This year, Surai Muradova would have turned 109 years old. She is one of the first national actresses of the Turkmen theater and cinema. Born at the beginning of the last century. Her fate is in many ways typical and similar to the life and work of many representatives of the first wave of the creative intelligentsia of Turkmenistan. She grew up without a father, in early childhood she studied and was brought up in a boarding school, she began her working biography at the age of thirteen.

- My grandmother Yazdursun raised five children. Two of them - sisters Surai and Sona, - recalls the daughter of the actress, now Honored Art Worker of Turkmenistan, senior lecturer at the National Institute of Culture Maral Kakabaevna Durdyeva - devoted themselves to serving art and both became wonderful actresses.

And the sisters were born near Ashgabat in the village of Herrikkala, today it is the Rukhabad etrap (district). They had a difficult difficult childhood. In addition to them, the family included sisters Enedzhan, Nabat and brother Niyazmyrat. It was beyond the power of the family to raise five families at once. The earnings of the mother, who worked as an ordinary seller, did not allow her to feed and clothe her children. So Suray and Sona ended up in the boarding school for girls named after Ene Kulieva. After graduation, the sisters continued their studies at the Pedagogical College. During their studies, they first became acquainted with theatrical art, participating in a drama club, where their acting talent was also discovered.

Surai was older and came to the theater immediately after graduating from a technical school. Sister Sona did not immediately make the decision to become an actress, at first she wanted to study music and singing.

Mom was a subtle and sensitive person, - says Maral Kakabaevna. - As they would now describe her, more domestic, which subsequently affected and manifested itself in the characters played by her, many theatrical and film heroines.

Surai acquired her first theatrical knowledge and experience at the National Drama Studio, which was organized by the People's Commissariat of Education in 1926. At that time, she was barely thirteen years old. Future celebrities of the national art – A. Kulmamedov, K. Kherraev, H. Shahberdiyev and others – also worked in the same studio at that time. All together, when on a cart, when by other pack transport, the artistic brigades of the studio, which included young Surai, traveled around the villages, performed before the population. Such were the everyday life of the first artists of the republic.

Three years later, a Turkmen theater was created on the basis of the studio, now the Turkmen Drama Theater named after Mollanepes. In the first years of his work, the graduates of the Ashgabat Art College and amateur art participants joined the troupe. The theater staged plays by contemporary authors, works of emerging national drama and world classics

Over time, Suray's sister Sona joined the artistic troupe. Here, in the theater, Surai also found her family happiness by marrying the actor Kakabay Durdyev.

Directors and theater critics, referring to the stage works of Surai Muradova, noted the vivid emotionality and sharpness of the transfer of the inner worldview of the roles she performed. Among them were Shakhukhuban (“Zohre and Takhir” by Amanov), Jeren and Maral (“The Shepherd’s Son”, “Silver Cigarette Case” by Mukhtarov and Seyitliev), Anna Andreevna (“Rezizor”), Khonzoda (“Bai and Laborer” by Khamza), Orazsoltan (“Fate” by Deryaev) and many others.

Creativity of Surai Muradova was duly appreciated by the state. She is the People's Artist of Turkmenistan, laureate of the Magtymguly State Prize. Surai Muradova devoted a significant part of her life to serving her people, her native theater, creating on the stage and on the movie screen female images of various times, which in her performance were always convincing, exciting and unforgettable.

The life of Surai Muradova is a theater school, the history of the Turkmen theater, which is now being studied by her followers - students of the National Institute of Culture.