Valeri Zolotukhin

On 5 March 2013 it was reported that Zolotukhin had been taken to the intensive care unit due to unknown illness. RBK mentioned that he had already resigned from his post and basically hadn't been working since December 2012 following his first hospitalization. He was later diagnosed with brain tumor.

In 2010 another internal conflict happened, also caused by Lyubimov's decision to move to a contract system. Finally he left the theatre, and the remaining actors chose Zolotukhin as the head of Taganka despite his health problems. He still managed the theatre both as a managing and artistic director and, according to Gubenko, released five or six new plays.

In 2007 he took part in the 5th State Duma elections as A Just Russia candidate, heading the Perm Krai regional group. After winning the race he passed his mandate to another party member Konstantin Beschetnov and left politics.

In addition to acting Zolotukhin also performed as a singer, wrote stories and read them from stage. He remained at the Taganka Theatre after the 1993 split, when a number of actors headed by Nikolai Gubenko left it following Lyubimov's plans to privatize the theatre and move to the contract system.

He was survived by his second wife, a violinist Tatiana Zolotukhina, his son from the first marriage to an actress Nina Shatskaya – Denis (b. 1969), an Orthodox priest, and Ivan (b. 2004) — his late son from an actress Irina Lindt. His only son from the second marriage, Sergei (b. 1979), committed suicide at the age of 27.

In 1965 Zolothukhin appeared in his first movie Package based on the children's novel by L. Panteleyev, in the leading part of a goofy Red Army soldier. In 1966 the film won Grand Prix at the Zlatá Praha International Television Festival (Czechoslovakia). But real fame came to Zolothukhin only in 1971 after the Bumbarash TV movie where he played a similar goofy soldier. The actor has been closely associated with the Bumbarash character ever since.

In 1963 Zolothukhin graduated from the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts, the faculty of musical theater, and entered the Mossovet Theatre where he served for a year. In 1964 he moved to the newly established Taganka Theatre under Yuri Lyubimov where he spent the rest 50 years, taking part in many plays. He was a close friend of Vladimir Vysotsky and regularly performed alongside him, both on stage and in movies. He later published several books of memoirs about their friendship and Taganka Theatre in general.

Valeri Sergeevich Zolotukhin (Russian: Валерий Сергеевич Золотухин, 21 June 1941 – 30 March 2013) was a Soviet and Russian stage and cinema actor who performed at the Taganka Theatre which he also headed between 2011 and 2013. He was named People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1987.