And home is better: Soviet stars who returned from emigration to Russia

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

The role in the cinematic epic “Siberiada” instantly made Andreichenko one of the most promising and sought-after young actresses of the late 1970s. All-Union success was ensured by the main role in the television movie “Mary Poppins, goodbye!”.

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

In the Soviet cinema, Kozakov achieved great success: he was a People’s Artist of the RSFSR, the winner of the State Prize, the star of such audience-favorite films as Hello, I am your aunt!, Straw Hat, director of the brilliant comedy Pokrovsky Gates. However, with the collapse of the USSR, prospects, like those of other artists, became blurred.

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

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

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

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

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

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