Trivia

A comedic writer and impersonator, and occasional actor, Mikhail entered politics in his 40s. In 2004, he was elected governor of Altayskiy kray, Russia, a region in Siberia, a post he held from April of that year until his death in August of 2005.

He had three children. He and his wife, Galina, now a widow, had one daughter, Anna. After his death in 2005, it came out that he also had two children by women with whom he had had affairs: a daughter, Anastasiya, born sometime around 1995, by Nadezhda Zharkova, and a son, Daniil, born sometime around 2003, by Russian model Inna Belova. Nadezhda has sued Mikhail's estate several times, for both continuing financial support (Mikhail had been quietly supporting them before his death), and the right for Anastasiya to use her father's surname. Although Inna (actually, quite scandalously) attended Mikhail's funeral, she has, for the most part, moved on with her life.