Colleagues and Friends Remember Ksenia Kachalina

News of the death of actress and former wife of Mikhail Yefremov, 54-year-old Ksenia Kachalina, broke overnight. The artist«s fate is striking in its tragedy: her journey took her from brilliant roles alongside Yanksky and Abdulov to a marginal life in an apartment piled high with bottles and trash.

Her departure was as lonely and undignified as the last years of the actress«s life. Her lifeless body, which had developed lividity over several days, was discovered by her former husband, Mikhail Yefremov.

Despite the infamy that followed talk shows documenting her lifestyle, colleagues and friends from her youth remember Ksenia Kachalina as a unique creative talent and a hypnotically beautiful woman. Those who knew and worked with Kachalina over the years have shared their memories.

Film director Elena Raiskaya, who directed Kachalina, remembers her as a good and comfortable actress on set.

«She always had her peculiarities. But who can be blamed for the absence of them? We are all a little strange. And that strangeness began to progress from a sense of some inner tragedy, I saw that. »Strange« doesn»t mean crazy, no. Peculiar intonations, unlike others. Where someone would have cried, Ksenia, on the contrary, was firm. And where everyone was calm, she would suddenly burst into tears,« Elena Raiskaya told MSK1.RU.

The director added that she remembers many pleasant everyday moments associated with Ksenia, but her last memory is, unfortunately, marred by those very talk show clips.

«I remember how she grieved for several years because Mikhail Yefremov took their daughter. She suffered, struggled, but in fact didn»t achieve much. The last thing I remember, unfortunately, is what I saw on television about the final years of her life. It was painful to watch,« adds Raiskaya.

Director David Shneiderov expressed his opinion about her unrealized potential.

«Ksenia held great promise after Viktor Rubinchik»s film «Lovelessness» («Nelubov»). Unfortunately, the pernicious influence of alcohol led her to a very unhappy end. A person is weak. And Misha Yefremov, in my opinion, got her used to alcohol. I think she last acted in 2007. After that, she just dove into drinking,« the director told MSK1.RU.

Shneiderov also noted her unique appearance: «Ksenia Kachalina had a very unusual appearance, those huge eyes… she really stood out. She was like an alien. It»s sad. They say that when they came to her home, there was trash in bottles. It«s all terrible.»

On social media and in the press, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances also shared fragments of memories about Kachalina.

Photographer Viktor Goryachev posted a photo from 2001.

«One of my favorite shots for the Baltic magazine »Lilit« is of actress Ksenia Kachalina. For the shoot, she came to my studio, but seeing her depressed state, I suggested a walk to our local Bogorodsk Marshes. She liked that idea. An amazingly talented actress,» wrote the photographer.

Screenwriter Alena Zhukova, author of the script for «Wild Love» («Dikaya lyubov»), the film that brought Kachalina fame, wrote: «Her fate turned out sadly. When I conceived the story of the wild love of an orphanage pupil many years ago, I couldn»t imagine which actress could play such a character: a teenager broken by fate with the soul of a woman desperately (to the point of murder) in love. Director Villen Novak found such an actress. Ksenia was twenty-two then, but her appearance still held much of the childlike… May she rest in peace.«

Renata Litvinova also shared her memories of Ksenia.

«An old short story I wrote among many for Kira Muratova in Odessa. She chose one and filmed »Ophelia, Innocently Drowned.« And I sold this one, and — suddenly a fragment of it surfaced from the depths of Instagram (an organization banned in Russia as extremist) — Ksenia Kachalina played the lead role in it. In the finale — a song by the group »Hummingbird« (»Kolibri«). God, Ksenia passed away today,» actress Renata Litvinova said of Ksenia Kachalina.

Her classmates from the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) also recalled her natural charisma. Timur Suleimenov, Kachalina«s classmate from VGIK, admitted he had a crush on her as a student and recounted a story connected with her on his social media.

«How much I liked her back in the day. I remember, in the early 90s, I left VGIK, went to the trolleybus stop, and there she is standing. So small, lonely, but at the same time… stylish, beautiful with a somewhat cold beauty. And the frost is minus 25 degrees Celsius (minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit), with a piercing wind. We»re standing, waiting for the trolleybus, I see she«s already shivering. Today I would have stopped a car, given her a ride (probably she was going to the dorm or to the metro). But my pockets were empty, completely empty. And then she flags down a private car. She leans to the window, asks something. Then turns around and nods to me: »Coming?« I felt awkward. No, I say, I»m waiting for someone. She got into the Zhiguli and that was it… Only a icy ground blizzard in her wake,« wrote Timur Suleimenov.

Journalist Arina Borodina summarized: «A bitter fate, of course. Ksenia Kachalina was a delicate, nervous, talented, beautiful, unusual actress. She died in Moscow, the official causes are not known, but here everything is clear anyway, with such an anti-life… A pity. The memory of Ksenia will remain in her films.»

Previously, we reported what is known about Mikhail Yefremov«s fifth wife, Sofia Kruglikova.