This you can (computer). A story about a forgotten TV show

Once again, I catch myself thinking that "again there is nothing to see." Because I want not sugary and strained, but technical, emotional, which makes you think and look after viewing additional information. Yes, of course, there are such things as MR.ROBOT , but they are so rare and fragmentary that they are almost completely lost against the ocean of frankly cheap consumer goods (and indeed, these ubiquitous people are already fed up with the order). It seems that you can try Discovery or National Geographic, but I had a chance to study at a Soviet-style school with Soviet teachers, so all this semolina porridge “just about complicated” does not climb at all. In general, for the reasons described above, I hung in my mind a sort of watchdog to fill a vacant place on "

And recently, doing my duty as inertial storage devices and browsing through articles by professor Gulia , widely known in narrow circles , I suddenly came across his story about the program "You can do this", which was incredibly popular in Soviet times. Surprisingly, I did not hear about such a program, nor did my friends and acquaintances. A quick look at a couple of the issues found on youtube made me rub my hands in anticipation of excellent material. If it’s interesting what came of it, I ask under cut.

At first, as usual, a little history. Having recovered from the consequences of World War II, the Soviet Union in the 60-80s of the last century began to devote very serious attention to the development of science and technology. At that time, there was not a single scientific publication in the country (monograph, article, review, thesis) on the relationship between science, technology and production, wherever the provision on the transformation of science into “direct productive force” was mentioned. Due to massive government funding of targeted fundamental research programs, the network of research institutions and research centers has expanded significantly. The tasks of intensifying scientific research and strengthening the connection of science with production have been highlighted. No wonder looking at all this, almost every Soviet citizen dreamed of somehow touching this high world. Every child dreamed of being an astronaut (just like a video blogger right now), and every schoolchild, teenager or student wanted to invent something (most often traveling or flying). The state not only did not interfere with this, but also stimulated it in every possible way (by circles of children's creativity, clubs of inventors and rationalizers, etc.).

Due to the lack of the Internet or other means of instant communication, all communication between like-minded people went through correspondence. The centers uniting creative engineering youth (and older people) were various scientific and technical magazines, such as the Legendary (specially written with a capital letter) magazine "Youth Technology". Because, until now, in the post-Soviet space and abroad, thousands of large engineers claim that it was “Technique - Youth” that helped them choose a profession, they consider themselves to be pupils of “Technique - Youth”. Not many magazines can boast of such a school. The key, in my opinion, figure in this magazine was its chief editor, Vasily Dmitrievich Zakharchenko .

As far back as the 19th century, the Russian engineer and philosopher of technology P.K. Engelmeyerwrote that the engineer must necessarily combine a professional from a technical point of view, and an artist or poet, from a creative point of view. Vasily Dmitrievich (or as he was called inside the TM team - “Vede”) as no one else met these criteria. A heating engineer by training, a poet is at heart. It is not surprising that in the hands of such a person "a stone turned into a butterfly." The basic principle of the journal’s editorial board was: “The editorial board should love the reader, sincerely be interested in his needs and be extremely attentive to being understood by him.” As they say, "love, love, create, understand." And readers absolutely genuinely reciprocated, bombarding TM mailboxes with millions of letters. It is not known whether this article would be written now if in the distant 70s of the last century one talented person, did not meet another. Now it’s difficult to say which case brought the chief editor of a popular magazine with a young, ambitious and creative journalist.Vladimir Alexandrovich Solovyov , but it was this accident that allowed future colleagues to form a vision for a new TV show and no American franchises for you on the show and start to launch it.

It was decided to take ideas from readers' letters and show them on television. The director's idea of ​​the program is to protect the invention before the jury and the audience, prompted Vladimir Yakovlevich Voroshilov. The same television director, permanent author and host of the program “What? Where? When?". It was decided to call the program “You Can Do It” (computer) and release it under the auspices of the Central Editorial Board for Children and Youth of the Central Television.

The program affected almost all areas of people's lives and interests: home-made cars, amphibians, aircraft, musical instruments, cooking and equipment for it; medicine - childbirth in water, clairvoyance, mysterious phenomena and fantastic projects, hypnosis; home art, garden; even sexual problems. It is not surprising that the audience was widest: from schoolchildren of 7–8 years old to pensioners. In the program, inventors presented do-it-yourself works. After a vivid demonstration of the invention, it was further discussed with heated discussion reminiscent of the defense of a candidate dissertation. Moreover, the “dissertation council” was of the appropriate level of training: doctors of science, science fiction writers, motorists (from the editorial board of the magazine “Behind the Wheel”), inventors and engineers of all stripes.

In each program, a very active discussion of the merits and demerits of the presented model and the possibility of its subsequent production and application was lively, captivating with its immediacy and lively hoarseness . Moreover, no rehearsalsand repeated takes. This was one of the important know-how of the presenter V.A. Solovyov, thanks to whom the transfer immediately fell in love among the people. This was one of the few programs on Soviet television where polar points of view on a particular problem were expressed, thanks to which the program was very popular and was broadcast twice a week (live broadcast and replay). Despite the fact that the regulated duration of the program was only 45 minutes, in some cases it could be delayed for an hour and a half. The permanent audience of the audience was about 100 million people, even Gorbachev spoke about it in his speeches. Surprisingly, the fact that a television project dedicated to scientific and technical creativity, inventors, for almost two decades, was no less popular than pop programs and "Lights" (!!!).

Here is how the famous inventor I.L. writes about this process. Vikentiev:

... Volodya Solovyov personally experienced all moving and motionless inventions. If he heard that someone invented something in Kamchatka, in some village 400 kilometers from Petropavlovsk, he immediately flew there. Motor rally - Vova participates in a motor rally. On the sleigh - on the sleigh. On balloons - on balloons ...

A graduate of the Faculty of Journalism, Vladimir Solovyov had a fantastic capacity for work and combined the qualities of a leader, organizer and presenter, while remaining a simple and sincere person. Another would simply not be able to find a common language with hundreds of diverse inventors and rationalizers from all over the country. Often, the proposed inventions (by the way, and the looks of their authors) were so exotic that they seemed to be suitable for the heading “You can’t think of it purposely”, but the broadcast took place, and the editorial office was inundated with requests from enterprises, factories and research institutes asking them to provide documentation for the invention and contact information the author. It turned out that everyone needed it. Through the efforts of the presenter, legendary people were invited to the program, each of them considered it an honor to appear in the brainchild of V.A. Solovyov.L.S. Theremin .


On the program, Lev Gumilyov, the son of Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova, spoke about his travels, the legendary Danish artist Harlaf Birdstrup painted his cartoons (in the photo he is with V.D. Zakharchenko).


By the way, it was Birdstrup who, in 1986, on his friendly cartoon, which graced the next issue of "Youth Technique," depicted the jury that has been permanent for over 10 years.


Another charismatic member of the jury deserves special mention, mentioned at the very beginning of the article - Professor Nurbey Gulia , his bristle , “but if we should build a flywheel here”.


Nurbey Vladimirovich is today an iconic Russian scientist and inventor in the field of inertial (flywheel) energy storage devices, stepless mechanical drive and hybrid transport power units. He gained all-Union fame as an inventor of a super-flywheel and a specialist in the field of recovery of mechanical energy and promising transmissions precisely thanks to his participation in a computer program. Anyway, a person is so unusual and versatile that he deserves a separate, considerable size article. For general development, I recommend reading his biographies (both copyrighted and written by friends ). It's worth it :)


The section of automobile home-made products was most popular among the audience ( the link is the release of the program dedicated to amphibious cars). Many of the cars that can now be found on resources describing the Soviet DIY auto industry were shown for the first time on the program “You Can Do It”. An example is the legendary Pangolin and its inventor Alexander Kulygin (together with the jury who got on the Bidstrup cartoon). A brief mention of it is on Habré .


It is not known how the fate of the program in “new” Russia would have developed, but suddenly, barely celebrating its 50th anniversary, Vladimir Solovyov, a leading and ideological inspirer, suddenly dies from a broken heart. After his death, “You Can Do It” was released for some time, rather by inertia, since even with the naked eye it was noticeable how much its contents were changing. As V.S. sang Vysotsky "... there are few real violent, and there are no leaders." After the death of the “captain”, the seemingly close-knit collective gradually disintegrated. In 1999, V.D. died Zakharchenko and hopes for a revival of the original format disappeared even among the most loyal viewers. Nevertheless, in 2013, seven issues of the program were presented on the Public Television of Russia, which did not find a response from the viewer and the program was again closed, this time forever. Understand why in fact, uncomplicated. It is enough to look at any issue of the times of the USSR and compare it with what was produced already in the 21st century.
Best of all, in my opinion, the current situation was described by A. Lysenko in his (in an article dedicated to the memory of V.A. Soloviev:

The main thing in invention is not an idea, the main thing is that the right people know about your work at the right time. Maybe Soloviev would have been alive, and attached me to my homeland ... "So the letter of one of my acquaintance, who for many years put on the creation of some tricky car and his whole life - on unsuccessful attempts to implement it in the Homeland, ended. He wrote this letter from the distant state of Texas, where, it turns out, both he and his car were waiting with open arms

You look at the modern startup movement, the concept of pitch-ing is now fashionable, and you don’t understand whether the organizers have transferred, or the inventors ... In general, I honestly looked at all the available releases of “You Can Do It” on the Internet. And he even wrote an advertisement for a local video flea market, with the hope that someone might have at least VHS tapes left ... This program was a discovery for me and still I can’t understand why the old Soviet there is a lot of variety on the Internet, and programs like “You can do it” are either available in pieces or simply not available.

Guys! Does anyone really need this ??

PS Maybe someone left recordings of releases from those gray times? I will accept a gift on any medium.