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Richard had an idyllic childhood with Edwards Circus after being born at their winter quarters in Exeter. His parents taught him general circus skills but he excelled at the trapeze. His Ukrainian father, Sergei and his French mother Maria were the ‘Flying Colours’ so he naturally dropped into a catcher’s role and became part of their act which they often performed outside so he became the catcher in the rye.
His parents ensured he grew up multi lingual so he stayed with the Ballet Rambo in Paris for seven years after passing the audition, without flying colours. His writing skills were honed by producing the programmes for their performances around the world.
He defecated to Russia during a performance there with his mentor Rudolf Nureyev and then became the BBC Moscow correspondent for some years.
He now divides his time between hunting wild boar in the forest surrounding his luxurious dacha outside Moscow and his bed sit in Exeter, over the Indian takeaway in Mary Arches Street, where he still enjoys the occasional trapeze performance when the circus is in town.
His novels have been translated into Albanian. His fame in that country is second only to Norman Wisdom. They have not sold well in England, possibly because they are only available in Albanian and the original Serbo-Croat. It is early days in his writing career, however, as he has only just celebrated his 90th birthday
His interests include early Polynesian architecture, a fascination for quantum physics, research into the periodic table and other early furniture and cataloguing his extensive collection of circus programmes. He keeps fit by playing table tennis and darts.
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