playwright · theatre director · actor
Artistic Director of the Kamal Theatre and Ekiyat Puppet Theatre, Golden Mask laureate. Author of over 25 plays and screenplays staged across Russia and internationally.
01 — Plays
No plays in this category yet.
02 — Directing
after the novel by Evgeny Vodolazkin
A puppet-theatre production about memory, repentance and eternity.
play by I. Zayniev and T. Bekmambetov
Nasreddin and his donkey Ishak appear in a setting based on old Samarkand and are voiced by Evgeny Mironov and Konstantin Khabensky.
after the story by Galimjan Ibragimov
The tragedy of the 1920s famine in the Volga region, presented through puppet theatre.
after the ancient Tatar folk ballad
The production of the ancient ballad combines Tatar song tradition with metaphorical stage design.
03 — Cinema
Major historical war thriller about Soviet fighter pilot Mikhail Devyatayev’s daring escape from a Nazi concentration camp piloting a hijacked bomber from the Peenemünde rocket base.
Full-length drama based on Tufan Minnullin’s play about a young cleric Asfandiyar arriving in a remote village to restore spiritual faith and community trust.
04 — Biography
Born on 23 May 1987 in the village of Karasu, Aksubayevsky district of Tatarstan. He wrote his first play, “Jäyge tönnärdä” (Summer Nights), at fourteen. He graduated from Kazan University of Culture and Arts — acting (2008) and directing (2013), the workshop of Farid Bikchantayev — and from the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow (playwriting, 2010, workshop of Inna Vishnevskaya).
In 2008 he joined the company of the Galiaskar Kamal Tatar State Academic Theatre, where he later made his directing debut. He was Chief Director of the Ekiyat Tatar State Puppet Theatre from 2019 to 2020 and has served as its Artistic Director since 2020, opening the puppet stage to adult audiences. He was Director of the Kamal Theatre from 2024 to May 2025 and has served as its Artistic Director since 2025. Since September 2024, he has been a deputy of the seventh convocation of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan.
He writes in Tatar and Russian. He co-wrote the puppet production “Khodja Nasreddin” at the Theatre of Nations in Moscow (2020) and took part in the films “Mulla” (2018) and “Devyatayev” (2021, dir. Timur Bekmambetov). He has taught at the Kazan Institute of Culture, the Kazan Theatre School and the Feshin Art School.
05 — Photos
06 — Contact
For staging rights, translations and professional enquiries, please get in touch via email.
agent@zayniev.com