Writer, Singer Medvedeva Dead at 44

Poet, writer and musician Natalya Medvedeva died Monday in her Moscow apartment. She was 44.

Medvedeva's boyfriend, Sergei Vysokosov, told authorities that Medvedeva had died during her sleep Monday night. No official cause of death has been reported, although Internet newspaper Gazeta.ru said Wednesday that Medvedeva died of a heart attack.

For many Russians, Medvedeva was best known as the former wife of controversial writer and National Bolshevik party leader Eduard Limonov, but she was a notable cultural figure in her own right as well.

"She was a bright spot in our lives, and the stage will be a lonely place without her," local poet and writer Vladislav Vasyukhin said Wednesday.

Born on June 14, 1958, in Leningrad, Medvedeva emigrated to the United States in 1975, at the age of 17, and settled in Los Angeles. There, she began work as a model (posing for Playboy magazine and the cover of the 1978 debut album of rock band The Cars), and married Limonov.

But despite her successes in modeling, Medvedeva was critical of the American way of life and the U.S. fashion industry, both of which she condemned in her 1987 Russian-language book "Hotel California."

In 1982, she and Limonov left Los Angeles for Paris, where Medvedeva found work singing in a piano bar, and wrote for French magazines Figaro Madame and L'Idiot International. In subsequent years, she also wrote two novels, 1985's "Mama, I'm in Love With a Thief" (Mama Ya Zhulika Lyublu) and 1989's "My Struggle" (Moya Borba).

For MT Medvedeva posed for this 1978 album cover, the first release by rock band The Cars.

In 1994, Medvedeva returned to Russia after splitting with Limonov, although she continued to write for his newspaper Limonka under a pseudonym. She also formed her own band, Tribunal, in addition to performing with Vysokosov, former guitarist for heavy metal band Korroziya Metalla.

Despite the unconventional nature of her music, which is usually characterized as avant-garde, Medvedeva's list of fans is said to have included pop diva Alla Pugachyova, who once asked Medvedeva to appear on her annual Christmas variety show "Rozhdestvenskiye Vstrechi," and Channel One head Konstantin Ernst, who produced Medvedeva's first music video.

Late last year, Medvedeva told journalists that her entire life has been characterized by the pursuit of self knowledge.

"I was doing certain things unconsciously, but they proved to be the right things in the long run," she said. "Maybe I had to go to the United States, and to France, and do all of those things in order to understand who I was."