Iriska Grew Up and Left: The Life and Legacy of Irina Asmus, the First Soviet Clowness

Irina Asmus: The First Soviet Clowness

If everyone calls me Iriska, it doesn’t mean I dream of living a sweet life. My dream is to enter the arena as an artist and give people the joy of life…

Who didn’t know Iriska? Everyone knew Iriska! Children of the seventies rushed headlong to the TV screens because there was “ABVGDeyka” with their favorite clowns. Funny, smart, kind – Irina Asmus became the idol of little Soviet citizens overnight. The circus, where the artist performed, was sold out at every performance: thousands of children and their parents couldn’t wait to see the unique solo act of the first Soviet clowness.

A Star is Born

Born on April 28, 1941, in Leningrad, Irina Pavlovna Asmus grew up in the challenging war and post-war years. Despite the hardships, her parents strived to give her everything they could. From a young age, Irina dreamed of becoming an artist. However, frequent family relocations forced her to change her extracurricular activities often, sometimes settling for less.

True talent shines in all endeavors. Young Irina displayed remarkable abilities as a dramatic actress, variety singer, and circus performer. When it was time to choose her future path, Asmus had plenty of options. She decided to apply to the Bolshoi Theatre’s choreographic school and was accepted despite the fierce competition. However, she was warned that her short stature would prevent her from becoming a prima ballerina and achieving great success.

Irina then chose the State School of Circus and Variety Arts. At her entrance exams, the lively girl with a huge bow danced a fiery Neapolitan dance and sang the popular song “Besame Mucho.” The admissions committee was shocked but couldn’t resist her charm.

Welcome to the Circus, Farewell to the Rest

During her studies, Asmus mastered various disciplines: acrobatics, tightrope walking, motorcycle tricks, and equilibristics. She ultimately chose the latter. After graduating in 1960, 19-year-old Irina began working with Leonid Kostyuk, a future famous equilibrist and director of the circus on Vernadsky Avenue.

The young duo rehearsed an act with perches. The “upper” equilibrist climbs to the very top of the circus tent using a perch held by their partner and performs various tricks on a tiny platform. Irina was the “upper.” Unfortunately, one rehearsal ended badly: Asmus fell from a height, suffering a serious head injury. Doctors permanently prohibited her from practicing equilibristics, and she had to comply. It was as if fate had warned her of the danger…

Refusing to work at heights, Irina saw no further career development as a circus artist. She remembered her passion for theater and enrolled in the drama studio at the Leningrad TYUZ. She was immediately accepted into the second year, where she met her first husband, actor Alexander Khochinsky. In a burst of passion, the young couple married just two months after meeting and divorced just as quickly. According to one version, the newlyweds, both young and ambitious artists, simply couldn’t handle mundane domestic problems. Another version claims that Irina didn’t wait for Alexander to return from the army and had a romance that ended her marriage.

Breaking the Mold

At TYUZ, Irina was assigned the role of a travesty actress, playing children’s roles. Confined to these roles, Asmus quickly grew tired of the monotonous characters that didn’t allow her to showcase her creative potential. The prospect of playing mischievous boys and excellent students for the rest of her life didn’t appeal to her. Fortunately, the Komissarzhevskaya Theatre soon took notice of her, and she transferred. It was there that directors finally recognized her talent.

In her first production, Boris Laskin’s play “Time to Love,” Irina played one of the leading roles, showcasing her abilities as a dramatic actress, singer, and dancer. Success didn’t take long to arrive: leading roles poured in – Juliet, Cinderella, Elizabeth in “The Prince and the Pauper,” Raymonda in “Romance for Adults”… Irina became a true star: all Leningrad newspapers wrote about her, and she began receiving invitations to appear in films.

Love and Loss

At 27, Irina married for the third time. Her chosen one was actor Mikhail Sychev. “We met in 1967 when I was working in Chisinau, and she came there on tour. Once, I had too much to drink and wasn’t able to go to work. I wanted to call in sick, but I dialed the wrong number: my future love answered,” Mikhail later recalled in an interview with “Sobesednik.” The young couple had a month-long telephone romance before meeting and realizing they were kindred spirits. From that moment on, the artists were inseparable.

The couple raised a son, Andrei. It was only in a 2015 interview that it became known that Irina’s only child was born from her second husband, about whom she never told anyone. Mikhail loved the boy as his own, giving him his surname and patronymic. Incidentally, it was Andrei whom the inconsolable widower partly blamed for his beloved wife’s death.

Iriska!

Asmus was heavily involved in theater and even found time to act in films. Her life was unfolding just as she wanted. But Irina was still drawn to the circus. As they say, once you’ve crossed the barrier into the arena, there’s no going back.

Irina found a solution: during school holidays, taking a break from the theater, she began performing in the circus as Pioneer Volka ibn Alyosha from “Old Khottabych,” the boastful Dunno, or the old woman Shapoklyak. It was during one of these arena rehearsals that her friend, dramatist Alexander Volodin, saw her and exclaimed, “Iriska! What are you doing here?”

This nickname caught on quickly, and soon everyone called Asmus by it. She made it her stage name and… forever remained in the circus, unable to leave this amazing, colorful world.

In the sixties, Irina realized that she wanted to work only in the circus. The question arose about her repertoire. The famous tightrope walker Vladimir Volzhansky suggested that Asmus try herself as a clowness, although at that time in our country, only men did this. However, Irina liked the idea – the difficulty and even the impossibility of the undertaking always attracted her.

It was challenging to understand what a clowness should say and do. Traditional kicks, trips, and barbs addressed to a woman no longer elicited smiles. Sergey Dityatev tackled the difficult task: he wrote and directed a program for Asmus. Thus, Irina became the first Soviet clowness, who from the first minutes brought…