A modern circus of freaks. The most famous artists of the circus of freaks (40 photos)

Many people have loved going to the circus since childhood: to admire the performances of trained animals, laugh at the antics of mischievous clowns, or hold their breath while watching complex acrobatic acts. But behind the superbly performed numbers there are not only years of work and rehearsals, but also real human tragedies, the cause of which is someone’s mistake, an absurd accident or animal instincts.

Death under the hooves

On August 30, 2015, circus rider Anastasia Maksimova and her group took part in a performance at the sports complex in the village of Abrau-Dyurso near Novorossiysk.

While performing an acrobatic stunt, the 24-year-old girl fell out of the saddle, catching her foot in the stirrup, after which the horse dragged her several times across the arena. Then the horse jumped onto the podium.

They were able to stop the frightened animal only after a couple of minutes, but during this time Maksimova received several severe blows to her hooves and to the head. She died from her injuries in the ambulance.

During the investigation, it turned out that Maksimova was far from a beginner in equestrian sports: she had been doing it for six years and had numerous awards for horse riding. At the 2012 World Championships in this discipline, she received a silver medal. Some experts then put forward a version that the cause of the incident was a violation of safety regulations during horse riding: the girl’s second leg, contrary to all the rules, was rigidly secured in a tarpaulin loop. This was probably done to make it easier to perform the trick. But it is precisely because of the fixation of the leg that the athlete cannot jump off the horse in time.

Last straw"

In the spring of 2013, the “Drop” act was held at the circus on Vernadsky Avenue. According to the scenario, a group of acrobats had to jump from 30 meters (which corresponds to the eighth floor of the building) straight into the arena upside down. In flight, they managed to perform complex acrobatic figures. The act was performed by a group of athletes from Kenya. According to the author's idea, the first to land was 23-year-old Caro-Christopher Kazungu. Everything went well, the audience, including numerous relatives of the acrobat, who specially came from Africa, were delighted. But the falling Kenyan was not stopped by the safety net or cable as they should have been, and he collapsed into the arena. The acrobat was urgently taken to the nearest First City Hospital, doctors diagnosed him with a concussion, a comminuted fracture of the first spine and a number of other injuries. Kazungu miraculously survived.

The State Labor Inspectorate found out that, firstly, the victim was not a professional acrobat, but in his homeland, together with a group of colleagues, he was engaged in dancing. Secondly, he jumped without a safety rope.

In the circus itself, the incident is not associated with the gymnast’s low qualifications: supposedly no one performed the “Drop” better than Kazungu. Allegedly, everything was in order with the net before the Kenyan’s performance, and the point of the act, according to the head of the aerial acrobats’ act at the circus on Vernadsky Avenue, Vladimir Doveyko, was precisely to jump without insurance. Eventually official reason The emergency was recognized as a defective net, and the circus management paid for the artist’s subsequent treatment.

Falling on ice

The performance of Yulia and Alexander Volkov, who performed in the circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard in Moscow, ended in an accident. In 2009 they rehearsed the number " Aerialists on canvases”, it lasts 5.5 minutes and is performed without insurance. Yulia was sitting in the splits, her legs were secured with rings of fabric, her hands were holding onto the fabric, and belts were attached to her waist, which Alexander was holding on to. But at some point, the artist’s leg slipped out of the ring, and the acrobats fell onto artificial ice (the circus also held an ice show at that time): Alexander from six meters, Yulia from eight. The couple survived, but received numerous injuries. After a long rehabilitation, the artists returned to the arena.

"Flight" is over

Also in 2009, a gymnast from the Moscow Starfish Circus crashed in Khabarovsk. The 26-year-old acrobat was rehearsing the “Flight” routine.

For some reason, his colleagues did not have time to catch the gymnast flying under the dome and he, working without a safety harness, fell onto the net.

He fell so badly that he suffered a dislocation of a cervical vertebra and damage to the spinal cord - but remained alive.

Tiger-tiger, burning fear

In 2006, during a performance at the circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, trainer Artur Bagdasarov wanted to push one of the tigers towards the rest of the animals with a stick, but approached him too quickly. As a result, when the man raised his hand, the tiger raised its paw at him, and then crushed Arthur under itself and squeezed his head with its teeth. They tried to drive away the predator with whips, but he only responded to several shots from a pistol into the air. Doctors put about a hundred stitches on the trainer’s head alone. The tiger, by the way, who even refused to eat for a while due to stress, was not punished: they decided that Bagdasarov himself had violated safety regulations.

Lions on the hunt

Trainer Alexander Shatirov was attacked by two lions during a performance in the Ufa circus in 2005. One of the animals tore the man’s leg, the second threw him into the arena. Assistants tried to ward off predators cold water from a fire hose, but it was not possible to do this right away.

It is noteworthy that Shatirov, on principle, did not give his pets special sedatives, although this practice is often used in many circuses: he believed that this had a bad effect on the abilities of lions.

I came, I saw, I bit

On March 8, 2004, in the Moscow circus on Vernadsky Avenue, the tiger Caesar, whom everyone considered harmless (by predatory standards, of course), suddenly attacked the pregnant trainer Svetlana Sobenko. The woman was taken to intensive care with serious wounds and fractures, there was even a threat of miscarriage, but the child, fortunately, was born healthy.

Dodon attacks

In December 2003, a bear named Dodon attacked three people. The tragedy occurred in “Durov’s Corner”, in the room where the animals are kept, when assistant trainer Umar Zakirov was going to feed the pet. Somehow Dodon got out of the cage, bit Zakirov to death, and then attacked two trainers - Timur Shchedov and Vladimir Soshin, who tried to stop the bear and save their colleague. Zakirov died on the spot, Shchedov was seriously wounded, Soshin received a wound to his right hand.

Trampled by elephants

One of the most tragic incidents occurred on February 22, 2001, in the same “Durov’s Corner”. Trainer Alexander Terekhov rehearsed with two elephants - Dasha and Masha. When he tried to put a harness on Dasha, for which, apparently, he got up to some kind of attack. It is still unknown whether he fell off it himself, losing his balance, or whether the elephant accidentally threw him off with her trunk, but in addition, Dasha stepped on Terekhov several times. The ambulance was unable to save the artist.

"The Old Lady on the Lampshade"

Tragedies also occurred in Soviet time. A terrible incident was the death of the clown Irina Asmus, known for her role as Toffee in television program"ABVGDeyka." Asmus was born in April 1941, she miraculously survived the siege of Leningrad. For some time after graduating from school, she was an acrobat, but after an injury she moved to the V.F. Komissarzhevskaya Theater, where she played Cinderella, Juliet and other roles. Then Irina Asmus returned to the circus, but as a clown: she performed in solo numbers under the stage name Iriska.

The tragedy that ended Iriska’s life occurred in 1986 in the circus of Belarusian Gomel. 44-year-old Asmus had a spectacular “Old Lady on a Lampshade” trick: she rotated around her axis right under the dome.

But when the clown spun upside down, putting her leg through the loop and unfastening the safety net so that the rope would not interfere with her movements, she fell off. The body fell like a stone from a 12-meter height. The artist died from numerous fractures and internal hemorrhage. Later it turned out that the spinning machine had broken down: after the death of the circus performer, this type of mechanism was prohibited.

Circus performers have always attracted attention, especially at the time when the freak circus appeared, which became a source of entertainment for most people. Legendary American showman Phineas Taylor Barnum united and turned the so-called "freaks" into one of the most famous attractions. The performers of this circus were unfortunate victims cruel world, who refused to accept them and recognize them as “normal.”

1. Francesco Lentini - the man with three legs

Born in Sicily in 1889, Francesco Lentini was widely known as the "King of Freaks". Francesco was born with a third leg (and reportedly fully functioning genitals). Lentini's condition was the result of a partially formed twin that failed to separate properly from his body. The parents abandoned their son. He first lived with his aunt, and then she gave him to a shelter for disabled children. Francesco was ashamed of himself at first, but then he realized that there were other unusual children in the world. At the age of 8, he immigrated to the United States, where he became a respected circus performer.

2. Stefan Bibrovsky - "The Lion Man"

Born in 1891 in modern Poland, Stefan Bibrowski was an ordinary boy, except for one startling fact: he suffered from hypertrichosis, a disorder that caused hair to grow all over his body and face. His mother was convinced that the child was cursed. One day she witnessed how her husband, Stefan's father, was attacked by a lion. Thinking that her son would become inhuman, Stefan's mother gave him to a German artist. It turns out that Stefan wasn't a "monster" at all. He was kind, gentle and smart person who spoke five languages. He spent part of his speeches simply talking to his audience. Stefan was so successful circus artist that he was able to retire at age 30 and return to Europe. Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack at the age of 41.

3. Isaac Sprague - "Living Skeleton"

Isaac Sprague was a completely normal boy until the age of 12, when he began to suffer from a mysterious illness. He lost weight at an incredible rate until he finally muscle mass didn't evaporate at all. In his adult years, he weighed no more than 43 pounds (about 19 kg). This condition made him unable to do regular work, so Isaac began performing in the circus to pay bills. Sprague spent most his career, working with famous showman P.T. Barnum, toured with him, and also performed at the museum. Isaac died at the age of 46.

4. Ella Harper - "Camel Girl"

Ella Harper was born with an unusual orthopedic condition - recurvation knee joints, which allowed her to fully bend her knees in the opposite direction. She preferred to walk on all fours. Ella became a star in the 1880s big show Harris" Nickel Plate, where she received the nickname "Camel Girl". Newspapers advertised Ella, but she herself was modest and not very interested in fame. After some time, she left the stage, got married and started new life in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1921 she died of cancer.

5. Chang and Eng Banker - conjoined Siamese twins

Chang and Eng Bunker are perhaps the most famous circus performers in history. The brothers were born joined at the chest in Siam (now Thailand). At the time, doctors didn't know how to safely separate twins. When they were young, a famous showman convinced their parents to send them on a world tour, which brought them fame and fortune. After the contract ended, Chang and Eng bought a large plantation in North Carolina. Chang and Eng, determined to live normal life, married local women, also sisters. In total, they had 21 children.

6. Schlitzi Surtees

Schlitzy Surtees rose to fame when he starred in Todd Browning's 1932 classic Freaks. Schlitzi was born with microcephaly, a developmental disorder that caused him to have a very small brain and skull, and was himself vertically challenged. Due to illness, he was unable to do normal work and could only speak short words or phrases. He was sometimes dressed as a woman in dresses because he was incontinent and wore diapers. Although this assumption never became reliable. In 1965, Schlitzie was assigned to the Los Angeles County Hospital. But he felt bad there and was able to return to his normal life. He died in 1971.

7. Joseph Merrick - "The Elephant Man"

Joseph Merrick's life changed the public's view of physical disability. Merrick was born in Leicester. His strange condition, which medical science is still unable to fully explain, began in the first few years of his life, causing deformities in his face and body. When Joseph was 11 years old, his mother died of bronchopneumonia, and his father and new stepmother abused him. Unable to do a regular job, Merrick contacted a showman named Sam Torr and agreed to perform as "The Elephant Man." While in London he was visited by a surgeon named Frederick Treves, who took him in and became his benefactor. Treves visited him daily and they developed quite a close friendship. Merrick also visited wealthy ladies and gentlemen of London society. Joseph Merrick died on April 11, 1890, aged 27.

8. Prince Randian - "Snake Man", "Living Torso", "Caterpillar Man"

Prince Randian was born with tetra-amelia syndrome, a disorder that causes a person to be born without limbs. According to legend, it was brought by P.T. himself. Barnum to America at the age of 18. Randian became famous after playing the "snake man" (he wore a one-piece outfit and crawled around the stage). He could write with his mouth, roll cigarettes and shave. Randian was very capable without limbs. In fact, he made all of his circus props and acts himself. He was very smart and could speak many languages.

9. James Morris - "Rubber Man"

James Morris was born with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a disorder that allowed him to stretch his skin to incredible lengths. Morris took advantage of his condition and began performing in the circus as the “Rubber Man.” Morris's skin was so elastic that he could take the skin from his neck and pull it over his eyes. Naturally, this affected his health. Stretching the skin soon became incredibly painful, and welts and scars began to appear. James Morris was forced to leave the circus. He opened his own barbershop.

10. Grady Stiles - "The Crab Man"

Grady Stiles was a circus performer who became famous for his deformed arms and legs. Styles suffered from a condition known as ectrodactyly, which caused him to have claws instead of arms and legs. This disorder is inherited. Styles' father was also a circus performer. Two of Styles' four children suffered from ectrodactyly. Soon Styles started drinking a lot. In 1978, Styles killed his fiancé eldest daughter on the eve of their wedding. He was convicted of third degree murder and sentenced to fifteen years probation. His first wife, Maria Teresa, paid one of the circus workers to kill Grady. As it turned out, no one loved Grady and all his friends and acquaintances refused to carry his coffin.

11. Charles Sherwood Stratton - "General Tom-Tom"

Charles Sherwood Stratton was a little man who mysteriously stopped growing once he was six months old. Stratton's growth throughout early childhood was about 63 cm, although later he grew a little more and reached 99 cm. Charles began performing in the P.T. Circus. Barnum since age 5. Stratton sang, danced, joked and even imitated celebrities. He became an international celebrity as he toured Europe and met Queen Victoria, President Abraham Lincoln and King Edward VII. In 1863, Stratton married Lavinia Warren (who was also short). He died at the age of 45.

12. Annie Jones - American bearded woman

Annie Jones began touring with the circus at the age of 9 months. Her mother signed a three-year contract with showman P.T. Barnum. By the age of five, Annie had sideburns and a mustache and became the famous "bearded girl." Annie Jones was also famous for her musical abilities. She was married twice. In 1902, Annie died of tuberculosis.

I have no doubt that you have already seen or heard about such people.
Freak circuses, so-called “Freak shows”, or exhibitions wax figures.
Strange people, you might even think that these people are from other universes.
I personally cringe a little from these photos.
So, the 10 most strange people from the circus of freaks.
Sword Swallowers

Cool and always impressive!

Prince Randian

Known as the Caterpillar Man, Cigar Man, or Pillow Man.
Born in 1871 and died in 1934. From birth he had neither arms nor legs. But he loved to smoke

Rudy Santos

Rudi has 4 arms and 3 legs. She was born in 1953 and is alive and well to this day. She performed in the circus of freaks in 1979 - 1980.

He played the banjo, and at the same time he could twist his body into unprecedented poses.

Eric Sprague

Better known as the lizard man.

The Half Lady

Mademoiselle Gabrielle was born in Switzerland in 1884. Was very beautiful girl. She performed in the Ringling Brothers Circus, as well as in the Coney Island's Dreamland sideshow.

Schlitzie the Pinhead

Born in 1901 in the Bronx. Real name Simon Metz. He had a rare genetic disease, due to which he remained at the level of a three-year-old child.
He was 123 centimeters tall. And because of urinary incontinence, he always wore a dress.
He was very loved by the public. Died in 1971.

People have always treated those who are somehow different from them in a special way. And although now all over the world they say that people with physical disabilities are the same as us, many still secretly or openly look at them as a curiosity.

But today we will not talk about such a complex moral and ethical topic, let’s talk about attitudes towards people with disabilities in the past. Namely, about the history of the freak circus or freak show. Such spectacles were popular in Europe and America in XVIII-XIX centuries. Freak shows were traveling circuses where the circus performers were disabled people or people with various physical disabilities or anomalies. Here you will find bearded women, overly thin or fat women, people with missing limbs, and much more.

History of the Circus of Freaks

It all started with the transition to market relations. It would seem, what does the circus have to do with it? If you don't know what circuses looked like in the 18th century, imagine a fair. Around the huge colorful tent there were tents with food, carousels and swings. All this occupied large areas. Therefore, land owners began to demand payment for placing such tents, and sometimes the payment was prohibitively high. Also, moving a traveling circus from place to place was very expensive to transport. Thus, circuses were quite an expensive business and had to bring considerable income to their owners. Today you might think that if you are a slender acrobat or a tall strongman, then your life is good. But it's not that simple. The public in those days was jaded and very demanding of sensual pleasures. No one was surprised by acrobatic performances and clowns. Famous strongmen and magicians also did not delight the public.

And one day someone came up with the idea to surprise the audience with deep, on the verge of disgust, emotions from looking at imperfections human body.

This is how freak circuses appeared, where instead of acrobats and clowns there were “freaks”. It was a show built on the basest and ugliest human emotions. The public enjoyed looking at deformed human bodies and other physical deformities. Interest and curiosity - that’s what guided the creators of the first freak shows. Ethical Standards At that time, ridicule and mockery of such people were encouraged. So the audience flowed like a river to the circus of freaks. They went and paid, then left and came another time, to a different troupe. Thus, it was possible to make a huge fortune at freak shows.

But not all the money went to the profit of the circus directors, some was given to the freaks themselves, and we can say that this was a good part. Many circus performers provided themselves with a calm old age and a large fortune that the average “normal” person could envy.

But we figured out the reasons. Let's get back to history.

For a time, freaks were a common sight in regular circuses. Dwarfs and people with some kind of disability could be present, if not in every, then at least in every third traveling circus. No one deliberately walked the streets in search of the sick and mutilated, because their appearance is not very aesthetic. And aesthetics were important for circus performers. But in early XVIII century, the first freak circuses appeared. They sort of separated themselves from standard circuses and began to travel around the world and give performances on their own. However, they did not take root in conservative and moral Europe. It’s not that people were disgusted to look at it, but Europeans weren’t big fans of such spectacles either. Moreover, most freaks still preferred to work with an ordinary circus. But news of such circuses reaches America. This is where the “golden age” begins.

Until about the mid-1800s, American freak shows were not much different from European ones. Perhaps they were more humane. So, for example, they hired freaks and paid them a lot of money for their performances, signed contracts with them, and the circus performers had much more freedom.

And then photography began to develop, and with it advertising. People decided that it would be better if, before coming to the circus, the viewer saw part of what awaits him. Photos of “freaks” filled the cities. This was the impetus for other freak shows to appear, and this “genre” became incredibly popular.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were hundreds of circuses in both Europe and the United States, each featuring its own freaks. Suddenly war broke out. During World War II, all freak circuses, like regular ones, were in decline. People had no time to go to shows. And there was no particular desire to laugh when people were dying en masse in the world. However, after the end of the war, things got even worse for the freak show: the value human life has increased. People began to be respected more and people stopped laughing at physical freaks. This means they stopped going and paying. As a result, freak circuses ceased to exist. On this moment there are none at all. And if they had appeared, they would have caused such condemnation from society that they would not have survived even a week.

Famous freak circuses

In fact, there were so many circuses that you wouldn’t recognize them all. However, two of them deserve your attention. The first is Congress Of Living Freaks, from which you can currently find a lot of photos, but zero information. It is only known that in their “arsenal” there were dwarfs, people with unusually developed legs and some other anomalies.

More can be said about the second, Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth. This circus is famous primarily because of Phineas Barnum, one of the founders. This man was probably a businessman from God, because he not only made his circus the most famous, but also brought advertising on new level. Although I don’t want to thank him for coming up with some kind of spam.

It all started when Barnum decided to earn extra money. Having bought an elderly African-American woman with part of his ill-gotten fortune, he took her around the cities and said that she was the nanny of Washington himself and that she was more than a hundred years old. People believed and gave him money just to see this miracle. However, interest soon subsided, and Barnum started a rumor that the old woman was not even alive, but a robot. The popularity has returned and doubled! But the woman soon died, and Barnum invited doctors to perform an autopsy, and rumors spread around the city that he replaced the robot with a living person, so as not to reveal the identity of the inventor. Phineas liked such activities, and he found his calling.

His first freak shows were a small troupe consisting of the midget Charles Stratton (General Tom-Tam), Chang and Eng Bunker (Siamese twins who were born in Siam. You see, after whom conjoined people are now named), as well as a woman with an atypical appearance white society appearance: Indian and African American. By the way, Stratton became so popular that he began to be invited to parties high society, and then they found him a dwarf wife.

But Barnum gained real popularity when he created the circus with James Bailey. From his circus he made a whole world with its inhabitants, where each had their own history and their own characteristics. It got to the point that people deliberately hurt themselves just to get into his troupe, because Barnum and Bailey paid very well. But we are all mortal. And after Phineas's death, the circus was sold for 400 thousand dollars (Bailey Barnum, by that time, had stopped working).

Famous Freaks

Various people inhabited the circuses of freaks: the disabled, the sick, the underdeveloped, the crippled and freaks in modern meaning this word. Below we will present to you small list the kind of person who could shine at a freak show.

1. Bearded women

Bearded women are freak show queens. Without a bearded woman, your freak circus would be incomplete. At one time there were many famous women with a beard, and they didn't care at all about this facial hair. It was more of a highlight. Some have a mole, some have a large nose, some have unusually colored hair, and some have beards. These women were as popular among the male sex as any other. Many got married, had children and ended their lives happily.

To date, this anomaly has been studied extensively. Bearded women have hirsutism, a disease that causes the female body to produce too many male hormones. Currently undergoing treatment.

2. Skin abnormalities

These abnormalities include various skin conditions that cause a person's skin to have an unusual color or texture. People with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome were also popular, because of which their skin became stringy (as in the picture), and their joints were so flexible that a person could bend his fingers in reverse side(they probably made good acrobats).

3. Dwarfs and giants

Ordinary growth was uninteresting - give people Lilliputians and giants! Too high or too short people were an integral part of any self-respecting freak show. They often worked in pairs, which looked very contrasting and enhanced the effect of the spectacle. It happened that Lilliputians were wrapped up like newborns, and then they began to talk about philosophical topics in diapers. This greatly amused the audience.

Such anomalies occur due to a lack or excess of growth hormone. But such people live quite freely in modern world, some even become famous. Although, as history shows, their life expectancy is not long.

4. Wolf People

Returning to the topic of facial hair. Such “werewolves” were very popular and had to be present in every decent freak circus. By the way, there was also such a person in Barnum’s circus. Phineas made the guy bark and growl on stage like he was a dog. Meanwhile, Fyodor Evtishchev spoke three languages ​​fluently: Russian, German and English. The reason for this anomaly is hypertrichosis, which is why hair grows not only all over the face, but also throughout the body.

5. People without limbs

Of course, the complete absence of limbs was more exotic, but most often we encountered people who did not have either legs or arms.

There are many reasons for the appearance of such an anomaly: from incorrect birth to amputation due, for example, to severe trauma.

6. Siamese twins

Very thick and very skinny people usually performed in pairs to enhance the effect. Most often: incredible fat woman and an incredibly thin man.

Yes, despite the fact that “ curvaceous“, being overweight was still ugly, and people laughed at it just the same. But in the circus it was more or less appropriate.

8. Lobster People, Penguins and Seals

Lobster people, penguins and seals are anomalies with deformed limbs. When the hands are fused and resemble claws, sometimes the feet or forearms were attached directly to the body. Most often these are congenital anomalies with deviations at the genetic level. There were quite a lot of such people.

There are many more “freaks”: people with bone deformities, microcephalics with growths on the body or extra limbs (a type of Siamese twins). Unfortunately, it is impossible to tell about everyone.

By the way, Todd Browning’s film “Freaks,” which was filmed in the 30s, deserves special mention. Freak circuses still existed then (the freaks in the film were real), but the public received the film poorly. Perhaps because of the scenes of violence that abound in the picture. But calling it “immoral” and “wrong”, and at the same time at will It's kind of unfair to attend a freak show.

Looking at all these people, your problems seem less significant. After all, we are “normal”, something that freaks cannot boast about. Especially nowadays.

The human sense of beauty and aesthetic satisfaction are a set of complex and often paradoxical features and qualities that are quite difficult to explain. Open the most beautiful rose garden, and opposite it - the cabinet of curiosities, and watch the crowd: many more people will gather to look at the ugliness and imperfections than to enjoy the aroma of blooming buds.

It is difficult to say who was the first to understand that the “unexpected mutilated” is much more attractive than the “expected beautiful,” but it can definitely be said that the first nation to make a show out of this were the Americans. Their circuses of freaks were famous throughout the world as rocking camps of outcast tramps who only knew how to pose and learned not to react to the cries of a discouraged crowd. Due to the fact that this cultural phenomenon Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk dedicated the fourth season of their series " American history horrors", we remembered the history of the appearance and disappearance of traveling show freaks in Europe and the USA.

Even before the creation of circuses, in Europe there were single nomads who performed in squares for food and meager remuneration. One of the most famous “artists” of the first half XVII century were brothers Lazarus and Johannes Baptista Colloredo. Born in 1617 in Genoa, Italy, Siamese twins, one with the chest and head of the other protruding from the body, wandered through the then poor, sickly Europe. Historians believe the brothers were mentally retarded, mute, and hard of hearing. They became famous mainly thanks to their visit to the court of Charles I - the king of England, like all monarchs of that time, loved to collect curiosities, but this one did not take root at his court for long.

If the human phenomenon could be actively used in some way - for example, organizing weight lifting for strongmen, letting someone in the audience hold a sword that would then be swallowed, or allowing a child from the crowd to comb the performer's shaggy face - an additional fee was charged for this.

Since the 16th century physical abnormalities at birth, they were no longer considered an omen of the appearance of devilish offspring, evil spirits and evil spirits. In the 19th century, when among the population of Europe there were enough freaks of all stripes to create, for example, a national or cultural minority, “managers” began to work with them - people who guaranteed protection to tramps in exchange for a solid percentage of their earnings, and also provided artists shelter and food. In the USA, freak circuses have become a profitable business.

There were quite a lot of circus programs with the participation of people with certain anomalies. If the human phenomenon could be actively used in some way - for example, organizing weight lifting for strongmen, letting someone in the audience hold a sword that would then be swallowed, or allowing a child from the crowd to comb the performer's shaggy face - an additional fee was charged for this. The rest of the artists were put on the platform, turning the show into museum exhibits for the duration. There were usually ten of them, hence the name - Ten in One. An analogue of the domestic cabinet of curiosities, in addition to the Egyptian Hall of Anomalies in Piccadilly Circus in the UK, was the American exhibition “pickled punks” (“pickled rubbish”) - an event in which jars with mutilated animals or children preserved in alcohol, embryos or parts of the human body stood on the shelves in orderly rows , including tattooed skin.

First "trial" American freak show appeared in 1829 - the main exhibit in it were the Siamese twins Chan and En. In 1844, American circus pioneer and manager P.T. Barnum, traveled around England with his companion Tom Thumb (a nickname similar to “Tom Thumb”). The tiny man entertained the audience funny performances and parodies of the military of that time, for which he later received the nickname General Tom Thumb. A year later, Barnum and Tom Thumb reached the court of Queen Victoria - with them came a mermaid, whom Barnum passed off as strange creature, acquired from merchants from Fiji - a state practically unknown to Americans and Europeans at that time. In fact, the “mermaid” was an exhibit made from a small monkey with the tail part of a large fish sewn onto it and covered with a papier-mâché shell.

In general, Barnum was still a charlatan - in 1860 his camp was joined by William Henry Johnson, who in different time the enterprising manager called him either a “monkey man” or a gnome. Johnson was a dark-skinned microcephalic who spoke incoherently in a mysterious language invented by Barnum himself. During civil war Barnum sheltered crippled saboteurs, inventing various legends for them.

Barnum's English colleague, who performed in London and young America, was Tom Norman. In his circus there were a “skeleton woman”, a “ball-headed” child, a lady who bit off the heads of live rats, fat women, giants and gnomes, who were carefully made up before each performance and forced to speak the language of the “mysterious Zulu”.

The most important role in the panopticon was played by the showman-host, often himself with some minor deformity, such as a sixth finger or a cleft lip.

In addition to voluntarily joining the freak show troupe, there were cases when actors were taken there without their consent. The most famous of these involved Chinese man Hu Lu, who arrived in England for surgery to remove a 25kg scrotal tumor. At the station he was met by one of the circus managers, offering him a job, but he somehow explained through an interpreter that he had come to England to undergo surgery. The manager kept track of which hospital he would be sent to and signed up to watch the operation, which ended unsuccessfully. After the procedure, he secretly acquired the corpse of a Chinese man from the clinic authorities, and transported his genitals preserved in alcohol around the country for a good ten years.

The most important role in the panopticon was played by the showman-host, often himself with some minor deformity, such as a sixth finger or a cleft lip. He was invited to comment on exhibitions, for which run-down grocery stores or any other stores rented for a time were used as sites. Contrary to popular belief, such shows were most often held in the evenings to avoid problems with the police. There were no riots at such events: bouncers usually talked to the drunken guests of the events, but the intelligentsia were often not allowed into the shows by purchased police officers: the fact is that the managers of the shows were afraid that among them there would be a doctor who, instead of admiration, would share with the crowd his opinions about about how low and vile it is to use people with various medical pathologies to make money.

Freak shows began to exhaust themselves in 1890, when science in the USA and Europe gradually began to fight back against obscurantism and religious frenzy, greedy for miracles. The year 1950 marked the almost complete disappearance of the circus of curiosities: on the one hand, people lost interest in monstrosities, on the other, moral pressure on the managers of such entertainment increased among social and political figures in the USA and Great Britain. In the twenties, lawyers first started talking about the rights of people with disabilities, of whom there were plenty after the First World War, construction railways and the growth in the number of water transport allowed people to travel on their own, realizing that there were no mysterious tribes of gnomes and mermaids beyond the ocean. Most of the freak circus exhibits were examined by doctors; pathologies were no longer admired - they began to be treated.

Currently, modern, adapted freak circuses, human zoos, cabinets of curiosities and other outlandish places remain as entertainment rudiments without commercial success. Having lost their former mass appeal, they have become isolated cases without global cultural influence.