Kazan bids farewell to actress Junona Kareva

Hundreds today came to the Actor’s House in Kazan, to bid farewell to the outstanding actress and tutor, Junona Kareva. She died in her 80th year.

Relatives, friends, colleagues and students came to pay last respects to Junona Kareva. The hall could not admit all those willing to say good-bye to the legend.

Tatarstan deputy culture minister, Guzel Nigmatullina, Union of Tatarstan Journalists chairwomen, Rimma Ratnikova, Kamal Theatre chief director, Farid Bikchentaev, and others offered condolences to the decendent’s family and friends.

G.Nigmatullina said President of Tatarstan had sent his condolences in a telegram forwarded to the Tatarstan’s Union of Theatre Workers.

“She was a strong woman but, as is any talented person, very sensitive and even vulnerable. At some point she left the theatre and began to teach, finding a new meaning in this. To be able to identify talent in a student and help them open up is a unique gift. She was a happy person, despite having suffered quite a few losses,” Rimma Ratnikova said.

Tinchurin Theatre director and Kareva’s former student, Rashid Zagidullin, said he could not talk about Kareva in the past tense. “You could call her, to ask for advice any time of day or night. She was a mother to all of us, a talented person who generously shared her talent with people around her.  She was, is and will be the very same our beloved Junona,” he said.

A great many telegrams of commiseration had been sent in, People’s Artiste of Russia, Vadim Keshner, said, including from the Russian Union of Theatre Workers chairman, Alexander Kalyagin.

“She loved number 7 and hated number 27, because Serezha died on the 27th . she lived a dramatic and tragic life but she was a happy and beautiful person. We will always remember her as a glowing, beautiful, kind and honest person,” V. Keshner said, after which many burst into tears, bidding farewell to the actress.

Kareva’s colleagues said her family and friends had been next to her over the two weeks she had spent in a hospital, trying to fight cancer. Her students would specifically come for one day from Moscow, to stay near their favourite tutor.

Junona Kareva will be laid to rest on the Troekurovskoe cemetery in Moscow, according to her will, next to the grave of her son, film director and writer, Sergei Govorukhin, who had died on 27 October, 2011.

Press-service,  RT Ministry of culture