Kirill Lavrov

Kirill Yuryevich Lavrov was born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). He was baptized by the Russian Orthodox Church of St. John the Divine in Lavrushinskoe Podvorie Monastery in Leningrad. Young Kirill Lavrov was brought up in Leningrad, in a family with deep roots in St. Petersburg society. He was fond of literature and theater from a young age, and was exposed to a highly stimulating intellectual environment in his family. He was also a good sportsman: he took gymnastics, fencing, and was a member of the youth football (soccer) team at "Spartak" sports club in Leningrad.[2]

During World War II he was evacuated to Kirov, then to Novosibirsk in Siberia. There he worked as a metal worker at a military-industrial plant. In the beginning of 1943, then 17-year-old Lavrov applied to join the Red Army to fight the Nazis. He was sent for training to Astrakhan at Technical School of Aviation, from which he graduated in 1945. Then he served as an aircraft technician in the Air Force, he was stationed at an Air Force Base on the Kuril Island of Iturup until 1950. There he was also involved in acting with an amateur troupe at a local army club. In 1950 he was discharged from the Red Army and reunited with his parents in Kyiv, Ukraine.[3]

In 1955, Kirill Lavrov made his film debut in Vasyok Trubachyov and His Comrades, directed by Ilya Frez. In 1964, Lavrov shot to fame with his leading role as Sintsov in The Alive and the Dead, a war drama by director Aleksandr Stolper. Kirill Lavrov received international acclaim for the leading role as Ivan Karamazov in an Oscar-nominated film The Brothers Karamazov (1969),[4] which he also directed together with his co-star, Mikhail Ulyanov, after the death of the original film director Ivan Pyryev. Among Lavrov's other achievements were his roles in such films as Tchaikovsky (1969), Taming of the Fire (1972), and Trust (1976).