Benya Krik

Bentsion (Benya) Mendelеvich Krik, nicknamed the King, is the main hero of a number of works by Isaac Babel: the collection “Odessa Tales,” the play “Sunset,” and the film story “Benya Krik,” an audio recording of which, performed by Igor Taradaykin, is presented by the ARDIS studio. According to many researchers, Benya had a real prototype—a famous robber Mishka Yaponchik—but Babel idealized him in his works, turning him into a kind of Odessa Robin Hood. The “noble” Odessa gangster Krik is one of the best-known images of a criminal in Soviet literature. His name has become a byword.