Vladimir Kuznetsov (pranker)

Vladimir Kuznetsov (nickname: Vovan222, Vladimir Krasnov), best known as Vovan^[1] (11 November 1986, born in Krasnodar Krai) is a Russian pranker.^[2]

He became famous due to telephone pranks on Elton John, John McCain, Alexander Lukashenko, Mikhail Saakashvili, Vladimir Churov, Valeria Novodvorskaya, Vladimir Medinsky, Vitaly Klitschko, Vitaly Mutko, Natalia Poklonskaya, Anastasia Volochkova, Aleksey Panin, Vitaly Milonov and other celebrities, athletes and politicians. Despite this, he is not a parodist. His pranks are based on the effect of surprise and not in the imitation of someone else's voice.^[3]

He has studied journalism and law.

Biography[]

He was born in Krasnodar Krai in 1986, in a family of workers. He has a degree in law. In 2007 he began to engage in pranks. In 2011, he moved to Moscow and after a major tabloid offered him a job, he began to work as a journalist for it.

Vovan started to earn fame in late 2011, when, after the scandalous parliamentary elections in Russia, a pranker called the chairman of the CEC, Vladimir Churov, introducing himself as the Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich and almost convinced Churov.^[4][5][6]

In June 2012 he phoned the Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation Vitaly Mutko introducing himself as Roman Shirokov, a footballer of the national team.^[7]

The telephone prank on Alexander Lukashenko gained more than 300.000 views in Youtube.^[8]

In the fall of 2014, through a long chain of pranks, including pranks with representatives of the US Embassy in Kyiv and the Georgian politician Mikhail Saakashvili, he spoke with American General McNealy introducing himself as the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The general disclosed to the pranker information about the supply of US military aid to Ukraine.^[9]

In the pranks he partners with , best known as Lexus.

There are suspicions that Kuznetsov and Stolyarov are working for the Russian authorities and the FSB. Vovan has stated that he is free to choose "victims" and does not work "by order", admitting in the same time that he has offers from "friends" for the "victim" of the next prank.^[10] Kuznetsov is collaborating with many media outlets, where his pranks are published.

In September 2015, after a telephone prank on Elton John from Vovan and Lexus, Vladimir Putin personally apologized to the musician for the prank.^[11]

In 2014 the real name of Vovan became known to the public.

In February 2016, the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, became a victim of prank, to whom Vovan and Lexus introduced themselves as Petro Poroshenko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, two Ukrainian politicians.^[12]

Since April 2016, he was co-host of the weekly prank show "Zvonok" on the Russian channel NTV. He co-presented the show with his colleague Aleskey Stolyarov (Lexus) and Mikhail Gendelev.^[13]

During the next three years they continued the pranks. In July 2019, Vovan and Lexus made a prank on Zoran Zaev, the president of North Macedonia, where they introduced themselves as Petro Poroshenko. More recently, in 2020, they have introduced themselves as Greta Thunberg and her father in some pranks.

In 2021 President of the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Carl Gershman, was the subject of a hoax by Kuznetsov and Stolyarov, who convinced Gershman and other NED officials they were speaking remotely to Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader, and an aide. Gersham said the NED "support[ed] many, many groups and we have a very, very active program throughout the country", and NED had contact with the chief aide to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The NED official in charge of its work in Belarus said the NED had helped inspire that year's protests against the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.^[14]

Opinions[]

According to the statistical consensus of the pranksters' community in Russia, Vovan was described as the best prankster of Russia three years in a row, from 2011 to 2014.

Some people assess his pranks as telephone hooliganism, but Vovan has never faced legal problems due to his activity.^[15][16] The Russian journalist Igor Yakovenko shares a similar opinion.^[17]

The renowned Russian journalist and TV presenter Mikhail Kozhukhov also criticized the prankers Vovan and Lexus. After participating with them in the program of the state television channel Zvezda, "A special article", he said that "the expert opinion of these same Vovan and Lexus is a shame of the profession to which I belong.".^[18]

Personal life[]

He is not married. He devotes his free time to "professional training", since pranking requires very complex skills and abilities.^{[citation needed]}

See also[]

• , best known as Pranker Lexus

References[]

External links[]

• Vladimir Kuznetsov on Twitter
• Vladimir Kuznetsov on Facebook
• Official channel on Youtube

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