Mikhail Shuydin

Mikhail Ivanovich Shuydin (27 September 1922 — 24 August 1983) was a Soviet clown and acrobat-eccentric. People's Artist of the RSFSR. From 1950 he worked in the arena with Yury Nikulin, Member of the Great Patriotic War.

Shuydin was born on September 27, 1922 in the village of Kazachya in the Shchyokinsky District of Tula Oblast to a shepherd's family. He lost his parents early on in his life and then moved to Podolsk near Moscow.

Around the start of World War II, he began working at Podolsk's 187th plant as a locksmith. In May 1942 Shuydin was drafted into the Red Army becoming a student at the Cadet 1st Gorky Tank School. After graduating from college with honors he was sent to the 35th Guards Tank Brigade as a lieutenant.

From 1945-1948 he studied at GUTSI (State School of Circus Arts). In 1950 he graduated from the studio of conversational genres at the Moscow Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. He then began working with Yuri Nikulin as an apprentice-assistant clowns to Karandash.

Soon after leaving Karandash, Nikulin and Shuydin created the clown duo "Nikulin and Shuydin" which lasted until Shuydin suffered a severe illness in 1983. Shuydin's clown image was that of a daring guy who knows everything, in contrast to the image of Nikulin, who was lazy and melancholic. Thus, their joint work was based on conflicting characters.