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Vera Petrova
Remember the restaurant visitor from the movie “Station for Two” with her hilarious phrase: “Dear comrades, my husband has an anniversary today. Could you play The Dying Swan for him? This small role was played by actress Vera Petrova.
The old-timers of the Soviet cinema called Vera Petrova and Yuri Sarantsev the most cheerful and strong married couple. They studied on the same course with Sergei Yutkevich and Mikhail Romm at VGIK. They began dating a little less than a year following they met. They signed later and quickly, if only the district police officer would stop swearing that Sarantsev was spending the night at Petrova’s without a stamp in his passport.
Both worked a lot on dubbing (in the voice of Sarantsev, by the way, Ostap Bender, played by Archil Gomiashvili, and the hero of Valentin Smirnitsky in the detective story “Entrance to the Labyrinth” speak in “12 Chairs”).
Filmed mainly in supporting roles and episodes. One of the most striking roles of Petrova is Queen Melania in Alexander Rowe’s fairy tale “Barbara-beauty, long braid”.
The work of the wife was successfully combined with the upbringing of her daughter Elena, who became a pianist. They also loved to receive guests in the house, laying a generous table. Colleagues especially appreciated Vera Petrovna for her sense of humor.
– Vera starred in Andrei Tutyshkin’s film “To the Black Sea,” director Vladimir Vasiliev recalled. – I then worked as a props. A dozen or two actors gathered in the frame, and I overslept – went on a spree with a local beauty. Appeared on the site an hour following the start of the shift. The director yelled at me in front of everyone. And then, with her sonorous voice, Verochka Petrova stood up for me: “Why are you shouting at Volodya, Andrey Petrovich ?! He spent the night with me, so he overslept!” There was complete silence on the site. Then Vera continued in a calm voice: “Volodenka, I left you something to eat there. Washed your socks. Do not worry. After such a night, anyone will oversleep!
Petrova died quietly in her sleep in 2001. She was 74. Four years later, Sarantsev also left.
The daughter had no money for a monument (Vera’s parents are also buried here). For several years, it was almost impossible to find the burial place of the artists: everything was overgrown with grass, vandals stole the cross, the gate – apparently for scrap. Only in 2012, thanks to the Necropolis Society, a granite slab was installed on the grave. Vera Petrova and Yuri Sarantsev rest at the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery (site 46).
Photo source: Olga Emelyanova,Still from the film
