The daughter of a prominent Russian received American citizenship.
The world premiere of the play "The Foreigner" was intentionally decided to take place in Moldova. Masha Mashkova considers Chisinau a place of power. The actress plays the lead role, and the director is Maxim Didenko. The production, based on the story by Sergei Dovlatov, which Masha sees many parallels with today, is dedicated to the theme of emigration. The project has united people scattered around the world.
In the multimedia performance, Dovlatov's satire on the Soviet system and the aimlessness of emigration has turned into a personal story of loss and hope.
How the Play "The Foreigner" Was Born
Dovlatov's work, created in exile in the USA in 1985, struck Masha Mashkova with almost biographical coincidences. In the story, the main character emigrates to the USA and seeks a way to reconcile with new circumstances. Mashkova saw mystical parallels with her own fate in this material.
She was born on April 19, 1985, in Novosibirsk. Her father is Vladimir Mashkov (born 1963), a People's Artist of the Russian Federation (2011). Her mother is Elena Shevchenko (born 1964), an actress and director, who worked at the Moscow Academic Theater named after Vladimir Mayakovsky.
From early childhood (from one month old), when her parents moved to Moscow to study at theater universities, until the age of eight, Maria Mashkova lived in an aviation town near Novosibirsk with her grandmother Valentina (who worked as an ethics and aesthetics teacher in a flight attendant school) and her grandfather Pavel (on her mother's side), a pilot. Her parents divorced when she was two years old.
In 2002, after graduating from high school with a silver medal, she simultaneously enrolled in the G. V. Plekhanov Russian Economic Academy in the economics faculty and in the Shchukin School, but after confirming that she could independently enter a theater university, she chose economics. After studying at the academy for two months, secretly from her parents, she decided to transfer to the acting faculty of the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute (the artistic director of the course was Vladimir Poglazov), which she graduated from in 2006 as the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute.
In 2006, she was accepted into the troupe of the Moscow State Theater "Lenkom." She resigned in 2010 before the birth of her daughter.
In films, she initially played minor roles, including in Vladimir Mashkov's film "Papa" (2004). Fame came after her role as Maria Tropinkina in the TV series "Don't Be Born Beautiful" (2005–2006).
She emigrated to the USA after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, obtained American citizenship, and "finally renounced her father."
Her first husband (from 2005 to April 2009) is Artem Semakin (born July 12, 1980), an actor in theater and film. They met during the filming of "Don't Be Born Beautiful." Mashkova was single, while Semakin was married to actress Anastasia Milyaeva, and they had a daughter, Sofia. They secretly married in 2005.
Her second husband (since September 2009) is Alexander Slobodyanik Jr., the son of pianist, Honored Artist of the RSFSR Alexander Slobodyanik (1941–2008) and himself a pianist, as well as a businessman, owner of a chain of music instrument stores, screenwriter, film producer, and actor.
Her daughters are Stefania (born June 6, 2010) and Alexandra (born March 12, 2012).
