Natalya Arinbasarova

Natalya Utevlevna Arinbasarova (, ; born 24 September 1946 in Moscow) is a Russian actress who appeared in more than thirty films since 1965. In 1979 Arinbasarova was named Honored Artist of the RSFSR and in the same year she received the USSR State Prize for her role in The Taste of Bread (1978). Life and career Natalya Utevlevna Arinbasarova was born on September 24, 1946. Her father was Utevle Turemuratovich, a military man, a Kazakh by nationality. At the time of the birth of his daughter, he studied in Moscow at the Frunze Military Academy. Her mother was Maria Konstantinovna, née Zhukovskaya, from a family of Polish refugees during the First World War. Natalya's siblings were older brothers Yuri and Arsen, younger brother Mikhail, younger sister Tatyana. After the father graduated from the Military Academy, the family moved several times from place to place, until finally, in 1956, he settled in Alma-Ata. Natalya Arinbasarova was initially interested in dance. After watching a film in which an excerpt from the ballet "Swan Lake" was shown in her childhood, Natalya desired to become a professional ballerina. She studied at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy until 1964 and joined the dance troupe of Almaty Opera Theater upon graduation. In 1965, director Andrei Konchalovsky cast her in his feature directorial debut The First Teacher. For her performance as Altynai, a peasant girl who supports the Communist teacher in her village, Arinbasarova won the prize for Best Female Lead at the Venice Film Festival in 1966.