One Decision, Three Lives: The Inspiring Journey of Maria Boltneva and Her Triplets

Maria Boltneva: A Journey of Determination and Motherhood

Maria Boltneva has always been known for her resolute character, which, paradoxically, both deprived her of personal happiness and gifted her a joyful family life. A series of determined decisions led the star of the TV series “Glukhar” to a point in her life where she has no regrets, despite facing a painful separation, the threat of a miscarriage, and doctors’ advice to terminate one of her pregnancies.

Early Life and Career

“Since childhood, I had a strong desire to break free—from home, from my mother’s and grandmother’s guardianship, from my teachers,” Maria shared. “To break free from that life in Novosibirsk.” And she succeeded: despite her mother’s wish to make her a ballerina, Boltneva felt drawn to acting and set off to conquer Moscow.

Love and Relationships

At 19, Maria received an offer from the Mayakovsky Theater, where her father once worked. A year later, she realized she wanted to have children. “It was as if something clicked inside me,” she recalls. “I only entered relationships if I was sure that he could be the father of my child.”

Romances in Boltneva’s life were few, as not every suitor passed the premature “fatherhood test.” Moreover, the actress was becoming increasingly busy, having landed the role of Nastya Klimenko in the TV series “Glukhar,” which made her a nationwide favorite. Police officers became her biggest fans; when they once found her stolen bicycle, the entire precinct asked for her autograph.

Meeting the Love of Her Life

Despite the male attention, Boltneva remained single until she met the one she had been waiting for her entire life. She met Georgiy Lezhava at the premiere of her film “Maniacal Manifestations of Miss Isolde K.”

At the celebratory banquet after the premiere, he asked her a simple question: “Do you have someone? It’s strange that a girl like you is without a man.” “I saw his eyelashes, which were fluttering in the air like a cat’s in the movie ‘Shrek.’ Add to that my elevated mood from the success of my debut film and a certain degree of alcohol. In short, something clicked in my head, and I thought, ‘This is the one,'” Maria recalls.

Challenges and Triumphs

The romance developed rapidly, and the young couple soon began living together. Maria was sure that this man would be the father of her children, but she also regretted missing the “candy-bouquet” period. She soon felt the strong character of Georgiy. “He is undoubtedly a strong personality, a leader. He believes that fighting qualities and aggressiveness are the most important traits in a man. After all, Gosha is one-third Georgian,” Maria explains.

Lezhava wanted his beloved to leave her career, raise children, wait for him at home, and prepare dinner while he acted in films and celebrated premieres. But Boltneva had her own plans—she also wanted to work, develop, and get roles. “I often went on tour with entrepreneurial performances,” she says. “He hated my trips; there were phone calls several times a day. I wasn’t used to such excessive care.”

The Dream of a Happy Family

The dream of a happy family and children kept Georgiy and Maria together, and their hopes almost came true. When the actress called her beloved and said she was pregnant, he was overjoyed. Lezhava was sure that Boltneva, as a good future mother, would tame her ambitions and become a homemaker. But the opposite happened.

“Any trifle made me lose my temper—a cat meowing, and I was ready to strangle it,” Maria admitted. “Everyone irritated me: strangers, friends, colleagues, Gosha. I suddenly felt something animalistic within me.” One evening, she silently got up from the table after dinner, packed her things, and announced that she was leaving for her dormitory. Georgiy reacted harshly. Perhaps if it weren’t for the actress’s mood and her chosen one’s hot temper, they could have survived that difficult period, but they still parted ways.

A New Beginning

The couple tried to rekindle their relationship, but to no avail—something wasn’t right. Then, something happened that made Maria put all problems aside: she found out she was expecting triplets.

During a routine ultrasound, the doctor cautiously asked if the actress had undergone IVF. She immediately understood that there was more than one heartbeat inside her, but she couldn’t have imagined three children. The doctor calmly asked if there were any such cases in her family. Hearing that there had never been any, he philosophically remarked, “Well, it has to start with someone…”

Indeed, something began that Maria had not expected at all. Close friends and doctors assured her that she needed to do something about her pregnancy, as the chance of carrying healthy children with triplets was extremely low; a miscarriage could occur. The likelihood that one of the babies would be born with abnormalities was extremely high, and doctors advised reduction—literally choosing which child to get rid of.

The chief doctor of the clinic directly told Boltneva: “We don’t know what to do with you. No one will take on your pregnancy because no one wants to take on such responsibility. The only solution is to go to the district women’s clinic. Generally, let’s go for an ultrasound. Maybe someone has already died.”

Boltneva made perhaps the most important decision of her life—to keep all the children. Something inside told her that everything would be fine, and each child would be born healthy. When the next ultrasound could show whom she was carrying under her heart, the doctor announced: “Okay. This is a boy. This is also a boy. Oh, you have three boys.” Maria admits that she was a little upset at first but then decided: there will be three bogatyrs.

The Birth of the Triplets

In the early stages, doctors repeatedly tried to persuade Boltneva to give up one child and then begged her to stay in the hospital under supervision. “Why did you keep the triplets?” one of the professors shouted. “Do you want to give birth to disabled people, people with cerebral palsy?! Have you gone mad? What are you thinking, mommy? You are at a critical stage.”

They asked her to stay in the hospital—she was wallpapering the nursery. The doctor called and begged her not to lift anything heavier than a teapot—the actress climbed a stepladder to hang curtains. Boltneva relied on her inner intuition, and it did not fail her. She decided not to return to Georgiy and rented an apartment that the theater agreed to pay for. Maria had her own home; all that was left was to wait for the birth of the children.

At the end of her pregnancy, Boltneva was hospitalized. On the day of the delivery, the doctor came and told her to prepare for the operation. “Let’s do it tomorrow. Today is the end of Scorpio,” Maria asked. “I would like the children to be born under the sign of Sagittarius…” They laughed: “No, this is not for us. You need to give birth under the guidance of Pavel Globa.”

As Boltneva had predicted, her sons were born healthy. During the operation, the actress was conscious; she was given local anesthesia. “I saw how they took out the babies. I kissed each one—wrinkled, with the umbilical cord still uncut. They all cried as they should, and I burst into tears,” Maria says.

Andrey, Timofey, and Platon soon settled in the nursery, which their brave mother had carefully arranged. At first, their grandmother came to help and taught Maria how to handle the children. Over time, the actress learned to do everything herself and with ease. Georgiy also helps, and his relatives are proud that three little miracles have appeared in the family at once. “Only a Siberian woman, Gosha, could give you such a gift—to give birth to three sons,” jokes Lezhava’s godmother. And Maria is indeed proud of herself, that with her 52 kilograms