To date, Margarita Simonyan has managed to achieve success in work history and personal life. She gave birth to two children, received a number of government awards, and was recognized as one of the most influential women Russia and the world. And this is far from full list achievements of a 38-year-old television journalist whose childhood was harsh.
Biography
Margarita was born on April 6, 1980. She characterizes the region of Krasnodar, where the future journalist spent her childhood, as a ghetto. Living conditions in the old house where the family lived until 1990, they were simply terrible. The salary of the father, a polytechnic graduate who had to repair refrigerators, and the mother’s part-time work provided the family with a half-starved existence, but the parents tried to give their daughters a good education.
The eldest, Margarita, turned out to be gifted, and the desire to escape from poverty only gave her strength. She learned to read back in kindergarten, was one of the best students in the school with advanced study of English.
Under an exchange program for high school students, Margarita went to the USA, where she graduated from high school, but to receive higher education returned to Russia. She studied journalism in her native Krasnodar, and studied television skills at the capital's Pozner school. Her professional career also began in Kuban.
Margarita Simonyan and Tatyana NavkaA television
The first stage of Margarita Simonyan’s work biography was the work of a correspondent for the Krasnodar TV and Radio Broadcasting Company; after some time, the young journalist was entrusted with editing the information programs of this company. After her appointment to the VGTRK media holding, Margarita moved to Rostov-on-Don.
At the turn of the millennium, the girl prepared a number of military reports on the Chechen conflict, and in 2001 she talked about the events in the Kodori Gorge. Third hot spot her career as a war reporter began in Beslan, where hostages were taken in 2004. By that time, Margarita was already a special correspondent for Vesti, working in Moscow.
Margarita in the studio of radio "Echo of Moscow" At the time of the founding of the English-language television channel RT (Russia Today), Margarita was only 25. The creators of the channel did not want to trust it to a person accustomed to the format of Soviet news; a fundamentally new approach was needed. They considered the best candidate for the post of editor-in-chief to be a young, talented journalist who had already received a number of professional and state awards.
Now Margarita Simonovna combines this position with the responsibilities of the editor-in-chief of MIA Rossiya Segodnya and its subsidiary agency Sputnik.
The journalist is the editor-in-chief of the RT television channel. In 2011-13, Margarita acted as a presenter:
- analytical news program “What’s happening?”;
- political talk show "Iron Ladies".
Both television programs were not to the liking of television reviewers. In their opinion, the program “What’s going on?” Simonyan led as if in Soviet times, resorting to the same style of propaganda. And for the show “Iron Ladies,” they and Tina Kandelaki, who was the co-host, were called “kitchen gossips.”
Margarita Simonyan and Tina Kandelaki In addition to working on TV, Margarita starred in one feature film and one documentary film, wrote books and scripts. For Margarita Simonyan, the cinematic turn of her biography turned out to be closely connected with her personal life, because films based on both of her scripts were directed by Tigran Keosayan.
Personal life
At the age of 12, Margarita categorically told her parents that she was not going to get married. The fate of a downtrodden, powerless housewife, exhausted by everyday chores, did not appeal to her. Immediately after school, the ambitious girl focused on building a career; she did not have enough time for her personal life. Starting a family was not part of her plans, although she periodically began short-term romances without obligations.
The longest and serious relationship they connected her with her colleague Andrei Blagodyrenko. In an interview in 2012, Margarita called Andrei her common-law husband and emphasized that they had been together for 6 years.
Margarita often appeared in Tigran’s company, but no one suspected their connection When Margarita Simonyan became a mother twice, fans interested in the details of her biography and personal life were surprised to learn that the father of both of the journalist’s children was Tigran Keosayan.
Photos of them together appeared on the Internet several times, but many thought that the journalist and director had only a professional relationship.
In 2012, Tigran gave Margarita a small role in his film “Three Comrades,” and in 2013 he directed the first film based on her script. The director was offended by criticism of a pretty woman of Armenian descent, and he wrote to her on Facebook with words of support. The correspondence was followed by a personal meeting, and they soon became very close.
Margarita and ex-wife Tigran Keosayan Alena Khmelnitskaya Margarita's first pregnancy turned out to be unplanned, there was a threat of miscarriage, and the woman decided to rely on fate. In August 2013, her daughter Maryana was born, and a little over a year later, a son, who was named Bagrat. Margarita is not yet going to formalize the relationship with their father, although he has already divorced his first wife, Alena Khmelnitskaya.
Margarita Simonyan has a blog on LiveJournal and a page on Facebook, but she practically does not post her own photos there and does not share biographical facts or events from her personal life. More interesting information can be gleaned from interviews and media publications:
- Margarita received her first job by accident, thanks to a collection of poems published at the age of 18. Local television decided to film a story about the young poetess, and she admitted that she dreams of working on TV and received an invitation to an internship;
- on the eve of the Olympics, Margarita, with the support of her husband, opened a restaurant near her grandmother’s house in Sochi, now it has fallen into disrepair due to its unfortunate location;
- the children of Margarita and Tigram already speak five languages;
- Margarita developed friendly relations with Tigran’s first wife. Khmelnitskaya starred in the film “Actress”, directed by Keosayan and scripted by Simonyan.
Margarita does not publish photos of her children Margarita Simonyan now
Now Margarita Simonyan continues to lead RT and Rossiya Segodnya, and is part of public Council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, with the help of her common-law husband and grandmothers, she raises children. During presidential elections 2018 was Putin's confidant.
Margarita Simonyan is part of a team of people close to Putin One of latest news linked to Margarita's April Facebook post. She called an ambulance to the sick children and shared her impressions of the visit to the doctors’ house: these are poor people in front of whom you feel involuntary shame for your wealth. The phrase “It’s as if I stole it all” spread across the Internet and caused a wave of ironic comments, since Simonyan’s jingoistic propaganda activities, which are financed from the budget, are considered by many to be the same as theft.
Speech by Margarita Simonyan in the Federation Council Fresh posts by the journalist regularly appear on LiveJournal, which anyone can read.
One day Tigran Keosayan wrote to Margarita Simonyan on Facebook: “Hello, Margarita! This is Tigran Keosayan. I have long liked you as a journalist and fellow tribesman. Now I was driving in the car and listening to how you were being bullied on the radio, I couldn’t stand it, I decided to support and write.”
Margarita Simonyan at first did not believe that it was really Keosayan. She saw him on TV in a cooking show where he was cooking scrambled eggs and tomatoes. Margarita answered him, exchanged phone numbers, met, had lunch. Apparently, we had lunch so deliciously that we wanted to have more lunch. Yes, and have dinner. Gradually overgrown general topics, interests, friends, some projects.
« And suddenly it turned out that it’s impossible to live without each other - that you need to see each other every day, correspond every minute, hold hands even when you’re not around"recalls Simonyan.
« In general, all the most beautiful things in my life literally fall from the sky. But what I work on long and hard either doesn’t happen at all, or happens when it’s no longer necessary.", the journalist adds. Her career is the position of chief editor of an international television channel and chief news agency country - also developed unexpectedly. She never aspired to become a big boss, quite the contrary. I have always wanted to write books, from childhood, as long as I can remember.
Tigran Keosayan taught Margarita to write scripts. Now, in traffic jams and at night, she writes scripts for films and TV series - sometimes under her own name, sometimes under a pseudonym. This is how Simonyan relaxes. " Not to mention the fact that it pays very well - definitely more than my salary at Russia Today", clarifies Keosayan's chosen one.
She writes not only for Tigran. Together they made three TV series and just made a movie. Their comedy “The Sea. Mountains. Expanded clay" was successfully broadcast on Channel One. This December on NTV there will be a premiere of the psychological thriller “Actress”, another work that they created together with Tigran and Alena Khmelnitskaya.
Margarita wrote the script, Tigran directed, and Alena played one of the main female roles. The whole group watched their trio with caution and admiration - how people manage to maintain good relationships.
Margarita was born in Krasnodar, which in the eighties was an abandoned province. The family lived between the station and the market; they had a shack without any amenities. " My parents are purebred Armenians, while we have absolutely Russian family. Father was born and raised in Sverdlovsk, and mother in Sochi"says Simonyan. Most of Her relatives still live in Adler.
Simonyan never dreamed of television. She was going to write beautiful articles for various magazines. In 1998, Margarita graduated from her first year, and she published a collection of poems; the Krasnodar television company also took her on as an internship. Leaving for Chechnya to the front line in the bloody and crazy December 1999, when Grozny was just being surrounded, for the first time in her life Simonyan deceived her parents.
After Chechnya, Margarita was noticed in Moscow. She became a freelance correspondent for several federal TV channels. Her father bought her a shabby Oka, which was already ten years old, and he and the operator drove around in this car all over the south of Russia, Crimea, Abkhazia, Kalmykia and Ossetia, getting their reports.
In her third year, when Simonyan was not yet twenty-one years old, the RTR channel - now called “Russia” - entrusted her with heading its news desk. " I was twenty-two when Dobrodeev, the general director of the Rossiya TV channel, called and asked: “Choose, will you go to New York or Moscow?” Of course, I chose Moscow. I immediately got into the presidential pool - it was a real “dream come true”"recalls Simonyan.
At twenty-five, Margarita was appointed editor-in-chief of Russia Today, which did not exist then: she had to launch from scratch the first Russian international 24-hour news channel on English language. Your first New Year in this capacity she celebrated at work.
Simonyan, in general, from her early youth actually lived only by work. She never wanted to get married; she put off thoughts about children until after she was thirty. " When romances happened, I immediately honestly told my boyfriend that it wasn’t serious and most likely not for long - I just didn’t have time", the journalist recalls.
« It seemed to me that married woman- an unhappy and downtrodden creature: she was “blessed” with a white veil so that she would clean, wash, cook and endure her husband’s infidelities. However, by the time I was thirty I had already had long and quite family relationships- with a common life, ficus and plans for the future, but I didn’t plan to get married even then", adds Margarita.
Then a tsunami named Keosayan burst into her “understandable life.” " Tigran and I tried many times to stop everything - no one wanted to hurt loved ones. But it didn't work out. The first time we separated “forever” was for a whole day, the last time was for twenty minutes." says Margarita.
Simonyan lived in a small cozy house, bought with a mortgage, in a wonderful village that had only one drawback - it was located sixty-three kilometers from the Moscow Ring Road. " When Tigran arrived for the first time, he asked why I didn’t have curtains. Margarita remembers. - She answered: “Because I haven’t saved up for the ones I want yet.”" Keosayan was shocked. In his mind, the head of a major international media outlet could not have such problems. He moved to live with her in this house without curtains.
« Why do you say that you live near Moscow? You live near Volokolamsk!” - Tigran joked, making his way to Margarita’s house in his luxurious Maserati. He, of course, left the mansion in Barvikha to Alena and their common children. Having already moved to Simonyan, he stopped there every morning before work to have breakfast with his youngest daughter Ksyusha, and only then went to Mosfilm. Margarita categorically supported this. She even insisted if he was tired and wanted to sleep longer.
Tigran stopped going to Barvikha every morning only when Alena got a new common law husband, Sasha. So as not to create awkwardness. Ksyusha spends weekends with them; she is friends with Margarita’s children. Tigran took only his father's portraits and books from his house. And after the divorce Alena remains true friend and a loved one, and to his daughters - a loving father.
« When I found out that I was pregnant, I was in shock and cried for three months. Motherhood happened despite precautions, but there was an almost one hundred percent threat of miscarriage. The doctors said: “If you want to carry it out, go to bed for conservation, we will inject hormones.”"says Simonyan.
Margarita decided that she would not fight either for or against her pregnancy: as God willed, so it would happen. As a result, Maryasha settled down. Five months after her first birth, Simonyan became pregnant with Bagrat. This time I wasn’t worried, I was happy. " Pregnancy was very easy for me, both times I felt better than when I was not pregnant: I slept little, worked hard and vigorously, not a day of toxicosis, gave birth the first time in two and a half hours, the second in one and a half hours. However, motherhood is still the hardest thing I've ever done.", admitted Margarita.
I spent a month on maternity leave with Maryasha Simonyan, but still sorted everything out by phone and mail. I didn’t sit with Bagrat at all. After leaving the maternity hospital, the journalist took her son home and went to work - she was just undergoing an audit by the Accounts Chamber.
In general, the famous journalist is also an anxious mother, but she tries not to show this to her children. Several times a day he always calls his grandmothers at home. Although he knows his children’s schedule every minute, and theirs is spartan: swimming, languages, yoga, drawing by the hour, Maryasha has dancing, Bagrat has Thai boxing. And their diet is spartan, they still haven’t tried sweets and cakes, so they are absolutely indifferent to sweets and happily nibble on celery. Any cakes can be on the table - children are not drawn to them because they do not perceive them as food, rather as decoration. They eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, cereals, meat, and seafood.
Tigran is a much stricter parent than Margarita. Raises children immediately as adults, especially only son. And he is three years old, he still doesn’t understand when dad says that “I need to apologize for throwing an apple on the floor,” he looks at dad with surprised eyes and smiles. However, Tigran, in Margarita’s opinion, is also strict with his daughters. But he also fools around with them, sings funny songs that he makes up himself, and tells tall tales.
Simonyan says she is a fan preschool education and got infected with it from Tatyana Yumasheva, Yeltsin’s daughter. Maryasha and Bagrat speak five languages: Russian, Armenian, English, French and Chinese. Teachers who are native speakers come to them every day. For children it's just a game, they don't even know that they are learning. They sculpt, draw, walk, sing, watch cartoons - it all just happens on different languages.
« I would not want my children to study abroad. For selfish reasons. They will already master languages by the first grade, and living with them in different countries I’m not ready for them to grow up as carriers of a culture that is foreign to me. I am not a person of the world, I am very attached to my native places and I want my children to be nearby too. We have seen many families where parents are perplexed as to why their child grew up strange, incomprehensible, some kind of arrogant English aristocrat or an equally arrogant Swiss socialist. And the heir was sent to London to college at the age of twelve - how should he grow up?", says Margarita.
Tigran did not object eldest daughter, when she wanted to study at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, but had a terrible time all these years. By the end, he and Alena were already very angry with themselves for having sent their daughter to the other side of the world with their own hands. Luckily for them, she didn’t stay there. I received my diploma and returned. Now the smart and beautiful Sasha works with her father, she was the second director on his new film, the plot of which unfolds against the backdrop of the construction of the Crimean Bridge.
The summer before last, at Ksyusha’s birthday—she was turning six—Margarita met Alena. A few days before the holiday, Tigran said: “ Alena invites us to come all together. -Of course, take the children and go with them. - You did not understand. She wants to see you too».
Margarita thought that Tigran, in his directorial absent-mindedness, had misunderstood something. I asked him for Alenin’s number and wrote to her: “ Alena, hello! Tigran said that you are waiting for us all together. This is true? I don’t want to put anyone in an awkward position, especially on children's party
" Alena replied: “ C'mon! Come! There won't be any problems. Let's have great fun».
About forty guests gathered. It was just wonderful. Margarita and Alena both took a glass when the children had already been taken away and sat together until the morning. Tigran could not stand it, fell asleep on the lawn, periodically woke up and whined: “ Girls, maybe that's enough? Oh please! I want to go home!»
At the holiday Margarita and Alena made joint photo and posted it on the Internet with the caption “ High relationship». « She is charming, very kind, smart, open - not to mention a phenomenal beauty. We have nothing to share: Alena is happy, I am happy, Tigran is happy. And thank God", Margarita admits.
Margarita and Tigran do not hang out and rarely go to premieres or events. And they hardly go to visit - they receive friends at home. On Sundays they often serve tables of fifteen courses, Margarita loves it very much. Of course, both mothers and their au pair help her. Maryasha is already helping to cook too. I learned how to cut cucumbers with a small child’s knife, and I’m terribly proud of it.
« Looking at my children, I am convinced that people are born with a certain set of traits. Maryana is as ambitious as I was. At four years old, she cries for half a day if she fails to read a word or recite a poem by heart. A three year old son It doesn't bother me at all. They sit down at the table, Maryasha shouts: “I am the first, because I was born first!” - Okay, I'm second.", Bagrat smiles.
On the first of January, Keosayan and Simonyan always have “khash” open doors" All night long, Margarita and her mother and mother-in-law cook this famous Armenian anti-hangover dish from boiled beef hooves. To be honest, the khash mostly cooks itself, but they keep an eye on it. All friends know that they can come to them without special invitation, starting at one o'clock in the afternoon. This is how it was in the house of Margarita’s parents, this is how it was in the house of Tigran’s parents, and now this is how it is with them.
Tigran, of course, pampers his wife, accustoming her to expensive things and five-star hotels. When they met, Margarita was already over thirty, she had long been a big boss with a good salary, but everything was scattered into mortgages, loans, and numerous relatives.
« I will never forget his first gift. I liked the bag famous brand, not prohibitively expensive, but still wastefully expensive for me. Passing by the boutique, I admired her in the window. One day Tigran caught my eye: “Do you like this bag?”", says the journalist.
Tigran bought it on the sly and gave it to his wife. " So, like a child, I slept with her for several days - I laid her on the pillow, I could not take my eyes off her. I still wear it", recalls Margarita.
Keosayan and Simonyan have not yet registered their relationship; they simply don’t get around to it. " We were recently joking about this topic at home Margarita tells the “Caravan of Stories” - decided that we would probably get married when the children grew up, so that we could sit down at a common table with our parents and have a drink homemade wine from the grapes planted by my grandfather, eat dolma according to Tigran’s mother’s recipe and say: “What great fellows you are, ancestors, for once deciding on all this!»
The editor-in-chief of the Russia Today TV channel spoke frankly about her family
Elena LANKINA
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I once read on Facebook: “Hello, Margarita! This is Tigran Keosayan. I have long liked you as a journalist and fellow tribesman. Now I was driving in the car and listening to how you were being bullied on the radio, I couldn’t stand it, I decided to support and write that I still remember your reports from Beslan...”
That’s how I found out that, firstly, I was being bullied somewhere, and secondly, Tigran Keosayan himself was already interested in my fate. At first I didn’t believe that it was really Keosayan - you never know how many fakes are on the Internet. Why would a famous director write to me? We don’t know each other, I don’t act in films and I don’t make films. I saw him on TV in a cooking show, where he cooked scrambled eggs with tomatoes, placing a whole pod of hot red pepper in the center of the pan, just like Freud. I thought: “A man with humor, like his father.” I thought about it and forgot.
Keosayan turned out to be not a fake. I answered him, exchanged phone numbers, met and had lunch. Apparently, we had lunch so deliciously that we wanted to have more lunch. Yes, and have dinner. Gradually we acquired common themes, interests, friends, and some projects. As often happens, unexpectedly and certainly uninvited, it suddenly turned out that it was impossible to live without each other - that you need to see each other every day, correspond every minute, hold hands even when you’re not around. In general, all the most beautiful things in my life literally fall from the sky. And what I work on for a long time and diligently either does not happen at all, or happens when it is no longer necessary. The sandwich will definitely fall butter side down if I spread it myself. And if I haven’t even thought about a sandwich, then they will serve it to me on a silver platter and with caviar.
Purebred Russian Armenians
My parents are purebred Armenians, but our family is absolutely Russian. His father was born and raised in Sverdlovsk (later his parents moved to Krasnodar), his mother in Sochi. Even my great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers were born in Sochi. And my paternal ancestors are from Crimea, where they fled from the Turkish genocide at the beginning of the 20th century. Actually, where the territory of modern Armenia is now, we have never lived. Most of my relatives still live in Adler. Several years ago I opened a restaurant there, fulfilling a long-time family dream. This happened a couple of days before the start of the Sochi Olympics, and whoever dined with us during these fabulous two weeks: Dmitry Kozak, Konstantin Ernst, Oleg Deripaska, Mikhail Prokhorov, Andrei Malakhov, Yana Churikova... But the Olympics ended, the guests left, but the restaurant remained. It was built against the main rule of this business - not where there is high traffic, but right in the courtyard of my grandmother’s house, where my mother was born and raised, and now her sisters, nephews and, in fact, my grandmother live. The location is unfortunate - not in the mountains or by the sea, on an old highway that few people drive on now. In general, the restaurant has withered away, we are now trying to rent out the building.
My parents speak Armenian, but in different dialects. These are almost different languages. Tigran cannot communicate with my relatives, he does not understand them, although he knows Armenian quite well. But I don’t speak it at all, and before I met Tigran, I had only been to Armenia once, on a two-day business trip as part of the presidential pool. However, I can cook excellent khashlama, play a decent game of backgammon and dance passably to Armenian music.
“You live not near Moscow, but near Volokolamsk”
In general, from my early youth I actually lived only by work. I never wanted to get married; I put off thoughts about children until after I was thirty. When affairs happened, I immediately honestly told my boyfriend that it was not serious and, most likely, not for long - I simply did not have time. Actually I have complicated attitude to marriage: at the age of 12 I told my parents that I would never get married. Mom choked on her mint tea in amazement. Apparently, the fact is that as a child I did not see happy married couples. It seemed to me that a married woman was an unhappy and downtrodden creature: she was “blessed” with a white veil so that she could clean, wash, cook and endure her husband’s infidelities. However, by the time I was 30, I already had a long and completely family relationship - with a common life, a ficus tree and plans for the future, but I didn’t intend to get married even then. Then a tsunami named Keosayan burst into my ficus trees and into my understandable life. Tigran and I tried many times to stop everything - no one wanted to hurt loved ones. But it didn't work out. The first time we parted “forever” for a whole day, the last time - for 20 minutes.
I lived in a small cozy house, bought with a mortgage, in a wonderful village that had only one drawback - it was located 63 kilometers from the Moscow Ring Road. When Tigran arrived for the first time, he asked why I didn’t have curtains. She answered: “Because I haven’t saved up for the ones I want yet.” Keosayan was shocked. In his mind, the head of a major international media outlet could not have such problems. He moved to live with me in this house without curtains. “Why do you say that you live near Moscow? You live near Volokolamsk!” - Tigran joked, making his way into my hole in his luxurious Maserati. He, of course, left the mansion in Barvikha to Alena (actress Alena Khmelnitskaya, ex-wife - Ed.) and their common children. Having already moved in with me, he went there every morning before work to have breakfast with his youngest daughter Ksyusha, and only then went to Mosfilm. I categorically supported this. She even insisted if he was tired and wanted to sleep longer. Tigran stopped going to Barvikha every morning only when Alena had a new common-law husband, Sasha. So as not to create awkwardness. Well, imagine, he wakes up, goes into the kitchen, and Alenin’s ex-husband is at the table.
Little shrimp Maryasha
When I found out that I was pregnant, I was in shock and cried for three months. Motherhood happened despite precautions, but there was an almost one hundred percent threat of miscarriage. The doctors said: “If you want to carry it out, go to bed for conservation, we will inject hormones.” I decided that I would not fight either for or against my pregnancy: as God wills, so it will happen. As a result, Maryasha took root, although at some point she almost left me, miraculously she “stuck” back, my little shrimp. At first she slept in a crib, taking a shrimp pose. Five months after my first birth, I became pregnant with Bagrat. This time I wasn’t worried, I was happy. Pregnancy was very easy for me, both times I felt better than when I was not pregnant: I slept little, worked hard and vigorously, not a day of toxicosis, gave birth the first time in two and a half hours, the second in one and a half hours.
However, motherhood is still the most difficult thing I have ever done. I spent a month on maternity leave with Maryasha - if you can call it that, since I still sorted everything out by phone and mail. I didn’t sit with Bagrat at all. After leaving the maternity hospital, I took my son home and went to work - I was just undergoing an audit by the Accounts Chamber. In general, I am an anxious mother, but I try not to show this to my children. Several times a day I make sure to call my grandmothers at home. Although I know my children’s schedule every minute, and theirs is spartan: swimming, languages, yoga, drawing by the hour, Maryasha has dancing, Bagrat has Thai boxing. And their diet is spartan, they still haven’t tried sweets and cakes, so they are absolutely indifferent to sweets and happily nibble on celery. Any cakes can be on the table - children are not drawn to them because they do not perceive them as food, rather as decoration. They eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, cereals, meat, and seafood. Every morning begins with Bagrat’s question: “Mom, when will we eat crayfish?” “No, not crayfish, but mussels!” - Maryasha answers. Tigran is a much stricter parent than me. Raises children immediately as adults, especially her only son. And he is three years old, he still does not understand the concept of “you need to apologize for throwing an apple on the floor,” he looks at his dad with surprised eyes and smiles.
Children speak five languages
I am a fan of preschool education, I got it from Tatyana Yumasheva, Yeltsin’s daughter. Once upon a time, she told me how her daughter, by the age of six, had effortlessly mastered several languages. I immediately decided that I would try the same with mine. Maryasha and Bagrat speak five languages: Russian, Armenian, English, French and Chinese. Teachers who are native speakers come to them every day. For children it's just a game, they don't even know that they are learning. They sculpt, draw, walk, sing, watch cartoons - it’s just that all this happens in different languages. And in the evening, that same uncle of mine, whom I and my wife long ago moved from their communal apartment to our house with Tigran, communicates with his great-nephews in Armenian. I would not want my children to study abroad. For selfish reasons. They will already master the languages by first grade, but I am not ready to live with them in different countries so that they grow up as carriers of a culture that is foreign to me. I am not a person of the world, I am very attached to my native places and I want my children to be nearby too.
Tigran did not object to his eldest daughter when she wanted to study at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, but he was terribly worried all these years. By the end, he and Alena were already very angry with themselves for having sent their daughter to the other side of the world with their own hands. Luckily for them, she didn’t stay there. I received my diploma and returned. Now the smart and beautiful Sasha works with her father, she was the second director on his new film, the plot of which unfolds against the backdrop of the construction of the Crimean Bridge.
“Girls, that’s enough! I want to go home!"
The summer before last, at Ksyusha’s birthday - she turned six - I met Alena. A few days before the holiday, Tigran said: “Alena invites us to come all together.” - “Of course, take the children and go with them.” - "You did not understand. She wants to see you too.”
I thought that Tigran, in his directorial absent-mindedness, misunderstood something. I asked him for Alena’s number and wrote to her: “Alena, hello! Tigran said that you are waiting for us all together. This is true? I don’t want to put anyone in an awkward position, especially at a children’s party.” Alena replied: “Come on! Come! There won't be any problems. We'll have a lot of fun."
About forty guests gathered. It was just wonderful. Alena and I both took a glass when the children had already been taken away and sat together until the morning. Tigran couldn’t stand it, fell asleep on the lawn, woke up periodically and whined: “Girls, maybe that’s enough? Oh please! I want to go home!" We hissed: “Sleep! Let me talk!”
At the celebration, they took a photo together with Alena and posted it on the Internet with the caption “High relationships.” She is charming, very kind, smart, open - not to mention a phenomenal beauty. We have nothing to share: Alena is happy, I am happy, Tigran is happy. And thank God.
"Open Door Hash"
On the first of January we always have an “open door hash”. All night my mother and mother-in-law cook this famous Armenian anti-hangover dish from boiled beef hooves. To be honest, the khash mostly cooks itself, but we keep an eye on it. All friends know that they can come to us without a special invitation starting at one o'clock in the afternoon...
Tigran, of course, spoils me, accustoms me to expensive things and five-star hotels. When we met, I was already over thirty, I had long been a big boss with a good salary, but everything was scattered into mortgages, loans, and numerous relatives. I will never forget his first gift. I liked a bag from a well-known brand, not prohibitively expensive, but still wastefully expensive for me. Passing by the boutique, I admired her in the window. One day Tigran caught my eye: “Do you like this bag?” - “No, I’m just looking around...” He quietly bought it and gave it to me. So, like a child, I slept with her for several days - I laid her on the pillow, I could not take my eyes off her. I still wear it to this day. Anticipating the question of why we haven’t registered the relationship yet, I answer: we simply don’t get around to it. Besides, I and my stubborn masculine character I still don’t really understand the girl’s story about White dress and a veil. We were recently joking about this topic at home - we decided that we would probably get married when the children grow up, so that we could sit down at a common table with our parents, drink homemade wine from grapes planted by my grandfather, eat dolma according to Tigran’s mother’s recipe and say: “ What great fellows you are, ancestors, for once deciding on all this!”
BEHIND THE SCENES
The series "Actress" was born from a nightmare
Thanks to Tigran, I taught you how to write scripts. I had never seen them before we met. Now, in traffic jams and at night, I write scripts for films and TV series - sometimes under my own name, sometimes under a pseudonym. This is how I relax. Not to mention the fact that it pays very well - definitely more than my salary at Russia Today.
I write not only for Tigran. Together we made three TV series and just shot a movie. Our comedy “Sea. Mountains. Expanded clay" with great success aired on Channel One.
This December, NTV hosted the premiere of the psychological thriller “Actress,” another work that we created together with Tigran and Alena Khmelnitskaya. I wrote the script, Tigran directed, and Alena played one of the main female roles. The whole group watched our trio with caution and admiration - how people manage to maintain good relationships.
I dreamed about the plot of the detective story - I woke up from a nightmare in a cold sweat and realized that I couldn’t sleep until I wrote it down.
Tigran at first did not think about filming it; he believed that this was absolutely not his genre. But, having read the script, he saw in it not only a detective story, but also something that interested him: a story about people who don’t know how their neighbors and even their own children live, about how we close ourselves in tight cases, and then we are surprised, there is so much evil and vice around.
Full text in the magazine “Caravan of Stories” or on the website 7days.ru
ON THIS TOPIC
“It’s scary to imagine what the American senators will say when this photograph is “declassified” to them. I beg you, just don’t rush. Let’s keep the intrigue,” wrote Maria Zakharova.
After publication, the photo began to be actively discussed in in social networks. “Why do I respect the Lavrov-Zakharov tandem? They can send n**** so politically competent that obscene language simply rests here!” – commented on the post official representative MFA Mikhail Petukhov. “As in the declassified photograph, Margarita points up and to the right, and there, if anyone remembers Soviet maps of the world, is Alaska. A very alarming signal for the West,” joked Alexander Pokryshkin.
The ministry's spokesperson posted a photo in response to Senator Jeanne Shaheen's speech. Earlier, she brought to the meeting a large-format photograph of Vladimir Putin and Margarita Simonyan, allegedly obtained from a declassified American intelligence report. “This photo shows what I think is happening with RT,” Jean said.
It is noteworthy that this photograph is in open access. It was taken in 2015 at an event dedicated to the tenth anniversary of RT. Margarita Simonyan herself joked about Jean Shaheen’s performance. “Chief, everything is gone! RT is everywhere! Even I worry less about RT and Sputnik than American senators,” RIA Novosti quotes her.
Earlier, Maria Zakharova wrote on the social network Facebook that the senator “is not the first time to be stupid,” but this time she “outdid herself.” The representative of the department also noted that Margarita Simonyan has “tremendous charisma.” “Even two,” she joked.
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