Why Alexander Robak sent his son to boarding school and how he is living now

You know, we're used to judging actors by their on-screen personas. We see a bear-like character on screen—big, reliable, with a heavy gaze—and automatically transfer that template to the real person. Alexander Robak is one of those. A true iceberg of modern cinema. But once a detail leaked into the press that made many shudder: this "king of the episode" and "conscience of the screen" once sent his own teenage son to a strict boarding school. Sounds harsh. Even frightening. Like a sentence or a renunciation of parental responsibilities. However, let's not rush to accusations. Life is not a movie with a clear division into good and bad. Sometimes the most severe actions are dictated by the most desperate love.

Ice, Crowbar, and Five Rubles

To understand Robak the father, you must first look at Robak the boy. 1973. Zlatoust. The very name of the city sounds like the clanging of a blade. A harsh land of the Ural Mountains and hereditary metallurgists. Father—a steelmaking engineer, mother—a teacher at a technical school. In such an environment, childhood ends quickly, and character is forged literally along with the metal in the factories.

Little Sasha was not a goody-two-shoes. Some kind of primeval, rebellious spirit constantly seethed in him, which regularly spilled out into street brawls and hooliganism. And then his mother, Raisa Lukinichna, did something that many today would find wild. She got the eight-year-old boy a job. As a janitor. At the local housing office.

Imagine this picture. A winter Ural morning. The frost pierces to the bone. Peers are still sleeping or getting ready to chase a puck in the yard, and little Sasha takes a heavy crowbar, a shovel, and goes to chip ice off the paths. The first salary—five rubles. This money smelled of frost, calloused palms, and the first truly masculine lesson in responsibility. Illusions were shattered against the ice along with the crowbar.

And then there was the drama club. Guitar, stage, the magic of someone else's text that suddenly becomes yours. The parents, of course, gasped when their son announced that he was going to Moscow "to become an actor." But they didn't hold him back.

Impudence in Pushkarev Lane

Moscow met the Ural guy indifferently. Not a single theater university opened its doors to him. Another would have broken. He would have packed his suitcase, returned to Zlatoust, and gone to the factory to his father. But that very "Zlatoust steel" in his character had already begun to ring. Robak goes to Yaroslavl. Do you know why? Banally—a train ticket there cost less than to St. Petersburg.

The Yaroslavl Theater School gave him a profession and honesty before the audience. But the capital continued to pull its magnets. And so, already with a diploma in his pocket, Alexander commits an act that reeks of pure madness.

He wanted to work at the Mayakovsky Theater. Under Andrei Goncharov—a director great and absolutely terrifying in his anger. Robak simply waited for the master on the street. A black ministerial "Volga" brakes in Pushkarev Lane. The door opens. And then the yesterday's student literally rushes to intercept, squats down looking into the car, and blurts out: "I want to serve you!". Goncharov was taken aback. He looked at this textured impudence, grunted, and told him to come to the audition. Thus began a big game.

The Nineties and the Mayakovsky Dormitory

Then there will be cinema. That very cult episode in "Brother-2", where his character reads Lermontov by the jeep. Bandits on the streets will begin to mistake him for their own, patting him on the shoulder: "Brother, we know you!". But that will be later.

And for now—the beginning of the 90s. First love with a classmate Natalya. Early marriage. In 1994, his son Arseny is born. The life of a young acting family is a volatile mixture of absolute happiness and total poverty. They lived in a theater dormitory (the former dacha of that very Goncharov). Rehearsals with a baby in their arms, a perpetual lack of money, drafts in the old corridors.

Unfortunately, this marriage did not stand the test of time. The separation of parents always hits children hard. But for a teenager, it often becomes a detonator.

Surgical Intervention: Boarding School

We have come to the most difficult part of the story. Arseny grew up hard. Adolescent rebellion was superimposed on the divorce of his parents. The street, bad companies, complete disregard for authorities and discipline. The guy was flying downhill.

Robak the father was faced with a terrible choice. It was possible to continue reading lectures, hiring tutors, turning a blind eye and hoping that "it would resolve itself". But he remembered his Zlatoust. His crowbar and ice. Together with his ex-wife, they make a surgical decision—they send Arseny to a boarding school with strict rules.

Try to imagine what it's like—to pack the things of your own child and take him to a place where strangers, strict people will take care of him. It breaks the heart. But sometimes love must be ruthless in order to save. The boarding school became an icy shower for Arseny. Sobriety set in. The guy didn't just pull himself together. He found his way, which, ironically, led him to the same film set. Today Arseny Robak is a successful, in-demand actor. And when they meet with his father, there is no resentment in their eyes. Only understanding that that harsh step was the only right one.

Quiet Haven

Alexander found his real, hard-won happiness in 2003. He met Olga. She worked in medicine, was infinitely far from the spotlights, premieres, and the acting bustle. Perhaps, it was this earthly, quiet clarity that became for Robak the anchor he had been looking for so long.

They had sons, Platon and Stepan. And something happened that only a few succeed in: Olga didn't just become a wife, she managed to gently and wisely unite everyone. Arseny became a frequent guest in their house. Three brothers from different mothers are now best friends. The family has grown together, the scars have healed.

Instead of Credits

Alexander Robak can afford a lot today. He is a successful producer, chooses scripts, works with the best directors. But his main pride is not the figurines on the shelf.

His pride is a huge table around which the whole family gathers. These are their joint travels. This is the laughter of his sons. In essence, he remained the same stubborn boy from the Ural city. He knows that ice must be chipped away at for a long time, methodically, and until the pain in your hands, so that finally clean, living water appears beneath it. Behind his broad back hides a very vulnerable heart, access to which is only for the closest ones. And we believe him on the screen precisely because this truth in him is real. Not played.