When Russia launched its large -scale invasion of Ukraine, in the winter of 2022, the Rock 2 Rock Group was on a country tour. The group, a wonderful collection of Russian music scene for more than two decades, is famous for its nostalgia, whose words are often rebellious and literary. At a concert in Yekaterinburg in March, its two men, Shura and Liua, both in the fifties of them, announced “No to war!” “We thought we could affect the process,” said Liwa.
A few weeks later, Shura and Liua entered the Siberian city of Omsk to the concert hall to find a large banner with the capital of “Z”, a symbol of the support of Vladimir Putin and the invasion, commenting on the wall behind the stage. “This is fucked,” remember to the thinking. The musicians cut a black cloth over the sign, but the exit of the place demanded that it be removed. Officials have warned against the regional administration that if they did not comply with the party, it will not happen. Fifteen minutes before Showtime, the event was canceled.
Other places began to cancel BI-2 shows. One of them was suddenly subject to renewal. Another said that he was reimposing restrictions on the era of the epidemic. Party places blamed the local authorities; Local authorities referred to Moscow officials. Musicians had links to the government – at some point, Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed her support – but they were unable to track down the person or office with the authority to lift the shadow ban. “Everyone says,” this is not me, try this other man. “No one wants to take responsibility.”
BI-2 members quickly learned that they fell in the list of unwanted artists, which were exposed between regional administrations and cultural departments. “Officially, these lists are not there. “They have no legal basis.” Instead, they continued, they worked as “indications of uncomfortable.” One of the producers described the vision of an encrypted menu-black, yellow and red-with dozens of musicians and other artists. The producer said: “He was like the trainee I prepared.” In some cases, the first and last names were mixed; Other entries included the band members who left their groups years ago. The producer told me: “The whole thing looked very unresolved,” the producer told me. “But the consequences were dangerous as they happen.”
BI-2 was facing the possibility of several million missing revenues and was approaching bankruptcy. The band was unable to pay roads and technicians. She had to return on a tour. “In the end, it became clear that all roads lead to one office,” said Robinstein.
This office belongs to Sergey Novkov, which represents an official functional title in the management of Putin, head of social projects. Novikov in the late 1940s, with a soft and boys face and a thinning of brown hair washed away on one side. He started his government career as a loyal assistant to Sergey Kirinko, a political worker who was appointed in 2016, Putin Vice President, and holds the responsibility of local policy and state ideology. The invasion witnessed that Kiriyinko assumes the newly attached land portfolio in Russia. A source said MidozaAnd an independent Russian news site based abroad, that its powers made it “Vice -Donbas” – the region in eastern Ukraine in the position of Russia’s war. Novkov became, according to Midoza“The head of cinema control, theater and music.”
Novikov is known to be a classic music lover. He plays the role of Chilo and directed many opera, including the production of “Rusalka” for 2016, which is the story of a sad virgin and her daughter to protect her, which Novikov presented as a symbol to combat abortion. (“Love, betrayal, repentance – these are the topics that everyone can understand”, at that time). In 2021, it was interpreted by “Iolanta” from Chicovsky in the Royal Swedish Opera. The concert promoter heard that Novkov aspires to take over one day as director of the Bolshoi Theater. Al -Mourouj told me: “It was not driven by the simple love of music, but rather the desire to be close to the strong and strong.”
Meanwhile, Novikov’s tasks in wartime included editing the text of the TV pilot to soften the ammunition gay identity of a character. Novkov also insisted on changing the character name; The personal exhibition book has given the same name and accountability – Sergei Vladilenovich – as Novikov President, Kiriyenko. Novikov has found time for more ambitious endeavors as well. According to the Kremlin internal documents obtained by the Dossier Center, Novikov suggested making a action movie like Marvel depends on the life of a tangible militant leader from Russia in Donbas. Novikov has also had an idea of a comic series that was appointed among the members of a hotel in Donetsk, an Ukrainian city east occupied by Russia since 2014. Midoza It is an example of “the administrative style of artistic criticism. …” I am at the top, so I understand what is good and what is bad. “
One of the directors told me about an hour -old presentation of Nouvkov to members of the Moscow Theater, during which he showed slices that included missile flight times NATO Rules to Moscow and plans on Putin’s general support levels and the so -called special military operation in Ukraine. The director said, “Keep your opinion to yourselves. No one is asking for it.” “As with many people in power, the war allowed him to take off his masters.” Or this person continues, “perhaps to put one on. It is difficult to know the difference.”
Shura and Liuva arranged a meeting with Novikov. “We wanted to clarify the uncertainty,” said Liwa. Shura went alone to see Novkov in his office in the presidential administration building. Two hours later, call Liwa. “It was more like looking at a person with empty eyes, without any emotion or sympathy,” he recalls. Shura said that Nouvkov worked with disgust, and carries himself like a RawJagas. “So, do you want to play concerts in Russia again?” Noufkov asked. View a list of atonement: “Go and perform in Donbas or visit hospitals with the wounded.”
Whatever the band, it should be general. Kremlin needed a BI-2 image, a beloved rock collection with millions of fans, and supported the war effort more than the actual BI-2 party of the Donetsk forces. (In an interview with MidozaThe other musician who spoke against the war was described by the authorities that, if he wanted to tour again, he must make a public donation of an non -governmental organization working in occupied Ukraine. “The punishment is not that I should help children,” he said. “The punishment is that I have to publish it on social media.” (Shura has left the meeting with amazing Novikov and disappointment. Leva told me that the next thing he did was buy a bottle of cognac to “cleanse” itself.
During the next few months, every time he flies to Julua inside or outside Russia, he was detained and interrogated for hours. In the end, in late 2022, he left the country forever. “People close to the state told me that it was time.” Shura followed shortly after. They have become part of the migration of Russian artists who were unable or unwilling to absorb themselves to the new censorship climate and control of the state. But many remained. One of the successful directors told me: “I knew that he was in Europe, I soon find myself wash the dishes.” Countless cultural numbers visits to the Novakov office or cut deals with the Kremlin to continue the work. “Before the war, artists of all kinds made concessions as a way to secure fame, wealth and success,” one of the prominent cultural critics of Moscow told me. “Now you are making concessions simply to do your job at all.”
In Russia, governmental power and high culture have long been present in coexistence of pain, but apparently, invincible. Stalin wanted to be a socialist realism, a hygiegical style that infiltrates artistic forms such as music and drawing. Her loyal practitioners have been rewarded for apartments and food parcels. He faced those who have collapsed from the official aesthetic line, omission, public condemnation, detention, or even death. Stalin, who personally agreed to many arrest lists, keep pace with hair and opera. Hate for Dmitri Shostakovich “Lady Macbeth of MTSENSK” – “Muddele instead of music”, ” Pravda He announced, in a successful piece that was rumored that it was written by Stalin himself – Shostakovic in a state of terrorism for years, pending an imminent arrest that did not come.
Putin’s ruling regime, with a much lower technical or intellectual pretext, looks at the cultural field as any other sector does: affiliated sovereignty, which must be subject to the needs and interests of the state. The economies of cultural production make it artists of all kinds often have a great choice; Public theaters in Russia, for example, depend on the state’s financing for two or more of their operating budgets. The director told me: “Theaters are large organizations, with large buildings and teams, which cannot be profitable.” “If you want to organize anything, this means immediately facing the state financing dilemma.”
These days, it is easier to know what is not allowed. The topics that are understood are sensitive, according to a influential personality in the world of the Moscow Museum, “Anything about War – this war, or war in general.” (The exception is heroic accounts about World War II that glorify the Soviet victory.) The Orthodox Church, ”continuing the list of things that it is understood is prohibited. Beyond that, it becomes mysterious.
In Moscow, the city’s cultural section signs all the proposed exhibitions. The museum source told me about a planned exhibition that was not approved because its subject was considered, in the words of one bureaucratic, “very frustrated”. In the end, the exhibition organizers were able to persuade the city officials that the show was not a political risk, and it may eventually proceed. But often, cultural managers have doubtful ideas before they reach that stage. “Officially we have no oversight,” regional cultural space head told me. “This is true – there is no actual symbol of what you can or you cannot do.” Instead, the person said, “We have a self -dance.”
One of the most prominent of them in Moscow told me about an exhibition that would include paintings of human -like dolls, with the loss of some parties. The artist did not mean that he guarantees anything about war or violence, but in the period before the opening of the Dallerist. “Someone can see this as a statement about war,” said The Lallerist. “Or perhaps a person is operated with such content and complains about the authorities, accusing me of insulting their feelings.” A few days before the planned opening, The Gallerist launched it: “Without any clear guidelines, and therefore there is no confirmed idea of its violation, of course it is simpler than not showing something.”
