| “ | IIIIIIIIIIIS BORIS! | ” |
―Boris' intro | ||
| “ | Stay cheeki breeki! | ” |
―Life of Boris | ||
Life of Boris (born: May 5, 1986) is a Russian-Estonian YouTuber. He is known for his videos on cooking, gaming, country reviews and somewhat random content involving his shenanigans with strange ideas, such as cooking with only a brick. His videos occasionally involve his cousin Anatoli or his cat Artyom. He portrays the stereotyped Gopnik subculture and always speaks with a strong, Slavic accent.
There's much speculation about where Boris is from. In 2018 it was confirmed by Boris in an interview that he is residing in Tallinn, Estonia.[1] In the June 2020 YouTube video "Completely normal phenomenon - Life of Boris subreddit", he claimed to live in Moscow, Russia,[2] while in the March 2021 video, he claims to reside in Saint Petersburg, Russia.[3] In addition, on February 4th 2021, under the video of a British travel blogger bald and bankrupt traveling across the CIS countries called "Solo In Estonia's East 🇪🇪", Boris left a comment in which he invited the blogger to Kopli (a microdistrict in Tallinn) "for instant good friends" hinting at a possible collab, which may indicate that Boris lives in both Russia and Estonia.
History[]
Boris created his channel on July 6, 2012 under the username NocturnoPlays, though there were no videos uploaded til May 4, 2015, when he uploaded his first video, titled Cab driver Boris: THE CHEEKI BREEKI BEGINS - A Slav montage.
On August 4, 2015, Boris uploaded a 1k subscribers special, 1000 SUBSCRIBERS SPECIAL - 3 months in review. After 8 months of creating content from his first video, he earned 10k subscribers and uploaded 10K Subscriber special - 8 months of slaves; later on, after a year of creating content, he uploaded a birthday special and equally his 100th video, Buterbrod cake and Q&A - Birthday special (100th video / 50k subs special, which also celebrates him having 50k subscribers. On October 23, 2016, he uploaded a 401k subscriber Q&A video, titled Boris Q&A - 401K subs special.
On May 10, 2017, Boris uploaded CHRONICLES OF CHEEKI BREEKI, and during that time, he had around 658k subscribers. On November 19 in the same year, he reached a milestone of 1 million subscribers and uploaded How to celebrate like Slav - ONE MILLION GOPNIKS SPECIAL. Later on, on January 18, 2019, he uploaded Still alive! Status Update, elaborating on why he had been gone for weeks, while also celebrating having 2 million subscribers. In that same video, Boris explains that his dream car, the E34 M5 which questioned in this video and was said to appear in his 2 million subscribers special, did not end up appearing as the price of said car had since doubled.
Gopnik Gaming[]
Boris has a defunct gaming channel, Gopnik Gaming, and explains why he stopped uploading in Gopnik Gaming, describing how the YouTube algorithm is unreliable and makes it difficult to successfully run two different channels at once, but he has since uploaded a video named "this just got hard" on the channel.
Hiatus[]
On February 26, 2022, Boris uploaded all is lost, which touched on the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. He explained that the war initially made him hesitant to share Russian and Ukrainian culture during the 2014 annexation of Crimea and War in Donbas. Now with the incredibly fragile relationship between both countries, he decided to stop making videos for the time being. Boris also said that some people he knew were in danger, so he was "needed elsewhere" and promised he would be back soon. He finished the video by quoting the last words of a group of Ukrainian soldiers who refused to give up an island under threat by Russian warships. When told over the radio to lay down their weapons and surrender, they said "Russian warship, go f*** yourself." The soldiers were presumed dead, but the State Border Guard Service said there's a chance some may have been captured by the Russians instead.
In a video titled Thank you for watching uploaded on July 6, he states that due to the YouTube algorithm no longer recommending his videos and YouTube being unhelpful with the situation, he will stop uploading to the channel for the time being. He says he created a new YouTube channel named Soup Kitchen Gaming. He goes on to say that he will still upload to the Life of Boris channel whenever he feels the motivation to do so.
On November 10th, 2022 he announced that he removed all his social media except for YouTube where he posted video named "social media is dead, ask me anything (Q&A)"
Return[]
By early 2023, Boris has returned to a fairly normal upload schedule (random content whenever he feels like it), after posting 2 further videos in February 2023 discussing his decline in popularity (which is directly linked to his ability to make a living from YouTube).
Personal Life[]
Boris was born on May 5th, 1986.[4] Before working as a full-time YouTuber til 2021, he was a programmer for an Estonian company.[1] He has resumed this from October of 2021, relocating to Estonia.[5] Not much is known about his family life, but he has a cousin, Anatoli, who appears in videos from time to time. Like Boris, he always wears a mask while on camera. His other family members are vaguely mentioned once in a while but have never been seen as of yet. Generally he states that, like himself, his family members wish to maintain their privacy by remaining anonymous.
Nationality[]
He identifies himself as Estonian, but his country of origin is unconfirmed, as he has only mentioned to be from a "Slavic country".[1] Although he has confirmed residing and working in Estonia, he does not speak Estonian.[1]
There is evidence that suggests Boris was possibly born in Norilsk, a small city in Russia. He commented on a video named "The Most Depressing City On Earth" , which became the top comment, that he "was from there", referring to the city named by the uploader of the video. Of course, this may be satirical.
In his video "NO PC, NO PROBLEM - C# and Unity with Boris," when looking at the keyboard hooked up to his desktop monitor, you can see two keys to the right of the L key. The first shows Ø, Ö, and Æ. The second shows Æ, Ä, and Ø. Some of these letters only exist in Scandinavian languages of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic, however, the chance of Boris being Faroese is low. There is a chance that the keyboard uses the Estonian and/or Finnish script, as both Ö and Ä are used in said languages.
Cooking[]
Boris's cooking videos remain a much popular part of his channel. He knows much about the Russian cuisine as seen in his videos. But his cooking style becomes weird sometimes (for example- using sledge hammer, chainsaw etc).
Some of the foods made by him are:
- Chebureki (a deep-fried turnover with a filling of ground or minced meat and onions)
- Kvass (a fermented non-alcoholic or alcoholic beverage commonly made from rye bread)
- Russian (Potato) Salad/Olivier salad
- Halva made from semechki (sunflower seed)
- Plov/Pilaf (Student Edition) (a rice dish made with spices, vegetables or meat)
- Instant Noodles using various weird techniques
- Strawberry Jam
- Goulash (a soup of meat and vegetables usually seasoned with paprika and other spices)
- Sausage (Pork and Beef)
- Kompot (a non-alcoholic sweet beverage)
- Aspic (a gelatin dish made with a meat stock)
- Chicken Kiev/Chicken Cutlet of Kiev
- Solyanka (with pork) (a thick, spicy and sour soup)
- Mayonnaise
- Borsch (a sour soup)
- Herring Under Fur Coat/Dressed herring (a layered salad composed of diced pickled herring covered with various ingredients)
- Cabbage Rolls
Characters[]
Anatoli[]
Anatoli is Boris' cousin who sometimes appears in his videos. He wears a white Adidas tracksuit with white ushanka in all of his appearances. Anatoli rarely speaks in most videos, leaving Boris to do most of the talking.
Sergei[]
Sergei is the cameraman who sometimes records his videos. There are no images to Sergei's appearance other than his hand appearing in some unboxing videos.
Artyom (Komrade Kat)[]
Artyom (born: August 30, 2018) is Boris' Russian Blue cat. His mother was a rescue cat and therefore he didn't see his father. He is named after a protagonist from the "Metro" series by his fan's suggestion (before being named "Artyom", he was nicknamed "Komrade Kat" and still is called such to this day). He first appeared in the "Life of Artyom" video about his activity during his early days. Nowadays, he lives in the countryside, and Boris rarely shows him in his videos.
Vadim[]
Vadim is Boris' neighbour. It is possibly not a real person, or not the neighbour's real name. He is known for stealing Boris' stuff and disturbing Boris due to his construction work by causing loud noises, especially drilling holes on the walls. Boris calls him "Vadim Blyat" because he is fed up with Vadim.
Quotes[]
- "If you're driving, always have dashcam. If you do not, someone will come and crash into you and you will have lost a good youtube video" - Matryoshkas and Caviar - Moscow review (200th video)
- "So tell me. Student Anatoli, how many time you're driving already" (Anatoli brings out one finger) "Ah, is no problem. Is my first time also" - Slav school of driving - driving instructor Boris
- "Add one verry important component, the bayleaf~... or maybe two, cos' y'know, f*** it" - How to make borsch soup like a slav (Borscht recipe) - Cooking with Boris
- "Is West. Why not East?"- Boris goes London - Country review - YouTube
- "Vadim, Blyat!"
Trivia[]
- His channel is named after the movie "Life of Brian".
- Boris has a habit of mentioning his grandmother, especially in his cooking videos, whom he calls Бабушка (Babushka), which is the diminutive of 'grandmother' in many Slavic languages.[6]
- He was featured at VidCon London 2019 and uploaded a country review video.
- Boris also met TomSka at VidCon 2019.
- Boris states that he wishes to remain anonymous in all of his videos; thus, very little is known about his appearance or life outside of YouTube.
- Boris has made 6 music videos: Slav King, Red Roubles, Generation Hardbass, Parking Lot, The Bay Leaf, and Contraband.
- "Slav King" and "Generation Hardbass" with DJ Blyatman, "Red Roubles" with XS Project, and "Parking Lot", "The Bay Leaf", and "Contraband" with Uamee.
- "Slav King" is the most viewed video on his channel.
- There are people who are trying to uncover Boris' actual identity, but no one has seen his real face under the black mask, and his fluffy ushanka.
- The majority of his BGMs came from Latvian Hardbass producer, uamee (pronounciation: either "yah-mee" or "yah-meh"), whom Boris praised as "The Mastermind of Hardbass".
- In "How to make Kissel like babushka", uamee sent Boris a bag of Latvian "Kartofel'nyj" Potato Starch.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 https://digi.geenius.ee/rubriik/kuidas-me-tootame/slaavi-superstaar-life-boris-peab-end-eestlaseks-ja-soovitab-koigil-tool-lahkumisavaldus-anda/ Interview with Life of Boris (March 20, 2021)
- ↑ Completely normal phenomenon - Life of Boris subreddit (en). Life of Boris (June 30, 2020).
- ↑ Top 30 Frequently Asked Questions about Boris (Q&A) (en). Life of Boris (March 1, 2021).
- ↑ https://www.instagram.com/the_life_of_boris/ Life of Boris Instagram bio (March 20, 2021)
- ↑ Where is Boris? by Life of Boris. YouTube. October 26, 2021.
- ↑ https://www.dictionary.com/browse/babushka