An actor who made a name for himself by impersonating Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in films and heavy metal shows died in Uzbekistan on Monday, regional news agency Ferghana reported.
The elderly Alexander Shishkin broke a leg and arm on New Year’s Eve and died in intensive care of complications from the injuries, Ferghana said.
The report did not specify his age, but said the childless actor will be buried in Tashkent, the capital of the post-Soviet republic in Central Asia.
Shishkin, son of a Red Army pilot who fought in World War II, began his career as a Hitler’s doppelganger by winning a contest of Nazi leader’s doubles in 1990, on the eve of the Soviet Union’s collapse.
He starred as Hitler in numerous obscure movies in the 1990s and relocated to Moscow, where he enjoyed popularity with Russian cultural and political beau monde, making an acquaintance of Vladimir Zhirinovsky of the Liberal Democratic Party and even posing for a photo with then-President Boris Yeltsin.
Shishkin also performed in shows by campy thrash metal band Corrosia Metalla (“Metal Corrosion”), an early legend of the Russian shock rock scene. But in 2001, he relocated back to Uzbekistan, where he spent his last years on a monthly pension of $17.
“The good thing about this place is, Uzbeks don’t understand. Who’s Hitler? They don’t teach [in local schools] who’s Hitler,” Shishkin told Lenta.ru news website in an interview last year.
