She was bedridden for two years after an accident: the difficult road to fame of the star of “Unprincipled” Kristina Babushkina.

On January 18, the Moscow Art Theater actress and “general” from “Unprincipled” Kristina Babushkina turned 45 years old. Today, the artist always has a table in a restaurant on Patriarch’s Street, the location where the famous TV series was filmed, and in her favorite theater she is included in key performances, but this was not always the case.

“You will never become an artist!” — this is the verdict that Irkutsk doctors handed down to 18-year-old Kristina Babushkina after an accident. Another would have resigned herself and gone to study for a “earthly” profession, but the young girl first insisted on a complex operation, and as soon as the stitches were removed, she bought a ticket to Moscow.

“I was only going to enroll in the theater,” the actress later said. Although the parents were against their daughter connecting her life with the theater.

My father is a musician in the regional orchestra, my mother is the director of the choir at the Irkutsk Philharmonic. They dreamed that the heiress would connect her life with music. How could it be otherwise?!

The girl spent her entire childhood at rehearsals either with her dad in the orchestra or with her mother in the choir, and by the age of 15 she was very tired of the classics.

“Ultimately, I was overfilled with it. At some point I told my parents: ''Play your own Mozart! I will devote all my free time to sports."

But somehow the training didn’t work out, but the charisma and bright temperament of the future actress was noted by her friend, also a future star, Alexander Bukharov. He stated that he planned to enter the Irkutsk Theater School, and suggested that Kristina also apply.

Secretly from her parents, the girl took her documents to the university and immediately passed the competition. But a few months after the start of her studies, the student was involved in a serious accident. The leg had to be pieced together literally, Christina went through several operations, and in total she spent almost two years in Babushkina’s hospital.

There were periods of despair, when it seemed that she would remain bedridden for the rest of her life, and periods when self-confidence awakened, the belief that she could overcome all difficulties.

For the last six months in the hospital, doctors said that with such injuries Christina would have to give up the theater, but the more they insisted that the patient would have to think about another specialty, the more her desire to realize herself as an actress grew.

In April 1998, she was discharged home on crutches, and in May she left for Moscow. It was hard, because the provincial girl submitted documents to all theater universities at once, Babushkina came to the exams, overcoming the pain.

“I walked and was afraid that someone would see the scar on my leg,” she later said.

Just like in Irkutsk, on the first try Babushkina got into all the universities where she applied. Of course, I chose the Moscow Art Theater School. When the future star of “Unprincipled” found out that Oleg Tabakov would be her master, could there be any doubt about which university to go to? The master immediately noted Babushkina’s talent, but emphasized that she would have to work hard.

Grandmother was 20 years old at that time; compared to her 17-year-old classmates, she was already an adult who needed to be “sharpened” for study. And Christina tried her best. She came to class before everyone else to rehearse the scene from “Vassa Zheleznova”, and left later than everyone else, practicing “scene movement” again and again. It was especially difficult with him, because he had to do steps, overcoming the pain in his bad leg.

“It’s easier to train young people, but at twenty you have to prove that you have time to become an artist. Therefore, when I entered, I understood that I needed to study, study and study again. And the fear that I was once removed from the profession spurred me on. I studied from morning to night. Oleg Pavlovich, the artistic director of the course, was an early bird. By 9 a.m. I ran to his acting workshop in “Tabakerka,” he rehearsed with me an excerpt from “Vassa Zheleznova.” That is, I couldn’t even really hang out with my classmates. Once I allowed myself to come in the morning after some holiday. To hide the traces of a sleepless night, she applied war paint and did not look Oleg Pavlovich in the eyes. And he looked at me and said: “Why are we so smart?” Sleep quickly! ''He never remembered this story, but I realized that there won't be a second time. It’s because of all these fears that I got a red diploma,” said Babushkina.

The excellent graduate was immediately accepted into the Moscow Art Theater troupe. Chekhov, and later offers to act in films began to appear. Christina’s film works became successful in the films “The General’s Wife”, “I am Angina!”, “Call Husband”, “Zemsky Doctor”, “Girl”, “Annushka”, “From the First to the Last Word”, in the comedy “Wonderland” "

The series “Diva” brought great popularity to Kristina Babushkina, here she appeared in the image of a young provincial girl, Zoya. The actress recalled the time when she herself conquered the capital, and this experience was very useful to her in creating her image.

Despite her stateliness and Slavic beauty, Kristina Babushkina for a long time considered herself ugly, called herself “big” and looked at young people exclusively as friends.

Who might like her with a height of 185 cm and foot size 41 - she thought. Everything changed at Andrei Merzlikin’s birthday, where Babushkina met Stas Duzhnikov. The young people immediately took a liking to each other, but it took two whole years before they became a couple. Although friends around believed that they were ideal for each other, and they hinted at this more than once.

Once Alexander Bukharov photographed them together, uttering a prophetic phrase: “Guys, how big and beautiful you are! Can you imagine if you have children?

In 2007, the couple had Ustinha, but, alas, after 7 years the marriage broke up: the feelings fizzled out.   

“We lived with Stas for 7 years and still maintain warm, friendly relations. Love left, and we decided to let each other go free,” explained Kristina Babushkina.

Very quickly Duzhnikov married again, but Christina was alone for several years. She was not interested in short-term romances; she wanted to create a strong family. This is how it turned out in the end. The Moscow Art Theater star met Andrei Gatsunaev, chairman of the board of directors at Energostroyinvest-Holding, in 2015 and almost immediately realized that this was her man. The couple very quickly began to live in a civil marriage, and in 2017 Christina and Andrey got married.

“I’m glad that there is a real man next to me, with whom I can allow myself to be weak and irresponsible. I know that they will protect me in any case,” the artist admitted.

The second husband accepted Babushkina’s daughter as his own, they are very friendly. The family bought a house outside the city, near a forest where they all like to walk on weekends.

“If God gives more children, then I am not afraid of falling out of the profession. My family comes first,” Babushkina assures in an interview. — When I was pregnant with Stesha, I had three projects in parallel. I cried, I thought that I wouldn’t be able to do anything, but I put everything together perfectly. So we already have experience.”

The role of General Khadyakov’s wife in the series “Unprincipled” brought Babushkina’s fame to a new level; now residents of Patriarch’s Ponds recognize her, and restaurants in this elite area of ​​​​Moscow are always ready to book a table for her.

“As we artists joke: you had to star in a hundred films in order to then get into 'Unprincipled' and become wildly popular. I love this series and my heroine, General Valentina. She is, of course, a plague. This role is a great gift for a character artist; there is something to play,” the actress jokingly explained the success of the series.

Photo: Legion-Media.ru, Persona Stars, PhotoXPress.ru, Andrey Kalmykov/ProPedia, social networks