The terminator is forever

Author Ivan Kozlov August 26, 2025 Read: 18 min.

Why is a resident of a small town in the Perm Territory in his free time from working on a poultry farm in his garage of the Terminator, teaches him to shoot, pronounce toasts and bombing military bases and “loads” the consciousness of the late grandfather? Because it can and wants, that's why. Such is a resident of Kungur Alexander Osipovich, who has been improving the exact copy of the robot from a cult action for thirty years. The end of this work is not visible: firstly, because it is difficult to keep up with modern technologies, and secondly, due to sanctions that literally do not allow the terminator to get to their feet. Ivan Kozlov talked with the inventor, who was visiting seven years ago, and found out how long we still have to wait for the Day of Judgment.

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Glory to the robots

If people dedicate all their lives to any one project and this is something socially useful, then they get fame and respect. If it is just for the soul, it often happens that the authors of the project are ruined or crazy, because no one except them understands what they are doing and for what.

The story of Alexander Osipovich does not fit into any of these two extremes. On the one hand, he became a celebrity of a federal scale and acquired many fans, on the other hand, his project has not yet brings money and benefits to people and does not even imply any logical ending.

Alexander Osipovich, an employee of the poultry farm in Kungur, makes a terminator-an exact copy of the T-800 from a cult film. In his free time, he teaches a home -made robot to sing, shoot and control aircraft.

In the Perm Territory, they generally love robots who create information from their existence and become media stars. In my memory, the first such case occurred in 2007, when a robot policeman appeared on the streets of Perm. True, he was not like his cinema prototype, but rather to P2D2 from Star Wars. The Robot invented by some PR managers, together with the Washing Machine, traveled on his wheels along the street for some time, trying to campaign the townspeople for healthy lifestyle and compliance with the laws, but was beaten by gopniks and painfully died under the first rain. The mocking column in the local newspaper remained as a souvenir:

“Perm Robot police is not capable of anything. He sprinkles out of place with quotes from the Civil Code, records offenses (mainly drinking alcohol in public places) and reports this to the “center”, drives Perm, scaring passers -by, and periodically breaks from the rain. In addition, he is defenseless before the vandals: he himself needs to be protected and guarded. Perm Robokop would not have saved Detroit. "

Journalists again became interested in Ural robots six years later, in 2013, when two students and graduate students of the Perm Polytechnic University created a robot-smelter. Two years later, they registered Promobot in Perm. It created mainly service robots for business, education and solving various applied tasks, but the company is better known to wide circles thanks to the popularization of robotics, powerful PR and constant generation of various information farms.

A service robot is an automatic device that helps people, performing routine, remote, dangerous or repeated work, including housework. As a rule, service robots are controlled by a built -in management system with manual control.

One of the company’s robots, for example, met twice with Dmitry Medvedev - in 2016 and in 2019. Moreover, the second time the robot recognized the prime minister and boasted that he was wiser in three years. The prime minister did not boast of the same.

Such robots every now and then appear in news stories from different countries, finding themselves at certain status events. And in 2023, the company’s robot even starred in the Hollywood comedy with Megan Fox.

In addition, for many years, Promobot has been holding robots battles. Last year, for example, the media wrote how the Governor of the Perm Territory Dmitry Makhonin stood up for the Robot of St. John's wort, who did not enter the three leaders and asked him to improve: in the end they strengthened the armor and added a vertical mill.

And in 2022, the Dunyasha’s robot became the star of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum: a magnificent barmenerate with a mole over his lip, whose appearance was copied from the winner of the local beauty contest, attracted the attention of the forum guests and became the object of sebaceous jokes. It seems that the PMEF-2022 was remembered by the whole couple of details: the first appearance of the Taliban delegation in Russia and the fact that someone touched the robot Dunyash for the chest.

At that time, the Taliban movement in Russia was on the list of terrorist organizations (Resolution of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003). In April 2025, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation suspended the prohibition of movement of movement.

Well and so on. In general, on the one hand, the appearance of a real terminator in the region, where such a cool and often rather stupid robocarna reigns, does not look like a surprise; On the other hand, the terminator and its creator Alexander Osipovich is a completely separate story. Unlike many industry colleagues, he does not pursue advertising goals and does not have business interests. Therefore, for journalists, he is always a welcome character: he has nothing to hide from them. If, for example, the co -founder of Promobot Oleg Kivokantsev was once awarded to talk with me about the state of Russian robotics in the light of war and sanctions, fearing to harm the business (“All the materials that go out on this topic brought a lot of hatch,” he explained), then Osipovich does not have secrets. True, he does not even have special resources.

Terminator: Beginning

We first met Alexander Osipovich in 2018. Then he told me that he has been creating a terminator for 23 years. This year, it turns out, thirty years.

According to the results of the past meeting, I published a story about the inventor in the Internet magazine "Star". But over the past years, too much has changed: I talked with Osipovich until the widespread spread of neural networks and, more importantly, before the start of the war in Ukraine and before the introduction of Western sanctions against Russia.

And indeed, everything has changed. In addition to the prohibitive level of enthusiasm of the protagonist. And, of course, besides the background that needs to be told.

If we consider the terminator by deadly weapons, then Alexander Osipovich, one might say, continued the dynasty: his grandfather worked at Motovilikhinsky factories , where he developed guidance systems for missile systems. Alexander, however, did not go to the factory. He studied in the Perm Polytechnic in the specialty “Automated Information and Management Systems”, then regularly changed the places of work, each of which was (sometimes quite indirectly) is connected with his specialty, and in 2011 he moved from Perm to Kungur, where he got a job as a poultry farm. By that time, he was already sixteen years as the creation of a terminator.

Motovilikhinsky Plants - the Russian machine -building company in Perm (in 2018 was declared bankrupt and was later sold to the new owner).

The fact is that his grandfather Nikolai Osipovich was a talented engineer awarded the USSR State Prize, and could do everything out of nothing (“We need a radio -controlled machine - we will buy ordinary and make a radio department,” Alexander told me in 2018). More precisely, almost everything. The moment of truth came when a nine-year-old child in 1995 watched the Terminator-2 and asked his grandfather to make the same robot as in the cinema, and his grandfather could not, citing the fact that the technology did not allow this yet. Then Alexander decided to make the terminator himself. And still does.

This long way led him to a quiet life on the outskirts of a small provincial city, in a private house with a workshop and garage. During this time, Alexander developed as an inventor, and the terminator as a robot. Then, in the nineties, the young Osipovich after watching the film was carried away by the idea of ​​developing artificial intelligence, at the university he began to create the first software sketches, but the idea to create a robot came to him later: in the zero he thought about constructing a regular skeleton, but he wanted to construct an exact copy of the T-800 at the beginning of the tenth-tenth-tenth. Google employees threw drawings to him, with whom he then communicated closely, and Alexander took up the improvement: he replaced hydraulics with servo drives, which are cheaper and easier to get - these things, for example, are used in radio -controlled models of helicopters.

According to Google drawings, Alexander in 2016 printed a robot on a 3D printer. But the terminator, which today stands with Osipovich in the garage, is not the first. This is his second body. The first, in the best traditions of a cult film, was destroyed in fire, like almost all property, models, development, motorcycles, a car, a garage and Alexander’s house. In 2017, everything burned out when he was a day to go to Perm.

He managed to recover from this disaster, in general, thanks to the terminator: a year earlier, having printed a robot on a 3D printer, he began to keep John Henry's development diary on the social network (so in honor of the character of the Sarah Konnor series, he called his brainchild). The public quickly became popular, a community of fans formed around the Osipovich, journalists began to go to him, so when the fire occurred, Alexander was not left alone. Friends organized a charity fee, and several hundred thousand collected rubles helped him find a new house, restore life, and most importantly - to return to his developments.

Fortunately, the non -wounded “brains” of the Terminator could not destroy the fire, so in 2018 Osipovich gave him a new body, and John Henry became better than the former. In addition, the fire and the collection of money spurred universal interest in the inventor and his creation, and Alexander finally turned into a star.

Backup (Eng. Backup) - a backup copy of important data stored in a special file.

Grandfather from the car

The inventor, along with the terminator, began to be invited in general everywhere. He was nominated for a prestigious “Stroganov Prize” as an outstanding resident of the Perm Territory, they began to invite an expert to different thematic broadcasts (among other things, Osipovich at the request of journalists evaluated the already mentioned robot Dunyash), he went to the first channel on the show Andrei Malakhov, and once stood with him and Joseph Prigozhin on the same scene on the same stage on the same stage on the same scene on the same scene on the same stage on the same scene on the same stage on the same scene on the same scene on the same scene on the same stage on the same scene on the same stage on the same scene on the same scene on the one presenting a regional journalistic prize, and so on, and so on.

A public reward for high achievements in various fields of activity for people who glorified the Perm Territory and its inhabitants with their affairs. Established on the initiative of entrepreneur Andrei Kuzyaev and has been awarded annually since 2006.

Even the cat Osipovich-Maine-kun Kuzya, who, thanks to his friendship with the robot, was dedicated to the article in the district newspaper.

And in 2019, another event took place, which predetermined the new round of popularity of the terminator. Nikolai Fedorovich Osipovich, grandfather Alexander, who instilled a fanatical love for technology and until the last year of his life, participated in the development of the robot, gave advice and shared his opinion on the innovative decisions of his grandson. The Soviet engineer-stagnant was clearly a visitor: he well understood what digital immortality was, so he asked his grandson to record their conversations and his own thoughts on the film. So, by the time of the death of his beloved grandfather, who deeply shocked Osipovich, seven hours of videos accumulated in his video text.

Alexander did not think for long what to do with them.

A year ago, the documentary “Digital Immortality” of the directors Vladimir Golovnev and Nikita Aniskin was posted on Utub. The plot was based on how Alexander Osipovich tried to instill in the terminator the “consciousness” of his late grandfather in order to honor the memory of a relative. Alexander digitized and uploaded all words and phrases that remained in numerous videos to the robot’s consciousness, created speech modules on their basis and actually simulated the “digital version” of Nikolai Fedorovich. The terminator spoke in his voice and even able to conduct quite substantial dialogs, and from words he simulated new meaningful phrases that his grandfather never pronounced.

“Do you remember the name of your grandson?” - asked Alexander during the test launch.
“Sasha,” the terminator answered, actively moving the jaw and sparkling with his eyes.
- And what does your grandson do?
“Programs,” the grandfather answered from the inside of the car. - The brain creates.

Thanks to this story, similar to a series of “Black Mirror” , Alexander Osipovich did not acquire not federal, but world fame. The Russian Air Force service, some Chinese television companies and millionaire bloggers (Ruslan Usachev in his review, noted about the spirit of the grandfather, noted that “the grandfather’s form factor was chosen”).

The British Scientific and Fantasy Teleworks on the influence of information technology on human relations.

In general, this touching and dramatic story left a noticeable mark on the world media. But personally, my beloved (not only on this topic, but in general in the regional media of the 2020s) the headline of the Perm newspaper remains: "The Kungur humanoid robot received the consciousness of the veteran of labor."

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Degree of freedom

Global events are interested in the Terminator and its creator are slightly less than personal family stories. In any case, it is difficult to understand how the robot relates to the situation in the world. If Alexander posts the videos on this topic, then they, as a rule, are entertaining and generally more like a cool crazy video art. For example, when Osipovich experimented with the Deepfake method, he published a video essay on how Arnold Schwarzenegger and Vladimir Putin are simultaneously declared an audience with John Henry. I really advise you to see:

The method of synthesis of an image or voice using neural networks (English Deepfake from Deep Learning “Deep Learning” + Fake “Fake”).

Once I saw a video in the inventor’s channel about how John Henry strikes a nuclear blow to the German base of the NATO Ramstein and thought: well, everything, the robot definitely got a look. However, as it turned out, according to the plot of the video, the base was captured by abstract terrorists, in the fight against which Russia and the USA united.

The Terminator only spoke out once once-and that, probably, from the presentation of journalists Ura.ru who posted a video in which John Henry scolds the sanctions of the West: “Using the third law of robotics, I declare: I turned sanctions with the speed of the engine of our Su-35 fighter in the Fast and Furious mode.”

This video was recorded in the summer of 2022, and since then it became obvious that the terminator was awake in vain.

Alexander says that in seven years that have passed since our last meeting with him, John Henry gained several fundamentally new skills. In particular, after Sberbank shared the technology of the old voice assistant, which he stopped using himself, John Henry began to answer questions more accurately and naturally:

“For example, you ask him how to make a cat happy.” He answers you some nonsense. Now I can tell him that he answered incorrectly, and he thinks over a more correct answer. The bottom line is that he does not use cloud technologies: all answers are born in a computer inside its chest. And now, thanks to this, he can compose short stories and sing songs.

In addition, now the robot can masterfully translate texts, talks on the phone and shoots from pneumatic weapons. Well, because what is the terminator who does not know how to use weapons? In this case, it can be endowed with the functions of the security system for the house:

- He picks up a gun, he can say, for example, “shoot a person dressed in a black jacket,” and he recognizes the target.

Everyone who at this moment tensed serious, can immediately relax: if you avoid bullets, it will be very easy to escape from the terminator, because it has no legs. More precisely, there are, but not functional. Osipovich did not have time to bring them to mind, so the Judgment Day was somewhat delayed:

“And before, everything was not cheap,” he explains, “but still certain technologies were cheaper over time, you could wait and at some point to begin to acquire them, and now everything has changed dramatically.” You can’t buy anything either, or it is so expensive that you need to sell the kidney.

И если пандемия в основном взвинтила цены и усложнила логистику, то война повлекла за собой более принципиальные проблемы: некоторые детали для технического оборудования, которые производят европейские компании, теперь в Россию не поставляют:

— Я использовал для создания Терминатора польские комплектующие фирмы Pololu и немецкую Althen — последняя раньше производила сервоприводы для гигантских моделей вертолётов. Моделисты со всей России покупали эти комплектующие, а теперь, если вы обратите внимание, коптеры есть, а радиоуправляемые вертолёты пропали из продажи. У Китая тоже кое-что закупалось, но китайцы делали сам каркас, редукторы и прочее, а вот вся электроника была немецкая.

Теперь Александр боится даже дышать на свои вертолёты. У изобретателя их три. Все они представляют собой копии вертолёта из культового американского сериала «Воздушный волк» (в реальности такого вертолёта не существует, а в сериале задействован слегка видоизменённый гражданский вертолёт Bell 222A). При этом все модели Осиповича разного размера — размах винта самой большой из них превышает два метра. Проблема в том, что вертолёты иногда падают, даже миниатюрные. Теперь любое падение может закончиться фатально, потому что детали для ремонта взять негде. И эффектные модели простаивают почём зря.

Но вертолёты — это ладно, они просто одно из многочисленных побочных хобби Александра. Гораздо печальнее, что простаивает Терминатор, который для Осиповича не просто хобби, а главное дело его жизни. Он признавался мне в этом шесть лет назад, подтверждает сейчас, и ещё через шесть или двенадцать лет вряд ли что-то изменится.

О каких-то других сферах своей жизни он говорить не очень-то и любит. О том, как дела на работе («нормально»), отвечает скорее для проформы, хотя устроился туда по специальности: Осипович помогает совершенствовать программное обеспечение на птицефабрике и в агрохолдинге «Труд». Про личную жизнь он не говорит вовсе (о том, что у него есть жена и соратница Оксана Арович, которая работает птичницей на той же птицефабрике, я узнал много позже нашей встречи). Если не считать рассказов о котах, которые для него стали не просто членами семьи (это банальность, так кто угодно про своих котов скажет), а соавторами в творчестве и в изобретательском процессе.

Прошлой весной умер Кузя — мейн-кун, известный всем подписчикам блога Осиповича как Т-кот. В эпитафии изобретатель написал:

«Всегда традиционно, что бы я ни делал, процесс происходил так: начинаю паять, строить, либо программировать, вспоминаю „Где кот?“, оглядываюсь — кот где-нибудь сидит неподалёку, позову его — и кот принимается совместно за процесс. Я даже и не знал, что вот так можно подружиться с котом и делать всё вместе».

С этой утратой ему помогло справиться приобретение нового котёнка, который оказался максимально похож характером на оригинального Т-кота, и они вместе продолжили общее дело:

— Нет, это до конца моей жизни, — констатирует Осипович, отвечая на вопрос о том, собирается ли он когда-нибудь поставить точку в модернизации Терминатора. — А пока что я остановился на вопросе построения третьего тела с большими степенями свободы. Первое тело сгорело в пожаре, второе есть сейчас, а третье я хотел бы создавать параллельно, потому что второе подустало от поездок в Москву и разных гастролей. Но, поскольку сейчас всё сорвалось, и доработкой тела я заниматься не могу, я совершенствую ПО, учу Терминатора стихам и песням.

Сейчас, чтобы как-то отвлечься и скомпенсировать вынужденный простой, Осипович придумал себе новое большое дело. Он строит у себя дома полноценную кабину авиасимулятора. Неудивительно, учитывая, что терминатор Джон Генри отлично умеет управлять самолётом: Осипович натренировал его на специальном программном обеспечении, робот долго тренировался взлетать с виртуального Шереметьева, облетать виртуальную Красную площадь и садиться обратно. Теперь он может повторить «Чудо на Гудзоне» и предотвратить катастрофу так, как это случилось в реальности. Всё это было бы невозможно без нейросетей: изобретатель говорит, что Терминатор достиг совершенства, обучаясь на своих собственных ошибках.

Так стали называть в СМИ аварийную посадку на воду американского авиалайнера Airbus A320 в 2009 году. После взлёта самолёт столкнулся со стаей птиц, и у него отказали оба двигателя. Экипаж благополучно посадил самолёт на реку Гудзон в Нью-Йорке, все находившиеся на его борту 155 человек выжили.

Когда Джон Генри налетался над странами и континентами, Александр захотел того же и принялся строить полноценный человеческий авиасимулятор. Сейчас он кропотливо воспроизводит кабину Боинга 737-800, максимально приближая физическую модель к оригиналу и используя программное обеспечение, на котором обучают реальных пилотов.

— Это ни для чего, это просто для себя, — поясняет он, — мне просто в кайф. Надо же чем-то пока себя занять, ведь не может же вечно продолжаться то, что сейчас происходит.

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