Konstantin Khabenskiy

Khabensky was born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) to Russian Jewish father Yuri Aronovich Khabensky and Russian mother Tatiana Gennadievna Khabenskaya (née Nikulina). Both of his parents were engineers, his mother also worked as a mathematics teacher. He has an older sister, Natalia Khabenskaya. In 1981, he together with his family moved to Nizhnevartovsk, where Konstantin lived over the period of four years. In 1985 the family returned to Leningrad. After finishing eight classes of secondary school No. 486, Konstantin entered the Technical College of Aviation Instrument Engineering and Automation, but after studying there for three years he realized that this profession was not for him. He tried many jobs including as a janitor, cleaner, street musician, and then was hired as a lighting technician at the theatre studio "Subbota" where he later performed for the first time. In 1990 Khabensky entered the Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinema (course of Veniamin Filshtinsky), where his classmates were Mikhail Porechenkov, Andrei Zibrov and Mikhail Trukhin. For the final exam Konstantin performed as Estragon in the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, his graduation was in 1995.