A Russian television chef exiled in London, who was openly opposed to the war, was reportedly found dead in a hotel room in Serbia.
Alexei Zimin, 52, owner of the Zima restaurant in Soho, is believed to have died during a trip to Belgrade.
He had not returned to Russia since he was exiled following his criticism of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Crimea.
His television food show on the NTV channel was abruptly canceled in 2022 after he published anti-war songs.
Zimin, who had a wife and 17-year-old daughter, also worked as editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of GQ, as well as Afisha Mir and Gourmet.
Alexei Zimin, 52, owner of the Zima restaurant in Soho, reportedly died on a trip to Belgrade, Serbia.
Pictured: Zima restaurant in Soho, London, owned by Zimin
Details of his death in Serbia are scarce and the cause of his death remains unclear.
However, Moskvich magazine in Russia said he had been found dead in a hotel in Belgrade where he had been on an announced tour to promote his new book called Anglomania.
A statement published today in its Zima magazine said: “Alexei Zimin, editor-in-chief of the project and chef of the Zima restaurant, has passed away.”
And he adds: “For us, Alexei was not just a colleague, he was our friend, a close person with whom we were lucky to go through many things, good, kind and sad.”
‘Thank you all for the words we received today about Alexei. We are suffering alongside you.
“The entire Zima team expresses its condolences to Alexei’s family and mourns with them.”
Zimin previously had several cooking shows in Russia, which ran for 11 years before being suspended amid his criticism of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
His London restaurant on Frith Street was advertised as offering “Russian cuisine with a modern twist in the heart of Soho”.
His Zima Club hosted “several” workshops, parties and other events” and is popular with Russian expatriates in the UK.
It was seen as providing a platform for Russians labeled “foreign agents” by the Kremlin and forced into exile.
Zimin is survived by his wife Tatiana ‘Tanya’ Dolmatovskaya, a costume designer who previously worked at Vogue Russia and graduated from the University of the Arts London, and his 17-year-old daughter Varvara.
In a post three months after Putin’s invasion, he said: “Russia will be free, one way or another, or the third, most mysterious way.”
Zimin had also been editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of GQ, as well as Afisha Mir and Gourmet.
Vladimir Putin photographed in the Kremlin on November 12 during a meeting
Of its cancellation by pro-Kremlin NTV, he said: ’11 years. For 22 television seasons I had a prime-time Saturday morning show on NTV.
‘Since May it has disappeared….
‘There will be no new episodes due to the presenter’s pacifist position.
‘Do I regret it? No, I’m sorry we ended up participating in the war.
‘I do not participate in war, war participates in me.’
He had also posted: ‘Stop the war. Withdraw troops. Return our soldiers home.’
He is seen in a video singing lyrics by the famous Soviet and Russian poet and composer Bulat Okudzhava: Grab Your Coat and Let’s Go Home.
This song reflects on the experiences of war-torn soldiers longing for home and peace.
Lines include “the war that devastated us by the thousands, years of childless mothers” and “go get your coat and let’s go home.”
Zimin joins a list of Russians who have died shortly after fleeing Putin’s government to the United Kingdom.
They include oligarch and political fixer Boris Berezovsky, who was found hanged in his Berkshire home in 2013, and his partner Nikolai Glushkov, found dead from neck compression five years later.
Putin’s secret services poisoned former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko with deadly radioactive polonium-210 in London in 2008.
He died, but an attempt to kill Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who spied for the United Kingdom, failed despite the use of the Novichok nerve agent.