Yandex Co-Founder Ilya Segalovich Dies

Ilya Segalovich, cofounder, CTO and director of Yandex, passed away on Sunday, June 28 in a London hospital after being removed from life support on Saturday.

He had been in a coma with no sign of brain activity as a result of his battle with cancer since Thursday, when Yandex originally erroneously reported that Segalovich had died.

Segalovich had been diagnosed with treatable stomach cancer last year and had been responding well to treatment while working a full schedule, according to Yandex. However, another tumor had been discovered in his head last week.

Ilya was diagnosed with 'terminal metastatic gastric cancer' last September. He wasn't given any chances. Everyone was devastated. And then a miracle happened. He got a good doctor, his strong body responded well to chemotherapy. Ilya was literally brought back to life and spent the whole of this year up to the last week very actively, the metastasis was gone. Everyone saw this and wondered at the impossibility.

Last week a tumour was discovered in his head. On Tuesday and Wednesday, cancer spread to brain membranes. Malignant meningitis led to irreversible consequences - his brain brunt out in less than 24 hours.

Yandex, launched in 1997, was co-founded by childhood friends Arkady Volozh and Segalovich. It is now the fourth largest search engine in the world, with 60 percent of the Russian search market, and their Yandex.ru homepage is the most popular site in Russia.

Segalovich is also credited with coming up with the name Yandex, from "yet another index."