A brief History: Kobelkoff
The end of the 19th century marked the peak of the funfair. Alongside traditional rides, the crowd could discover new and increasingly spectacular attractions there. Wrestlers and bear leaders rubbed shoulders with the latest scientific discoveries, X-rays and motion pictures. But in this variety of genres, there was one that in curiosity surpassed everything the public could imagine: freaks of nature.
Of all these picturesque figures, dwarves and giants, giant women, bearded women or dog men who inspired the film Freaks by Tod Browning at the beginning of the 30's, one personality emerged as the most extraordinary phenomenon of this end of the century: trunk man Nikolaï Vasilievitch Kobelkoff (1851 &ndash 1933).
Born in Siberia, instead of limbs Kobelkoff only had a stump of twenty centimetres long that he used with dexterity. With no help he could also lift a man, draw or wind his watch. Combining dexterity and strength he began his career in 1874 in Prater in Vienna. In a few years he had a huge reputation allowing him to be invited to all the European capitals. Married and father of eleven children, Kobelkoff was as authoritarian with his family as he was shrewd in business. He was the owner of a number of attractions, including a famous chamber pot ride, and also became the owner of a &ldquoCinématographe géant&rdquo in 1905. Two years later he was even the star of a film (alas lost today) produced by Raleigh and Robert called Les Inutiles (The Useless). These "Useless" things were of course his arms and legs, which Kobelkoff had known how to do so well without to build his huge reputation.
