Ninel Shakhova

Ninel Vladimirovna Shakhova (; 10 January 1935 – 8 March 2005) was a Russian television journalist. She was a correspondent at the Rodina radio station that broadcast to Soviets living abroad and was then a cultural commentator on the Vremya news bulletin between 1971 and 1992. Shakhova was a recipient of both the Order of the Badge of Honour and the Honoured Cultural Worker of the RSFSR.

Early life Shakhova was born in Luhansk on 10 January 1935. Her father, , served as a colonel general in the Battle of Stalingrad. Shakhova was a 1957 graduate of the . Shakhova moved into television in 1971. Shakhova did televisual essays in which she interviewed subjects such as Mikhail Sholokhov, Galina Ulanova, Elena Gogoleva, Sergei Lemeshev, Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian among others. When commercial television was introduced in Russia, she left Vremya in 1992 but she continued to consult television stations and her journalistic career. In the final ten years of her life, she was an expert to the Federation Council on film and television. Shakhova was chairwoman of the jury for the First Bratina Television Festival, the organising committee for the Moscow Orthodox Festival Radonezh, and was a jury member for the Voices of History theatre festival.

Personal life She died suddenly on the evening of 8 March 2005 while travelling by car to interview the actor Kirill Lavrov in Moscow. A memorial service for Shakhova was held on 11 March at the Russian Cultural Foundation in Moscow. She was buried at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow.

Awards Shakhova was a recipient of the Order of the Badge of Honour and the Honoured Cultural Worker of the RSFSR. She was awarded the by the Russian Orthodox Church "for the Moral Education of Russians" in 2001. Shakhova won the Russian Union of Journalists award twice.