Russian Personalities

People well-known in art, sport, film, fashion

Category Archive: Movies and theatre

Dasha Charusha – Simonenko, actress

Dasha Charusha - Simonenko, actress

Dasha Charusha – Simonenko, actress


Dasha Charusha (Simonenko) is a Russian actress.
Pretty girl was born on August 25, 1980 in Norilsk, Russia. Daria graduated from the music college, and then decided to quit music career. So she entered the Russian University of Theater Arts (GITIS). In 2003 the girl graduated from the university.
From 2003 to 2006 she worked as an actress in Luna Theater in Moscow. For the first time Charusha appeared on the screen in the melodrama Woman in the Game Without Rules. The second role in the film Uncontrolled Drift was offered to the young actress by Georgy Shengelia.
Critics noted Dasha’s deep psychology and acting skills in the film Domino Effect. The heroine Masha experiences feelings of fear and guilt at the same time.
Her most famous roles are in Chinese remake of the film The Dawns Here Are Quiet (2005), and in Pavel Ruminov’s Dead Daughters (2007). Another interesting theatrical role was in Oleg Glushkov’s play The Rooms.
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Vera Kholodnaya – Russian silent cinema star

Vera Kholodnaya

Vera Kholodnaya – Russian silent cinema star

The Russian silent movie queen Vera Kholodnaya lived a short life, only 25 years.
Pretty girl was born on August 30, 1893 in Poltava, Russian Empire. The family of school teacher Vasily Levchenko moved to Moscow in 1895, when Verochka was two years old. Vera was the eldest child in the family. The girl loved to dance, and persuaded her mother to send her to the Bolshoi Theatre ballet school. She could become a prima ballerina, but her grandmother considered that ballet was an unacceptable occupation for the girl from respectable family. So, Vera had to go back to school.
15-year-old girl watched the play Francesca da Rimini by Gabriele D’Annunzio. Vera was impressed by Vera Komissarzhevskaya, Empress of the Russian Drama Theater.
After school Verochka Levchenko met handsome young lawyer Vladimir Kholodny. Cute girl saw in him her faithful knight, who, unlike her relatives, was able to help her not just to live, but soar above life. Their wedding took place in 1910. Every evening Vera and her husband went to the theater and cinema. The invention of the Lumiere brothers had just begun gaining popularity in the country. Just in 1910 the film The Abyss with Asta Nielsen appeared. Vera was fascinated by the Danish actress.
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Elina Bystritskaya, actress

Elina Bystritskaya, actress

Elina Bystritskaya, actress


Elina Bystritskaya is a Soviet and Russian actress best known as Aksinya (Axinia) in Tikhiy Don (Quiet Flows the Don) (1957) directed by Alexander Gerasimov (epic screening of Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel). Also she is a teacher and singer, People’s Artist of the USSR (1978).
Beautiful girl was born on April 4, 1928 in Kiev, USSR. Young Elina helped her parents working as a medical nurse in a Soviet military hospital during the Second World War. From 1944 to 1947 she studied at the Nezhin Nursing School, graduating in 1947 as gynecological nurse. And then the future actress worked at a gynecological clinic. Under the pressure of her father Elina entered the Nezhinsky State Pedagogical Institute in 1947. A year later she left her studies and entered the acting department at the Kiev Institute of Theater Arts.
Bystritskaya became famous in the Soviet Union after the role of a doctor in the film Unfinished Novel (Neokonchennaya povest, 1956) directed by Fridrikh Ermler. In 1955 she was acclaimed as the Best Soviet actress of the year. By the way, she was a member of the Soviet delegation for the Week of Soviet Film, which was held in Paris.
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Maria Savina – actress and last love of Turgenev

Margarita Savina actress

Margarita Savina – actress and last love of Turgenev

Actress Maria Savina was the last love of famous Russian writer Ivan Turgenev. The last four years of his life were full of high feeling and touching dreams about Savina, and a sober understanding of the hopelessness of their common future. Turgenev told about his feelings in his letters to the actress. The book Turgenev and Savina was published in 1918.
Pretty Maria was born on March 30, 1854. At the age of 7 she began to take part in the performances. 15-year-old Maria had played in all stages of provincial theaters in Bobruisk, Gomel and Nezhin. She played a variety of roles – from the small roles to the heroines of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Goethe, Dumas, Gogol, Ostrovsky and many others.
The scene was the life for her. Savina entered the history of Russian theater as one of the brightest stars.
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Rufina Nifontova, actress

Rufina Nifontova, actress

Rufina Nifontova, actress


Rufina Nifontova was a Soviet Russian theater and film actress, People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1962), People’s Artist of the USSR (1978). Also she was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) since 1972. She was a leading Russian actress appeared on stage, screen and television.
Beautiful girl was born on September 15, 1931 in Moscow. Rufina had twin brother Vyacheslav (1931-1975). Her brother Alexander went missing in the early days of the Great Patriotic War. And her brother Boris was killed at the front.
When the girl was at school, she joined a drama club. Pretty Rufina dreamed of becoming a theater actress. For the first time she appeared on the stage in Ostrovsky’s play. Classmates were sure that Rufina would certainly become an actress. However, the girl was not accepted into any theater school in Moscow.
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Yuliya Borisova

Yuliya Borisova

Yuliya Borisova – beautiful Russian actress


Yuliya Borisova is Soviet and Russian theater and film actress, People’s Artist of the USSR (1969), Hero of Socialist Labor (1985), Laureate of the State Prize of Russia (1995). The notable Russian actress of the Vakhtangov Theatre is best known for her film role as Ambassador Kollontay in the film Ambassador of the Soviet Union (Posol Sovetskogo Soyuza, 1969).
The future actress was born on March 17, 1925 in Moscow, Russia.
In 1949, Yuliya graduated from the Shchukin Theater School and in the same year she joined the Vakhtangov Theater. There she had performed for the first time during her studies in 1947. She made her stage debut as Hero in the Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and as Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Borisova had been working in Vakhtangov Theater for more than 60 years. For decades, she was a leading actress, playing mostly the main female roles, including Turandot, Nastasia Philippovna, Virineya, Helena in Warsaw Melody, Valya in Irkutsk History, Cleopatra.
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Tamara Karsavina – Firebird of Russian ballet

Firebird karsavina

Ballerina Tamara Karsavina in the ballet “The Firebird” by Igor Stravinsky’s music in the costume designs by Leon Bakst for 1910.

Tamara Karsavina was loved, respected and admired. You know, she was always away from any kind of intrigue. In her youth pretty girl had decided to devote all of herself to His Majesty the Arts. During her long life she experienced many worries and troubles, difficulties and trials, but grateful audience remembered her as a talented performer.
Firebird of Russian Ballet, one of the brightest of its stars was born on March 9, 1885, into an intellectual family in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire. Her father Platon Karsavin was a dancer at the Mariinsky Theatre, and also taught at the Drama School. Tamara was a sister of the historian and philosopher Leo Karsavin. Six-year old girl knew her main passion was the theater. Supported by her mother, Tamara began preparing to enter the Theatre School.
Immediately after graduation in 1902, Tamara joined the Mariinsky Theater, where Matilda Kshesinskaya, a prima ballerina and a dance teacher, was fond of her. However, another talented performer, Anna Pavlova, disliked the young dancer. Perhaps Pavlova saw in the beginning artist her rival and competitor.
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