Biography
Kirill Melekhov is a Russian theater and film actor who became popular after participating in the program “Medical Secrets” and in the comedy project “Island.” The artist amazed the audience not only with his acting talent, but also with his excellent physical form. Sports have been present in his life from the age of 6 to this day. Kirill is known to Instagram users as the creator of short videos on sports topics.
Childhood and youth
The future actor was born on May 24, 1987 in Moscow. Real name is Shchennikov. His father is an entrepreneur by occupation, and his mother worked as a teacher all her life. Since childhood, the boy was very active and loved sports.
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Actor Kirill Melekhov
He went in for swimming at a children's and youth sports school and received the rank of master of sportsmanship. Later, he also became interested in triathlon, in which he also became a candidate for master of sports. In addition to these sports, he was interested in acrobatics, cycling, roller skating, and water skiing.
However, the art of acting from an early age was not alien to the future artist. In the sports group where Kirill studied, he and his friends put together a team called “Zapekanka”, which participated in theatrical performances. The guys sang songs, prepared comic skits, and showed miniatures. Together with Kirill, his friend Sergei Aronin also took part in the productions, who later chose the profession of director.
His father was against Kirill’s acting future, because his older sons followed in his footsteps, but the boy was supported by his mother. She helped select literary passages and monologues for admission to the theater institute.
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Torso of Kirill Melekhov
After graduating from secondary school, Kirill became a student at the acting department of the Russian Academy of Theater Arts (GITIS), which he graduated in 2010. At GITIS he studied in the workshop of Pavel Osipovich Chomsky and Vasily Vasilyevich Teplyakov. During 5 courses he participated in many student performances. As his graduation work, Kirill played Trigorin in Chekhov’s “The Seagull” and Razumikhin in the play based on Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment.”
After receiving higher education, the young actor got a job at the Moscow Drama Theater "Modern", which is directed by People's Artist of Russia Svetlana Aleksandrovna Vragova. Kirill Shchennikov made his debut on the stage of this theater in the role of Tigellinus in Oscar Wilde's play "Salome", directed by Vladimir Ageev.
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Vera Alentova, Natalya Nikolaeva and Kirill Melekhov in the play “Two Ladies Towards the North”
Later, the actor began collaborating with the famous Pushkin Theater. There he appeared on stage in the play “Great Magic” as a policeman, in Alexander Ostrovsky’s play “Profitable Place” he portrayed a waiter, and in the comedy “Two Ladies Heading North,” in which Vera Alentova and Natalya Nikolaeva shine, the actor acts as the host of the performance.
Kirill Melekhov is a client of the acting agency "Face-film".
Biography of Kirill Melekhov
The future artist was born in May 1987. His entire childhood was spent in Moscow. Kirill Melekhov's family is large and friendly; his father ran a small business, and his mother worked at a school. The boy had two older brothers. From an early age he was fond of sports and even received a sports rank in swimming.
Kirill was very active and loved rollerblading, skiing and a sports bike. While still at school, the guy decided on his future profession. Therefore, having received a certificate, I entered GITIS in the acting department. During his five-year studies, Kirill played in a large number of different performances, and after university he began working at the capital's Modern Drama Theater. A little later, the actor changed jobs and began serving at the Pushkin Theater.
Movies
The actor made his debut in feature films in 2008, when he was still a student at GITIS. He starred in the episode “Shake.” Film 5" of the popular crime television series "Law & Order: Crime Branch - 3". Then there was participation in many Russian TV series and films: “Chasing the Shadow”, “Capercaillie-3”, “The Life and Adventures of Mishka Yaponchik”, etc.
Kirill Melekhov (still from the series "Capercaillie")
In 2011, the NTV channel began broadcasting the educational program “Medical Secrets,” which in a popular form talked about the various problems that people have with their health. The program was hosted by practicing physician Alexey Khukhrev, and Kirill acted as one of Dmitry Gubanov’s interns. The program was aired until 2015, but the actor participated in it only for 2 years.
In 2014, the second part of the fantasy adventure film “Secret City 2” was released on television, in which the life of modern Moscow is intertwined with fabulous magical creatures. This picture in the actor’s career is notable for the fact that in it he first appears in the credits as Kirill Melekhov. Among the popular projects in which the artist participated are the 5th season of “Kitchen”, the comedy “You All Infuriate Me”, and the 2nd season of the thriller “Survive After”.
Kirill Melekhov as Eldar Mikhailovsky (still from the series “Island”)
For several months in 2020, the actor was on a tropical island as part of a cast filming for the TV series “The Island,” which was presented on TNT in early 2016. Melekhov played a young man named Al, who, along with 8 other people, thinks that he has become a participant in a new reality show like “The Last Hero,” not realizing that no filming is underway.
For Melekhov, participation in the comedy project was a breakthrough in his creative biography - he had never appeared in such a role before. At the same time, the performer’s athletic physical form did not escape the eyes of TV viewers: with a height of 188 cm, his weight is 85 kg.
"Grigory Melekhov" was shot
The TV series “Quiet Don” has ended on the Rossiya channel. It became the fourth version of the film adaptation of the great novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, who managed to use the example of his hero to show the catastrophe of human fate during the Civil War era. Did Grigory Melekhov really exist? After the publication of the work, Sholokhov was asked this question thousands of times.
For half a century, the writer stated unequivocally: his hero is a completely fictitious character. And only in his later years did the writer Sholokhov admit: Melekhov actually had a real prototype. But it was impossible to talk about this, because by the time the first volume of “Quiet Don” was published, Gregory’s prototype was lying in a mass grave, shot as an “enemy of the people.”
It is worth noting that Sholokhov still made attempts to reveal the secret. So, back in 1951, at a meeting with Bulgarian writers, he said that Gregory had a prototype. However, he responded with silence to further attempts to extort details from him. Only in 1972, the Nobel laureate told the literary critic Konstantin Priyma the name of the one from whose biography he almost completely copied the image of his hero: a full Knight of St. George, the Upper Don Cossack Kharlampiy Vasilyevich Ermakov.
From red to white and back
“Almost completely” is not a figure of speech in this case. Now that researchers have studied “Quiet Don” from the first to the last line, having compared the plot with the life of Ermakov, we can admit: Sholokhov’s novel was almost biographical, down to the smallest detail. Do you remember where “Quiet Don” begins? “Melekhovsky yard is on the very edge of the farm…”. So the house in which Kharlampy grew up also stood on the very outskirts. And even Grigory’s appearance is based on him - Ermakov’s grandfather actually brought his Turkish wife back from the war, which is why the dark-haired children came from him. Except that Kharlampy went to war not as an ordinary Cossack, but as a platoon sergeant, having managed to graduate from the training team. And, apparently, he fought desperately - in two and a half years he earned four soldiers' St. George Crosses and four St. George medals, becoming one of the few full holders. However, at the end of 1917 he caught a bullet and returned to his native farm.
On the Don, as well as throughout the country, confusion and vacillation reigned at that time. The Whites and Ataman Kaledin called to continue fighting for “one indivisible”, the Reds promised peace, land and justice. Coming out of the Cossack poverty, Ermakov, naturally, joined the Reds. Soon, the Cossack commander Podtyolkov appoints an experienced warrior as his deputy. It is Ermakov who destroys the detachment of Colonel Chernetsov - the last counter-revolutionary force on the Don. However, immediately after the fight, a fatal twist occurs. Podtyolkov ordered the execution of all prisoners, for example, personally hacking to death a dozen of them.
“It’s not a matter of killing without a trial,” Ermakov objected. – Many were taken because of mobilization, and many were drugged due to their darkness. The revolution was not made to disperse dozens of people.” After this, Ermakov, citing injury, left the detachment and returned home. Apparently, that bloody execution was firmly ingrained in his memory, since with the beginning of the Cossack uprising on the Upper Don, he immediately sided with the whites. And again fate threw a surprise: now the former commander and comrade Podtyolkov with his staff was himself captured. The “traitors to the Cossacks” were sentenced to hanging. Ermakov was assigned to carry out the sentence.
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And again he refused. A military court sentenced the apostate to death, but hundreds of Cossacks threatened to start a riot and the case was put on hold.
Ermakov fought in the Volunteer Army for another year, rising to the rank of colonel
shoulder straps However, by that time victory had gone to the Reds. Having retreated with his detachment to Novorossiysk, where the defeated units of the White movement boarded ships, Ermakov decided that Turkish emigration was not for him. After which he went to meet the advancing squadron of the First Cavalry. As it turned out, yesterday’s opponents had heard a lot about his glory as a soldier, not an executioner. Ermakov was received personally by Budyonny, giving him command of a separate cavalry regiment. For two years, the former White Captain, who replaced his cockade with a star, alternately fights on the Polish front, crushes Wrangel’s cavalry in the Crimea, and chases Makhno’s troops, for which Trotsky himself gives him a personalized watch. In 1923, Ermakov was appointed head of the Maikop cavalry school. He retires from this position, settling in his native farm. Why did they decide to forget the owner of such a glorious biography?
Sentence without trial
The archives of the FSB directorate for the Rostov region still contain volumes of investigative case No. 45529. Their contents answer the question posed above. Apparently, the new government simply could not leave Ermakov alive.
From his military biography it is not difficult to understand: the brave Cossack ran from one side to the other not at all because he was looking for a warmer place for himself. “He always stood for justice,” Ermakov’s daughter said years later. So, having returned to peaceful life, the retired Red commander soon began to notice that he actually fought for something else. “Everyone thinks that the war is over, but now it’s going against its own people, it’s worse than the German war...” he once remarked.
In the Bazki farm Ermakov was met by young Sholokhov. The story of Kharlampy, who rushed in search of the truth from the Reds to the Whites, greatly interested the writer. In conversations with the writer, he openly talked about his service, without hiding what both the whites and the reds did during the Civil War. In Kharlampy’s file there is a letter sent to him by Sholokhov in the spring of 1926, when he was just planning “Quiet Don”: “Dear comrade Ermakov! I need to get some information from you regarding the 1919 era. This information concerns the details of the Upper Don Uprising. Tell me what time would be most convenient for me to come to you?”
Naturally, such conversations could not go unnoticed - a GPU detective came to Bazki.
It is unlikely that the security officers were pointed at Ermakov by Sholokhov himself - as follows from the investigative file, the former white officer was already under surveillance.
At the beginning of 1927, Ermakov was arrested. Based on the testimony of eight witnesses, he was found guilty of counter-revolutionary agitation and participation in a counter-revolutionary uprising. Fellow villagers tried to intercede for their fellow countryman. “Very, very many can testify that they remained alive only thanks to Ermakov. Always and everywhere, when catching spies and taking prisoners, dozens of hands reached out to tear those captured to pieces, but Ermakov said that if you allow the prisoners to be shot, then I will shoot you too, like dogs,” they wrote in their appeal. However, it remained unnoticed. On June 6, 1927, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee, chaired by Kalinin, allowed Kharlampy Ermakov to be given an “extrajudicial verdict.” After 11 days it was carried out. By that time, Grigory Melekhov’s prototype was 33 years old.
By the way
On August 18, 1989, by a decision of the Presidium of the Rostov Regional Court H.V. Ermakov was rehabilitated “for lack of corpus delicti.” For obvious reasons, Ermakov’s burial place remains unknown. According to some reports, his body was thrown into a mass grave in the vicinity of Rostov.
Personal life
The actor prefers not to talk about his personal life. It is known that Kirill does not have a wife or children, but the artist already knows for sure that Denis Kosyakov, a colleague on the “Island” project, will one day become his child’s godfather. During filming in the Seychelles and Thailand, the actors became close friends, and Melekhov helped his friend begin to play sports more actively. Young people went on multi-kilometer runs every day.
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Kirill Melekhov in the gym
Kirill leads an active lifestyle. In addition to working in the theater and filming films, he practices the oriental martial arts kudo at the Titan sports club and performs in competitions. He has grandiose plans - the artist is going to become a master of sports and win the World Championship. The celebrity is also interested in crossfit, motorsports and wakeboarding.
Personal life of Kirill Melekhov
The actor has not been married and, apparently, is not planning to. He enjoys his youth and periodically starts easy relationships that do not lead to anything serious. In one interview, the man admitted:
Most often I meet girls who also want to be successful. Therefore, our work schedules often do not combine, and this slows everything down. For some reason I meet artists or models and with each of them I grow one step higher.
Kirill does not change his interests and continues to play sports. His hobbies include fit cross, martial arts and motorcycle racing.
Kirill Melekhov now
In 2020, Melekhov took part in the creation of Evgeny Kulik’s video “Stopkach” for his YouTube channel. In the video, the artist played the role of one of the jocks who is kicked out of the playground by people leading an unsportsmanlike lifestyle. The ironic video was watched by 2.6 million users in a year.
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Kirill Melekhov in 2020
Melekhov himself loves to joke, creating humorous vines with his friends and family and posting them on Instagram. His photos from sporting events and behind-the-scenes photos also appear there.
Kirill and the actors from the series “Island” developed friendly relations, although the performers only met each other on the project. In 2020, the project was extended for a 2nd season. Sergei Burunov was added to the main cast.
Later, Kirill appeared in the melodrama “All About His Ex”, where he got a cameo role. In 2020, Melekhov’s filmography was expanded with another comedy, “Mylodrama,” in which he played a narcissistic actor.
Kirill Melekhov (still from the series “Mylodrama”)
Also in 2019, the drama “Bailiffs” was released, in which Kirill appeared in one of the supporting roles. He was accompanied on the screen by Andrey Chadov, Anna Popova, Natalia Antonova, Alexey Grishin.
