Lyonya Golubkov
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Lyonya Golubkov (Russian: Лёня Голубков) is a "common Russian guy" played by Vladimir Permyakov in notorious MMM commercials of the mid-1990s. Due to a very aggressive advertising campaign by MMM, most people know Vladimir Permyakov by this name.
In advertising, Lyonya Golubkov was an excavator operator who invested into MMM stock and became rich enough to buy himself a new apartment, house, etc. (later for marketing reasons Lyonya marked out his initial plans as unwise and "opted" to buy an excavator). From his first commercials, his catch phrase was "Это просто, ё-моё", which roughly translates into "This [making money on MMM stock] is damn simple". (The phrase was reportedly later modified after parent complaints.)
Extensive media exposure made Vladimir Permyakov quite popular. However, after the crash of MMM, he became an outcast since people began to blame him for advertising a Ponzi scheme. For several years Permyakov only held sporadic jobs in different plays. He also wrote his memoir How I Became Lyonya Golubkov. However, as things cooled off and more blame was being put not on actors but on government officials, Permyakov's character became synonymous for a simpleton from mid-90s who was fooled by criminals, and Permyakov was managed to get some acting roles.
