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Saturday marks 40 days since the death of two-time Olympic champion Oleg Protopopov. He died on October 31 in Switzerland at the age of 92. Sports tells about the last years of the life of a brilliant athlete.
Protopopov lived in a nursing home, without communicating with almost anyone from his “past” life. It was difficult for him to walk after a hip fracture; he miraculously recovered without painkillers using only physical therapy, which he did himself. In 2023, the city services of Grindelwald began to repair his house; he could not return there. Oleg Alekseevich tried to fight the loneliness that overwhelmed him after the death of his beloved wife and partner Lyudmila Belousova by denying her departure. Not even through denial of death, but through faith in life. As long as he is alive, as long as he does not talk about her in the past tense, she is not dead either.
For some, such an ending will seem scary, especially after it became clear that there is no one to take care of the funeral and all the sad rituals except the same municipal services. Protopopov had no relatives left in Russia, and no close friends in Switzerland. Such a brilliant career, a wide circle of friends, fans, world fame – Audrey Hepburn once stopped by their skating rink to meet them and express admiration. And now – loneliness, a nursing home and a quiet death in a dream.
We will never be able to ask Oleg Alekseevich whether the road full of struggle led to happiness. We can judge this only from the last interview for, recorded on the day of the 90th anniversary. He was still in love and unbending. And the last thing I would like, it seems, is to look – and be – weak.
Life is a series of choices and responsibilities. We make decisions over and over again that change our present for the future. Sometimes they are simple because they are the only ones possible. Sometimes they require great sacrifices, but not accepting them seems to be an even greater mistake.
Oleg Protopopov seemed to have been born with a mission to make difficult decisions. Because of this, he seemed like a person with a difficult character. In fact, his whole life really was a struggle – for survival, for the right to do what he loved, for recognition.
It all started when a young sailor of the Baltic Fleet decided to refuse from a philistine-normal life in favor of a ghostly dream of figure skating. His mother was a ballerina, although she worked as a nurse during the siege. His stepfather, the poet of the Silver Age Dmitry Censor, gave him skates – at the age of 15 the young man began to learn to skate.
After the army, most likely, a military career or work at a factory, a family and all the material benefits available to a Soviet citizen awaited. A quite attractive picture for a person who survived the blockade, the post-war years and is looking for himself in a new time. But not for him. Oleg Alekseevich chose ice and sports with vague prospects. And he found a partner to match his values and character.
After leaving the navy, he had only a pea coat and a cap. She has an old coat. For two, a room of nine square meters in Leningrad and a 15 by 15 skating rink in the courtyard of the Optina Pustyn monastery – one of the first artificial ice rinks in the city. They were called overage (23 years old and 20 years old for debut in pairs skating) and refused to train. They said it straight: your train has left.
Then they occupied the driver's cabin themselves. Already at the peak of their careers, several coaches and choreographers worked with them, including Igor Moskvin, but most often they trained themselves. And they believed in themselves most of all. Right on the tiny monastery skating rink, Belousova and Protopopov, although it’s hard to imagine, were preparing for the 1964 Olympics.
The bet on giving up everything in the name of sport worked. Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov came up with many elements that are still included in figure skaters' programs – for example, todes. Their performances evoked admiring shock and forced millions of eyes to remain glued to the screens.
They reached the main peak twice, although the path was difficult. Here's just one of the stories. On the eve of his second Olympic gold, Oleg’s urolithiasis worsened. He refused the operation, otherwise he would have had to miss many months. Removed kidney stones with hot baths and 15 liters of water a day. He got rid of the last “cobblestone” right before the winning free skate. One can only guess what hellish pain it was.
The second key decision is the refusal to physically procreate, despite boundless love. They did not need a third, even their own child – flesh and blood of two such talented people. Perhaps Lyudmila was worried that motherhood would not allow her to maintain a chiseled figure. Or both did not want to share each other with anyone. And, of course, they understood that nine months of pregnancy and the postpartum period would take too much time.
Life for each other had a significant disadvantage – one of the lovebirds would have to feel the bitterness of absolute loneliness in any case. In their case, Oleg drank the whole cup – he had to live for almost six years without his beloved.
Society was ready to accept the childlessness of figure skaters, because serving a great cause was considered by Soviet ideology as a worthy occupation for which one can sacrifice personal values. But leaving the USSR is a completely different story. Even after 40 years, many people find it difficult to say goodbye.
The bottom line, without details, is that the decision fits into one sentence – Belousova and Protopopov asked for asylum in Switzerland while there on a tour of the Leningrad Ice Ballet. Considering that even today many figure skaters are called traitors, it is not difficult to imagine how everything was in 1979. They were branded in absentia, stripped of all titles, and erased from encyclopedias. They published devastating articles about them. Journalists and former rivals on the national team, like Alexei Ulanov, talked about how greedy and vile they are, these egoists raised by their Soviet homeland. How the thirst for profit closed their eyes. And how commercialism turns out to be higher than honor.
Meanwhile, it was to preserve honor and dignity that the skaters decided to take such a desperate step – to leave their dear homeland. Relatives, friends, native places, thousands of fans – all this without much hope of ever returning.
It’s even strange to talk about commercialism, when in the USSR, in material terms, they had everything one could dream of. An apartment in the center of St. Petersburg, a unique “Chaika” pickup truck in the Union, the opportunity to sometimes go abroad, an unofficial fan club that followed the skaters everywhere – its members helped Lyudmila with housework.
In a word, they have there was everything except the opportunity to train without restrictions, stage new numbers and perform freely as artists.
These oxygen valves were closed gradually one after another. Some are loud and direct, like the directly spoken words of a sports official. Like, it’s already hard for you to skate, you need to give way to the young ones. It’s not until you’re 50 years old to flit around on ice! Some – meanly and quietly. At a meeting before their second Olympics, one functionary said that Belousova and Protopopov could not be taken to Grenoble. If they win another gold, they will definitely run away. At that time, they, of course, did not have and could not have any such plans.
Finally, the main reason for leaving is both poetic and prosaic. Oleg was approaching the retirement age of a ballet dancer, and he was afraid that the same “well-wishers” would raise this issue at the right opportunity. Then they will lose the last ice they still had.
It seemed terribly unfair – they are full of strength and inspiration, loved by the public and ready to ride for many more years. But the director of their native Leningrad Ballet Theater does not allow them to stage solo numbers: “You are not soloists, but a corps de ballet.” This must have caused a feeling of rejection for one of the most titled couples in history. Meanwhile, the audience invited them 6-7 times for an encore with the few numbers that they managed to show.
In general, their only real passion, self-interest and motive for committing madness was ice. And, of course, they are themselves for each other. In Grindelwald, where we lived since 1979, we had the opportunity to ride every day all year round. As well as the opportunity not to separate – in all the years of their life together, they spent less than a week apart.
Illustrative quote from Oleg Protopopov from his autobiography “Golden Skates with a Diamond” about one of their performances at the 1966 World Championships, where Lyudmila went onto the ice in an unconscious state after severe poisoning:
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“We are not We were interested in the applause. We repeat: the Davos audience – sleek, rich – was of little appeal to us. We just looked at each other.”
Perhaps the only moment when his pragmatism prevailed over his heart was associated with tragic events. In 1991, Oleg’s mother, Agnia Vladimirovna, died. But he was unable to come to the funeral in St. Petersburg, although there were no longer any political obstacles from Russia to this. Switzerland did not let him go – if Protopopov had left its territory at that moment, he would have lost the right to quickly obtain citizenship. However, what mother would not understand a child in such a situation.
Another striking example of “proto-popov’s commercialism” that destroys the arguments of critics is the story of not buying a house in Switzerland. During the tour after escaping from the USSR, they accumulated a decent amount of money. It was enough to buy her own home, which by today’s standards would cost a fortune, and would also give her a sense of security. But Lyudmila and Oleg chose to buy the most modern video equipment at that time in order to make a film about their couple. Capture all numbers on film. To make a kind of anthology of ice art – these formulations would probably be to their liking.
Within a few years, the equipment became hopelessly outdated – film was replaced by utilitarian digital technology. All the footage, along with piles of cameras, light and sound, was stored until the last moment in the small apartment that Oleg and Lyudmila rented. Most of all, Protopopov wanted a film dedicated to him to one day see the light of day. He said that they were keeping it for Russia. At the moment, the fate of these priceless recordings is unknown.
Oleg Alekseevich was so eager to preserve his and Lyudmila’s legacy, to embody it in something material and tangible, that at some point he missed the main thing. It is impossible to preserve stardust in a jar, like cucumbers for the winter. You can't make the northern lights a museum exhibit. All these are too large numbers to fit into the modest judges' scoreboards. Belousova/Protopopov became great during their careers. They changed pair skating in the way they treated it and each other.
Which pairs we now celebrate as harmonious, whose we can mark the rolledness as perfect, and there is the immortality of Belousova/Protopopov. Thanks to them, the music in the programs of the greatest skaters will never again sound in the background. They showed that you can live in music. Forever.
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