Театральный институт имени Бориса Щукина
In 1962 Gulaya entered acting courses at the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute which she finished in 1964. Around the same time she married Gennady Shpalikov, one of the most renowned Russian poets and screenwriters of the Khrushchev Thaw. In 1963 she gave birth to their daughter Daria Shpalikova who also grew to become a theater actress and who performed in several perestroika movies in minor roles before becoming mentally ill.