To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:45:18 -0500
From: puppetpro-AT-aol.com
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Nikolai Shiskin


Thanks for this, Robert. 


Recently read "How Many Days to America" by Eve Bunting. It's a touching book of refugees coming by boat to America. The children I read it to were very moved.  Several children were immigrants, and knew first hand the reasons their family came here. It opened up a pretty intense discussion.  


Rolande





-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Rogers <robertrogers-AT-robertrogerspuppets.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Sent: Fri, Nov 27, 2009 9:33 am
Subject: [Puptcrit] Nikolai Shiskin


Nikolai Shishkin, Russian-born puppet theater and director has died.  His story 
is one of great irony.

He previously lead the Moscow Regional Puppet Theater Company, second in size to 
the Obraztsov troupe.  For the last several years he was on the staff of Marquis 
Studios in New York City, an arts-in-ed organization.  Feeling frustrated and 
homesick, he accepted a temporary job to direct a new production for the 
Obraztsov group.  Unfortunately, because of what was described to me as a 
mysterious traumatic blow to the head, he fell into a coma and lived his last 
days in a Moscow hospital.

In his earlier life as a theater director, he enjoyed the perks of a successful 
Soviet artist: a limousine and driver, designated nightclubs and vacation 
resorts for the art elite.  But once on tour in the U.S. when the Soviet Union 
began to collapse, he found himself stranded in New York City when his wife was 
struck by a taxi, and wound up severely injured.  He went to the Soviet embassy 
and asked for help but was denied - embassy officials had bigger problems.  
Nikolai quickly ran out of money and eventually fell into the trap of living the 
life of a poverty stricken, unemployed immigrant.

To make a long, momentous story short, Nikolai and his wife Galina, endured and 
rebuilt their lives.  They moved to upstate New York, found employment (Galina, 
in a calendar factory and Nikolai with the Catskill Puppets) and eventually won 
a law suit against the taxi company, that allowed them to purchase an apartment 
in midtown Manhattan, and a country home in the Catskills.

I once asked Nikolai how he felt through this ordeal.  He said, "I had many 
benefits in Russia, but I did not feel like a free man until I came to the 
States, even when times were really tough."

Rest in Peace.

R. Rogers
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