A document with a handwritten wish and autograph by the artist of the RSFSR Wolf Messing

Wolf Messing is a Soviet pop artist who performed psychological experiments "reading the minds" of the audience, Honored Artist of the RSFSR. During the Great Patriotic War, two fighters were built for the front with the personal savings of Wolf Messing.

The following text is presented on the letterhead from the collection: "Write down your assignment and hand it over to the jury" and "When V. Messing completes the assignment, you must mentally accurately and consistently dictate this assignment to him." Similar forms were distributed to the audience at the artist's performances.

The document comes from Leonid Sladkov's personal collection. Leonid Sladkov recalled a meeting with Messing: "Once, in the early 1970s, when I was working as a correspondent for the newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda, I read a message on the bulletin board that a meeting with the famous parapsychologist Wolf Messing would take place in the auditorium. There were a lot of people – journalists, printers, publishing house employees. Messing announced from the stage that he was about to leave the hall, and asked one of those present to hide a box of matches. Then he entered the hall and in a couple of minutes found a box hidden in some recess in the wall. The audience burst into applause. And then everyone lined up in a long queue for the maestro's autograph."

Leonid Sladkov worked for the USSR Philately magazine for many years and always, meeting with the heroes of his essays and interviews, asked them to sign on a postal envelope or postcard. This is how his collection appeared, which today has become an authentic document of the era.