Tymoshenko’s former son-in-law, rock musician Sean Carr, dies

Sean Carr, a British rock musician, biker and the ex-husband of Eugenia Tymoshenko, opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko’s daughter, died on Jan. 8 in Prague, Czech Republic, his family and friends announced on Facebook.

Carr, 49, from Leeds in Yorkshire, married Tymoshenko’s daughter in 2005 when the leader of the Batkivshchyna Party was Ukraine’s prime minister. Carr attended numerous public events with his famous family and became well-known in Ukraine. After divorcing in 2012, the rock musician remarried and last year moved to Uzhgorod in western Ukraine.

Carr died in a hospital in Prague, his daughter, Charlie Herbert-Davies, wrote on his Facebook page late on Jan. 8.

The Death Valley Screamers, the rock band Carr co-founded in 2005 in Ukraine and fronted as its lead singer, announced the sad news on their Facebook page on Jan. 8.

“Mr. Sean Carr passed away at 10 a.m. on 8/1/2018 in his sleep,” the post reads. “Charlie his daughter was with him.”

Mick Lake, a songwriter and guitarist also from Leeds who co-founded the Death Valley Screamers with Carr, wrote on Facebook on Jan. 8: “R.I.P Sean, life-long friend. We had some great times and you created so many really special moments in my life.”

Carr died from internal bleeding and complications with his esophagus, one of the musician’s friends, events promoter Raymond David McRobbie told the Kyiv Post. The singer had been planning to open a bar in the Czech capital, McRobbie said.

McRobbie also shared his feelings about his friend’s death on his Facebook page.

“(Carr) was always good company, with a mischievous sense of humor and joie de vivre. There was no political correctness from him. He was a true Yorkshireman and spoke his mind,” the post reads.

Carr was famous for his rock-star and biker lifestyle.

“His life from start to finish was lived at 100 percent full throttle – his love for music partying and bikes was what his life was about, and boy could he do all three well,” the Death Valley Screamers’ post reads.

Apart from that, the musician was among those expats living in Ukraine who contributed to the image of the country abroad.

British economist and Eastern Europe analyst Timothy Ash, another of the singer’s friends, also shared his memories of Carr with the Kyiv Post.

“Despite all the hype around the family connections and rock ’n’roll lifestyle (which he did lead to the full), Sean was the friendliest and most grounded person you could hope to meet,” Ash told the Kyiv Post.

“And even though I think he found his ‘political’ lifestyle in Ukraine frustrating at times, on numerous occasions he went out of his way to help me, and investors out in Ukraine, in various tricky situations,” Ash said.