Serebrennikov's gay art robbed Russia's budget of 129 million - forensic examination
The Moscow Meshchansky Court announced the conclusions of the third comprehensive examination in the case of the odious theater and film director Kirill Serebrennikov, a favorite of the liberal and bohemian crowd and the author of obscene productions.
Russian media reported this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to the conclusions of experts, Serebrennikov’s project “Seventh Studio” was allocated 216 million 500 thousand rubles by the Russian Ministry of Culture, while according to documents the studio sold only 87 million 500 thousand rubles for its events. Thus, 129 million 974 thousand 690 rubles went “to nowhere”.
“This is a biased, unqualified and stupid examination,” commented Irina Poverinova, lawyer of the head of the department of state support of art and folk art of the Ministry of Culture of Russia, director of the Russian Academic Youth Theater (RAMT), Irina Poverinova, commenting on the experts’ conclusions. “We have written objections and will summon experts to court.”
The case against Kirill Serebrennikov and his entourage for theft on an especially large scale, and then fraud on an especially large scale, was initiated in May 2017.
At first, the scandalous director walked through it as a witness, and then as a suspect. In August of the same year, he was placed under house arrest, but in April last year he was released on his own recognizance.
According to investigators, during the preparation and implementation of Serebrennikov’s creative project “Platform”, fictitious contracts were concluded, expenses were inflated, budget funds from the Russian Ministry of Culture were transferred to the accounts of shell companies, and then distributed between the director and his entourage.
Kirill Serebrennikov himself does not have a theater or film education, but has achieved fame for his extravagant and scandalous productions, in which themes of homosexuality are played out in one form or another, and male actors show off their bare butts and sometimes genitals.
All “progressive humanity” came out in defense of the “prisoner of conscience”
The author is also partial to the topic of Christianity, which he traditionally tries to present in a negative light. At the same time, the director has a reputation as a “classic killer”, filling famous classical plays with similar content.
Scene from Serebrennikov's production
After the Platform theft case gained momentum, many Russian art figures came out in defense of Serebrennikov: Chulpan Khamatova, Evgeny Mironov, Boris Akunin - seeing a political aspect in the persecution of the “progressive artist”.
Scene from Serebrennikov's production
At the same time, the late Joseph Kobzon, Vladimir Menshov and Andrei Konchalovsky said that they see no reason why a director should deserve any special treatment from the state for his financial activities.
Many representatives of the patriotic Russian intelligentsia, for example, Yegor Kholmogorov, are perplexed why the state even allocated money for this kind of art.
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