From Russia to India: Meet Yury Lisichko, the man who repairs shooters’ pistol grips
Yury Lisichko (Image credit: TimesofIndia.com) NEW DELHI: There are tools on the table, pieces of wood on the floor and pistol grips in various stages of modification. Some tools hang around the room. His t-shirt and eyelashes are covered in wood bark. There are a few used coffee mugs lying around.Two cats wander in and out.This is Yury Lisichko’s workshop in Greater Noida, where Indian shooters arrive with a problem that can be difficult to explain and even more difficult to fix: the grip of their pistol doesn’t feel right.Lisichko looks at the gun, studies the shooter’s hand and wrist, examines the existing grip and begins working on it. The shooter then takes the gun into another room and takes aim at the target.After a few shots, there are more edits, and then more shots. The process continues until Lisichko is happy with the grip and the shooter is happy with it.
Yury Lisichko (Image credit: Timesofindia.com)
“I know the mentality of every shooter. I talk to them for a minute or two…that’s it. I understand the problem. Now I tell them to sit down until I’m done. They wait, I work and when I’m ready I give them targets to shoot. First I have to be satisfied and then they are. I make handles from fresh wood. I don’t use them well and I give them a Lisichko to do it.” TimesofIndia.com in an exclusive interview.Shooters have been coming to him for years. Among those he has worked with are Anish Bhanwala, Jitu Rai, Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh. juniors, seniors and international shooters come, even during major competitions, and the door remains open.“Anish (Bhanwala) came to me just before the Asian Games. He spent the whole day here. When the solution didn’t come, he decided to stay here to avoid a lot of travel. Many shooters from the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games came to me. Shooters come here, stay too. They order food and play with my cats. All I tell them is, ‘Don’t disturb me, said Lisichko’.”
Yury Lisichko (Image credit: TimesofIndia.com)
However, Lisichko did not come to India to become a grip specialist. He came in 2009 as a foreign pistol shooting coach.
A 200-page biography that brought him to India
In 2007, Lisichko participated in the European Championship in St. Petersburg. After the competition, foreign coaches asked him why they had never seen him work abroad with athletes.He decided to put together a biography, even a 200-page one containing his education, the athletes he worked with in Russia, his achievements and other details about his career.Two years later he got a call from India.“That was the first time I heard Indian English. It’s absolutely unintelligible. I remember the conversation. I couldn’t understand the accent very well. He hung up and said, ‘Call me later with someone who can speak English well, please,'” Lisichko recalled.The Indian Army wanted him to work in India. At the Indian embassy, he was shown the Ministry of Defense order regarding the appointment of foreign trainers for the army.
Image Credit: TimesofIndia.com
He said yes. His visa was ready the next day and Lisichko landed in New Delhi, traveled to Indore and then reached Mhow – a camp town in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.“I had no knowledge about India. I knew it was a country with lots of wild animals and snakes, spiders everywhere. But over time I realized it was beautiful. I traveled around India and met different people. Everyone is different,” he said.He started working with army riflemen, including the infantry school in Mhow and the army rifle unit. He also worked with the Indian junior shooting set-up and later with the senior athletes.For the first three or four months, the problem was more the accent than the language. He slowly began to speak in a similar manner. Then came Hindi, Indian food and the small exchanges that came with daily life in the country.“Namaste. Namaskaar. Kaise ho. Theek ho. Kaha jaa rahe ho. When I go to the market, I have learned to say, ‘Kitna hua bhaiya? Just do paise wapas.’ I learned that Hindi is a very simple language. And that’s as far as techniques go. It looks like Ukrainian language. Because I am ethnically Ukrainian. But you see, my heart is with Ukraine, my brain is partly in Russia,” said Lisichko.
How a coach became the man shooters want
Lisichko studied technology at the Moscow Aviation University and had experience working with wood and other materials. His work with pistol grips developed gradually.
Yury Lisichko (Image credit: TimesofIndia.com)
The first attempts did not go smoothly. “The first grip was destroyed, the second grip was destroyed. Then I made a grip that I started working with. And I started to get better at shooting. Over time, I excelled in the art of making grips,” he recalled.This work eventually became a specialized part of what he does for shooters.“I didn’t know the study in the forest, the experience would become a specialized craft, and now I will help the shooters to repair the handles before the competitions. When they win, I also quietly pat myself on the back (laughs),” said Lisichko.There is no standard grip that can easily be transferred from one shooter to another. The same gun can feel different in different hands.“You can buy the same rifle as Abhinav Bindra. You can buy the same pistol as Manu Bhaker or Jitu Rai or Vijay Kumar. You can buy a shooting suit the same as Bindra. Shooting boots as Bindra. You can use the same bullets, the same gloves, everything. But you can’t shoot with the same ability. Every shooter is different from holding a human hand and it destroys it. focus,” he said.That’s why the pistol sometimes arrives at Lisichka’s workshop before it reaches the competition range. The shooter has to wait as he works the wood, and then comes another series of shots and recalibration.