REN TV has launched a new show called Steps to Success. It is authored and hosted by Alina Kabayeva, deputy chair of the State Duma Youth Committee and chair of the Public Board of National Media Group. The project features so-called self-made people, who achieved success by hard work and talent. Yevgeny Mironov, a People's Artist of Russia, a stage and film actor, and the art director of the Theater of Nations, became one of the first guests on the show.

The filming was done in the Theater of Nations, which is under a large-scale redevelopment now. Yevgeny showed Alina the building, the concrete opening of the future stage and auditorium and, with theatrical gallantry, surrendered his office as a makeup room for the beginning TV presenter.

The relations between the author and her star worked out from the very beginning. It was evident they took interest in each other, and both felt at ease. Mironov appreciated Kabayeva's preparedness and the adequacy and professionalism of questions she was asking. Alina, in her turn, confided she had done her homework thoroughly and rewatched some of his films, only to prove her theory that, as an artist, Mironov descended from Innokenty Smoktunovsky. Mironov, who had played Prince Myshkin on TV and Judas Golovlyov in the stage play produced by Kirill Serebrennikov in the Chekhov Moscow Art theater (both once star roles for Smoktunovsky), faintly protested against such an honourable kinship.

Speaking about kinship and other relations, the future film will surely feature Yevgeny's anecdote about doorkeepers at the Moscow Art Theatre School, who thought the fair-haired blue-eyed youngster was a flyblow of the famous actor Andrei Mironov and indulgently allowed him to use their phone. "Didn't you think of changing your surname? You could take your mother's," Alina suggested. "That could have made it worse," Yevgeny explained. "My mother's maiden name is Doronina."*

Judging by the two hours the filming takes, the episode is going to be intense, in terms of both information and emotion. It seemed Kabayeva and Mironov had forgotten about the cameras; they discussed the proportion of talent and hard work in one's success; agreed that teaching young actors, like coaching young gymnasts, is a big personal sacrifice that one should have the heart to make one day; found they both liked downhill skiing and Eugene Onegin and shared a patriotic impulse to revive Russian cinema.

"I can't make myself say the phrase "I am a successful person"," Yevgeny confided. "Never in my life. Though I understand that if you have gone a very long and hard road and reached the end, it's nothing but success... Actually, I've been struggling with myself all my life. Overcoming my own nature." "It's an Olympic motto, "Get Over Yourself!"," Alina reacts instantly. "Oh really? I should have gone to Beijing!"

Kabayeva had prepared lots of questions for the interview, some serious, others playful, businesslike, or lyrical. These questions should make Mironov expose various sides of himself. The audience will understand why the popular actor rejects proposals to star in commercials, declines invitations to Hollywood, and says – now that some time has passed – that his agreement to head the Theater of Nations was typical "Khlestakov behavior"**. His fans will learn how a childhood injury all but tied him to bed for years and how the relationship between the celebrity and his demanding mother have developed up to now.

What's essential is that the author of this new REN TV project is herself a truly successful person. No matter who her guest is – the football player Andrei Arshavin, the singer Grigory Leps, or the actor Yevgeny Mironov – the rhythmic gymnast who won the Olympic gold and then succeeded on her post-sports career speaks on equal terms with them. And what I mean is not only the formal signs of success like medals, records, ovations, or titles, but also the biggest success that a person can achieve in life – not to lose oneself and one's way. "I had my last conversation with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn this summer," Yevgeny Mironov said. "I asked him how to resist the trials and temptations that life brings me with increasing frequency... Solzhenitsyn answered: "Don't ever worry about that. Your soul, your heart – they know exactly which way you must go"."

Alina Kabayeva is an artistic person. I can notice changing emotions on her expressive face: now she listens with concentration, then suddenly her eyes sparkle with slyness. "How did you manage to get state financing for renovation of the theater? I know it's very difficult... Though, on the other hand, who is able to say no to a person like you?" "How I wish you were the President, Alina," Mironov replies musingly. It should be noted that President Vladimir Putin took Mironov's plans very seriously in 2007. The decision to support the reconstruction project was made a week after the formal application was sent. It's also true that bureaucratic approvals are still under way, but Putin had warned Mironov about that.

Alina Kabayeva enjoyed Yevgeny Mironov's thoughts about today's television. "Our TV is still more interesting than that in the West, but preoccupation with popularity ratings has already corrupted us. If a show has no scandal, it seems to have no right to exist. I don't like our news programmes either – they echo the Soviet times." Alina promised to adhere to Yevgeny's recommendations the best she can. Most probably, however, her show's rating is going to be all right.

I would have been surprised if the young and beautiful woman hadn't asked a 100% female question at the end of her interview. "Who is your stylist?" "I don't have any particular style," Mironov answered shyly and explained, "I like being diverse. I want to change, to learn." This readiness for changes, new tasks, and new conquests is common between Alina Kabayeva and Yevgeny Mironov. And it seems to be an indispensable quality for any successful person.

*SITE NOTE: Tatiana Doronina was a big Russian screen star of the 1960s.

**SITE NOTE: The name of Khlestakov, a leading character in Gogol's The Inspector General, is synonymous in Russia with thoughtless, irresponsible behavior.