Who is Yuri Khovansky? Blogger, musician, stand-up comedian, ardent liberal, who at one time clashed even with the National Socialist Maxim Martsinkevich - is only a small part of the description of the activities and creativity of this character. Russian-speaking YouTube users are still blown away by his sharp blogs and sketches, and just recently his Russian Stand-up was considered almost the only show worthy of attention on YouTube among young people who consider themselves the most intellectually developed part of the country's population.
Biography of Yuri Khovansky
Those who rarely visit the YouTube resource, but want to keep abreast of modern Internet trends, should definitely find out who Yuri Khovansky really is. The character’s biography, unfortunately, is not covered by such well-known resources as Wikipedia, so we have to turn to his profile on the Vkontakte social network. The account states that Yuri “lives in St. Petersburg” and was born on January 19, 1990. The turning point in the life of Yuri Khovansky came in September 2011; until that moment, he had not posted videos on the Internet and led the ordinary life of an economics university student. From that day on, Yuri began posting videos where he, in a sincere and somewhat hooligan manner, performed songs of his own composition with a guitar, calling the newly created show “That guy with the guitar.” Later, Yuri came up with a fresh idea for a channel on Youtube - the first Russian “stand-up”.
Development of the Russian Stand-up channel
The first season of the Internet show, which Yuri Khovansky presented to the viewer, was a resounding success. Against the background of a brick wall, a plump boy shared his thoughts on a wide variety of everyday and social topics, often crossing the line of generally accepted values and taboos. He was convincing, emotional and quite eloquent, so young people responded very positively to the first season of Russian Stand-up. Despite the fact that no one knew this name before - Yuri Khovansky, the “stand-up” of the hitherto unknown guy became so in demand that Yuri not only decided to film the second season, but also began performing live. At the peak of success, Khovansky realized that the time had come for a real “bomb”, and decided to film the third season of RSU, but at a higher level, increasing the quality of picture, sound and production as a whole.
Third season of Russian Stand-up
Of course, such high-quality filming requires large expenses. Yuri Khovansky resorted to the idea of crowdfunding - fans of his work and simply sympathizers, as well as colleagues in the shop, were able to collect more than 400,000 rubles on time for the filming of the new season of the show. Everyone expected that their investments would be justified, that Yuri Khovansky’s stand-up would reach a new level, but this time Yuri faced a deafening failure. The third season consisted of six parts of twenty minutes each: “Religion”, “Politics”, “Personal Life”, “Health”, “Income” and “Age”. However, already the first part plunged the audience into a state of shock - the sound quality was worse than in previous seasons, the jokes turned out to be flat and poorly executed, Yuri himself tried to appear before the viewer in different images, but the level of acting left much to be desired. Even short cartoons drawn specifically for RSU did not last the season - in critical reviews, among other things, it was noted that the cartoons did not carry any humor, satire, or any clear meaning at all. Yuri Khovansky himself was quite annoyed by the reaction of the audience, but he brought the season to the end and even tried to joke about his failure. After some time, Yuri released the fourth season of RSU, but it was not so easy to regain its former popularity - the lack of trust of the audience, as well as the increasing level of competition in the Russian “stand-up” genre, affected it.
Where can I find Yuri Khovansky’s video and how to subscribe to updates?
At the moment, Yuri is filming highly social life blogs, and is also experimenting with various formats besides stand-up, for example, parody videos and reviews. Yuri Khovansky is also open to business offers - just write him a personal message on VKontakte or contact him in “Private Messages” on YouTube.
Yuri was born in Nikolsk, Penza region on January 19, 1990. His father Mikhail Khovansky is the technical director of the Red Giant plant. 
In his youth, Yura loved to play yard football, where he often stood at the goal, and at home he devoted a lot of time to online games.
In high school, Yuri was a member of several amateur rock bands, but due to creative differences with other members of these groups, he did not engage in this type of activity for a long time.
By the way, while still a teenager, Yura became addicted to alcohol, which is why he is now close to cirrhosis of the liver.
University and activities before YouTube
After school, his parents insisted that Yura enter the St. Petersburg State University of Engineering and Economics. He submitted documents there, but was unable to pass the competition. Instead, Yuri entered another institute to become a programmer, but eventually dropped out of school because... I realized that this profession was not suitable for him.
Later, he still enrolls as an economist in absentia. Despite disagreements with teachers, in 2014 Khovansky received a specialist diploma with honors. According to him, education was only needed to get parents off the hook. 
Before starting a career as a video blogger, Yuri got acquainted with the work of a promoter, waiter, call center employee, courier, etc.
First steps and formation on YouTube
Yuri began his activities in one way or another related to video blogging by translating and dubbing the performances of foreign stand-up comedians. For some time he worked on Internet radio and published blogs on the website “Thank you, Eva!” At the same time, under the nickname “That Guy with the Guitar,” he performed songs of his own composition, mainly on humorous themes. 
In 2011, Yuri finally moved to YouTube, where he began working on his own project “Russian Stand-up”. In this show, acute social problems were raised and various life situations were discussed. It was then that Khovansky began to position himself as a comedian and promote “alternative humor” in Russia. 
A special feature of Khovansky’s videos was the absence of any restrictions in his performances. He spoke harshly and openly, which made the videos more emotional. Not the entire audience accepted this format, but still the Internet community arose interest in Yuri. He was able to take a stable position in the video blogging niche with the support of the famous blogger Ilya Maddison.
At the same time, Khovansky begins live stand-up performances, works on a fairly successful project “F*ck as I love” and launches the show “Khovansky will ruin.”
It is interesting that Yuri took part in the voice acting for the Russian localization of the game Dota 2. Thus, one of the heads of the character “Ogre Mage” speaks in the voice of Khovansky. 
The third season of Russian Stand-up, according to Yura, was supposed to be “impressive.” A crowdfunding campaign was launched for his filming, during which he collected more than 400 thousand rubles. But in the end, the season turned out to be a failure, and Khovansky decided to give the 4th season (2014) to a disappointed audience, after which the project was frozen indefinitely. 
Then the blogger begins to work in other formats. An example of this was the program “Ask for it,” where he visits other famous bloggers and talks about various topics. At the same time, the first episodes of “Khovansky in a video chat” and “Bombila” were released.
In 2015, such popular shows as “Shaverma Patrol” and “Visiting Khovansky” appeared.
Jump in popularity in 2016
At the beginning of 2016, Yuri Khovansky’s channel was not particularly popular and clearly did not aim to become a million-plus channel. That was until the conflict between Yuri Khovansky and blogger Dmitry Larin led to their clash at Versus Battle, where Yuri won an unconditional victory.
After the battle, Khovansky’s popularity began to grow rapidly: popular online publications and other bloggers began to talk about him, his videos began to gain more views, and within a year the subscribed audience increased to more than 2 million. 
Since then, Yuri began to try on the image of a “gangster” and released several rap videos that appealed to the audience. Although some rap artists were very critical of the blogger’s work.
Also in 2016, Yuri Khovansky tried his hand at directing, making a short film “Ozone” with Kuzma Gridin in the title role.
At the moment, Yuri Khovansky continues to work on his projects, shoots individual videos, appears in the videos of other bloggers and is preparing to release his rap album.
Personal life
It is unknown whether Yuri Khovansky has a soulmate. According to him, he lives alone, although he mentioned in one of his blogs that he is “a married man within five minutes.” 
Khovansky’s circle of friends consists of the following St. Petersburg video bloggers: Kuzma Gridin, Nick Chernikov, Yulik, Ruslan CMH, Restaurateur. Yuri is on good terms with Eldar Dzharakhov, the NEMAGIA channel and Rakamakafo.
Statements and conflicts
Yuri Khovansky often attracted attention with harsh statements regarding famous personalities. For example, he released a number of videos about Viktor Tsoi, in which he described the musician’s life in a negative context, and recorded a podcast about the late Mikhail Gorshenev, where he also spoke unflatteringly about him.
But Yuri Khovansky received a special, as they say, “hype” after conflicts with famous rap artists and video bloggers:
- Noise MC;
- Danila Poperechny;
- Dmitry Larin;
- Afonya TV.
In addition, the blogger had clashes with Ruslan Usachev, Dmitry Shilov, Kristina Si, Sergei Simonov and drug addict Pavlik.
Conclusion
During his career as a video blogger, Yuri Khovansky was able to occupy a special niche in this area. He earned popularity not only for his creativity, but also for his constant conflicts with celebrities. Now his videos have become truly high-quality and interesting, and Khovansky himself is an authoritative and respected blogger... well, at least in a certain circle.
Yuri Khovansky tries to fit into all the topics that receive more than 1 million views in the Russian-language segment of Youtube. This simple scheme turned out to be quite successful. Naturally, Yura could not ignore the rap theme. This is exactly how MC Khovansky appeared, who today shoots expensive videos and gives real concerts.
Runet learned about the existence of Yuri Khovansky in 2011. In search of himself, he did a variety of things - he tried to sing songs with a guitar, adapted videos of Western stand-up comedians for Russian-speaking audiences, filmed his own show under the telling title “Russian Drink Time”. Among the comedians Khovansky looks up to are Andy Kaufman and Stewart Lee.
Yuri’s first real success came with his videos getting onto the main page of the “Thank you Eva” website. Even then, viewers formed an attitude towards Khovansky, which has not fundamentally changed today - tons of hatred and a huge number of views. However, Yura was soon asked to join “Thank You Eva,” and in his own spirit he recorded a revealing video about this resource.
In parallel with other activities, Khovansky worked as a presenter on Internet radio. It was here that he was noticed by another popular blogger, Maddison, who has now completely stopped online activity. In tandem with Mad, Khovansky gained steady popularity.
One of the main tools for introducing Khovansky into the minds of the audience is scandal. He managed to speak harshly about Fedor Emelianenko and Viktor Tsoi, Mikhail Gorshenev and Pussy Riot, Elena Mizulina and the Russian Orthodox Church. At various times, Yura clashed with Noize MC, Basta, Ptah and Kristina Si. A video of Noize MC shouting “I’m warning you, motherfucker!” he blackened Khovansky's left eye, as many people probably saw.
Yuri moved from endless bacchanalia to more serious achievements at the beginning of 2016, when he fought at Versus Battle with Dmitry Larin. Khovansky's convincing victory showed that there was something we didn't know about him. Perhaps Yura didn’t even know this about himself. After the battle, he began releasing clips one after another in the image of a gangster. “Father in the building”, “Noise”, “Whisper of trunks”, “Forgive me, Oksimiron” - all of them collect millions of views on Youtube.
Khovansky’s last powerful shot is a clip parody of “The Ice Is Melting” from the group Grib. Within a week, the song “Drinks Beer” almost broke the 10 million views mark.
Of course, all this is happening on the wave of hype skillfully ridden by Yura. He himself notes this in the song “Drinks Beer” with the words “The hype is dying down, the memes are going away, and someone will soon replace me.” But this does not negate the fact that Khovansky really found himself, and is now making capital - both social and very real monetary.
Yuri Khovansky is a Russian video blogger developing a humorous direction on the portal YouTube. What made the young man popular was the Russian Stand-up channel, which aired a show of the same name. Now Yuri has more than a dozen projects. Khovansky calls himself the “Emperor of Humor”, and his own jokes are alternative.
Yuri was born in 1990 in the city of Nikolsk, which is located in the Penza region. The boy’s father, Mikhail Khovansky, held the position of technical director of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise.
As a teenager, he loved to play football in the yard with the boys, where he acted as a goalkeeper, and at home he could sit at the computer for many hours, enjoying online games. Also in his youth, Yuri became interested in music. The young man played bass guitar in amateur rock bands.
After school, at the insistence of his parents, Khovansky applied to the St. Petersburg State University of Engineering and Economics, but did not pass the competition. The young man began studying at another university to become a programmer, but after a while he realized that this field was not interesting and dropped out of classes.
Later, Yuri graduated in absentia from the St. Petersburg State University of Economics, and received a diploma with honors. True, the title of specialist did not bring dividends. Khovansky worked as a promoter, waiter, call center employee, and courier. Yuri’s success, including financial success, came from the virtual world.
Blogger
First of all, Yuri Khovansky began posting videos of foreign stand-up comedians on YouTube, for whom he translated into Russian and voiced them. Also, a blogger under the name “That Guy with the Guitar” performed songs, often humorous. At the same time, Yuri led columns and podcasts on third-party projects “Maddyson FM” and “Thank you, Eva!”
On Internet radio, the young man met Ilya Davydov, better known as a reviewer of films, videos and video games. This young man recommended Yuri to shoot his own comic videos. Thus, Khovansky’s first project “Russian Stand-up” was born. The first fans began to take an interest in the blogger’s creative biography.
The first season started at the end of September 2011. Against the backdrop of a brick wall, the showman shared his opinions and thoughts about various aspects of life, not hesitating to speak harshly and in some cases even cynically. Also, Yuri often crossed the line of generally accepted taboos, but his performances were emotional, lively and eloquent, which relatively quickly affected the popularity of the show.
A total of 4 seasons of “Russian Stand-up” were filmed, after which Khovansky decided to freeze the project, as he lost interest in the program. Instead of this program, Yuri launched a number of other shows - “Big Smoking Pile of Sketch”, “[Standing]”, “Lex Play”, “Russian Drink Time”, “Shaverma-Patrol”.
In 2014, a conflict broke out online between the R"n"B singer, artist of the Black Star Inc. label, and Yuri Khovansky. The girl posted in " Twitter"comment on the Versus battle she watched, in which she called the host of the competition, Yuri, a drunk. To which the young man gave an insulting answer and called Christina to fight him personally on the online platform. The singer sent a musical diss track, where in poetic form she threatened the blogger with reprisals from the Armenian mafia. A couple of days later, Yuri Khovansky said that he was attacked in his own entrance, for which he blamed Christina Sy. The conflict ended when the singer caught Khovansky in a blatant lie and stopped communicating.
Khovansky acts as the permanent host of the rap battle “Versus”. At his home site, the blogger himself once became a participant in the competition. In 2016, Khovansky fought against his colleague. Yuri won the competition.
Personal life
Yuri Khovansky does not talk about his romantic adventures, and fans of creativity can only get lost in guesses and conjectures about whether their idol, a tall, stately young man (Yuri’s height is 182 cm), has a lady of his heart. The only thing known from social networks is that Yuri is not married.
Yuri is a fan of the animated television series “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” and even participated in alternative amateur voice acting, giving the Russian voice to three characters at once. By the way, among the fans of this cartoon there are many other bloggers and movie stars.
Yuri Khovansky now
In 2017, Khovansky released a disc with his own hip-hop songs, “My Gangsta,” which included the tracks “Dad in the Building,” “Forgive Me,” and “Whisper of Trunks.” In August online "
Videos with his participation often surpass the audience of some Channel One programs in popularity. He loves strong words and equally strong alcohol. One of the first Russian stand-up comedians and a scandalous blogger-rapper. You still don’t know who Khovansky is? Then it’s worth getting to know him better.
Early biography of "Khovan"
A significant part of the top YouTube video bloggers were born in the deep provinces. Yuri Khovansky was no exception to this rule. His small homeland is the town Nikolsk, which is in the Volga region.
The guy’s early years were not distinguished by a wealth of events:
- Like all the boys in the yard, he was fond of football. During the game, he most often occupied the position of goalkeeper;
- He was interested not only in street games, but also in virtual online games;
- For a short time, my interests included music. The lack of education in this area was compensated by remarkable perseverance. When Yura turned 14, he already owned a bass guitar and performed in a school rock band;
- Due to the huge variety of hobbies, there was not enough time to study. This caused many life problems in the following years;
- As soon as the young man left school, his parents insisted on enrolling in the prestigious ENGEKON university, located in the Northern capital. But the passing score turned out to be too high, and this idea had to be abandoned;
- Desperate, the guy decided to try himself in the field of programming, but he didn’t have any success here either.
MS Khovansky: who is this?
Before acquiring the “MC” prefix, the guy had to go through many ordeals. Without a higher education diploma, it is almost impossible to get a normal job in Russia.
In search of a place in life, I had to change a lot of jobs:
- Construction worker
- Cashier in a self-service store;
- Waiter in a petty establishment;
- Courier delivery employee;
- Telephone support operator.
Low-paying work and lack of prospects forced Yura to turn his attention to the rapidly developing Internet market in the country. He was already disappointed in himself as a programmer and website builder.
Nadezhda was inspired by a video blogging segment on the video hosting site YouTube in 2010, where everyone acted in the “own director” genre. Hundreds of thousands of views guaranteed a very impressive income.
Khovansky decided to try his hand at filming videos in September 2011. Since then, his channel has received one and a half million views, and the blogger himself has been called one of the most successful in the Russian-language segment.
Opening of the “Russian Stand-up” project
As of the early 2010s, the stand-up market in the country was an unplowed field. It was divided almost in half by the so-called “comedians” from the Yevgeny Petrosyan Theater and the vulgar humor specialists from the Comedy Club. The former catered to people of retirement age, the latter to a younger audience.
The low quality of television humor prompted Yuri to open your channel :
- Initially, the lion's share of the content on it were videos of foreign comedians in amateur translation;
- After some time, Khovansky decided to try himself in the genre of musical comedy. Here, the experience of a guitarist in his teenage years came in handy. The numbers of “That Guy with the Guitar” began to be a success with the audience;
- The turning point in his career was his acquaintance with Ilya Maddison. The famous video blogger paid attention to the budding stand-up comedian, promoted him through his channels and gave him work on his own radio Maddyson.FM;
- This is how the idea of creating the “Russian Stand-up” project was born. Yura, in his characteristic expressive manner, spoke harshly on pressing social and personal problems;
- The show lasted 4 seasons, but in 2015 it was unexpectedly announced that it would cease broadcasting.
Where does Khovansky live?
Having established himself as a video blogger, he began to earn very decent money. There is no exact data on his income, but according to unofficial information, top YouTubers make from 3 to 7 thousand rubles a day. Possession of such funds allowed a native of the deep provinces to reliably settle in St. Petersburg.
If at the beginning of his career the blogger huddled in a modest communal apartment, today he lives in a new building on Vasilyevsky Island:
- He officially presented his new home to his subscribers back in 2014. He noted that there is still a lot of time to be spent on repairs;
- According to Khovansky, the apartment has five rooms, electric floor heating, climate control, ventilation and a minibar. Possessing such wealth is only possible if your salary is 10 times higher than the national average;
- In 2015, he again released a video about his apartment, where he showed off his brand new jacuzzi.
The specific manner of filming videos about your home causes criticism from ill-wishers. So, Larin once said that Khovansky lived as if in a door shop.
Musical creativity in rap style
Reading simple poetry accompanied by recitative, called rap, attracts many young people. The main reason for this popularity is low input threshold. Almost anyone can master this type of activity. Here you don’t need to have a countertenor or know Rachmaninov’s scales. Just a cool beat, a microphone and self-confidence.
After officially leaving stand-up, Yuri decided to release his own Guf and began recording music (usually parody) videos:
- He began to earn popularity points by demonstratively insulting other Russian-speaking rappers;
- Freestyler Noize MC was the first to fall under his attack. In October 2016, Yuri released his debut track, in which he confessed his hatred of this artist;
- Oxxxymiron stood up for his colleague, who recommended that the newcomer stop with parodies;
- In response, Khovansky released another video in which he jokingly declared deep repentance and asked for forgiveness from the musical crowd;
- After that, he began to release provocative compositions with renewed vigor.
Why doesn't Khovansky love Larin?
Russian YouTube is rich in scandalists. One of them is Dmitry Larin, who has been in conflict with his colleagues for a very long time in order to attract attention to his own person. And at one fine moment he came across his competitor, who was playing on the same field.
Larin and Khovansky decided to sort things out on the Versus site, a typical place for verbal rap skirmishes.
The battle took place in 2016 and became one of the most popular in the history of video blogging, gaining more than 25 million views (video at the end of the article):
- Larin compared his opponent to Modest from the program “Gorodok”;
- He drew the crowd's attention to his provincial origin and his shrill, almost feminine voice;
- His tirade ended with a comparison of Yura to a sphincter;
- He did not remain in debt and began to parody Dmitry’s burr. Khovansky devoted ten verses to discussing other people’s speech defects;
- To sum it up, he noted that the last interesting Larin was the hero of “Streets of Broken Lanterns.”
Jury awarded the victory to Yuri.
Zhvanetsky once complained that having found himself at the peak of popularity through many years of effort, he was surprised to find that there was an elevator on the other side. A few years ago, no one knew who Khovansky was. But as soon as a single person insulted a couple of famous people, he was at the top of Olympus. This is the reality of modern RuNet.
Battle of Khovansky with Larin (video)
