Eks Aleksey - Dmitrii Shilov - from bankput to millionaire

Editor Andrew Primak

Cover designer Alexey Polyanskiy

Proofreader Viktoriya Primak

Translator Natalya Vladimirovna Obukhova

© Eks Aleksey, 2019

© Shilov Dmitrii, 2019

© Alexey Polyanskiy, cover design, 2019

© Natalya Vladimirovna Obukhova, translation, 2019

ISBN 978-5-0050-7402-7

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Almost a documentary novel that you are going to read is the first step to create a screenplay and shoot a film based on Mitya Shilov’s life, my school friend and colleague on some not very successful Internet projects and a fellow from KVN team of the school №15 (now gymnasium №7) of the city of Krasnoyarsk. Before starting work on this story I took a series of interviews with Mitya, his wife Tanya, their son Vanya, his parents Sergey Ivanovich and Marina Anatolevna, talked to some of the characters from Dmitrii Shilov’s channel on Youtube and took part in the filming of one of the videos in autumn 2017 (“12 years together with Tanya, the countryside party”). So the book will have a lot of information about which viewers of the Internet TV channel Raddy (or as Vaduysha says, the so-called “RAddyson”) haven’t known before.

This book is based on real events that happened in Krasnoyarsk in the late XX – early XXI centuries but is not a fully documentary research. The names of some characters have been changed, however, the essence and sequence of events and the places of actions are quite real. The author has reserved the right to think up some details for beauty and coherence of the narrative. If you recognized yourself on these pages and you didn’t like it, then it’s absolutely nothing. I didn’t mean you, it seemed to you. Also, I really wanted to make my home city Krasnoyarsk one of the heroes, to show some details of urban life of the 90s and the 2000s. The life around us is becoming the history so fast that it’s a pity to forget it but nice to remember. This is one of the purposes of this book.

The book “From bankrupt to millionaire” is not retelling videos from Youtube channel of Dmitrii Shilov, these videos can be seen by anyone today. On these pages you can find out how Mitya got into big debts and then not only got out of them but got rich. By the beginning of 2019 more than 600 thousand users are subscribed for Dmitrii Shilov’s Youtube Channel and the monthly income of Mitya is measured in thousands, sometimes even tens of thousands of dollars. Whether you like it or not (Mitya has more than enough haters) but Dmitrii Shilov’s life is a real success story in the modern world of Russia in 2010-s. A story is worth of being told and continued!

I did not even try to keep up with the events of the life of Dmitrii Shilov because he makes content almost every day. Today he is flying somewhere, tomorrow he is shot somewhere, the next day he is moving to Moscow… If you are interested in his life, welcome to the Internet. This book is a little bit different and what it is about you can easily understand yourselves.

This story has two versions of the beginning and yet there is no end because the main character is alive and safe and is not going to stop at what he has reached. That is what we all want him to do. I’ve been thinking for a long time which option of the beginning to leave, but then I decided to keep both – you can choose what you like more. I wrote this pRADDYslovie (Introduction) more for myself because at the beginning of any text the author explains for himself why he began to write. And now everything is for you.

The border of Eastern and Western Siberia, January. In the city-millionaire Krasnoyarsk Epiphany frosts are especially severe because the Yenisei River in the city does not freeze “thanks to” the dam of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station. Uncovered by ice even in minus forty degrees, polynia stretches for hundreds of kilometers as an open wound, changing the climate of the whole region. The powerful river like a bear who has forgotten about winter hibernation, continuously breathes, producing frosty vapor around. Ice patterns on the trees are beautiful but the wet frost is always ready to get under any fur coat and to freeze the warmest places. At other times of the year, Krasnoyarsk may be governed by the mayor, but winter is definitely ruled by cold. It is especially uncomfortable in the city in the early winter morning: the Sun still does not think to rise above the horizon, and the pale spots of lantern light do not disperse but only strengthen the surrounding gloom. In such weather a good owner won’t let even a dog go out. The most conscious dogs also feel sorry for their owners and not to go outside they urinate somewhere in themselves. It is great to watch such winter from somewhere from fabulous Bali or Phuket island where many citizens of Krasnoyarsk like to spend winter. Of course, those who can afford it.

A large block of new ten-storey panel buildings on the right Bank of the Yenisei river near Oktyabrsky bridge is called Severniy Proezd. Such blocks of flats on analogies with “Khrushchev” and “Brezhnev” project houses could be called “Putinki”, but cunning vodka producers took a bright word for their commercial needs. In one of the closed courtyards of the neighbourhood there is a children’s rink, which is filled with water from a hose every winter in the morning by a tall plump man in a dark jacket and a sports hat – the usual “average” Siberian, as the lovers to sit with beer on the bench say. At first glance, he lives like everyone else – a wife, a child, a car, the bustle of life, in which we all gradually sink with the course of time. But for some reason his life is constantly watched through the Internet by hundreds of thousand people but he does not feel any embarrassment from such attention to his person, but he always supports this interest and he even makes very good money. However, he does not keep this money: it was he who became the sponsor of the hockey team, decorated the yard rink with coloured lights, filled the pits on the road, arranged a children’s holiday, helped an acquaintance to pay the loan, gave the disabled man a wheelchair and did a lot of good deeds, not getting into someone’s pocket or the budget of his native city… He seems to be very kind. May be he is a Deputy? Yes, he was also a candidate, but fortunately, he didn’t manage to open the door to the authorities with a kick. Don’t dream another’s dream, it will come true. You must find your own one.

So, the rink is filled, and famous in many countries of the world a videoblogger with the audience of more than 600 thousand subscribers winds the hose and goes home to wake his son up to school. Then he will go to measure the next ten thousand steps, train in the gym and plan funny trips and funny gatherings for new videos. Everything that will come to our hero to the mind while walking, will certainly become a video content in the story of his Instagram, where there are only tens of thousands subscribers. And then it’s time to pick up his son Vanya from the school, his wife Tanya will come back home from work, and they need to discuss the next journey to exotic countries and shooting in an entertainment project at the Federal TV channel. And, of course, he will not forget to shoot a few commercials with himself in the lead role without leaving home and to send them to the cutting. These worries are not typical for the majority.

Another day of Dmitrii Shilov from the channel “Raddyson” or Raddy begins in the distant and frosty Krasnoyarsk. The day, which will be watched as usual by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. And all his winter problems can be described with a quote from the movie “Summer”: “You have a beautiful problem, such problems are very rare.”