Aida Kurbanova is the world famous Russian actress and martial artist known as “The Ghost”. She has appeared in over twenty films, and her career has spanned two centuries. Born in Arkhangelsk, Siberia, Aida Kurbanova had a troubled childhood, and her initial career was in theater, before she turned to acting.
Aida Kurbanova was born in Ekonomski, Siberia, to parents who were not of Russian nationality. Her original name was Irina, but it was changed due to religious reasons. Her first two films that she appeared in were “Irene”, and “Khrushka”. It was not until she was forty-one years old that she decided to make a comeback in her acting career and to this end appeared in the film: “A Woman in the Rain” with Sean Connery, and the adaptation of the same work, “The Man Who Played with Machines” with Bruce Willis. In these films she plays the role of Granny Diggory, a pensioner who lives in a dementia home.
Aida Kurbanova is a fascinating example of the way in which the identity of an individual can be distorted, even by the time of his birth. Born in Ekonomski, Siberia, she obviously did not have the Russian nationality which most other actors of her time would have been entitled to, nor would her mother have been proud to claim that she was born in that country. But through her films she has managed to overcome the stigma attached to her nationality, and has thus come to represent much of the variety of types of person that we tend to imagine when we consider Russian actors. Her greatest challenge has perhaps been to overcome the negative associations with her nationality, and to present a version of herself which does not include any traces of her Russian heritage. This task is easier said than done, and she has had to overcome some significant personal problems to achieve this.