Dmitri Prokhorov was trained as a lawyer and handled international relations for the Soviet Committee of Physical Culture and Sport. Tamara Prokhorova was a materials engineer at the Institute for Chemical Machine-Building. As part of his job, Dmitri Prokhorov had the opportunity to travel abroad. His wife worked as an engineer for a research group at the institute specializing in plastics. They died within a year of each other, both from heart disease when they were in their late 50s. Mikhail Prokhorov's sister, who "runs his philanthropic organizations, an erudite literary magazine, and a publishing house ... lives in a wing of his mansion west of Moscow".