The “Ushats” who conquered Paris: how the Soviet meme made history and what it means

What are these cliches? “Ushats” is awkwardly displayed at the cashier’s window, where Afonya awaits his paycheck. In “Mimino”, when Valiko and a friend try to sell tires, “Ushats” also shows off at the doorstep of a potential buyer. For some it’s just a hooligan inscription like “Vasya was there”, but for someone it’s a joke that has become a legend.

Georgy Danelia graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute, in the walls of which “Ushats” appeared – a Soviet meme that got out of hand.

Somehow, Misha Ushats, on the eve of drawing lessons, decided to set up the most comfortable easel. He carefully wrote his name on it and left the public (we are sure he was very pleased with himself).

People who have painted from nature at least once know the role of the angle. Therefore, the students, limited by the walls of the audience, the number of easels, and nimble fellows, are forced out, so that Misha can be understood.

The next day, the course leader decided to play a trick on his classmate and signed the rest of the easels with his last name.

The joke was so “went” to the students that it was picked up by the whole institute.

The inscription “Ushats” appeared on tables and chairs, on the doors of the classrooms (someone even signed the principal’s door) and on the plaster figures, it was embroidered on the window curtains and listed in the books of the library with the names of the authors.

They say there is an unspoken tradition at the Moscow Institute of Architecture: wherever a student goes, he is obliged to leave an autograph. “Ushats” were everywhere: in front doors, on kiosks, on sidewalks and information desks. Someone noticed the inscription at the Parthenon in Athens and the TV Tower in Toronto. In the book “Puppets are like people” by Marta Tsifrinovich, the director of the puppet theater, we read that “Ushats” were seen on mountain tops and even on the Eiffel Tower. He was in movies too.

The joke originated in front of Danelia and held special value for him. In the films “Afonya” and “Mimino”, the director showed Soviet life in detail, and these four letters, written on the walls of filming locations, contain the history of the whole institute.

In the late 90s, the cartoon “Dunno on the Moon” was released, which, like Danelia’s paintings, immortalized the name Ushats. Behind the Donut, eating porridge with the words “Well, sleepwalkers, they don’t know salt!”, it is written in large letters: “Ushats is alive!”.

Mikhail Lazarevich himself, who became the hero of memes, is remembered not only for this. He was a respected and iconic person: after graduating from the Moscow Institute of Architecture, he worked as a cartoonist for Krokodil magazine, created scripts for the satirical film magazine Wick, was an artist at the Shalom Jewish Theater and passed away relatively recently, in 2012.

Thus the student joke lives and will live, and with it the person, the institution and the time.