Maria Shukshina

Shukshina got married to fellow student Artem Tregubenko, with whom she had her first daughter, Anna, in 1989. Anna has since studied production, married, and given birth to Shukshina’s first grandchild in 2014.

After divorcing her first husband, Shuksina married Aleksey Kasatkin, who was a friend of Tregubenko’s. They had a son, Masar, in 1998. The couple is now divorced, with a reportedly fractious relationship.

Her third husband is lawyer Boris Vishnyakov, with whom she had twin sons, Foma and Foka, in 2005. The couple is reportedly estranged.

Maria Vasilievna Shukshina was born on March 27, 1967, to Russian actor, screenwriter, and director Vasily Shukshin and his actor wife, Lidiya Fedoseyeva–Shukshina. Her birthplace is listed as Moscow, which was then part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) in the USSR. She has an elder half-sister, Anastasia, and a younger sister, Olga.

Shukshina started her career very early, with roles in her father’s films, one of which starred her sister too. Following three engagements, however, she took a break, attempting to find work outside the film industry.

She attended the Moscow-based ‘Institute of Foreign Languages.’ Following her graduation, she worked briefly as a translator, an interpreter, and a broker on the Russian commodity exchange.

Shukshina’s first role was in her father’s anthology film, ‘Strange People’ (1969). She was featured in one of the film’s segments, ‘Brother.’

Three years later, in 1972, at the age of 5, she and her younger sister Olga received uncredited minor roles as daughters of the Rastorguev family in another of her father’s films, ‘Happy Go Lucky.’

In 1974, at age 7, Shukshina appeared in a film named ‘Birds over the City,’ directed by the talented actor Sergei Nikonenko, who had developed a close professional relationship with her father. Vasily Shukshin died unexpectedly in a filming mishap the same year.

Following the death of her father, she took a 16-year break from acting, only reappearing on screen at 23, in a TV feature-film named ‘The Eternal Husband’ (1990).

Shukshina was busy throughout the 1990s, establishing a career with a selection of relatively high-profile films. Karen Shakhnazarov’s ‘American Daughter’ (1995) was particularly noteworthy, allowing her to play ‘Olga,’ a young businesswoman trapped in an unhappy marriage, who escapes to America with her child. The same year, she appeared in Pyotr Todorovsky’s drama ‘What a Wonderful Game,’ as a young student and state spy.

Shukshina’s most notable works include the 1995 crossover hit ‘American Daughter.’

The actor is well known for her 15-year stint as the host of ‘Wait for Me,’ a Russian TV show that aimed to find missing people.

In 2009, she played the weak-willed mother of the protagonist in her most critically acclaimed film ‘Bury Me Behind The Baseboard.’

Her recent foray into international TV with the ‘BBC’ crime-drama miniseries ‘McMafia’ (2018) marks a notable departure for the actor, in terms of audience reach.