Victor Starukhin: how to become a baseball star, and then an enemy of the people in Japan (7 photos)

Few people know his name, except perhaps only baseball fans. He became famous neither in the USSR, nor in the USA, but in Japan. And if not his father's crime, Starukhin's career might not have worked out at all.





In 1916, a boy, Vitya, was born in Nizhny Tagil. Soon, after the revolution that began in Russia, the Starukhins decided to leave country and moved to start in Chinese Harbin, in 1929 - in Japan, in the city of Asahikawa in Hokkaido. In Japan, he "got sick" with baseball. His results were beyond praise, helped by high growth and excellent physical data. Starukhin very quickly became a local star baseball.



Victor with parents

But Victor did not seek to achieve success only in sports - he wanted to get an education. He wanted to study at Waseda University, one of the most prestigious in Japan. But according to the laws of the country Starukhin could choose only one thing: either sports, or study at university. Victor was ready to give up baseball, but it happened event that changed his life. Athlete's father Konstantin Starukhin In 1934, he was arrested in connection with the murder (as it was later stated, according to fabricated case).





Little Victor with his parents

Starukhin Sr. said he killed his victim on the ground jealousy, but later began to firmly adhere to the version that she was Soviet spy. Konstantin was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Now no longer find out if he really killed her and if the victim was a Soviet spy, but everything that happened was a real blow to the family. Victor and his mother was threatened with deportation, but a well-known philanthropist came to their aid Matsutaro Seriki, who just invested a lot of money and effort in the development baseball.



Starukhin married the daughter of a Japanese and emigrant Kunie Takahashi.

Joseph Reeves, in his Entering the Game: A History baseball in Asia" writes that Seriki had a serious talk with Victor. The philanthropist claimed that the young man could achieve much more in sports, than academic achievement. And most importantly, if he chooses baseball, then Seriki will help his parents. Victor, after listening to the arguments philanthropist, decided to make a choice in favor of family and sports.

The senior elder's term was reduced, and his son and mother remained in Japan.



Starukhin very quickly became the favorite player of baseball fans in Japan. But after the Second World War, popularity began to fade. IN Josh Chetwynd's book Baseball in Europe: From Country to Country, the author writes, that Starukhin began to suspect that he was connected somehow with Soviet intelligence. He immediately became an enemy in Japanese eyes, even despite changing his name to Hiroshi Shido. The athlete was even sent To camp.



Victor on the cover of a magazine

After the Americans came to Japan, Starukhin changed family name, becoming Starffin. For a time he even collaborated with Americans as a translator from Japanese. But how just returned to a peaceful life, he returned to baseball.



Sports don't last long. Career here from start to finish retire fast. In his last years, Starukhin was depressed, often drank. When he was asked questions about how he felt at sunset, such successful career, he always answered: "sad and lonely." Alcohol destroyed his family. And possibly caused an early death.

In Yokohama Gaijin: Memoirs of a Foreigner, born in Japan" George Lavrov writes that baseball player Victor Starukhin died in a car accident in Tokyo. He was 40 years old.