Simonyan posts farewell video to Keosayan

At the end of last week, Tigran Keosayan passed away. He spent nine months in a hospital bed and died of acute heart failure, never regaining consciousness. His wife, Margarita Simonyan, is taking the producer’s death especially hard. At the farewell held on 28 September, the journalist was inconsolable. The weeping widow was supported under the arms, as she could barely move her legs. The pain of loss does not fade in a day, and Margarita Simonyan continues to say goodbye to her husband. She posted videos on her social media featuring previously unseen footage of Tigran Keosayan.

In one of the clips, Tigran Keosayan appears mostly in domestic, informal settings. He holds the belly of the pregnant Margarita Keosayan, gives away his eldest daughter, and has fun in the company of Andrei Grigoriev-Apollonov, Mikhail Shirvindt, and Dmitry Dibrov. But most of the shots are with his children and the two main women in Keosayan’s life — Margarita Simonyan and Alyona Khmelnitskaya.

In 2004, Tigran Keosayan had to choose between Khmelnitskaya and Simonyan. He was married to the actress at the time, but after seeing the journalist’s report from Beslan, he wrote her a few words of support. From that moment, a correspondence began between the director and his future second wife, which soon grew into a serious relationship.

«As so often happens, unexpectedly — and certainly uninvited — it turned out that we couldn’t live without each other. That we needed to see each other daily, exchange messages every minute, hold hands even when we weren’t side by side,» Simonyan later said in an interview.

In the second video, the journalist focused more on Keosayan’s work. In the footage, the director jokes with actors, dances between takes, and discusses workflows. There isn’t a single shot in which Keosayan looks downcast.

There was room for family life in this video too. Keosayan plays piano with the children, dances with his little girls, and looks happy in Margarita Simonyan’s embrace.

«I love you to tears. Every time like the first time,» the director sings in one clip, putting his arm around his wife’s shoulders.

The video ends with clips from the show «Mezhdunarodnaya pilorama» (18+), which Keosayan hosted until he fell into a coma.

«Please take care of yourselves and those for whom you are responsible. “Mezhdunarodnaya pilorama” will not air today,» the director says in the video.