16+Synopsis
The Life and Adventures of Mishka Yaponchik (2011) is a Russian-Ukrainian crime drama you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Sergei Ginzburg and starring Evgeny Tkachuk, it follows Moisei Vinnitsky — the Odessa gangster who ran the Moldavanka neighbourhood from 1917 to 1919 and later inspired Isaac Babel's legendary character Benya Krik.
Yaponchik operated by a code most criminals never bothered writing down: no robbing the poor, no threatening doctors, teachers, or artists. Valentin Gaft and Igor Savochkin fill out the vivid cast of merchants, hustlers, and street-level characters who made up the Odessa that the revolution was about to erase. Tkachuk plays the man as neither hero nor thug — someone who fit a specific moment in history that lasted exactly three years.
The series works best as a portrait of a place as much as a person. Odessa between the revolutions had its own rules, its own language, and its own mythology — and this show captures all of it without sanitising the violence underneath. Stream all episodes of Mishka Yaponchik online on iFILM.
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