[1] The versatile and creative Munzuk was an actor, director, singer, collector of musical folklore, composer, and teacher.
Originally a musician in the military, Munzuk served as the commander of Tyva’s Artillery Regiment orchestra.
He founded the Tuvan musical-drama theatre in the 1930s and played a huge number of roles of the most varied characters.
[1] Akira Kurosawa picked Munzuk as the lead in his Soviet-financed epic Dersu Uzala (1975), along with Yury Solomin as writer-explorer Vladimir Arsenyev on whose 1923 book the film was based.
In 2004, the government of Tuva funded a prize for Best Actor named after Munzuk, awarded annually at a national competition; the same year, the Dersu Uzala Foundation was inaugurated, also named in Munzuk’s memory and intended to support Tuvinian artists.