Meet Anita Pudikova, the ballet dancer behind the ‘Twins’ in the video game ‘Atomic Heart’! (PHOTOS)

Russia Beyond (@diamondpond; Mundfish)
A real Russian beauty, a professional ballerina and, also, just a girl with a big heart.

Two metal robot twins became one of the main visual symbols of the video game ‘Atomic Heart’ from Russian developer ‘Mundfish’, which was released in late February 2023. The game is set in an alternative 1950s Soviet Union, where an uprising of out of control robots occurs.

The animation for the movements of robot ballerinas was based on the dance steps of Anita Pudikova - a ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater, who has been performing on Russia’s main stage for eight years now.

Anita’s mother, Inna Ginkevich, is also a former ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater and a soloist of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater. Anita admitted on social networks that ballet was rather her parents’ choice: “I spent a good half of my childhood in the wings of the theater. During classes, I sat under the ballet bar while the performers trained their forefeet, rummaged through my mother’s stage jewelry and hung out in the wings. Clearly, it was a breath of fresh air for a child who didn’t know any other real world.”

Anita first stepped onto the Bolshoi Theater stage in 2015, after graduating from the Moscow State Academy of Choreography. Her repertoire includes such legendary productions as ‘The Nutcracker,’ ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Don Quixote’. But, the ballerina herself regards her favorite one to be ‘Ivan the Terrible’, in which she performs as the boyaryna. Besides, Anita graduated from the ballet department of the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in 2020, having defended her diploma paper with honors. Currently, in addition to the Bolshoi Theater, she works as a choreographer for the Moscow Department of Sports.

Anita participated in a range of social and charitable projects: In 2020, ballet dancers starred in photo shoots to draw attention to environmental issues. Also, for the past several years, Anita has regularly been visiting the Blokhin Cancer Center with a group of Bolshoi Theater performers to dance for children patients. 

On social networks, she regularly posts the results of professional photo shoots, including those done for famous brands. The chic content interchanges with funny videos from the Bolshoi Theater: they show Anita messing about backstage right during the performance, while waiting for her entrance: pushing her ballerina friend Vera Borisenkova in a huge cart, fooling around with colleagues in the dressing room. Nor is she too shy to post some failures from rehearsals.

Separately, in 2021, Anita starred in Russian music band ‘Underwood’s video for the track ‘Battement Tandu’.

Anita is currently dating Kamil Yanguzarov, also an artist of the Bolshoi Theater. On May 28, 2022, she posted a photo with a ring, captioned: “Yes!”

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