With the light hand of the American circus entrepreneur Taylor Barnum, in the second half of the 19th century, the fashion spread to demonstrate to the public various kinds of wonders and phenomena
Like mushrooms after the rain, the so-called freak show, or "museums of curious rarities" began to appear. They showed the fattest woman in the world, an all-tattooed man, midgets, wax figures depicting terrible scenes like a girl being tormented by a lion, or a Japanese performing hara-kiri …
Stefan the poodle
The famous illusionist and fakir Dmitry Longo recalled a freak show that worked at the Nizhny Novgorod fair. One of its most impressive exhibits was the “mortally wounded Turkish officer”. A hero in a red fez was lying on the sand, covering a terrible wound on his chest with his hand. In the death throes, the dying man's chest shook convulsively, blood oozing through his fingers on the sand. "The picture was eerie and so natural," Longo said, "that some of the ladies who attended the freak show fainted." However, complete disappointment would befall those who looked inside the officer's figure. There was hidden a simple mechanism that squeezed out of the wound "blood" - a mixture of petroleum jelly with glycerin, painted red. The owners of freeware skilfully used the psychology of the crowd. Therefore, the desired exhibits of any "museum of curiosities" have always been a variety of freaks. The German Zedelmeier once found a treasure - a creature that resembles either a person or a dog. It was a young man nicknamed Stephen the Poodle, covered with thick and long hair. Sedelmayer bought it from poor Polish peasants who kept their ugly son in a stable.
Monster woman
But no matter how famous all kinds of giants and dwarfs, extraordinary fat men and Siamese twins were, it was still difficult for them to compete with the monster woman Julia Pastrana. She appeared in freak shows and circuses in the 50s of the XIX century - a young woman, dark-skinned, short and of normal build. “With broad shoulders and luxuriously developed breasts,” a contemporary noted. "Her arms are beautiful, her legs are slender." But the face was striking! A narrow forehead, protruding lips, disproportionately large ears and … a beard, a black bushy beard!
There was something inhuman, animal in the appearance of this woman. “Her cheeks, her chin,” said an eyewitness, “are covered with thick hair. The mustache is quite rare. Dark tufts of hair on the ears. The back of the head, chest, arms are also covered with hair. " It was reported that she spoke "quite judiciously", and in two languages - Spanish and English, knew many homework.
Julia was Mexican. She was found as a child in the forests of the Sierra Madre, one of the Cordillera ranges, far from populated areas. How she got there, no one knew. It was bought by the owner of the freak show, who immediately realized what value this monster was. Pastrana grew up and was shown for money.
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Her art was simple. In circuses, for example, a bearded woman was taken to the arena. She walked him along the barrier several times, seductively smiling at the audience and sending them air kisses. Pastrana also sang, danced, and spoke to the audience.
Evening at the Hermitage
Russian actor Vasily Dalmatov recalled: “I saw her as a child, in the circus, where she appeared as a singer and dancer, in a short dress with a neckline. I even remember her throat sounds and English words. I remember how she frightened me when the impresario led her along the barrier of a huge circus, and she, leveling with our box at the barrier, decided to caress me."
Julia Pastrana was brought to Russia, to Moscow, in the summer of 1858 (before that she was shown in Germany and England). The newspaper Vedomosti of the Moscow City Police announced the following: “In the Hermitage Garden on Thursday, July 3, there is a great entertainment and musical evening, in which the famous phenomenon Miss Julia Pastrana, who has arrived in this very capital, will have the honor of appearing before the Moscow public for the first time. The entrance price is 1 ruble 50 kopecks in silver per person. Children pay half."
Pastrana's success in Moscow has been tremendous. She stayed here most of July and gave eight "concerts", during which she performed Spanish and Scottish dances and sang. She appeared on the stage either in Italian or in Greek dress and even in the costume of an American sailor.
In those days, the book “Surprised Moscow in the talk and anecdotes about the famous Miss Julia Pastrana” was published. There really was a lot of talk. Many Muscovites did not believe at all that a girl with such an extraordinary physiognomy could be born. There was even a rumor that in fact she, on the contrary, was very pretty, and everything ugly about her was made of gutta-percha.
Choosy bride
But there were also responses of another kind. Petersburg newspaper "Northern Bee" devoted a sympathetic article to a bearded woman. “This victim of the whim of nature,” it said about Pastrana, “has become the plaything of greedy self-seekers. No matter how low the level of development to which Pastrana was placed by fate, but in this shaggy chest the human heart beats: why suppress its beating with the cold hand of self-interest? " Even her images, the newspaper complained, became the object of profit: "Portraits of Pastrana are so widespread that there is hardly an inn between the two capitals where her face is not hung." But what are the common people! It was much sadder, the article said, to see the greedy and cold curiosity of the educated public pushing and crushing each other in the Hermitage garden.
Perhaps only the unnamed author of this article stood up for Pastrana. He admitted that he watched her performance in Moscow with a heavy feeling. “The deviations of nature, of whatever kind they may be, are interesting and instructive. But why lead this woman through the crowd like a learned beast?”He asked.
The same "Northern Bee" wrote that about Pastrana "unheard of fables are told, which are repeated, increased and adorned by a hundred stupid rumor." Probably, it was just such a fable that the rumor was that Pastrana, despite her, to put it mildly, strange appearance, was made about twenty marriage proposals. One of the "applicants" for her hand was, as they said, another phenomenon, a fat Englishman, 53-year-old Roger Bark, a man with a huge belly, who weighed as much as 240 kilograms! But Julia turned out to be an extremely picky bride and rejected all offers.
Embalmed "beard"
After the departure of Pastrana abroad, a lithograph appeared in Russia, ridiculing the "pastromania". Standing on the stage, Yulia turned to the "enlightened" public: "Before I assumed that I myself am the subject of surprise, but now I am convinced otherwise: the subject of surprise is you, gentlemen!"
Julia Pastrana graduated from her life somewhere in Germany. She was said to have died in childbirth. The child, who was born dead, turned out, like the mother, completely covered with hair. However, even after her death, Pastrana continued to bring pastoral
at the show for Gasner a huge income. He embalmed her body (and according to some reports, the body of her hairy baby) and exhibited in his "museum" under a glass cover.
The already mentioned actor Dalmatov recalled that he saw the "stuffed" Pastrana in a freak show opened in St. Petersburg on Nevsky Prospekt. She was dressed and combed in exactly the same way as during her performances. At her feet lay an official paper, certifying that there was no deception here, the exhibit was genuine. The big black eyes of the embalmed wonder woman looked at the visitors of the freak show affectionately, as if alive. And sadness and reproach shone in them …