The life of Margarita Nazarova: the mysterious fate of the “Tiger Tamer” Bashny.Net

The Life of Margarita Nazarova It was an amazing story with incredible twists and turns. The miniature beauty with blue eyes became a legendary circus artist, and the title “Tiger Tamer” suited her perfectly. All the more surprising that the legendary Soviet trainer ended her life in poverty and loneliness.



Margarita Nazarova was born on November 26, 1926 in the family of a forester and teacher. Later, the future artist appeared sisters Gal and Vera. Already in her childhood, our heroine began to go to the ballet studio to dance.

During the war, Margarita was captured and taken to Germany. At first she worked as a servant for a wealthy family in Hamburg, where she was tolerably treated. And later settled in a local cabaret, where she began to work as a dancer. After the war, she returned to Latvia (where she moved with her family shortly before the outbreak of hostilities).

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I had to make a living somehow. Therefore, the girl went to the corps de ballet of the local theater, where she began to develop acrobatic skills. Over time, she began to attract animals to her performances. Initially, it was about dogs, cats and horses.

The energetic beauty wanted to develop in his business. A few years later, she came to train tigers, and this occupation soon brought her national fame. Margarita Nazarova was the first woman to enter a cage with tigers.

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To cope with these striped giants, the brave artist not only studied and used the reflex technique of the legendary physiologist Pavlov, but also one of the first to carefully analyze the psychology of each animal with which she had to work, used an individual approach.

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It is impossible not to remember about the work of Margarita Nazarova in the cinema. Her debut in this field was the adventure picture of 1953 “A Case in the Taiga”. But if this role was insignificant, in 1954, the trainer played in the spy film “Dangerous Trails”, where she happened to be in a cage with tigers.

The greatest success was the 1961 comedy Striped Flight. In this picture, Nazarova played a simple buffetress, who had the opportunity to calm the tigers who escaped from the cages. The film became wildly popular, and the young and bright trainer found the all-Union love of the audience. In 1969, she received the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR.

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Avoiding trouble when working with wild animals was almost impossible. Although Nazarova has always been insured by her husband Konstantin, the woman has repeatedly received injuries from tigers. Once jumping over the artist tigress Rada almost knocked off his tamer head. Another time, Tiger Pursch, playing with Margaret, scratched her temporal artery.

The last for Nazarova was a performance in Penza, when one of the tigers was afraid of noisy spectators and first tried to escape from the stage, and then completely attacked the artist. In the hospital, it turned out that the tiger did not cause significant harm, but doctors insisted that at such an old age, the woman should quit her unsafe work. To look for another profession Margarita Petrovna did not.

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In 1970, the artist’s husband, Konstantin Konstantinovsky, died. He was wounded by the claws of one of the tigresses, which promptly had to undergo surgery. Doctors were unable to save the 49-year-old. Margarita Nazarova was left alone with her young son Alexei. A year later, the woman got married again. However, this marriage lasted only a couple of months.

Alexey grew up, went to Europe, where he also began his career as a trainer, got a family. By the way, he named the children in honor of his parents: his daughter – Margaret, and his son – Constantine. The single artist herself remained to live out the years in her Nizhny Novgorod apartment.

The heart of the All-Union favorite stopped on October 26, 2005 at the 79th year of life. Moreover, the body could be found only a couple of days later, when the neighbors, alarmed by suspicious silence, called the Emergencies Ministry employees.

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The granddaughter of “Tiger Tamer” Margarita also performs in the circus. It doesn’t work with tigers but with cats. And they say she looks a lot like a famous grandmother. Let's see how her life goes.