2 senior executives at Russia's VK social media network died in an off-road vehicle accident
- Two top executives at Russia's VK social media network died on Monday, per local reports.
- They were in an amphibious vehicle that overturned and were swept out to sea, a local union said.
A pair of senior managers at a popular Russian social media network died on Monday after their amphibious vehicles overturned in a river, according to local reports.
Vladimir Gabrielyan, deputy general director of VKontakte, and his head of procurement, Sergey Merzlyakov, died near the village of Shoyna in the Nenets Autonomous region in coastal northwest Russia, the company told Russian state-controlled media outlet RIA Novosti.
Vkontakte is also known as VK and is a Russian-owned social network similar to Facebook, which is banned in Russia.
The two men were traveling with a friend, Sergey Olsevich, and Gabrielyan's girlfriend Alena in all-terrain vehicles in an attempt to cross the Bugryanitsa River, RIA reported.
The two cars overturned and "they were dragged into the sea," according to a VK post by the local Union of Reindeer Breeders, who alerted the emergency services, reported Radio Free Europe.
While Alena and Olsevich in one car managed to get out and reach shore, the two VK executives went missing in the other, independent Russian news outlet Meduza reported, citing the union post.
Gabrielyan and Merzlyakov's bodies were found on the river bank on Tuesday, RIA reported, citing an unnamed source in the emergency services.
Four days prior, Gabrielyan posted footage to VK from inside a Sherp all-terrain car, a bulky vehicle with massive wheels designed for navigating marshy and rough terrain. Gabrielyan did not say where the video was filmed in the post.
In the footage, two further vehicles can be seen scrambling to navigate a water-clogged path in between beds of tall grasses as rock music plays on the radio.
Gabrielyan became Vice President and CTO of the Mail.ru Group in 2005, which later became VKontakte and then VK, before becoming its first deputy general director, according to Radio Free Europe.
According to Wired, VK has benefited greatly from the ban on Facebook since Russia invaded Ukraine, and has cooperated with government censorship requests since government-friendly executives were appointed.