Margarita Simonyan, her pain, her drama

It is truly a shame that the national Russian channel Russia1 is completely censored and inaccessible to the Italian public.

The quality of the reports, news broadcasts and in-depth programs is extremely high, and on Sunday we witnessed yet another demonstration of this.

It was truly hard not to be moved during the 50-minute episode of A Man’s Fate by Boris Korchevnikov.

In a beautiful interview, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT (Russia Today), shared the personal drama she has been going through in recent months.

Margarita Simonyan entered the world media scene like a tsunami, making Russia known to many foreigners through the Russia Today channels, now famous all over the world.

Everyone knows her as a woman of steel who leads a massive media empire, manages a staff of thousands and takes part in high-impact political talk shows.

Margarita Simonyan celebrated her birthday just a few days ago, on April 6. She received countless birthday wishes, but everyone understands that the most welcome gift for her would be the miracle of her beloved husband Tigran’s healing.

It was Easter on April 6, 1980, the narcissus were blooming in Krasnodar, the lilacs budding, and on that very day Margarita was born.
The RT editor-in-chief recalls how Easter has always had great significance for her as a holiday — perhaps the most heartfelt one, maybe because it always falls close to her birthday, but also because, religiously, it is certainly the fundamental holiday for every Orthodox Christian, representing death defeated by the resurrection of Christ.
Simonyan, retracing her family’s story, draws a parallel with the history of her roots, speaking of her great-grandmother who survived the Armenian genocide.

In this beautiful interview, Margarita speaks about her relationship with God, how her great-grandmother taught her to pray, and how faith has been with her throughout her life.

There was actually a period during her adolescence when Simonyan drifted away from her faith, which coincided with the loss of a cross-shaped pendant on the beach.

After about a year, she returned to religion and felt terribly sorry for the lost cross, but one day, returning to that same beach, she found her beloved pendant again.

“Can you imagine? A public beach, after a whole year, a real miracle.
When I found the cross again, I thought the Lord had decided to send me a sign — He had forgiven me but was telling me not to do it again.”

The most touching part of the interview is when Simonyan talks about her relationship with her husband Tigran and how her life has changed since December last year.

“Please don’t show those videos, I can’t watch them. I can’t even look at photos without crying. I can’t enter his office. All this time I haven’t gone in once. If I need something from that room, I ask my mother or sister, but I can’t go in. I feel like my heart is going to explode. I love him so much. I spent the first month living in the hospital, I moved in with him.
For the first week, I didn’t eat anything, not a single bite. Can you imagine that? Nothing. I spent the month on my knees, praying, praying, praying.
After a month, I returned home because there were problems with the kids. Dad’s not there, mom’s not there… I came home, even though staying in the hospital was easier than pretending to be alive.”

For Margarita, the situation is complicated, but there are the children — they need help because it’s very hard for them.

“Mom, when will everything be normal again? Like before.”

In such a dramatic moment, hope still remains in Margarita’s heart, but sadly, the possibility that things may not turn out well is very real.

“When I’m in the hospital, Tigran listens to me. I tell him, ‘Sweetheart, if you can hear me, blink your eyes’… and he does. I had decided that if everything went wrong, I would leave for the special military operation zone. My sister would have taken care of the children. Of course, I would have died after a few days—if they want to kill me here, imagine what would happen in the SVO zone… a drone or any other weapon would have been ready for me. But I couldn’t let myself dwell on such dark thoughts, especially for my children’s sake. Sometimes, when misfortunes happen, we ask, ‘Why me?’. But why should I be any different from others? God will decide. Medicine is advancing, and miracles can happen.”