Petr Shelokhonov

Petr Illarionovich Shelokhonov, (Piotr Szełochonow, Пётр Илларио́нович Шелохо́нов, Пятро Ларывонавіч Шэлахонаў, Петро Іларіонович Шелохонов; in English also spelled 'Peter' or 'Pyotr' or 'Petr'; 15 August 1929 – 15 September 1999) was a Russian actor, director, filmmaker and socialite, designated Honorable Actor of Russia (1979).

A strong proponent of making High culture accessible to all people, he organized social events for all people in artistic communities of St. Petersburg and Moscow using his position as member of the Union of Actors.

Petr Shelokhonov was born in 1929, in Wilno Voivodeship, then a part of Poland; Petr Larionovich Shelokhonov (also known as Peter, Pyotr, or Petro Larionovich Schelochonovich in Belarusian, Polish, Yiddish and Ukrainian).

His ancestors originated from Ukraine, from Baltic states, and from Poland.

His father, Larion (Illarion) Titovich Shelokhonov, practiced veterinary medicine and was living at a horse farm, where his grandfather, Tito Shelohonovich, was also a farmer.

The Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War brought dramatic changes, so Larion Shelokhonov became a feldsher and practiced medicine raising the son to become a medical doctor.

Petr rode horseback during his childhood; he studied biology and medicine under his father's tutelage, spending hours researching cells and tissues using his father's microscope.

Petr Shelokhonov was destined to practice medicine, like his father, but his fate was changed by World War II.

Petr Shelokhonov survived the Nazi occupation during World War II.

Following the German and Soviet invasion of Poland and the reshaping of Europe, Poland's borders were redrawn at the insistence of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and Petr Shelokhonov's birthplace was incorporated into the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic that was swiftly occupied by German Wehrmacht in the Summer of 1941.

One terrible night his home was totally destroyed by Luftwaffe aerial bombing, he miraculously escaped the death by running away barefoot.

He then witnessed the fire and destruction of the entire village when the German tanks leveled the remains of his house, then ruined his school and the horse farm.

He tried to find his relatives until his cousin told him that there were no survivors.

He was unable to find the remains of his mother, Anna Minska, to give her a proper traditional burial.

He was separated from his father, who was away with horses.

The Nazis arrested Petr but he escaped under heavy gun fire.

Petr Shelokhonov was severely wounded in the forehead but he survived and dug a hole in the ground, to hide from Nazi police patrols during the autumn of 1941.

There was no food, and people around were dying from starvation.

Petr survived thanks to a wounded cow, which was blind and without calves, and her udders were full of milk.

Petr used his veterinarian skills and befriended the cow, so he could suck her warm milk.

Eventually, the wounded cow died.

Then he learned how to explode German grenades to kill fish in a river.

While doing that, he was arrested by the partisans patrol and joined the partisans in the woods.

In 1942, while surviving in the woods with partisans, Petr Shelokhonov had his first acting experience.

He performed parodies of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis for his fellow partisans.

His performances helped lift their spirits in a time when they were struggling to survive.

This experience accentuated his humble, modest character.

The scar on his forehead, the mark of war, made his acting career seem like an impossible dream; but Petr was determined – depending upon his roles he covered his scar with an appropriate theatrical makeup, wore a wig or used various hats.

At first, he accompanied himself playing the accordion.

Then he made puppets and a screen, and worked in his own puppet theater entertaining people during the war years.

In his show, titled "Peter and the Wolf," he managed to lead four puppets with four voices, and also played the accordion.

He traveled across Belarus and Ukraine with his puppet theatre and performed for bread and rare food packages from the American airlift.

He spoke Polish, Yiddish, Russian, Belarusian, and his native Ukrainian, and he was very lucky to survive until the end of World War II.

In 1945, Petr Shelokhonov became a piano student at the Kiev Conservatory of Music, he also played the accordion on stage, albeit his plan was to become an actor in Leningrad.

In 1946, he moved to Leningrad in pursuit of an acting career.

Petr Shelokhonov was looking for a job with a jazz band, similar to his favorite bands of Leonid Utyosov and Eddie Rosner, so he joined a jazz band at the Leningrad Navy Club and also gave performances as a stand-up comedian and played the accordion.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Prokofiev and Sergei Rachmaninov were his favorites as well as the music of Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and other stars heard on the Voice of America radio shows.

Petr's love of music and his passion for acting, which was generously peppered with his free-spirited humor, protected his peaceful soul and positive disposition and helped him survive through the roughest realities of life under Soviet communism; but when his free-spirited humor angered the hard-liners, many doors closed.

The city that stood the attack of Hitler's armies and was terribly ruined but not destroyed by the nightmares of war and the siege, where depleted people stood in lines for bread, now Stalin's supporters resumed purges.

In 1946, the persecution of creative intellectuals began, so publishers, magazines, and theaters were closed.