He was born in Ufa in the Republic of Bashkortostan. After he graduated from the Ufa State Academy of Arts, he studied under Irina Arkhipova at the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory. He won first prizes at the international signing competitions Unisa Transnet (Pretoria, 1994), Fyodor Chaliapin (Kazan, 1994), Sergei Rachmaninoff (1998), as well as other awards, such as in the Grand Prix Maria Callas (Athens, 1995). He is a People's Artist of the Republic of Bashkortostan. He has appeared in major international opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan Barcelona’s Teatre del Liceu, Arena di Verona, Bolshoi Theater and Mariinsky Theater (he is the theater’s soloist since 2011), Genova’s Teatro Carlo Felice, Palermo’s Teatro Massimo, Teatro Regio in Turin and Parma, Teatro Verdi in Trieste, Theater Basel, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Berlin State Opera, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and others. He has worked with top conductors, such as Pierre Boulez, Claudio Abbado, Valery Gergiev, Michel Plasson, Lorin Maazel. His substantial repertoire includes the following roles: Ramfis (Aida), Attila (Attila), Don Bartolo (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Boris Godunov, Mephistopheles (La damnation de Faust), Philip II and The Grand Inquisitor (Don Carlo), Don Quixote, Don Giovanni and Leporello (Don Giovanni), Prince Gremin (Eugene Onegin), Balthazar (La Favorita), Macbeth, Zaccaria (Nabucco), Oroveso (Norma), Konchak (Prince Igor), Fiesco (Simon Boccanegra), Timur (Turandot). He has given recitals and participated in concerts in Moscow and Europe including Athens (Requiem, in honor of Maria Callas). At the GNO he interpreted Mephistopheles in the opera Faust during the season 2011/12. He has been appointed Minister of Culture in Bashkortostan. // Last update of the biography: December 2015 - The list of the productions below is complete.