Vadim Zhuk died in Suzdal, where the animation festival «Suzdalfest» is taking place, reported film critic Larisa Malyukova. According to her, the playwright was supposed to host one of the events, but at the last moment he was replaced «by order from above».
Vadim Zhuk was born in 1947 in Leningrad. By education, he was a theater scholar. He worked in theaters in Siberia, appeared in films by Alexander Sokurov, Igor Maslennikov, Vladimir Khotinenko, Anton Barshevsky.
Zhuk was the sole author and artistic director of the Leningrad-Petersburg theater-studio «Fourth Wall». Together with Mikhail Zhvanetsky, he hosted the TV show «Simple Things», and co-authored satirical couplets with Sergey Plotov. Zhuk was the author of librettos for musicals, operettas, cabarets, theatrical evenings, and scripts for cartoons.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the poet wrote dozens of anti-war poems.
A book by two Russian poets — Tatyana Voltskaya and Vadim Zhuk — titled «My Conscience is Ukrainian» was published by the Kyiv publishing house «Raduga».