And it’s better at home: Soviet stars who returned from emigration to Russia

As they say, it’s good to be away, but it pays to be at home.

The role in the film epic “Siberiada” immediately made Andreichenko one of the most promising and sought-after young actresses of the late 70s. All-Union success was ensured by the main role in the TV movie “Mary Poppins, Goodbye!”.

Andreichenko’s career was on the rise, but then the USSR collapsed, cinema in the country deteriorated, and the actress emigrated to the United States to her husband, actor Maximilian Schell. In 2005, she divorced him and returned to Russia for a while. The actress hoped to get new roles, but it did not work out. Now he lives in Mexico, but sometimes he visits his historical homeland – he attends film festivals or shoots on television and admits that he lives in two countries.

In Soviet cinema, Kozakov achieved great success: he was a People’s Artist of the RSFSR, a laureate of the State Prize, the star of films beloved by the public, such as Hello, I am your aunt!, The Straw Hat, the director of the brilliant comedy Pokrovsky Gates. However, with the collapse of the USSR, prospects, as with other artists, became dim.

In 1991, Kozakov received an offer to work in Israel and he accepted it without thinking and emigrated there with his family. The actor played in Hebrew at the Tel Aviv Chamber Theater, created a Russian ensemble, but in 1996 he suddenly returned to Russia. The decision was made quickly: Kozakov, seeing off a group of actors at the airport, among whom were Lyudmila Gurchenko and Alexander Shirvindt, spontaneously bought a ticket and flew with them.

“I always thought I was cosmopolitan. In exile, I realized that this is not the case, ”said Kozakov in an interview in 1998.

In 2010, the actor returned to Israel for treatment – he was diagnosed with cancer at an inoperable stage. He died in 2011 and was buried in Moscow.

The star of Kozak’s film “Pokrovsky Gates” Elena Koreneva left the USSR in 1982 – almost immediately after filming. Koreneva married American citizen Kevin Moss and moved overseas. After the divorce, she remained in the States for a few more years: she lived in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, met other famous emigrants – the poet Joseph Brodsky and the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. But she herself could not realize herself creatively there – she worked as a waitress in a Russian restaurant. In the late 1980s, she began acting in the USSR, and in 1993 the actress finally returned to her homeland.

The actor, who was remembered by the Soviet audience mainly in the form of police major Alexander Tomin in the TV series ZnatoKi investigates, and also in the characteristic role of a smuggler in the comedy film Diamond Hand, repatriated to Israel in 1991. There he became a co-founder of the Gesher Theater, where other émigré actors played . However, Kanevsky decided not to cut ties with Russia – and did not even sell an apartment in the center of Moscow. In 2003, he returned to the country, became a permanent host of the TV show “The investigation was carried out …”, again played in theater productions. Today, Kanevsky actually lives in two countries, and when asked where his home is, he answers that it is where his family is, and his relatives live in both countries.

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