Translated material
“Such phenomena happen once in eternity”
Shortparis lead singer Nikolai Komyagin has died. He was only 39, but he managed to go down in history - not only in Russia, but also abroad
Nikolai Komyagin, a poet, musician, actor and frontman of the band Shortparis, died at the age of 39. The group's manager Marina Kosukhina confirmed the death of the lead singer, but did not provide details. According to journalist Ksenia Sobchak, the musician felt unwell after a boxing workout - his heart could not stand it.
“Novaya Gazeta Europe” talks about Komyagin’s projects and publishes memories of his listeners and colleagues.
From Novokuznetsk to London
Novokuznetsk-born Komyagin created Shortparis in 2012 together with Alexander Ionin and Pavel Lesnikov. Later Danila Kholodkov joined the team.
The group's concerts turned into experimental performances, where music, plastic and drama existed as a single whole. Shortparis regularly performed at major festivals, opened concerts for foreign artists such as The Kooks and alt-J, and gradually became one of the most notable Russian bands of the 2010s.
Their most famous video is for the song “Scary” - more than 11 million views on YouTube. Today, many social network users recall that it was this work that impressed them most.
Shortparis’ music was heard in films: in the films “Summer”, “Captain Volkonogov Fled”, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife”, “Anna’s Feelings”, “Limonov. The Ballad of Eddie"; as well as in the series "Fisher".
Komyagin himself was not only a poet and musician, but also a talented actor. So, in 2019, he played the main role in the short film “Complex” directed by Olesya Yakovleva - the film was shown in the Cinefondation program of the Cannes Film Festival and at Kinotavr. In the series “Karamora” by Danila Kozlovsky, Komyagin appeared in the role of Vladimir Mayakovsky.
Komyagin also worked in the theater. In the play “Take Care of Your Faces,” directed by Savva Savelyev based on the texts of Andrei Voznesensky, Komyagin was involved as an actor, and Shortparis wrote the entire soundtrack for the production. The premiere took place on May 12, 2022 in Moscow - this was the last work of the Gogol Center before closing due to censorship.
Shortparis existed at the intersection of music, theater, cinema and literature. Nikolai Komyagin was remembered as an artist who existed “on the limit” and was able to plunge those around him into this state of timelessness.
Ban on concerts in Russia
Many of those who remember Nikolai Komyagin today say that the group’s live performances had the greatest impact on them. After Shortparis spoke out against a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, their concerts in Russia began to be cancelled .
At the same time, audiences abroad still had the opportunity to attend Shortparis concerts. The group toured extensively throughout Europe, performing in clubs, including festivals in Paris, Berlin, Riga, Helsinki, Amsterdam and London. In 2024–2025, Shortparis held a series of concerts in China: Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Chongqing and Xi'an.
The group decided to stay in Russia, despite the censorship. In February 2023, speaking in the village of Ponga, Onega region, Komyagin explained this decision, citing as an example the folk song “My Woe, Woe,” which the group performed with a local choir. The song contains the following lines: “Advise me, mother, whether I should live here or go away.” According to Komyagin, the answer sounded in the song became an important argument for the group to refuse emigration.
"[In this song] the mother answers her daughter: “Grieve, daughter, grief, just as I grieved. Grow, daughter, child, just as I raised.” Perhaps these words can be interpreted in different ways. And in them you can hear the coercion of the older generation over the younger, some kind of conservative view that suppresses the younger generation. I'm not interested in this angle right now. We have heard an important answer. That the grief that our country is grieving now, we must grieve together, living this time together. “Grieve, daughter, grief, just as I grieved.” This is the answer. In the song,” said Nikolai Komyagin.
“It’s like they came down from heaven and flew back”
Alexander Gorbachev
Journalist , editor of "New Europe"
“The last time we saw each other was in October 2025. Shortparis came to Riga and played a powerful concert - in the last phase of the group’s history, their performances already looked less like a performance and more like a real rock session, they had more warmth and drive, you were carried on the same wavelength with the musicians.
After the concert I went into their dressing room. Kolya asked very interestedly about our life in Riga and very interestingly talked about his life in Russia:
Shortparis did not compromise, refused to congratulate listeners on Flag Day, they were cut off from concerts in their homeland, but they did not want to leave and relied on concerts in China to earn money.
I thought then that this was a very interesting and vivid story that would be interesting to tell. Now you can't tell. […] Shortparis always existed on the brink, but about someone, and about them, it didn’t seem at all that they were ready to cross this line.
I was terribly interested in what would happen to them next, after “The Grapes of Wrath,” where the group reacted very sharply and boldly to the war, reinventing itself. Somehow I can’t wrap my head around the fact that nothing will happen. And again, when it seems that nothing can hurt or touch you, damned February brings its flowers of evil. However, something, Shortparis always knew how to hurt and touch.
This is what I wrote about them in my book. It’s very important to me that this is a group that has consistently championed the complexity of the world.”
Yuri Saprykin
“A year ago in St. Petersburg, I found myself at the same table with Nikolai Komyagin, and we talked all evening - despite the fact that I was never a fan of Shortparis and had never even seen them at concerts. I was struck then by how integral and collected a person he is, how clearly he understands what he wants to do, what is his and what is not his. How and why he’s not going to leave, despite the fact that all the band’s concerts in the Russian Federation have long been canceled.
At the same time, Shortparis were perhaps the only Russian line-up of the 2010s who managed to become their own at large European festivals, who were invited there not for exoticism or as political activists, they played and were treated as equals, and were already in the front row. And so. I was also amazed at how great he looked, in what great shape, soft smile, impeccable manners, just an Olympian (either in the ancient or in the modern sense of the word). Nikolai talked about his childhood in Novokuznetsk, and one could imagine how much effort it took to gather oneself like this when such people came in. And so. These years are not in vain for anyone, of course, but for this to happen... It’s unthinkable.”
Lev Gankin
“A year ago, unable to perform in Russia, Shortparis filmed and posted a concert in the gym on YouTube - now it looks like some kind of bad, ominous omen. However, for their music, the gym is an environment that is actually perfect: she herself always wanted to apply fitness terminology: strength training, stretching, core exercises, cardio. Kabalevsky’s classic trilogy “song, dance, march” Shortparis unfolded backwards: first the march - a collective rhythmic action, then the dance - as a liberating way out of the repressive space of the march, and only then, if you’re lucky, the song. The video for the song “Scary,” which was widely discussed at the time, clearly captures just such a sequence.
However, that video, like many other works of the group, aesthetically delighted me - but did not touch me. But “The Apple Orchard,” sung (and filmed) a few days after the start of the war together with the St. Petersburg veterans’ choir, became for me, confused, lost my support, saying goodbye to my entire previous life at once, a rare moment of quenching visceral pain. Among my 3.7 million views there, I think there are hundreds and a half, no less. I will never forget this moment: how music literally came to my aid. Thanks to Nikolai and Shortparis for this."
Ksenia Sobchak
Journalist , TV presenter; interviewed the musician two years ago
“Talented, bright, young, highly original. He came from Siberia, conquered first St. Petersburg, then Moscow, then all of Russia. He was passionate about Russian culture and truly loved it. He remained in the country, even though he was banned from giving concerts. I went to his performances, and it was always a few hours of timelessness with what he did on stage. […] How did he play in the movies? What kind of music did they play for the movies? Cannes, Venice - she traveled much further than his native Novokuznetsk.”
Anton Dolin
“I have written more than once about his music, poetry and artistic talent; today everyone will write about it better than me. Each concert was an act of pure magic, a performance of amazing power, which (unfortunately) cannot be described - only experienced. The recordings will remain, the videos too, but the concerts were the strongest.
I take this as a personal blow, a personal loss. Kolya was an amazing person with special talent; such phenomena happen once in eternity.
His death, no matter how cheesy it may sound (I don’t have the strength to find elegant words), is a terrible loss for culture.”
Alexander Baunov
“His group, which was recorded according to tradition in Russian rock, probably played in the “Russian chton” style. I think that on stage it was as close as possible to the photographs of Dmitry Markov.
He grew up in Novokuznetsk, the post-industrial Novokuznetsk of pete workers and pensioners was with him both on stage, in the sound, and behind the stage, in the audience. On stage - this is probably the most serious presence of the spirit of the Soviet synthesis of art and industry, the avant-garde and VKHUTEMAS ( Higher artistic and technical workshops; educational institutions created in Moscow, Petrograd and other Russian cities since 1918 - Ed. ), worker and artist, but without state support and with a bitter note of knowledge of how this synthesis ends.”
Well, the fact that in Russia an outstanding musician is not allowed to play is unprecedented. But Shortparis - here you expect concerts in the West - were very popular in China, played at festivals there and went on concerts and entire tours to China.
Anna Mongait
“I remember how I fell in love with Shortparis. I saw their first video and died - it was such a combination of a frantic voice, hormones and style. Such impeccable young men are found in St. Petersburg and never in Moscow. I remember how Komyagin and his group fit into “Captain Volkonogov Fled” - a great movie that miraculously came out before the war and predicted the atmosphere of the time, this link between the thirties of the 20th century and the twenties of the 21st. I remember how they gave their first big concert at some opening of the season in “Garage” and everyone was eager to go there - to listen to the voice that interjects and penetrates. The fact that Komyagin died during boxing training is very much in his spirit. He had strength and defenselessness, he was always on the edge - “he knew in advance who wouldn’t make it,” as it sounded in the song “Scary.” “Ice won’t save you.”
Maxim Sokolov
Director, author of the play “My Brother Died”, the music for which was written by Komyagin
“Nikolai Komyagin died. Kolya. The feeling that the best, honest, most talented people are being urgently taken from this planet. And we stay.
I was sure that we would make an opera, we decided so. I clearly imagined how wonderful he would perform, what kind of music he would write, how tired we would be at the release, how happy we would be after the premiere.
There are people with whom the word “death” is not associated in any way. Thermonuclear reactor, endless irony, Greek exarch, very down to earth, close, dear. Once we left a restaurant in winter, I slipped and fell right on the ice under my feet, it was phenomenally awkward. Kolya instantly decided to support and lay down on the ice, and dragged [the artist] Nastya Yudina with him.
We lay on the icy pavement in the middle of a huge city and laughed. A very sad day. Year. Life. I don't know what else to say. Please take care of yourself."
Arkady Volk
“He and Katya, his wife, arrived 10 days before the concert in Bali in January 2025. We took two bikes and rushed through remote villages to meet the locals. He didn’t even want to think about any beaches or entertainment. From the very first day, Kolya began to get acquainted with local musicians, rehearsed with them, selected numbers for the upcoming concert with an invitation from the gamelan orchestra (traditional musical percussion instruments), with singers. They also filmed a film all these days, and then it all happened at the concert: Balinese singers, drummers, movies on the big screen. It was a unique art performance! And I really wanted to repeat something like this in the future... Shortparis themselves said that it was a completely unusual and one-of-a-kind concert..."
Mikhail Brashinsky
“Nikolai Komyagin died. 39 years old. Amazing. It’s creepy how rock and roll gods can pull out, filling their pantheon. I wanted him to play a cult leader in Waves. I'm incredibly sorry that this didn't happen. Here it is, in my St. Petersburg kitchen, the first test.”
Dmitry Nizovtsev
“Unique presentation and content. The concerts themselves, which looked as if aliens had descended from the heavens, performed their unearthly tracks and flew back without saying hello or goodbye. And in the midst of all this, Nikolai Komyagin himself, who reached the highest notes. And he didn’t just get there, as if it were an achievement, but did whatever he wanted at this height. And how he moved. And how he improvised. I understand that now is a time when many people die every day. But why Kolya? Why? Crap. Eternal memory."