Colleagues, family recall Tigran Keosayan’s final days
Colleagues and relatives shared accounts of Tigran Keosayan’s final days and hospital vigil.
On Friday, 26 September, it became known that television host and husband of RT (formerly Russia Today) head Margarita Simonyan, Tigran Keosayan, had died. He passed away at the age of 60 without emerging from a coma. We provide more details in a live blog.
The cause of Keosayan’s death was not disclosed. In January 2025, the television host fell into a coma and survived clinical death. At the time, Margarita Simonyan noted that her husband had a heart condition. Health problems had become known as early as 2008, when he was hospitalized with an acute heart attack. Doctors performed stenting — inserting a device into an artery to widen the lumen and restore normal blood flow.
Keosayan’s relatives and colleagues in the television industry recalled what he was like as a person.
«Love conquers death»
Soviet and Russian theater and film actress, television and radio host Yana Poplavskaya said she regrets that Tigran Keosayan will not be able to raise his young children.
«Doctors are not gods, and God has His own design. I hope that thanks to our prayers he departed easily and that THEY will take into account how people pleaded for him, — Poplavskaya offered her condolences. — He was a very good father. May God grant Margarita health. I can’t imagine how hard this is for her now. But I know for sure that love conquers death. For a person who loves, there is no death».
People’s Artist of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) Aleksandr Zbruyev at first could not believe that Keosayan was gone. They worked together on the film «Poor Sasha», which the director shot.
«I would not like to say much. Because there is a tragedy in the family. I am simply very distressed that this happened. I sympathize and regret, — Zbruyev told Daily Storm, — about talented people who leave… I acted in his film “Poor Sasha”. We were in close contact. And for that film he received TEFI (Russian TV award), and I… no, I won’t talk about myself. And that is the highest honor! Blessed be his memory!»
«He often appeared in my dreams afterward»
Soviet and Russian pop-rock singer Igor Sarukhanov told MSK1.RU that he and Tigran Keosayan were close friends. Therefore, his death is a great loss for him.
«Practically all our youth passed together, — Sarukhanov recalled. — We worked together, created together, did creative work. A huge, great, intelligent, witty person is gone — a professional who loved his craft and knew it firsthand. A director with a capital D, whom we will miss very much».
Ballet artist Nikolai Tsiskaridze said he and Tigran Keosayan were very close friends. And he has known Keosayan’s wife — Margarita Simonyan — for more than 25 years.
«He had been ill for a long time and was in a coma. I visited him in the summer. And I was struck by the fact that he responded to my lines. I spoke with him for a very long time, and he blinked, tried to raise himself. It was the first time in my life I communicated with a close person in such a condition, and he often appeared in my dreams after that. It is hard to see a person in this state when you know him as very active, cheerful, very energetic», — Tsiskaridze told “360”.
A single video compiles key facts about Tigran Keosayan’s life and death.
Earlier, we published a feature on the complicated love story of Tigran Keosayan and Margarita Simonyan.
Recall that in September 2025 it became known about Margarita Simonyan’s illness. The journalist admitted that she had undergone surgery and that she is fighting cancer. We published a detailed account of Tigran Keosayan’s life path in a separate feature.
