Actor, writer, designer and director Aleksandr Artyomovich Adabashyan was born in Moscow in 1945 the same year as his friend and steady collaborator Nikita Mikhalkov. The two men’s varied pairings began in 1974 when Adabashyan production designed Mikhalkov’s feature debut “At Home Among Strangers, Strangers at Home”, a low budget “Borscht Western” set during the bloody Russian civil war following the Bolshevik revolution. Adabashyan has designed eight Mikhalkov films in all, physically realizing such disparate visions as Moscow during the Khrushchev regime in 1979’s “Five Evenings,” mid-nineteenth century St. Petersburg in 1980’s “Oblomov”, and the infant Soviet film industry in 1976’s “Slave of Love”. In addition, Adabashyan has some two dozen writing credits to his name including multiple pairings with Mikhalkov. After making his onscreen debut in “At Home Among Strangers”, Adabashyan has made frequent appearances in Russian film and television, primarily in character roles.

1976