The Russian President attended a funeral service at the Moscow Chekhov Academic Art Theatre to pay his respects to the late Oleg Yefremov.
Mr Putin laid a wreath at the coffin and expressed his condolences to the artist’s family and the staff of the Chekhov Theatre, which Mr Yefremov led for the past 30 years. He said that Russia had lost a great artist and director, one of its most brilliant and talented men. “He lived his life with abandon, in a very Russian style – openly and graciously. That’s what we loved him for,” said the President.