Nikolai Yakovlev was a dramatic actor, director, and educator. People's Artist of the USSR (1944). In 1893, he graduated from the Drama Courses at the Moscow Theatre School (class of Osip Pravdin) and joined the troupe of the Imperial Maly Theatre. That same year, he performed the role of King Charles in "The Maid of Orleans", transferred to the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, with Maria Yermolova in the title role. Yakovlev's professional development was profoundly influenced by Alexander Lensky, an actor, director, and teacher at the Theatre School. From 1895, Lensky actively engaged his former students in matinée performances at the Maly Theatre, and in 1898, when the branch venue — the New Theatre — opened, he headed its dramatic troupe of young artists, creating a repertoire based on works by Ostrovsky, Gogol, Shakespeare, and Beaumarchais. Performing in Lensky's productions and continuing his training on the professional stage, Yakovlev refined his acting technique, mastered the art of expressive stage speech, and absorbed the principles of the realist creative method championed by Lensky. From light vaudeville and comedic roles to characters of deep psychological complexity — such was the range of Yakovlev's work at the Maly Theatre: Kochkaryov ("Marriage"), Khlestakov and the Mayor ("The Government Inspector"), Karandyshev ("Without a Dowry"), Scapin ("The Cheats of Scapin"), Balmazinov ("Whatever You Look for, You'll Find" ("The Marriage of Balzaminov")), Figaro ("The Marriage of Figaro", "The Barber of Seville"), Nozdryov ("Dead Souls"), Lyubim Tortsov ("Poverty Is No Vice"), Kudryash and Tikhon ("The Storm"), Gorodulin and Mamayev ("Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man"), Vasily Shuisky ("Boris Godunov"), Rasplyuev ("Krechinsky's Wedding"), and Groznov ("Truth Is Good, But Happiness Is Better"). Yakovlev spent his entire career at the Maly Theatre. In addition to acting, he directed several productions: "Sin and Sorrow Are Common to All" (1910), "Two Dogs Fight, the Third Keep Away", "Whatever You Look for, You'll Find" ("The Marriage of Balzaminov") (1914), "Wolves and Sheep" (1916), "Jokers" (1917). He also taught at the Music and Drama School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society (renamed the Music and Drama Institute in 1918). The collection of the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum holds documents and posters related to Nikolai Yakovlev's creative activity, caricatures and sketches of the actor in role, postcards and photographs from the pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods, as well as gramophone records featuring scenes from Maly Theatre prerformances.