IZO

Russian local government boss bans phrase "financial crisis" (CBS News) (thanks, MK).

The Petersburg-5 channel was preparing a report on the recent rich people's party on the Aurora battleship, an event which upset many people (IZO, earlier); but due to pressure from interested parties, it was not broadcast (skandalspb, in Russian).

Artist Alexander Shednov, aka Shurik, has been arrested after depicting Vladimir Putin in women's clothing (Daily Mail):

The artist had attempted to beam the portrait onto the main administrative building in Voronezh, his home city, on Russian Independence Day last Friday.  But Shednov's endeavour did not go down well with the FSB, which replaced the KGB as Russia's intelligence agency.  He was arrested by counter-intelligence officials, claims he was questioned for seven hours and beaten.   Friends said his flat had also been searched and some of his paintings removed. 

The Ukrainian parliament is discussing a law which could result in three-year sentences for possession of pornography (Nash Vek, in Russian). On 23 June in Kiev the Karas Gallery will hold a press-conference, accompanied by an exhibition, to publicise the threat this legislation poses to artists (Open Space, in Russian).

Religious hatred charges against South Park have been dropped (NYT)) (thanks, MK). Background (IZO).

Last week in Berlin I attended an evening lecture given by Mikhail Ryklin. Ryklin has the reputation of Russia's leading philosopher in the city (note: he was also the husband of the late artist Anna Mikhalchuk,  IZO), and so I went along in some anticipation. But I was disappointed. His talk (delivered in German) was a matter of polemics rather than philosophy. He began with the hoary notion that Moscow aspires to the status of the Third Rome, using this as a connector between Stalin and Putin-Medvedev regimes. Then he focused on the state of art censorship in Russia today, with particular attention to the Forbidden Art trial (IZO). The major artist-hero of the resistance, in Ryklin's view, seems to be Alexander Kosolapov, author of the painting This Is My Blood, which juxtaposes Jesus and Coca-Cola. What Ryklin had to say wasn't so much controversial as - coming from a leading academic and intellectual - superficial and boring. It was a rehash of the dissident analyses of Soviet power in the 50s-80s with emphasis now on the repressive tendencies of the Church rather than the Party. At one point Ryklin juxtaposed two events: the receipt by Ilya Kabakov of the Order of Friendship from President Medvedev, and criticism of a work by Kabakov by church activists, and stated that he couldn't logically reconcile these two events. Well, of course he couldn't, because he posits an old-style monolithic Establishment in which there is not a sliver of light between the political and the religious elites, the FSB and the Church. But this is plainly not the case. And Ryklin didn't mention the influential liberal-oligarchic establishment - much of it Jewish - in the form of such figures as Abramovich (who sponsors the Garage), Mamut (owner of LiveJournal), Lebedev and Prokhorov (publishers), Yuri Milner ("owner of half the Russian internet") etc.

Kim Zigfeld on censorship in Russia on the pretext of the struggle against "extremism" (Pajamas Media). In Kyrgyzstan, the killing of a political dissident and beating of a journalist in pursuit of the so-called Great Game (WSJ).

The latest video by singer Valeriya, produced for Children's Day, has been banned from Russian TV because its subject-matter, the abduction of a child, is too distressing (Youtube, in Russian).

Follow-up to the colourising of Seventeen Moments of Spring (IZO, last week).Communists of St Petersburg plan to sue because the film has been turned into a "comic" (Kommersant, in Russian). And anti-religious sentiments have been cut from the movie (galerist, in Russian).

TV encounter between Ukrainian art-activist Anatoli Ulyanov and Ukrainian Moral Committee member, journalist Danil Yanevsky (future-right, in Russian).

The duelling-style current affairs debate programme To The Barrier (К барьеру) has been shut down (galkovsky, in Russian). It was one of the liveliest programmes on Russian TV.

Russian president blogs while Russian courts tighten internet rules against "extremism" (VOA) (thanks, MK):

Monday, a Moscow court ruled that Russian authorities may shut down any web site, where visitors leave comments deemed extremist. The case involves URA.ru, the largest news agency in the Ural Mountains region, which has been threatened with a shutdown because of anonymous comments made on its Internet forum.  

Meanwhile, top Russian search engine Yandex is negotiating a compromise to preserve editorial independence as the Kremlin insists the internet is a strategic industry and seeks to control ownership (WSJ) (thanks, MK).

Boris Chertkov, the Russian director of the film The Baltic: Story of an "Occupation", which is due to premiere in Riga on 14 April, has been refused a visa by the Latvian authorities (Kursor, in Russian).

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Rashid Nurgaliev, has announced an increase in youth crime and suggested that the TV reality show House 2, presented by Ksenia Sobchak, should be shut down because of its harmful moral influence (KP, in Russian).

Series of Russian road-safety ads considered too extreme for broadcast by the Russian state TV channels (katoga).

South Park censored at last! Season 9, episode 13: Kyle Broflovski meets a talking whale and wants to send him to the moon; he phones President Putin to ask about space tourism. The conversation with Putin was cut out from the recent broadcast on the 2x2 channel (nextlesson, in Russian).

A look at the Anna Politkovskaya killing (Keith Gessen/New Yorker) (thanks, MK).

That hot potato, history (RFE/RL):

It seemed like a joke at first. Russia's chief firefighter, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu, declared that it should be a crime to deny the role played by the Soviet Union in securing victory in World War II. Surely he didn't mean to be taken seriously.   But the next day when Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika endorsed Shoigu's suggestion, it no longer seemed funny.

My article on the censorship situation in Russia is one of Index on Censorship's Editor's Picks for 2008 (Index on Censorship). It's a little out of date now, but still a useful overview.

Members of the Television Morality Committee (IZO, earlier) are demanding the shut-down of te House-2 realty show, citing explicit sexual behaviour, fights and rude language (gazeta.ru, in Russian).

The Television Morality Committee will today meet to discuss the reality show House-2, which is accused of corrupting young people (ITAR-TASS, in Russian).

A free-speech crackdown in Latvia (freespeechlatvia)? (IZO, earlier).

I missed this: philosopher Mikhail Ryklin (IZO, earlier) remembers the last years of his wife, the artist Anna Alchuk (IZO, earlier). After her prosecution for taking part in the show Caution! Religion! in 2003, she "began to grow into to her victimhood" (Sign and Sight).

Latvian pop-singer Valter Fridenberg has been arrested by the country's security services for making a joke about the state of the Latvian economy. At a performance in Elgava he said (Kursor, in Russian):

If anyone wants to run and get their money out of the bank, please at least wait until the end of the performance.

Apparently this was enough to have him brought in for questioning.

It's said that censors have stopped the sale of Lolita Milyavskaya's latest album due to the explicit photo-shoot that illustrates it BUT you can in fact buy the forbidden goods in some Moscow music shops (MIGnews, in Russian). Sounds like an advertising campaign rather than censorship to me.

The Ukrainian security services have banned the showing of a Russian film, The War 08.08.08: the Art of Treachery, about the recent war in South Ossetia. The Ukrainians claim the film relies on materials fabricated by the Russian security services which falsely implicate Ukraine in the conflict (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

South Park (IZO, earlier) is not yet off the hook. A Moscow court is analysing an episode for signs of extremism (Interfax, in Russian).

New Babylon in Sydney (Sydney Morning Herald).

The Ukraine's Television and Radio Council has back-tracked and will now allow the Russian First Channel to broadcast in Ukraine (Kommersant, in Russian).

The Sebastopol Town Council has decided to ignore the Ukrainian government ruling (IZO, earlier) and permit the broadcast of Russian-language television (Kommersant, in Russian).

More on the Kulik confiscations and arrest (IZO, earlier). The police attended the FIAC fair in Paris last Friday at the behest of French customs. They arrested the gallerists Elena Selina and Sergei Khripun of XL Gallery and confiscated photo-works by Kulik in which he was playing the part of a dog. Selina and Khripun were released after intervention by the FIAC boss, but the works are still in police hands (Kommersant, in Russian).

According to Marat Guelman, Elena Selina of XL Gallery was recently arrested in Paris (subsequently apparently released) for possession of photographs by Oleg Kulik from his Zoophrenia period (galerist, in Russian).

The unsubstantiated claim that Yuri Grymov's Strangers has been banned in the USA is now being broadcast on Russian TV. It may of course be that IZO is responsible for this: interesting how a story gets about when it is (presumably) necessary to someone (IZO, earlier and still earlier).

Hmmm, the Russian mainstream press picks up yesterday's odd Condoleezza Rice story (IZO): did they discover it on IZO? There's still no proper source given for the rumour (gazeta.ru, in Russian):

In America it is recommended that Yury Grymov's film Strangers (Чужие) not be shown. This information comes from information agencies who refer to Condoleeza Rice's office.

And there's nothing via Google either.

This is quite some news: Kazakhstan has blocked access to LiveJournal! There has been no official announcement, but multiple Kazakh bloggers, all of whom have accessed LiveJournal through anonymous proxy servers, are saying the same thing. All the main Kazakh servers are blocking access; Kyrgyzstan uses these same servers and thus Kyrgyz access is blocked, too. A favourite theory is that the block has been imposed to prevent access to the blog of Rakhat Aliev, former son-in-law of Nursultan Nazarbaev, the ruler of Kazakhstan. Aliev, formerly a member of the Kazakh elite, fell out with Nazarbaev and emigrated to Austria where it is claimed an attempt was made on his life. In Kazakhstan he has been sentenced in absentia to several years in jail for extortion and kidnapping. After he opened his kaztoday site on LiveJournal, Aliev is said to have taunted the Kazakh authorities that to silence him they'd need to shut down the whole of LiveJournal, which is a major news and discussion resource in the post-Soviet space; this appears to be what has happened (Open Space, in Russian)..

Rakhat Aliev (© mizinov.net)
UPDATE: Rakhat Aliev also has a personal blog on LiveJournal (rakhataliev, in Russian).

Obscure confused posting on Russian blog, linking to a broken URL, suggests that Condoleezza Rice has tried to prevent (advised against) the showing of Yuri Grymov's movie Strangers (Чужие) in the USA (maria_yudenich). I present this shaky info it for what it may be worth, probably not much; it sounds like a legend in response to the Russian banning of Charlie Wilson's War. Apparently the film's about a group of American doctors in a combat zone (rutube, trailer in Russian).

According to media magnate Anton Nossik there is widespread censorship of discussion of the financial crisis in the Russian mass media (dolboeb, in Russian).

South Park controversy (IZO, earlier): MK asks, is the Russian hostility a matter of revenge? (South Park Studios). Also: photos of the picket in support of Kenny/Кенни (al-3f, in Russian); and video.

UPDATE: interview with Rafael Akopov, the head of ProfMedia, owner of the 2x2 channel (Open Space, in Russian).

A gay and lesbian cinema festival in St Petersburg has been cancelled because it is deemed a fire hazard (bok-o-bok.ru, in Russian). Yesterday a Moscow court confirmed the legality of the ban on a gay parade in Moscow on last 1-2 May; the parade organisers plan an appeal to the court in Strasbourg (Interfax, in Russian).

Brezhnev defends Kenny in the South Park affair (IZO, earlier).

Andrei Erofeev in hospital talking about the impossibility of staging a planned Sotsart exhibition in Hungary. Sponsors - Gasprom, RosIZO - pulled out, the latter calling the show a "clear provocation of the Russian people." An interesting moment towards the end: Erofeev is asked why his show needs official sanction. Answer: because it needs to be insured, the pieces are so valuable. So in their own way (as in the West) market forces conspire against dissident art.

An interview with Gor Chakhal, who asked the Orthodox Church for its guidance concerning his use of Christian symbolism and, as a result of advice received, removed two works from his show at Vinzavod (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian). An unusual example of a contemporary artist going out of his way to cater to church concerns:

Do you think the removal of your two works constitutes censorship? If no, why not?

I don't think this is a case of censorship. And it worries me when the non-religious mass-media make use of any pretext to attack the Church once more.

The 2x2 TV channel, under fire for showing imported cartoon shows (IZO, yesterday), has had its licence broadcasting renewed (dni.ru, in Russian).

A look at the problems facing the 2x2 channel, which shows South Park, The Simpsons and other imported cartoon series; it is facing prosecution and closure on grounds of "extremism" and causing psychological harm to children (RASO, in Russian).

Ksenia Sobchak, daughter of the one-time mayor of St Petersburg and the Russian media's answer to Paris Hilton, as Eva Braun in the controversial movie Hitler is Kaput (IZO, earlier) (Photo: Timur Khanov).

St Petersburg communists want the movie Hitler is Kaput (IZO earlier) banned because it makes fun of Soviet spy movies (km.ru, in Russian)

Posters for the new comedy Hitler is Kaput have been banned from the streets of Moscow; they lower the tone, apparently (radulova, in Russian).

Ilya and Emiliya Kabakov comment on the Forbidden Art affair (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian).

The religious pressure group The People's Council has now taken aim at the show Apples Fall Simultaneously in Different Gardens (Яблоки падают одновременно в разных садах), seen at Vinzavod in July. The Council has sent a complaint about its pornographic content to the Moscow prosecutor (Narodny Sobor, in Russian).

Russian censors move on South Park? (Yahoo, NY Times) (thanks, MK and LKJ).