Oksana Druzhinina, the former chief director of Nikulin Circus, has died.

Oksana Druzhinina, the former chief director of Circus Nikulin on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, has died. This was announced on June 7 by Edgard Zapashny, General Director of the Great Moscow State Circus on Vernadsky Avenue.

"I express my condolences to my family and friends," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

No other details have been provided yet.

Oksana Druzhinina worked as the chief director of the circus from 2016 to 2020. Under her leadership, programs such as the "Everything will be Fine!" show, as well as the entertainment program of the First Channel "Circus with Stars!" were created.

Druzhinina was born in Saratov. While still in school, she enrolled in a theater and circus studio. However, by the ninth grade, she realized that she did not want to be a circus performer, and began to think about directing. In order to become a professional in this field, I decided that it would be better to study acting first. Having started studying with the chief director of the Saratov circus, Alexander Zakirov, she entered the College of culture at the variety department.

However, a year later it turned out that the State Institute of Theatrical Arts (GITIS) has a special course on "circus directing". Druzhinina joined the full-time department and by the time she graduated, she had already been working at the Nikulin Circus for a year and a half, where she was hired as an assistant by the Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, circus director and choreographer Valentin Gneushev.