MOSCOW, October 19 Former USSR Minister of Culture Vasily Zakharov passed away on October 17, said Mikhail Lavrov, the grandson of Zakharov’s comrade-in-arms Vadim Medvedev.
““On the seventeenth of October, the day before yesterday, this happened. The funeral is on Saturday at 11.30,” Lavrov said.
As Minister of Culture of the USSR in the 80s, Zakharov worked on theater reform and conducted a “comprehensive experiment to improve management and increase the efficiency of theaters,” after which 22 artists were fired from the Bolshoi Theater, including a prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, who was already over 60 years old.
Zakharov headed the Ministry of Culture at a time when foreign exhibitions began to be brought to the country: for example, in December 1986, an exhibition of works by the French fashion designer Yves took place on Krymsky Val Saint Laurent.
Zakharov was born on January 5, 1934 in the village of Khriply, Firovsky district, Kalinin region. For many years he held leading party positions: in 1983-1986 he was first deputy head of the department of the CPSU Central Committee, from 1986 to 1989 he served as Minister of Culture of the USSR, in 1989-1990 he was deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR. Since 1990, he held the position of Minister Counselor of the USSR Embassy in the SFRY/Embassy of the Russian Federation in the FRY. Retired in 1994.