Yuri in Stranger Things: who is Yuri Ismaylov, the peanut-butter smuggler
Character · Yuri Ismaylov · Season 4
Yuri Ismaylov betrays everyone, negotiates everything, and gets everyone out of prison. A smuggler based in Alaska, obsessed with peanut butter, he is the comic of season 4 and one of the rare characters to change sides three times in four episodes. Here is who he is.
The essentials
- Name: Yuri Ismaylov, a Russian smuggler based in Alaska
- His role: is supposed to help Joyce and Murray buy Hopper back; betrays them
- His end: flies the helicopter that gets the group out of the prison
- Played by: Nikola Djuricko
Contents
Who is Yuri
When Joyce receives a Russian doll containing a message, “Hop is alive,” the contact is called Enzo, and the go-between is called Yuri: a smuggler based in Alaska, who moves peanut butter and jeans into the Soviet Union, and who has agreed, for forty thousand dollars, to get Hopper out of Kamchatka. Joyce and Murray take the plane to Alaska with the money.
The Hopper T-shirt, the American of the prison.
In the shopMen's 3/4-sleeve baseball Chief Hopper Hawkins Police T-shirt44,90 €See the product
The betrayal
Yuri takes the money, and hands Joyce and Murray over to the KGB: he understood he would earn more by selling them, with Enzo, than by keeping his word. He loads them onto his plane for Russia, tied up. It is Murray who turns the situation around, with the karate he claims to master: Yuri finds himself tied up in his own plane, which crashes on landing, and now has to negotiate his survival.
| Step | Yuri |
|---|---|
| Alaska | Accepts forty thousand dollars to free Hopper |
| The plane | Betrays Joyce and Murray, then is tied up by Murray |
| Russia | Passes himself off as Enzo to get into the prison |
| The prison | Repairs the helicopter, "Katinka," and gets everyone out |
| After | Is part of the group that returns to the United States |
The prison and the helicopter
To get into the prison where Hopper and Dmitri are held, Murray pretends to be Yuri and Yuri Enzo, tied up. The plan only half holds. Inside, while Hopper and Dmitri face the Demogorgon in the arena, Yuri is tasked with repairing an old helicopter he has named Katinka. He manages it, bargaining over every bolt, and it is he who flies the group out of the prison. Betrayed, betraying, he ends up the pilot of the escape.
Nikola DjurickoThe Serbian actor, a star in his country, was chosen for his ability to make Yuri both hateful and irresistible. His scenes with Brett Gelman, Murray, are the comic duo of Season 4.
The peanut butter
The detail that makes the character: Yuri is obsessed with peanut butter, which he smuggles and eats with a knife. The brand and the jar have become a running gag, and a collector's item for fans. It is also an idea the show has about the Cold War: on the other side of the curtain, you do not dream of freedom but of sandwiches.
Why the character matters
Because he carries the comedy of a thread, Russia, that could have been the darkest of season 4. And because he is the proof that the show knows how to make a traitor an ally without making him good: Yuri does not change, it is the circumstances that change.
His fate after season 4 is not shown: back in the United States with the group, he disappears from the story, no doubt with a jar of peanut butter and a new deal in mind.
Yuri, episode by episode
-
The contact
Dmitri, Hopper's guard, goes through Yuri, smuggler and pilot, to organize the 40 000 dollar ransom.
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L'Alaska
Joyce and Murray land at Yuri's, among his planes and his jars of peanut butter. He drugs them with the coffee.
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The betrayal
Yuri warned the KGB: he plans to hand over the Americans and Dmitri, and collect two rewards instead of one.
-
The turn
Tied up in his own plane, he bargains his life for Murray's help, who makes him pay for his black belt.
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The helicopter
He ends up flying the escape helicopter, and is one of those who flee the prison with Hopper, Joyce, Murray, and Dmitri.
The Hopper figure, gulag version.
In the shopLego bearded Jim Hopper mini figure14,90 €See the product
The peanut butter, and what it says about 1986
Yuri smuggles American cigarette cartons and peanut butter into the USSR, a commodity impossible to find on the other side of the Iron Curtain, which he resells at a fortune. The detail is historical: American products circulated by smuggling, and peanut butter, like jeans, was a marker of the West. The show makes a gag of it, a man who eats by the spoonful what he sells for a fortune, and a summary of his character.
Yuri has no ideology. He sells to the Russians, to the Americans, to whoever pays. That is what makes him both dangerous and recoverable: he betrays Joyce and Murray for money, and helps them afterward for the same reason. Nikola Đuričko, a Serbian actor, plays him as a threatening clown, one of the rare purely comic characters of season 4.
Yuri and Dmitri: the two Russians of 1986
Season 4 sets two Russians who help Hopper for money against each other. Dmitri, the guard, takes real risks, saves Hopper several times, and ends up choosing flight with the Americans; Yuri, the smuggler, does nothing he is not forced to. Together, they replace the single Russian of 1985, Grigori, with two more nuanced portraits: fear and greed, instead of obedience.
In the final escape, it is nonetheless Yuri who holds the helicopter stick. The show does not reward him, but it does not punish him either. He disappears from the story at the same time as Russia, and season 5 does not mention him.
Nikola Đuričko, the menacing clown
Nikola Đuričko, a Serbian actor, was announced in November 2020 with the rest of season 4's newcomers, in a recurring role. Yuri is the only character of the season who is both frankly comic and genuinely dangerous: he drugs Joyce and Murray, turns them over to the KGB, then flies their escape, without ever stopping the jokes. The actor plays the accent, the greed and the cowardice with a glee that made the character an unexpected favorite.
His most-cited scene remains the one of the drugged coffee in Alaska, where Joyce and Murray understand too late they have come upon a seller, not an ally. Yuri sums up season 4 on the Russian side: after the 1985 killer, men who have a price.
Yuri in three moments
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The diner
In Alaska, Joyce and Murray fall asleep: Yuri has tipped off the KGB.
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L'avion
Tied up, he bargains, lies, and ends up cooperating under Murray's threat.
-
The helicopter
He flies the escape from the Kamchatka prison.
A traitor who saves everyone for money: Yuri is the comic version of what the show thinks of men who have a price.
The Season 4 poster.
In the shopChibi Jim Hopper in uniform keychain12,90 €See the product
TakeawayThe Alaska smuggler, with peanut butter. Betrays Joyce and Murray, then is tied up in his plane. Repairs and flies the escape helicopter. Played by Nikola Djuricko.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Yuri in Stranger Things?
Yuri Ismaylov, Russian smuggler based in Alaska, who is supposed to help Joyce and Murray free Hopper, betrays them, then flies the helicopter of their escape.
Does Yuri betray Joyce and Murray?
Yes: he takes their money and turns them over to the KGB, before being tied up by Murray in his own plane.
How does the group get out of the prison?
On board a helicopter, Katinka, which Yuri repairs and flies.
Who plays Yuri?
Nikola Djuricko, Serbian actor.
What is the ransom amount in season 4?
40 000 dollars, which Joyce and Murray bring to Alaska; Yuri drugs them and tips off the KGB to collect a second reward.
Is Yuri in season 5?
No. He disappears from the story after the escape from the Kamchatka prison, and the last season does not mention him.
Where is Yuri's base?
In Alaska, where he stores his planes, his cigarettes, and his peanut butter, and where Joyce and Murray land with the ransom.