Yevgeniya Golynchik

Biography

Evgenia (Yevgeniya) Golynchik was the student at the Leningrad Theatre and Film Institute under Sergey Gerasimov. There she met Georgi Zhzhyonov and they were married in 1936. She was trying to help Zhzhyonov after his arrest and imprisonment in the NKVD (KGB) prison in Leningrad. Their separation was forced by his arrest by the KGB. At their last meeting in prison, Zhzhyonov sincerely advised her to drop any hopes of seeing him again, because he already was tortured and had little hope to be released. Zhzhyonov told her that she was a great actress and should move on with her career. After that she was cast in 'Istrebiteli' (1939), which became a popular propaganda film in the Soviet Union. Zhzhyonov petitioned to see this film while in his exile in Gulag prison-camp in Siberia, because he wanted to see his wife again. He was allowed by the prison guard to see the film and after that he wrote letters to Golynchik. She never received his letters, because all prisoner's letters were examined and usually destroyed by the Gulag prison administration. Golynchik and Zhzhyonov saw each other only after the end of Zhzhyonov's imprisonment. By that time she already had another family, and they never met again.