Yuri Norstein. Photo: Sergey Karpukhin/TASS
An almost criminal story happened to 87-year-old Moscow native Natalya Abramova. She once worked as an editor at Soyuzmultfilm and participated in the creation of the cult Soviet cartoons Hedgehog in the Fog, Crocodile Gena and many others. The other day a man called her and introduced himself as her neighbor Sasha. He told her that she was in a difficult situation, that she urgently needed 140 000. Natalya Nikolaevna did not think that she was a scammer. The naive old woman replied that she did not have 140,000 rubles, but she did have a pension of 20,000 rubles. “Sasha” she also accepted this money. She sent a messenger for the money. And only when the messenger left, the woman realized that she had been deceived. She told the real Sasha everything. The neighbor immediately contacted the police. But then the doorbell of the pensioner’s house rang again. At the door was the same messenger who had recently left him money. He said the customer asked him to go to the address again and return everything with an apology. Maybe the scammer found out who he had scammed. And he felt ashamed. Surely, he also saw “Hedgehog in the Fog” and “Crocodile Gena” when he was a child…
This amazing story was confirmed to KP by director and animator Yuri Norshtein. He is the creator of “Hedgehog in the Fog.”
– Natasha (Natalia Nikolaevna Abramova – Ed.) was the editor of our cartoon. And also in other cartoons. Interestingly, it was she who gave them the opportunity to appear on the screens,” Yuri Norshtein told KP. -If there had been another person in her place, it is possible that these caricatures would not have existed. Censorship would be a problem. Natasha is a very decent person, from a good family, she grew up in a decent environment. When you called me, I thought it was an old story. A few months ago, Natasha was already deceived by scammers. Then they took 200 thousand from her. And now they wanted it again. The good thing is that they returned my money. Why her conscience was awakened, I dare not judge. But there are miracles in the world…
