went to the hospital with a hernia. They gave me anesthesia and did a surgery. I passed out, but at some point I realized that I was looking at myself from somewhere in the upper corner. I heard clanking sounds when medical devices were thrown into the tray. Suddenly the surgeon said: "Isn’t it strange how light he is, and how dark is his penis." After some time when the nurse drove my gurney in the lobby, I asked her: "Why did the doctor say that?" She, of course, nearly fainted. Many years later, I met a man who told the exact same a story about himself, and it stopped seemed to be crazy for me.

In the sixth grade, we were playing tag, and I accidentally hit the bucket from which the cleaner was washing the floors. I was well mannered, so I turned around and apologized to her. She said: "Hide your horse teeth, monkey nigger!"

I was very embarrassed. I came home, and asked my mother: "Why did she say that?" Mom says, well, you are just so active ... I say, I understood that. But why she called me "nigger"? Mom told me: "Can't you see that you are different?" She called me overand asked to put my hand next to her. After I did it she said: "See now?" And I did not see anything. I could not understand what she was talking about. Later, while studying different disciplines, I discovered the fact that people know about themselves totally different compare to what their environment knows about them.

In fact realized my skin color when I saw myself on TV at a New Year's concert. I can swear Ira Ponarovskaya and me watched this program. I saw myself going in the camera view with accompaniment of Latin American music that Ukupnik wrote for me. I exclaimed: “God, how dark I am! Ira, am I really so dark? " and She replied: "Of course!"

«I live somewhere inside, what they tell me outside does not matter to me»

«When I was invited to work as an actor, I realized that I am that person - black»

The problems started when I started dating girls. The first girl was at the age of 12, the second at 16. She was half-Chinese and I believe she was about 25 years old. I am very grateful to her for the fact that she knew how to love.

When I was 18 I met Nadia, who became my first wife. We lived together for eight years. Then she left to Paris, and after 13 years, she returned and said: "I want to live only with you." However, I was no longer interested.

So, one day me and Nadya were having a walk in the Botanical Garden metro area. It was around 6 p.m. and still pretty bright outside. A colonel was walking towards us - short, chubby and his wife – she was even bigger, and a little girl with them. The Colonel sees our couple and starts ... I don't use bad language, so I can't repeat it. He began to speak to Nadia that she is such an such of person, why she could not find herself a white men... She start crying and I told her: "Nadyush, he didn't insult you, but me." But she was offended that someone cussed her out. Her dad was a Jew from Baku, Julius Saulovich Lanzberg is a very famous person in the Moscow architectural environment. She was raised with good manners, had a good education. And here some colonel allows himself to talk to her like that. It was a shock.

I understood that this would always be the case here. It did not bother me at all in any way. I live somewhere inside, what they tells me outside does not matter to me. As a child I was already like that, I consider myself lucky; otherwise, I would be simply torn apart. A person can destroy himself if he will live in external life and respond to everything.

You know that when people get drunk, the true side comes out. Although I am not a drinker, my younger sister used to say about me: "If you get Vilonchik drunk you can even skin him.” I am not aggressive at all. No matter what they say to me, I am not being offended, it is impossible to offend me. I remained the same person, who at the age of five in the surgery room left the body and looked at everything from the side.

Personally, I do not care about discrimination, but I do care when others suffer from external differences. Racism is a disgusting thing. And this applies not only to blacks. This is generally about the essence of a person who is trying to prove and realize himself like this. A Chinese woman is walking, they are looking at her, and someone must certainly offend her. I understand why people do this. Such a society. But I do not approve it at all.

I was attacked once in my entire life by real racists. It was under the Kremlin walls, in the passage from the Lenin Library. I was walking with a friend; we were discussing something about business. Then a convoy enters, I thought they were recruits. Then I realized that something is not right. They looked at me in a weird way. And it hits me that those are skinheads. I was engaged in martial arts when I was a kid. I went into it with my head, and I knew that you need to move your eyes off the "beast", otherwise you call him for a fight. And I moved my eyes away, start to act like an actor, to speak with a friend. Then I only remember that a friend gives me a handkerchief. I say why? And he replies: "You are bleeding." And then I realize that I am sitting on the floor where we have just left the passage, and he is standing over me. I got hit by that guy and got knocked out. I have been boxing for 14 years, have never suffered a defeat. But when you turn away and they hit you, you automatically fly out.

So that you understand how I feel about unpleasant situations in life, my first thought was: “What a blessing that this is not a dark-skinned woman in age! She would die." The second thought: "How can I enter the apartment where I have a little son, without frighten him with a split lip." I am calm, I have no troubles. Because the trouble is yourself. I mean that when we feel bad, there is no one to blame, only yourself.

While I was young and hotheaded, I fought, even for my friends. But I realized that this is not right, I have to do something with myself. I looked up a different sports culture that took me away from violence. In that atmosphere, I learned how to find the key to people’s mind who consider themselves racist. If each of us will search for such a keys, then there will be fewer racists. Violence gives rise to violence, and if violence is used against you, in no case should you respond the same way. Funakoshi once said: "The main battle of the Japanese is the one from which he fled" (Gichin Funakoshi - master and the first propagandist of karate in Japan). I am an opponent of conflicts. The most important thing is when I enter the bathroom in the morning and see my eyes in the mirror, whether I am ashamed to look at them or not.

I think the source of inner strength is from my childhood. I was raised in love and respect atmosphere. Mom always knocked before entering my room. In addition it so happened that I ended up in the midst of dissidents. I did not personally know Sinyavsky and Daniel (Soviet writers convicted of publishing their works in the West), But I grew up among people from their environment. These were the families of famous physicists and playwrights. This formed my life criteria.

I do not think I would feel differently in any other country. I am who I am. My older sister flew to the USA, then my younger sister, and then I sent my mother. Father died early. I would move there as well but I cannot leave my children because I have a lot of them here: seven sons and a daughter, and the second daughter is in London. I know that if I will leave, I would never see them again. Why should I go now? This is my home. I love it.

Happiness is my constant state. I began to notice it 40 years ago. I can go to the window just look into the courtyard and something overflows me from the inside, tears me apart.