Nikolay Sobolev is a popular Russian blogger who covers current and acute problems societies: rallies of Alexei Navalny, the rape of Diana Shurygina, Khabarovsk flayers, showdowns between fellow bloggers. For the “hype” on hot topics, he was dubbed “Andrei Malakhov of Russian YouTube.”

Despite the criticism, Nikolai Sobolev is confidently moving forward, and his subscriber count has long gone into the millions. And it began creative path in 2014, when Sobolev, together with his friend Guram Narmania, founded the “Rakamakafo” project, in which young people attacked passers-by social experiments.

Childhood

Nikolai Sobolev was born on July 18, 1993 in St. Petersburg, on Vasilyevsky Island. His parents are quite wealthy people: his mother is a musician at the Mariinsky Theater, his father is the owner of the St. Petersburg Souvenirs retail chain.

In 2000, Nikolai went to first grade. Until 2005, he studied at physics and mathematics lyceum No. 30, then moved to gymnasium No. 56 with intensive study of economics and linguistics.

From the age of five, Kolya was interested in oriental martial arts: karate, taekwondo. At the age of 14, he was injured and left sports for a while. Not knowing what to do with himself, the teenager became interested in computer games.

The world of gamers captivated the guy for a short time. Already at the age of 16, he returned to sports, began actively going to the gym and achieved good results. He would have become a fitness trainer if he had not found his niche in the Russian segment of YouTube.

After graduating from school, he entered the Faculty of Economics and Management of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, from which he graduated in 2015.

Career

Nikolai Sobolev has been a creative person since childhood. Nature generously rewarded him good voice. At first he occasionally sang in cabaret, and at the age of 19 he was already involved in a professional show program and earned good money. He also school days I wrote very good stories, so subsequently I had problems creating scripts for videos.

In 2010, Nikolay Sobolev registered his first video channel on YouTube. But since the guy didn’t yet have a clear idea of ​​what he wanted to show other people, his first project was a failure. And in 2013, together with Guram Narmania, whom Nikolai met at a party with friends, Sobolev launched the video blog “Rakamakafo”. The main idea of ​​the project is a humorous demonstration social problems and how ordinary people behave in unexpected situations.

The very first Rakamakafo prank

In 2014, after a detailed study of the idea and the purchase of the simplest video equipment, young people began to act and launch the project that started their career. Videos with practical jokes, social experiments with topics on the brink of a foul, turned out to be attractive to users.

The friends' first social experiment was the "Group Sex" video. Bloggers approached passers-by and recorded their reaction to an intimate proposal. In the following episodes, young people tossed a wallet with money to people (return it to the owner or take it for themselves?), checked whether someone would separate two fighting guys or stop the rape, who would get it? more money- to a person with a Slavic or non-Russian appearance, they were presented to a stranger and looked at how the false memory system works.

Russian VS Non-Russian

Six months after the opening of the channel, Sobolev and Narmania recorded an experiment that instantly spread around the Russian Internet. The video was divided into two parts, one was filmed in the USA, the other in Russia, well, the essence was the same - main character the video simulated a heart attack, and the camera recorded the reactions of passersby. Alas, the results were not in favor of the Russians.

A person feels bad (the most popular rakamacafo experiment)

A year later, the channel already had more than a million subscribers, both vloggers became recognizable, and the young people were included in the list of the 50 most famous media personalities in St. Petersburg. It’s interesting that over the entire history of the channel, Sobolev and Narmania invested a little more than one hundred thousand rubles in it.

In October 2015, on the wave of popularity, Sobolev decided to open his personal channel “YouTube Life”, dedicated to the analysis of conflicts famous bloggers and their criticism. His videos told, for example, about the relationship between Ivangay and Maryana Ro, the cost of the blogs of Sonya Esman and Maria Wei, the conflict between Dmitry Larin and Yuri Khovansky, and the arrest of Ruslan Sokolovsky. In 2016, the blogger released his book, on the pages of which he shared the secrets of YouTube monetization success.

In 2016, the channel changed its name to “SOBOLEV” and the topic of video stories moved towards discussing scandalous topics and acute social problems of society. Sobolev undertook to demonstrate everything that was interesting to ordinary people.

Nikolai Sobolev about Diana Shurygina’s PR

One of the significant points in the blogger’s career was participation in 2017 in the talk show “Let them talk” with

Participant's name: Nikolay Yurievich Sobolev

Age (birthday): 18.06.1993

City: St. Petersburg

Education: St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University, Faculty of Economics and Management

Family: girlfriend Polina Chistyakova

Height and weight: 1.83 m

Directionality of channels: Rakamakafo - social experiments, SOBOLEV - discussion of current Internet news, Ready Steady Go - about cars

Channel created: 03/08/2014/10/16/2015/05/17/2016

Number of subscribers: more than 3 million on the Rakamakafo channel, and more than 3.5 million on the personal channel, more than 375 thousand on the Ready Steady Go channel

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Nikolai Sobolev was born in St. Petersburg and always grew up as a very active boy. At school, the young man played in an amateur theater. The young man was always distinguished from his peers by his active life position and a love of public speaking.

Sobolev also has singing, cabaret performances and bodybuilding to his credit! At one stage of his life, the young man even weighed 120 kilograms. After graduating from school, Nikolai entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, who graduated with a master's degree.

The craving for video blogging has haunted Sobolev for a long time, which is why he registered his first channel already in 2010. True, he was not popular and therefore in 2014 the young man easily decided to join his friend Guram and create a whole prank show.

By this they meant the creation of a channel on which various pranks would be posted that show the true face ordinary people. The project was called "Rakamakafo".

The creators of the channel admit that through their actions they urge ordinary people not to be cruel and indifferent. Through the videos, the guys show the problems that exist in modern Russian society.

Interesting fact- the very first video, in which pranksters approach passers-by with indecent proposals, took 15 days to film! And this happened because Nikolai and Guram were wildly shy.

During the first year of the existence of the Rakamakafo project, it collected a million subscribers, which allowed its creators to become laureates of the TOP 50 most famous people St. Petersburg.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the blogger’s charitable activities. Despite the fact that the main mission of his project is the idea of ​​stirring up society, Nikolai is ready not only to do this in words, but also in deeds.

In May 2016, the guys organized a charity fundraiser for orphanages. Over the course of several months, thanks to Nikolai and Guram’s video, about 2 million rubles were collected. An interesting fact: the pranksters personally thanked the people who transferred more than 1,000 rubles and recorded separate signals.

Nikolai’s active position regularly brings him to various festivals, including Vidfest. And at the St. Petersburg VK Fest festival in 2016, the young man even gave a master class on successfully promoting a personal brand in modern social networks.

Nikolay is also the host of the channel LIFE YOUTUBE, constantly illuminates the Internet community last news from the world of Youtube. At the same time, Nikolai himself is a participant in several conflicts on YouTube, the most famous with, thanks to Dima Kolya’s video, he received the nickname #kolyaheter.

In 2016, together with Alexander Murataev and Ilya Strekalovsky, he created a channel Ready Steady Go, where various shows about cars and everything connected with them are released.

In August 2016, Nikolai Sobolev’s book “YouTube: The Path to Success” was published., which describes the basics of video blogging, answers to the most popular questions from novice bloggers and the history of the creation of projects by Nikolai and his friends.

Nikolai for a long time meets with Polina Chistyakova, their photos together can often be seen on his Instagram.

Nikolai Sobolev took part in the Channel 1 program “Let Them Talk,” where there was a discussion of rape. In turn, the blogger defended Sergei Semenov (the guy accused of rape) and spoke out against Diana Shurygina.

Photo by Nikolay

Kolya constantly pleases fans with new photos on Instagram; the guy demonstrates his personal life and footage from the filming of various projects.

Nikolay Sobolev is a famous Russian video blogger, pranker and performer. The guy is gaining popularity on the Internet at lightning speed. Today Nikolai Sobolev and his girlfriend are enjoying an idyll in their relationship, constantly delighting fans with new photos together online.

Origin and path to fame

Nikolay Sobolev is a native resident of St. Petersburg. He was born here in 1993 and lives in hometown and now. Received higher education at the Department of Economics and Management. He became widely known thanks to the Internet project Rakamakafo, within which he was involved in social experiments and filming practical jokes. For his activity in 2015, he won the Sobaka.ru magazine award and was included in the list of 50 St. Petersburg residents known for their achievements.

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The young man is not playing last role in the development of education and culture, as evidenced by his meeting in 2017 with Russian minister culture. Today Nikolay successfully promotes the SOBOLEV channel, in which he analyzes domestic video blogging and the most latest events Runet. As a result of the discussion of many pressing topics, Sobolev’s “brainchild” became widely popular outside of Russia.

Private life

The popular blogger does not hide his personal life and willingly shares details of his relationships with girls. Today he is dating Polina Chistyakova, a model and native of St. Petersburg, who is 3 years younger than him. Before this young man there was an affair with Yana Khanikeryan. The guys were considered one of the most beautiful couples YouTube, and their breakup came as a complete surprise to fans.

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Nikolai said that the decision to separate was made without tears or scandals. The relationship simply faded away, and the young people said goodbye without regrets.

Amazing fact: new girl Nikolai Sobolev is strikingly similar to his ex-girlfriend. Many Internet users find that both beloved prankers are practically the same person.

The guy first met Polina on the set of one of the stories for the Rakamakafo channel. It is curious that the initiator of the acquaintance was the beauty herself. The girl asked to take a photo with Kolya, after which casual communication in a work environment grew into a long, whirlwind romance.

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Recently, the lovers vacationed together in the USA, where Sobolev invited Polina to become his adored wife. Shortly before this event, Nikolai told reporters that he had already achieved a lot in life and could calmly start creating his own family.

The romantic event was complemented by a chic gift for the future wife - a ring from white gold with diamond inserts. The wedding was planned to take place on August 1 in Dubai, but for unknown reasons the celebration has been postponed. It’s interesting that the guys have already planned their lives for 5 years in advance. It is after this period of time that they are going to have children.

Today Nikolai Sobolev and Polina Chistyakova regularly delight fans with new photos on Instagram, posting footage of their joint vacation and filming of various projects.

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In his free time, of which the celebrity has very little, he and his friends like to play board game"Alias." Among his main shortcomings, the guy identifies laziness, impulsiveness, eccentricity and susceptibility to public influence. Nikolai associates this last quality with his type of activity. For video bloggers, it is very important what people think about them, and critical comments addressed to them greatly influence the emotions and success of the projects they promote. Sobolev sincerely convinces that with all his disadvantages he is fighting every day and quite successfully.

After visiting the talk show “Let Them Talk,” the St. Petersburg resident gained 2.5 million subscribers in just a couple of months, becoming the fastest growing blogger in the world. His successes arouse the envy of his colleagues, but Nikolai himself, it seems, is never averse to adding fuel to the fire of universal hatred. I found out why Nikolai Sobolev irritates critics and viewers and how he makes millions from universal condemnation.

Kolyan was on his way to success

Success story of Nikolai Sobolev (pronounce needed with a unique author's intonation) did not start at all with the record-breaking increase in subscribers of the channel named after myself and not from the top-rated releases of “Let Them Talk” with Diana Shurygina, but from a humorous project with social overtones Rakamakafo.

Nikolai considers himself a very versatile person: before conquering YouTube, he was studying martial arts, rocked, sang on stage and typed on the keyboard at the speed of light.

Having become a blogger, Sobolev, by his own admission, decided to fight the indifference of Russians to others, although his co-author Guram Narmania advocated only funny pranks passers-by As a result, the duo alternated funny pranks with graphic “beatings” of girls and ostentatious heart attacks on the streets of St. Petersburg and Miami.

Many Rakamakafo videos really made you think about the prevailing morals in society, but the video, of course, attracted the attention of viewers "Domestic Violence", or rather the mystical appearance and disappearance of slippers on the feet of a courier who allegedly accidentally caught a girl being beaten. Sobolev and Narmania chose not to pay attention to the criticism and simply re-uploaded the video, cutting out the ill-fated fragment with slippers.

At the end of 2016, despite the growing popularity and love of 2.7 million subscribers, bloggers closed the show in order to own projects. Driven by the most noble intentions, Nikolai Sobolev plunged headlong into criticizing his colleagues and discussing the most hype conflicts between bloggers, and Guram became interested in producing porn actresses on the YouTube channel Popcorn Studio.

Savoring scandals

Today is Sobolev’s signature greeting (more correctly, Nikolai Sobolev) plays to 2.5 million subscribers every week. In each video, a handsome young man with a perfectly delivered speech meticulously examines the latest scandal in the world of video bloggers, going through several YouTube stars at once.

“Tell me, please, which of them is trying to convey at least something to people? Raise education topics, for example. Why shoot a blog from a museum or talk about Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin if you can just throw a condom filled with water over your head?” - is indignant Sobolev, hinting at the “creativity” of the popular blogger YanGo (2.9 million subscribers).

Any words and actions of colleagues in the shop that, for some reason, caused his righteous anger, risk coming under fire from criticism. It’s even better if the Internet community is keenly interested in everything that happens. Sobolev is ready to discuss nude photos and harassment of Internet star Maryana Ro (4.8 million subscribers), the chaos of the participants social project“Lion Against” (799 thousand subscribers), the tomfoolery of the idols of 12-year-old schoolchildren from the HalBer channel (1.3 million subscribers) and the behavior of the most popular blogger of the Runet Ivangay (11.2 million subscribers).

And he is not at all ashamed of his reputation." yellow press"in the world of bloggers. Moreover, according to rumors, Sobolev is actively developing a public "Life YouTube"(569 thousand subscribers), where the hottest news, rumors and, of course, viral videos from top Runet bloggers are published daily.

Fame through the show

At the end of February, following his clear plan to “cut videos based on news feeds,” the author of the book “YouTube: The Path to Success. How to get truckloads of likes and tons of money” makes a strong-willed decision to make a highly social video about the suicidal game "Blue Whale". How to resist the temptation to click on this title: “The whole truth about the deadly game “Blue Whale”. Why do children wake up at 4:20? List of tasks, communication with the curator, full information about new deadly games. Is it time to stop child suicide? Cutting news footage and retelling several articles in the media brought Sobolev a record eight million views.

Nikolai quickly realized that he had stumbled upon a real gold mine, and therefore happily agreed to take part in filming a talk show "Let them talk", where, in his own words, he “took the microphone away” from other guests and clashed with the main character release - 17-year-old resident of Ulyanovsk Diana Shurygina.

The blogger allegedly tried to help a man convicted of raping a girl, but in the end he made five videos about Shurygina and his attitude to the talk show, collecting three to four million views for each of them. Moreover, participation in “Let Them Talk” made Sobolev the fastest growing blogger in the world: in just a month and a half, the number of his subscribers tripled.

Inspired by success, Nikolai rushed to conquer new horizons, having already managed to complain about illiterate schoolchildren in "Evening with Vladimir Solovyov" And having distributed advice on educating young people at a closed meeting with bloggers in .

Logical truth

Sobolev understands perfectly well that not all YouTube residents have warm feelings towards him, and he knows how to turn any scandal to his advantage. For example, when the famous prank director, aka “AFONYA TV” (1.6 million subscribers), took up arms against Rakamakafo, Nikolay immediately filmed a separate release with the exposure of the opponent's videos.

Most viewers were unlikely to be interested in who was really right, but loud statements gave Sobolev 1.4 million views and caused serious blow based on the work of Andrey. “Afonya”, in its corporate style, managed to sentence the enemy to “lifetime dislikes,” but views of his videos have been steadily declining since then.

And here is a duel of rap clips with YouTube star Sobolev lost completely. Trying to break into the Versus Battle project, Nikolai fell victim to one of the main musical hits summer. Borrowing a motif from “Patimemaker,” Larin collected 17 million views and made fun of his opponent, and the apt nickname “Kolya the Hater”, it seems, will never leave him.

Answer Soboleva became the record holder for the number of dislikes on his channel and naturally led to a wave of trolling on social networks. True, the blogger still attracted the attention of the audience, and therefore probably did not grieve too much because of the constant jokes. immediately began to bombard the blogger uncomfortable questions, tried several times to catch him in contradictions and simultaneously asked him that he earned either two or three million rubles a month from his videos. Moreover, Sobolev, without any hesitation, described the purpose of creating the videos in literally two sentences.

“I need to live on something. Every move, every step was calculated from the very beginning, I realized that this was the right format. Issues can be published frequently and can easily include advertising. This is my business project, and it is successful,” he admitted and instantly removed all questions from ill-wishers.

He does not hide the fact that he is saving money for a three-room apartment in Moscow and wants to switch from Mazda to a more sophisticated car. Therefore, it is stupid to criticize him for promising officials to bring culture to the masses, and then immediately withdrawing video clip about the worst clips of bloggers. After all, while competitors like BadComedian watch tons of bad comedies, they spend weeks coming up with funny jokes and collect 1.5-2 million views, Sobolev criticizes everyone against the backdrop of the wall every few days and collects 3-4 million.

And it is not he who is to blame for this, but the audience. Who will watch his video with equal pleasure and write “Kolya-hater” in the comments. Because it's fashionable.

Nikolai Sobolev in just two months became one of the most discussed bloggers in the country, and all because he spoke honestly about that scandalous one. Then, in February, we recall, Diana accused 21-year-old Sergei Semenov of rape, although the testimony of witnesses spoke of the guy’s innocence, and Diana herself was confused about what she said to Andrei Malakhov on the air of the program “Let Them Talk.” Kolya recorded several revealing videos and even took part in the filming of the show, where he expressed everything he thought about Diana to her face. The number of Sobolev’s subscribers jumped sharply to three million. But he appeared on YouTube much earlier. First, as part of the Rakamakafo team (with their friend Guram, the guys performed social experiments and pranks - pranking people on the streets), and then solo. Kolya told PEOPLETALK how he became a blogger and what plans he has for television.

I was born in St. Petersburg and lived there all my life. My mother is a pianist Mariinsky Theater. And dad graduated from the Makarov School and was at sea for five years, then worked in a bank, and then became an entrepreneur - he has been involved in the souvenir business for 15 years. As a child, I did not have a clear goal in life: like everyone else, I said that I wanted to become a president, and then an astronaut. At the age of seven I started singing and then I wanted to become professional artist. True, I had dubious idols: at that time I was still young, plus I listened classical music, opera. At school I sang at all the concerts, and in the 10th and 11th grades I played in the theater. Then, in one of the productions, the owner of a local club noticed me. She said: "Let's arrange for you solo concert? I performed, sang 20 compositions, and through friends, a cabaret director contacted me and invited me to perform on an ongoing basis - so I worked for a year and a half.

Shirt, Aeronautica Militare, suit, TOMMY HILFIGER

In general, I had different hobbies. I went in for sports and was the champion of St. Petersburg in karate. Then I studied speed typing for three years and also did vocals. And then he entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University at the Faculty of Economics and Management. There I met Guram. He once sent me a foreign prank and suggested: “Let’s do something like that.” This is how the Rakamakafo project was born, and we became the most popular pranksters in Russia.

At Rakamakafo, we set up social experiments: we tested how people would react to certain situations. We imitated the sounds of rape in a car, tried to steal a child in front of adults, asked a teenager to shoot cigarettes from passers-by.

The filming of the project was not complete without scandals. Once, for example, we sat in the bullpen all night. Then we did an experiment: we allegedly kidnapped a person from a bus stop. We were immediately captured and thrown into a cell, and at four o’clock in the morning a prostitute was placed with us...

Shirt, Aeronautica Militare, suit, TOMMY HILFIGER, trench coat, Marciano

We did a very cool experiment, “A Man Feels Bad.” Filmed in two countries - America and Russia. As a result, it turned out that in Russia no one wanted to help strangers on the street, but in the USA people came to help very often. After we released the video, there was general hysteria: television called it anti-propaganda for Russia. Although this was a call to be more responsive.

Of course, this prank was repeated in every city in the country. It collected five million views in three days! I saw it everywhere, it was reposted by Alexey Navalny, Pavel Pyatnitsky and even.

After some time, we filmed almost all possible pranks and became emotionally exhausted. Then I realized that I needed a more convenient, faster format, where I could make several issues a week, integrate advertising into it and really make money. I'm doing reviews now different situations, I’m expressing my opinion: since childhood, I have loved to organize everything into shelves, to structure it.

Shirt, belt, Massimo Dutti, jacket, ELEVENTY, jeans, Guess

After I reviewed the program “Let Them Talk” about Diana Shurygina, my audience increased. But this is just a coincidence. People found out about my channel, they liked what I said and how I said it. This episode received 16 million views on YouTube.

I was interested in discussing this and expressing my point of view. For some reason, when such stories happen, everyone accuses me of some kind of hypocrisy. Yes, what does this have to do with it? You are interested in expressing your thoughts about this in the comments, but I am interested in the channel. Each blogger is a hype eater in his own way, because he strives to gain views.

Shirt, ELEVENTY, sweatshirt, Uniqlo, jacket, Zara, trousers, Massimo Dutti, boots, TOMMY HILFIGER (GORE-TEX)

Last year I wrote the book “The Path to Success”: this is a practical guide in which I laid out point by point what needs to be done to make a video well made and reach the top. If I'm good at this topic, why can't I help people? It is important how much you are involved in this topic. The book turned out to be very successful; it was bought in five editions. Now it's the sixth additional circulation. The publisher even asked me to write another book, but it is still in the works.

I simply said my name at the beginning of each video and spontaneously put the emphasis on the first syllable. It came as a surprise to me that people started making parodies of this “Nikolai Sobolev”. Well, I decided to exaggerate it. My content contains a lot of self-irony, but, unfortunately, the YouTube audience is not astute enough to understand such jokes. I have the image of a narcissistic person, but in reality I treat myself adequately and critically. I'm just confident. But people really think that I’ve gone overboard. ( Laughs.)

I want to prove to everyone who didn't believe in me how wrong they were. I am gradually developing myself, I want to collaborate with television, make music on YouTube professional level. But again, I don't have enough days in the week. If only there were not 24 hours in a day, but 38... Everything will be sure! I take a very long time to sway, but then everything turns out well, I do it consciously.

We thank the YOKO restaurant for their help in organizing the shooting!