Alexei Durov

Alexei Danilovich Durov was born on 5 October 1940 in Serpukhov, in the Moscow region of the Russian SFSR, into a working family.

After finishing school he served in the Soviet Army from October 1959 to August 1962. In August 1962 he enrolled in the acting faculty of GITIS, the State Institute of Theatre Arts in Moscow, studying on the course led by Olga Pyzhova and Boris Bibikov. He graduated in 1966.

From August 1966 until the end of his life Durov worked at the Ulyanovsk Drama Theatre named after I. A. Goncharov, where he was assigned after graduating. He became one of the leading masters of the company and played more than a hundred roles of very different kinds.

His early work in Ulyanovsk included productions of Lermontov's Masquerade, Ostrovsky's The Last Victim, Without a Dowry and Easy Money, Schiller's Intrigue and Love, Gorky's The Artamonov Business and Trenyov's Lyubov Yarovaya.

Later roles included Kuzovkin in Turgenev's The Hanger-On, Chugunov in Ostrovsky's Wolves and Sheep, York in Shakespeare's Richard II, Shuisky, Vanyushin in Naidyonov's Vanyushin's Children, Peachum in Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, Polonius in Hamlet, the Doctor in Pirandello's Henry IV, Fayunin in Leonov's Invasion, Tychkov in Goncharov's The Precipice, Groznov in Ostrovsky's Truth Is Good, but Happiness Is Better and Curry in N. Richard Nash's The Rainmaker.

For his Count Shabelsky in Chekhov's Ivanov he received a diploma at an international theatre festival held in Tolyatti in 2000. Among his final productions was Poor Liza.

Durov was awarded the medal For Valiant Labour, marking the centenary of Lenin's birth, in 1970. He was named Honoured Artist of the RSFSR in 1983 and People's Artist of the Russian Federation in 2008.

In 2002 he was entered in the Golden Book of Honour of the Ulyanovsk region and made an honorary citizen of the region, and in 2010 he received the regional badge of honour For Faith and Virtue. He also held diplomas and certificates from the Ministry of Culture, the Union of Theatre Workers and the regional and city authorities.

Alexei Durov died on 2 November 2026 in Ulyanovsk, in the 87th year of his life, aged 86. The company of the Ulyanovsk Drama Theatre announced his death. No cause of death was made public.

A farewell ceremony was arranged for 5 November 2026 at the Ulyanovsk Drama Theatre named after I. A. Goncharov, the theatre where he had worked for sixty years.

Durov's name is on the Alley of Fame outside the Ulyanovsk Drama Theatre, where a star commemorates him. Over six decades with a single company he became one of the defining actors of the Ulyanovsk stage, remembered for a long line of character roles in Russian and European classics.