The legend of the mini-sculpture of Uzhgorod Harry Houdini
An interesting legend related to this mini-sculpture is told by Nadiya Popadiuk in her book Uzhgorod – the World Capital of Mini-Sculptures. According to this legend, the future magician often visited his grandmother in his childhood, who lived in the village of Yovria (now Storozhnytsia) near Uzhgorod. It was she who taught the legendary master the first card tricks of incredible liberation from unreliable fetters and locks. When his family emigrated to the United States, Harry began performing these card tricks publicly in New York City’s entertainment venues at the age of 10, and his career as an illusionist began. During his tour of Europe in 1900, Houdini came to Uzhgorod, where he demonstrated his self-liberation from the casemates in honour of his grandmother Uzhgorod Castle. According to the legend, locked in the “Torture Room”, dressed in prisoner’s clothes and massive shackles, he came out two minutes later and entered the secret passages for dwarves, and fifteen minutes after he was locked up, he appeared in the castle moat dressed in his costume. A bronze mini-sculpture of Harry Houdini was found near the broken shackles, which the owners of Uzhgorod Castle donated to the city and installed near the road leading to the village of Storozhnytsia (in front of the Uzhgorod Hotel).
