Honored Artist of the RSFSR Sofya Shelmenkina died at the age of 79.

Honored Artist of the RSFSR Sofia Shelmenkina died at the age of 78. The Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Puppet Theater announced this on its website on August 18.

Earlier, on August 9, the VKontakte group of the Lynx search and rescue team reported that the artist disappeared in the woods in the Semenovsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod region on August 7. Later, on August 16, the rescue team published information about Shelmenkina's death.

Sofia Shelmenkina was born in 1946. She graduated from the Gorky Theater College in 1965, and worked at the Stavropol Puppet Theater until 1968. In 1968, she was accepted into the Gorky Puppet Theater, where she worked for 53 years. The actress has played more than forty roles.

In 1979, Shelmenkina was awarded the title of "Honored Artist of the RSFSR." In 2004, in connection with the 75th anniversary of the Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Puppet Theater, she was awarded a certificate of honor from the Ministry of Culture of the Nizhny Novgorod region.

The actress participated in the productions of "The Wolf and the Goats", "The Autumn Tale", "Cinderella", "The Scarlet Flower", "Aladdin's Magic Lamp", "The Sun and the Snowmen" and many others.

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