lit a candle 8 Sept 2026A true master who understood that discipline and respect were everything. The world needs more people like Tadeusz Kasyanov.
Their story
Tadeusz Rafailovich Kasyanov was a Soviet and Russian athlete, coach, actor, stunt performer, and stunt coordinator. Millions knew the black beret and the boatswain named Matveich. His own life's work was the training hall: boxing first, then one of the earliest karate groups in the USSR, then a hand-to-hand system…
Tadeusz Rafailovich Kasyanov was a Soviet and Russian athlete, coach, actor, stunt performer, and stunt coordinator. Millions knew the black beret and the boatswain named Matveich. His own life's work was the training hall: boxing first, then one of the earliest karate groups in the USSR, then a hand-to-hand system he kept teaching after karate itself was banned. He was born in Moscow on 14 November 1938 and died in Moscow on 4 September 2026, in the night of 3 to 4 September, at the age of 87. English obituaries also spell the given name Tadeush. The Russian form is Тадеуш Рафаилович Касьянов. He is not Mikhail Kasyanov, the former prime minister of Russia.
Russian Wikipedia records that from 1955 he boxed in the Moscow voluntary sports society Krylya Sovetov, under coaches B. I. Tishin and V. A. Lukyanov, and that he graduated from the Institute of Physical Culture. He became a Master of Sport in boxing. Later English-language obituaries told a related origin story that fits the people Wikipedia names. After army service he drove a taxi. A passenger argued with him about karate. They sparred. The passenger was Alexey Shturmin, later one of the best-known Soviet karate coaches, and Kasyanov became his student. Wikipedia places their acquaintance in the 1960s and records that in 1969 Kasyanov also met Anatoly Kharlampiev, a founder of sambo. Kasyanov said Kharlampiev gave them combat-sambo technique "from and to," and passed on a passion for knife throwing. Kasyanov came to be described as the creator of one of the first karate groups in the Soviet Union.
In 1979 Shturmin headed the Central Karate School at the Trud weightlifting palace and invited Kasyanov as senior coach. Kasyanov later recalled that about 10,000 people came to enroll when the school opened. The partnership broke. Karate was banned in the USSR in 1984 and stayed illegal until the late 1980s, and Shturmin went to prison. Kasyanov turned to hand-to-hand combat, which he called a new national sport, and taught future special-forces soldiers connected with Alpha and Vympel, as BB.LV reported in its 8 September 2026 farewell. In 1989 he became president of the All-Union Federation of Hand-to-Hand Combat and Traditional Karate, later the All-Russian federation. Death notices also called him honorary president of the All-Russian SENE federation. In 1992 he was named Honored Coach of Russia. He held a 10th dan in traditional karate. Russian Wikipedia says he prepared more than 40 masters of sport, among them Soviet and Russian champions including M. Turkmanov, S. N. Solovyov, G. A. Goryachev, Ya. B. Muradov, A. E. Alekseev, and R. R. Amirov.
Cinema found him as a technician of fights, not as a conventional star. His debut was Andrei Malyukov's 1977 film In the Zone of Special Attention, about paratroopers. He staged the tricks, doubled Mihai Volontir in the fight with criminals, and appeared as a paratrooper in the assault on a command post. Then came Boris Durov's Pirates of the 20th Century, listed under 1979 in his filmography and remembered as a 1980 release, still cited as the highest-grossing Soviet film. Kasyanov was stunt coordinator and played Matveich, boatswain of a Soviet cargo ship. For a huge audience it was the first time karate appeared on a Soviet screen. He later told Argumenty i Fakty that the picture arrived at a lucky moment, when Western action films were only beginning to reach Soviet viewers, and that stunt people work at the edge of human possibility. Other credits include a cameo in Takeoff (1979), a policeman in The Black Triangle (1981), commander of a capture group in Alarm (1983), and an SS officer in Action (1987). A 2005 documentary, Sit Out for Karate, looked back at the years when the art was forbidden. Russian Wikipedia records his IMDb identifier as nm0441052.
He wrote or co-wrote more than eight hand-to-hand manuals, including Osnovy rukopashnogo boya (1998, with S. A. Ivanov), a knife-throwing guide, Nastavlenie po metaniyu nozhey (2000), and Rukopashnyy boy: Teoriya i praktika (2003, with S. A. Ivanov-Katansky). He held patents for a throwing weapon (No. 32027) and a throwing knife (No. 32026). Obituaries noted that he loved cold steel and disliked firearms, and that he hated hunting, treating the taking of an animal's life without necessity as a crime. It was written that even the trees used for knife throwing were chosen already dead and dried, by his students. He was equally blunt about mixed martial arts. BB.LV, reporting his interviews, quoted him calling the pursuit a spectacle without ideology, closer to a show for the crowd than to sport.
In 1992 he appeared in the criminal chronicle, accused of taking a hostage. Russian Wikipedia records that he was later acquitted for lack of a criminal offense. A Kommersant-Vlast headline that August described the arrest in the language of extortion. The same year he received the Honored Coach title. He kept teaching. His wife, Elena Arsenyevna Kasyanova, was an English teacher. They had two daughters. The elder, Sofia Tadeushevna Kasyanova, born 12 January 1966, became an Honored Coach of Russia, president of the All-Russian SENE federation, and senior coach of the Moscow team. A 1989 Gosteleradio holiday programme filmed father and daughter together. The younger daughter's name was not published in the sources used for this profile. No mother's name, siblings, or grandchildren are named in those sources, and none are added here.
Death notices from Oleg Avdeush, the SENE school, and Argumenty i Fakty said he died on the night of 3 to 4 September 2026, in his 88th year, aged 87. A formal medical cause was not released. People close to him told Argumenty i Fakty that he had spent his last days in hospital on a ventilator, still conscious and recognizing those around him, and that age and a lifetime of sporting injuries had worn him down. Farewell rites were set for 6 September 2026 at the Church of the Sign of the Icon of the Mother of God in Zakharino, with burial at Moscow's Shcherbinskoye Cemetery. Russian Wikipedia places the grave on the southern territory, plot 20. The boatswain of the highest-grossing Soviet film left a federation, a daughter still coaching, and a generation that learned a kick could rise above the waist. This page is only that coach, stuntman, and actor, born in 1938. It is not a page for Mikhail Kasyanov.
Biography adapted from Russian Wikipedia, Kasyanov, Tadeusz Rafailovich; Argumenty i Fakty 4 Sep 2026; BB.LV 4 and 8 Sep 2026; EADaily 4 Sep 2026.. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“Stunt people are a special category, people who sometimes work at the edge of human possibility.”
Tadeusz Kasyanov, Argumenty i Fakty interview, Tadeush Kasyanov: Stunt people often work at the edge of human possibility. Spoken about Soviet stunt work and the fight studio behind In the Zone of Special Attention and Pirates of the 20th Century.
“Life: an honest fight and a virtuoso stunt.”
Title of his 9 April 2013 Sport-obzor interview, cited on Russian Wikipedia. Colon form used. The source's dash is not pasted.
“He called it a deeply criminal activity, a spectacle without ideology that ends in injuries and feeds the worst instincts of a crowd, not a sport.”
BB.LV English rendering, 8 September 2026, of remarks he made in interviews about mixed martial arts. These are that outlet's words for his view, not a claim of an exact English sentence from him.
“In recent days he was in hospital. A machine was breathing for him. Age made itself felt, and the sporting injuries he picked up through his life. He was conscious until recently and recognized everyone.”
Unnamed person in his circle, quoted by Argumenty i Fakty, 4 September 2026. Not his own words. A formal medical cause was not released.
“We regret to inform that on the night of September 3 to 4, at the age of 88, Honored Coach of Russia, Honorary President of the All-Russian Federation of SENE Kasyanov Tadeusz Rafailovich passed away.”
Oleg Avdeush notice, quoted by BB.LV, 4 September 2026. BB.LV also wrote the surname Avdysh. Age of 88 here means the 88th year; chronological age is 87. Not his own words.
Photos
2Black-and-white portrait of Tadeusz Kasyanov in a dark karate gi with a circular chest patch. The Soviet and Russian karate coach and stuntman, boatswain Matveich in Pirates of the 20th Century. Not Mikhail Kasyanov.
by People Forever
Colour film still of Tadeusz Kasyanov as boatswain Matveich in Pirates of the 20th Century: black beret with a white anchor badge, grey-blue shirt. Not a late-life portrait. Not Mikhail Kasyanov.
by People Forever
He really did live it, not just teach it. That's rare.