The esteemed Russian ballet dancer, Vladimir Shklyarov, passed away at the age of 39 following a tragic accident.
Shklyarov fell from the fifth floor of a building on Saturday, Nov. 16, according to a spokesperson for the Mariinsky Theatre, who shared the news with the news outlet Fontanka over the weekend.
Anna Kasatkina, the spokesperson, revealed that Shklyarov had been taking painkillers for a back injury and was scheduled to undergo spinal surgery on Monday, Nov. 18.
While a federal investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident, the preliminary findings have been deemed an accident by the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
Born in St Petersburg in 1985, Shklyarov joined Mariinsky Theatre in 2003 and became its principal dancer – the highest-ranking position in a ballet company – in 2011.
The company described Shklyarov’s passing as a “huge loss.”
“Our condolences to the artist’s family, loved ones, friends and all the numerous admirers of his work and talent … he forever inscribed his name in the history of world ballet,” it said.
Throughout his 20-year career, Shklyarov starred in productions of Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote and Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice in Wonderland. He performed all over the world, including with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and the Royal Opera House in London.
In 2013 he married a fellow Mariinsky Theatre dancer, Maria Shirinkina, with whom he had two children.
Shklyarov expressed his opposition to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in a now-deleted Instagram post from March 2022, declaring his opposition to “all kinds of military actions.”
“It is impossible to watch everything that is happening today without tears,” Shklyarov wrote.
In contrast to Olga Smirnova, a star ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet who fled Russia and moved to Europe, Shklyarov continued performing in Russia and refrained from further commenting on the war.
Russian dancers paid tribute to Shklyarov after the news of his d£@th broke, with Irina Baranovskaya calling his d£@th “a stupid, unbearable accident” on Telegram.
Baranovskaya said Shklyarov “went out onto the balcony to get some air and smoke” and “lost his balance” on the “very narrow balcony”.
A Mariinsky dancer, Diana Vishneva, wrote: “This tragedy brings only tears and sadnesss … This is the tragedy for our theatre, our common grief, feeling of emptiness.”
“You were the favourite partner … My beautiful Romeo, my brave Prince in Cinderella.”
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