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Margarita Levieva is an American actress. Born in Leningrad, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (now Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation), at age three she began the rigorous training program of a competitive rhythmic gymnast. Levieva continued to train for the next 13 years, winning competitions in Russia and eventually going on to compete in the United States after emigrating. When she was 11, Levieva's mother moved her and her twin brother to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn in New York City. She attended high school in Secaucus, New Jersey. Levieva majored in economics at NYU and worked as a fashion buyer. Her continuing interest in acting led her to be accepted into the Meisner Training Program at the William Esper Studio. In 2005, New York Magazine featured her as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in New York.

Anton Yelchin was an American actor, known for playing Bobby in Hearts in Atlantis (2001), Chekov in the Star Trek (2009) reboot, Charlie Brewster in the Fright Night (2011) remake, and Jacob in Like Crazy (2011).

He was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, USSR, to a Jewish family. His parents, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, were a successful pair of professional figure skaters in Leningrad, and his grandfather was also a professional sportsman, a soccer player. Anton was a six-month-old baby when he immigrated to the United States, where his parents settled in California and eventually developed coaching careers. He demonstrated his strong personality from the early age of four, and declined his parents' tutelage in figure skating because he was fond of acting and knew exactly what he wanted to do in his life.

Yelchin attended acting classes in Los Angeles, and eventually was noticed by casting agents. In 2000, at the age of 10, he made his debut on television, appearing as Robbie Edelstein in the medical drama ER (1994). At the age of 11, he shot to fame as Bobby Garfield, co-starring opposite Anthony Hopkins in Hearts in Atlantis (2001), and earning himself the 2002 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film as Leading Young Actor. Over the course of his acting career, Yelchin has already played roles in more than 20 feature films and television productions, including Pavel Chekov in the hugely successful reboot Star Trek (2009), and its sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).

Outside of his acting profession, Anton loved reading, and was also fond of playing chess. He wrote music and performed with a band, where he also played piano and guitar.

Anton lived in Los Angeles, California, until his death on the evening of June 19, 2016, outside his LA home, when his parked Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backward on his steep driveway, pinning him against a brick pillar and security fence. This was due to badly designed shifter that indicated park when it was in neutral. This death, along with reports of other near-misses, resulted in a recall of that model.

She was born in Leningrad, former Soviet Union. Her parents moved with her from Russia to New York when she was 17 years old, and she continues to reside in New York.

While working as a hairdresser at a salon, she was discovered by Luc Besson, the co-writer of Transporter 3, in New York, when she crossed a street. He gave her acting lessons and cast her as the female lead in Transporter 3.

Ania Bukstein is an Israeli actress, singer, song-writer, pianist and voice actress. She was born in 1982 in Moscow, USSR, to Jewish parents. As a child in Moscow, she studied classical piano. Her family immigrated to Israel in the early 1990s. She began her acting career at age 12, appearing in the film Eretz Hadasha (A New Country). As a teenager, she attended Telma Yalin Arts High School in Givatayim, Israel. She served for two years in the Israeli Air Force. She married Israeli real estate developer Dotan Vainer in 2013. In Game of Thrones, she portrays Kinvara in the sixth season.

Ravil Isyanov was born in 1962 in the Soviet Union in Greater Moscow area, the city of Voskresensk. Throughout childhood, Ravil attended classes in music, ballet, theatre, as well as going for sports - ice hockey, boxing and soccer among them. After completing his two years national service in the Soviet Air Force, Ravil worked for two seasons in Khabarovsk Theatre. Then, he studied in the Moscow Art Theatre School for four years. He simultaneously studied three summers at the Oxford branch of the British American Drama Academy. In 1990 Ravil went to the UK at the invitation of Theater Clwyd, Wales. After the collapse of the USSR, he stayed in Britain and continued working there. In 1998 he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his film career, where he worked and lived for the rest of his life.

Valeri Bure was born on 13 June 1974 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He has been married to Candace Cameron Bure since 22 June 1996. They have three children.

Anna Delvey Sorokin was born on 23 January 1991 in Domodedovo, Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. She is known for Generation Hustle (2021), 60 Minutes Australia (1979) and 20/20 (1978).

Nikita Efremov was born on 30 May 1988 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He is an actor, known for Tetris (2023), Ballada o bombere (2011) and Bibliotekar (2023). He was previously married to Yana Gladkikh.

Anton Narinskiy was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He is the middle child of Andrey Narinskiy and Svetlana Narinskiy. When Anton was seven years old, his parents left Russia and moved to Cleveland, Ohio.

Anton excelled both academically and athletically at Kenston High School in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. He graduated Magna Cum Laude, with a 4.0 GPA and was a nationally-ranked wrestler and football player. He received over a dozen full scholarships to colleges across the country. However, Anton accepted a full scholarship to play football in the Big Ten at the University of Iowa while playing football for a nationally ranked team.

Anton was drawn towards acting from an early age. Being the middle child of immigrant parents who were always working, Anton had a propensity for attention. This was the seed of his acting career as he always enjoyed the stage. Though football was the primary focus throughout college, he took a few classes in theater. After graduation, however, while working in Detroit, Michigan, Anton began taking acting classes at the Actor's Workshop. He quickly got involved with the acting scene in Detroit, working on several independent films and regional commercials. It did not take long for Anton to pursue his passion for acting full-time. After working for a year as an actor in Detroit, he decided to make the full-time move to Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles, Anton has had the opportunity to work on numerous films, shows, and national commercials. He has worked on shows such as Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds, and Days of Our Lives. He has worked with many great directors, such as Craig Gillespie, James Franco, Peter Berg, Ruben Fleischer, Christopher Riggert, Matthijs Van Heijningen, and many others. Furthermore, Anton continues to train and take classes in scene study, on-camera work, and improvisation with teachers such as Scott Caan, James Franco, Val Lauren, Jim Parrack, Robert Carnegie, and many others. He continues to keep extremely fit and excels in sports and martial arts.

Vladimir Burlakov was born in 1987 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He is an actor, known for In the Face of Crime (2010), Deutschland 83 (2015) and Marco W. - 247 Tage im türkischen Gefängnis (2011).

Yekaterina Golubeva was born on 9 October 1966 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]. She was an actress and writer, known for I Can't Sleep (1994), Three Days (1991) and 977 (2006). She was married to Sharunas Bartas and Andrey Kaprin. She died on 3 August 2011 in Paris, France.

Evgeniy Tsyganov was born on 15 March 1979 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He is an actor and director, known for The Man Who Surprised Everyone (2018), Rayskie kushchi (2015) and The Master and Margarita (2023).

Ksenia Rappoport was born on 25 March 1974 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]. She is an actress and director, known for The Double Hour (2009), The Unknown Woman (2006) and Yurev den (2008). She is married to Dmitriy Borisov.

Natalya Andreychenko was born on 3 May 1956 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. She is an actress and writer, known for Wartime Romance (1983), Meri Poppins, do svidaniya (1984) and Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uezda (1989).

Vitaliy Versace was born in Chernivtsi, USSR and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He has three younger brothers, George, Russ, Peter, and a younger sister Yanna. Versace Got married in 2000 and he has three children, Before he became successful at Producing and directing low-budget films, Versace supported himself by driving , and working as background sag actor. Versace lives in Malibu, California,

Yekaterina Vasilyeva was born on 15 August 1945 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. She is an actress, known for Black Lightning (2009), Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (1975) and Come Look at Me (2001).

Vera VanGuard was born in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. She is known for Breaking Barbi (2019), Apocalypse Love (2024) and Realm of the Waterfall.

A Russian comedian who gave up a successful film career in his homeland for religious freedom and bit parts in the United States. He made 42 films in the former Soviet Union before he was allowed to leave in the early 1980's.

Aleksei German was born on 20 July 1938 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]. He was an actor and writer, known for Khrustalyov, My Car! (1998), Hard to Be a God (2013) and My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1985). He was married to Svetlana Karmalita. He died on 21 February 2013 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Anna Snatkina was born in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR to Aleksei Snatkin and Elena Snatkina. She is the oldest child in her family and has a younger sister.

At age 4, Anna did gymnastics.

In 2004, Anna graduated from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography.

Anna is married and has a daughter. She lives and works in Moscow, Russia.

Vyacheslav Tikhonov was one of Russian cinema's best known faces, he survived hardship during the Second World War, and became renown for his portrayal of Russian aristocrats and intellectuals in several award-winning films, such as War and Peace (1965) and White Bim Black Ear (1977).

He was born Vyacheslav Vasilevich Tikhonov on February 8, 1928, in a small town of Pavlovsky Posad near Moscow, USSR (now Moscow, Russia). His father, Vasili Romanovich Tikhonov, was a technician at a local garment factory. His mother, Valentina Vyacheslavovna, was a kindergarten teacher. Tikhonov's first profession was that of a metal-worker during the Second World War. The war later became the main theme in some of his most notable film works. Young Tikhonov was obsessed with movies, his favorite actors were Nikolay Cherkasov as Aleksandr Nevsky, and Boris Babochkin as Chapaev. From 1945-1950 Tikhonov studied at the State Institute of Cinema (VGIK). He made his film debut in The Young Guard (1948) by director Sergey Gerasimov. During the filming of Molodaya Gvardiya Tikhonov met his first wife, Nonna Mordyukova. Their son, Vladimir Tikhonov, also became an actor, however, he suffered from a drug dependency and died. Vyacheslav Tikhonov met his second wife during the filming of We'll Live Till Monday (1968).

In the course of his career Tikhonov worked with some of the best Russian directors. He worked with director Stanislav Rostotskiy in five films, starting in Delo bylo v Penkove (1957). Their collaboration was especially fruitful in Dozhivem do ponedelnika (1969) and White Bim Black Ear (1977), which received an Academy Award-nomination. Before that, Tikhonov appeared in the leading role as Prince Bolkonsky in War and Peace (1965), an eight-hour epic film by actor-director Sergey Bondarchuk. In 1969 the film won the Academy Award as the best foreign-language film.

Tikhonov's most notable role on television was as Russian spy Stirlitz (Col. Maxim Isayev) in Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973), a popular TV series about a Russian intelligence agent operating in Berlin during WWII. The dual identity of Tikhonov's character is well played, and the film has won him millions of loyal fans. Tikhonov's consistent popularity made his character, Stirlitz, a hero in hundreds of jokes. After the role as Stirlitz, Tikhonov became typecast as a Soviet military character, and played heroic KGB officers and generals in several Soviet films during the 70s and 80s. In 2002 Vyacheslav Tikhonov suffered a heart attack. However, he soon recovered and returned to acting. In 2004 he played a role in a film produced by his daughter Anna Tikhonova. His last film-work was in Andersen. Zhizn bez lyubvi (2006) by director Eldar Ryazanov.

Vyacheslav Tikhonov was awarded the State Prize of the USSR and the State Prize of Russian Federation. He received numerous government awards and decorations and was designated People's Actor of the USSR (1974). Vyacheslav Tikhonov was residing in his country house in the prestigious village of Nikolina Gora, a suburb of Moscow. He died of a heart failure on the 4th of December, 2009, and was laid to rest in Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, Russia.

Documentary film director. Born on July 19, 1961 in Leningrad. Since 1978 he worked at the Leningrad studio of Documentaries as assistant cameraman, assistant director and editor. In 1988 he finished the Higher Courses of Film Writers and Directors in Moscow. Laureate of the "Triumph" Prize, Laureate of the RF State Award and the "Nika" prize. Award-winner of numerous national and international film forums. He started his own production company, Kossakovsky Film Production, based in San Petersburg, to create a cinema with a strong focus in poetics and reality.

Helene Fischer was born on 5 August 1984 in Krasnoyarsk, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. She is a music artist and actress, known for Die Helene Fischer Show (2011), Tatort (1970) and Das Traumschiff (1981).

Vladimir Vysotsky was an iconic Russian actor, singer-songwriter and public figure, who wrote over 700 songs and gave over 2000 public and private performances as an anti-establishment singer of the 60s and 70s in the former Soviet Union. He was one of the Soviet Union's boldest and most celebrated actors who promoted individual freedom and helped lift Russian youth out of the state of apathy and fear under the Soviet dictator Brezhnev. In the movies, Vysotsky was best known as nifty detective Zheglov in The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed (1979) by director Stanislav Govorukhin.

He was born Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky on 25 January 1938, in Moscow, then the capital of the Soviet Union. His father, Semen Volfovich Vysotsky, was Jewish; he served in the Red Army during WWII, and was decorated for his courage rising to the rank of a Colonel. His mother, Nina Maximovna Seregina, was Russian; she worked as Russian-German interpreter. During WWII, Vladimir Vysotsky with his mother escaped from the advancing Nazis by evacuation from Moscow to Orenburg province in Siberia. After the war, the parents divorced and he was living with his father and stepmother in a Soviet Military garrison in East Germany. There, from 1947 to 1949, Vladimir Vysotsky was taking piano lessons; he also became an avid movie watcher.

Upon returning to Moscow in the fall of 1949, he settled on Bolshoi Karetny, and went to the all-boys school No 186, from which he graduated in 1955. While at school, he attended the drama class of V. Bogomolov, an actor of the Moscow Art Theatre. From 1956 to 1960, he studied acting under Pavel Massalsky and Boris Vershilov at the Moscow Art Theatre Studio, graduating in 1960 as actor. He briefly worked at Moscow Pushkin Drama, then joined the troupe at the Taganka Theatre. Vysotsky made his film debut in Sverstnitsy (1959).

In 1961, in Leningrad, during filming of 713 prosit posadku (1962) Vladimir Vysotsky met actress Lyudmila Abramova who became his wife and mother of his two sons Arkady Vysotsky (born 1962) and Nikita Vysotskiy (born 1964). He was later married to the French-Russian actress Marina Vlady. During the 70s, he toured all over the former USSR and also made stage appearances in France, USA, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia.

Breaking all traditions, Vysotsky appeared as Hamlet with the guitar in the Shakespare's play directed by Yuriy Lyubimov. Vysotsky's Hamlet, dressed as a contemporary young man and playing his guitar, shook the Moscow establishment by overthrowing the traditional interpretation of the Shakespearean character. Vysotsky's shows was always sold out, and tickets to his performances were the most demanded "currency" in Moscow.

His opposition to Soviet authorities resulted in periodic bans of his songs. In 1968 Vysotsky wrote an open letter to the leading Soviet newspaper "Pravda" asking for fairness and equal rights; he requested that the official ban on his songs shall be lifted. That same year the first official recording of Vysotsky's songs from the film Vertikal (1966) was released on Melodia label and quickly became the best-selling record in the Soviet Union. However, the Soviet authorities stubbornly suppressed Vysotsky's film and music career, causing him much moral pain and suffering.

During the late 60s and 70s Vysotsky had problems with drugs and alcohol and suffered of a severe heart disorder which sent him into cardiac arrests on several occasions. In one case, his wife, Marina Vlady, noticed that he collapsed at home and saved his life by calling an ambulance, so he was hospitalized. He died while asleep at his home in Moscow, on 25 July, 1980. His death caused a considerable mourning in Russia. Thousands lined up to attend his funeral at Vagankovskoe Cemetery in Moscow. His numerous fans across Russia and the world continue the tradition of memorial concerts and gatherings on the 25th of July every year. His flower-adorned grave is a site of pilgrimage for his fans.

Vladimir Vysotsky's remarkable voice and style has been a lasting influence on many of Russia's actors and musicians. Though he was ostracized by the Soviet officialdom, he achieved remarkable fame during his lifetime, and remains a towering figure in Russian popular culture. Among his most notable followers and devotees are Mikhail Boyarskiy and Yuriy Shevchuk.

Nadezhda Mikhalkova was born on 27 September 1986 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. She is an actress and director, known for Nomination (2022), One Mango, Please (2020) and Burnt by the Sun (1994). She was previously married to Rezo Gigineishvili.