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Legendary Russian theater, film director Mark Zakharov dies at 85

The cause of death was recurrent pneumonia

Mark Zakharov, the artistic director of Moscow’s Lenkom Theater Mikhail Tereshchenko/TASS

Mark Zakharov, the artistic director of Moscow’s Lenkom Theater

© Mikhail Tereshchenko/TASS

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/. Mark Zakharov, the artistic director of Moscow’s Lenkom Theater and a renowned film director, died in Moscow on Saturday at the age of 85, Lenkom’s Managing Director Mark Varshaver told TASS.

Varshaver said that the cause of death was recurrent pneumonia.

"Mark Zakharov passed away today following a lengthy illness. The last of the Mohicans has died," Varshaver said.

"Over the past ten days, Mark Zakharov was at the Shumakov Federal Research Center of Transplantology and Artificial Organs," he added. "The cause of death was recurrent pneumonia."

"Most of the theater group are on a tour in St. Petersburg," he added, but noted that King’s Games directed by Zakharov would be on at the theater on Saturday night.

"Life must go on," he concluded.

Later in the day, Varshaver told TASS that Zakharov, whose productions have been loved by several generations of Russians, would be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to the graves of some other Russian famous actors.

Mark Zakharov was born in Moscow on October 13, 1933. In 1973, he headed Moscow’s Lenin Komsomol Theater (known as Lenkom since 1990). During his 45-year-long career, he put on more than 40 stage productions. Most of them have become iconic. As a film director, he was widely acclaimed in the country for his movies An Ordinary Miracle, The Very Same Munchhausen and Formula Of Love.

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