How did the star of the film "Elder Son" survive the loss of her only son: Natalia Egorova's later repentance

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

She first starred in 1970, and since then, the actress's filmography has been replenished with a huge number of bright roles. Natalia Egorova is still called one of the most beautiful actresses of Soviet cinema today. Even in the post-perestroika time, she was not lost, she did not stop acting and working in the theater. And in life Natalia Egorova had to go through many trials, the most terrible of which was the loss of her only son.

Siberian character

She was born in Stavropol and grew up as a sickly child. Doctors, not knowing how else to help the girl who was constantly coughing and suffering from attacks of suffocation, advised Natalia's mother to change the climate. After Central Asia, where the future actress spent her childhood, she found herself in harsh Siberia, in a small town near Irkutsk, where not only the climate was different, but also the people.

It was not customary here to show your emotions, to scream in pain and despair. Natasha learned to cry in silence, because she had plenty of reasons for tears and despair. Mom was a temperamental woman and punished her daughter for the slightest offense. The punishment was always impulsive and painful: the woman easily applied physical punishment, and Natasha was constantly bruised.

One of the girl's quarrels with her mother helped to cope with attacks of suffocation and constant colds. Once, in order to avoid punishment, Natasha ran out of the house and hid under trees near the house. How long she spent there is hard to say, but she froze deeply, reveling in self-pity and imagining pictures of her own death. Then they made peace with her mother, and Natalya did not even catch a cold. Since then, she has forever forgotten about the disease that tormented her since childhood.

During her school years, Natasha Egorova sang and danced, took part in all school performances, for which she was awarded the unofficial title of a school actress. True, she herself, until the last moment, was not going to enter the theater. But after receiving the certificate, she still applied to the Irkutsk Theater School. And a year later, she firmly decided: if you study acting, then only in the capital.

True, the first attempt by Natalia Egorova to conquer Moscow ended in failure, the girl was not accepted into any theater university. But she was invited to star in the movie "The City of First Love". After the girl began to study in the studio at the Central House of Theaters, and a year later she became a student at the Moscow Art Theater School.

The course, where the actress studied, later became the basis for the creation of the New Drama Theater. Natalia Egorova worked there until 1984 and has been an actress at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater for more than 30 years.

Natalya Yegorova played her first big role in the cinema in the film "The Second Wedding", starred in "The Eldest Son" and "Channel", "Two Captains", "Storm Warning" and many more films. Later she began to work in serials, played the queen in "The Secret of Palace Revolutions", the wife of the protagonist in "Truckers", Anna Markovna in the serial film "Kuprin. Pit". She has always been in great demand.

Unfulfilled happiness

Back in her student years, Natalya Egorova met Nikolai Popkov, who then seemed to the actress almost the hero of Hemingway's novels: courageous, romantic, strong. Over time, friendship grew into mutual sympathy, and romantic relationships led to marriage.

At the end of 1976, the son of the spouses, Alexander, was born. Natalia Egorova gave birth in Sverdlovsk, where her husband's parents lived, where she also spent some time after giving birth. The baby was only 4 months old when the actress was invited to play Nastya in the Moscow Art Theater production "Live and Remember", and such a chance could not be missed.

The boy lived with his grandparents for several years due to the employment of his parents. But at the slightest opportunity, Natalya Egorova flew to her son, even if she had only a few hours to communicate with him. He gave her a feeling of overwhelming happiness.

But the relationship with her husband did not work out. While the actress was recovering from childbirth in Sverdlovsk, Nikolai Popkov did not give up the joys of life, and the presence of a lady of the heart, Natalia Egorova, was immediately reported by "well-wishers", who were always enough in the artistic environment. When the actress returned to Moscow, her husband continued to have romances.

Tired by her husband's love, the actress herself decided to cheat. However, Natalia Egorova and Nikolai Popkov divorced much later. The son was already 12 years old at that time. Subsequently, the boy changed his last name, became Alexander Barsky, borrowing the sonorous maiden name of his mother Natalia Egorova.

Enduring pain

The actress, of course, spoiled her son. He got what he wanted, with almost no restrictions: game consoles, VCRs, guitar, playing sports and music, studying at a language school. Natalya Egorova tried to take care of the all-round development of her son, but by her own admission, she was often mistaken and, due to her employment, missed a lot.

The actress was the last to know that her son is addicted to drugs. He did not inject, but drank pills, so his mother attributed the strangeness in his behavior to a subtle creative nature. He studied at two institutes, but never received a higher education diploma, starred in several projects with his mother, but did not want to become an actor.

In 2011, the actress was supposed to fly to Canada with an entreprise and wanted to take her son with her. At that time he was in a prolonged depression and it seemed to Natalya Egorova that rest would not interfere with him. But instead of Canada, Alexander Barsky went to Goa after the lady of the heart.

He was constantly in touch with his mother, she transferred money to his account. Later, Alexander told his mother about the loss of the laptop first, and then the documents. The last message from him was that he was on his way to the embassy in Delhi. The actress was contacted from the embassy with a request to confirm his identity. And then a terrible call rang out: her son was found without signs of life in the very room that was allocated to him at the embassy.

After his death, all the money was withdrawn from Alexander Barsky's card, and Natalia Egorova never received a clear explanation of the reasons that led to the death of the person most dear to her. Alexander Barsky's father Nikolai Popkov in his interviews claimed that Alexander was killed.

The actress at first tried to find out the truth, but then decided that this truth would not change anything. She was never able to come to terms with the loss of her son. Natalya Sergeevna still communicates with him, sitting at the dacha near the weeping willow planted in memory of Alexander.

If she could return to the past, she would never part with her Sashulya for a long time. She was late in many ways, missed something important. And this guilt now weighs heavily on her soul, sometimes not letting her breathe, as in childhood, when she suffered from a cough …

In the film "Elder Son" Natalya Egorova starred together with Yevgeny Leonov, Nikolai Karachentsov, Mikhail Boyarsky and Svetlana Kryuchkova, who considers this picture one of her best works in cinema.