Once upon a time, apologizing on camera was a Chechen and Belarusian practice. Since the outbreak of full-scale war, the Russian authorities have also adopted this method of putting pressure on dissenters, especially in music and pop culture. Here are some examples from the last year.
To whom: the police.
For what: for holding a charity event to aid Ukrainians.
Quote: “We apologize, including to all law enforcement officers who had to be involved in these events because of us and waste their time.”
Did it help: Yes, the security forces have left the bars alone.
To whom: Yekaterina Mizulina, head of the Safe Internet League.
For what: for mentioning drugs in his songs.
Quote: “We have to be role models, but ones with the right values. I urge all performers to be responsible. The moment has come to change everything for the better, and I want to have an impact on this.”
Did it help: Yes, Mizulina gave the rapper another chance: he had his a picture taken with her and deleted some of his songs from streaming services. The security forces stopped disrupting his concerts.
To whom: to everyone.
For what: for protest songs.
Quote: “I spent time in prison. More precisely, I spent five days under arrest in a pretrial detention center. On this occasion, I have to shore up my opinion about the complaints about the pots.* I was wrong: I should not wish harm to my army, because the army is inseparable from the people. And I am an inseparable part of this people.”
Did it help: yes, apparently. Roman Khudyakov (which is the rapper’s real name) has stopped making public appearances, however.
*[In a video recorded on 23 March 2022, Loqiemean is shown baking meat in clay pots and saying that he would like those who bombed an apartment building in Odessa to be cooked in clay pots. On 1 May , Yekaterina Mizulina posted this video on her Telegram channel, captioning it as follows: “But we definitely do not need such concerts in Russia. Let him perform at home in his kitchen.”]
To whom: the police.
For what: for anti-war statements and burning his passport.
Quote: “I was mistakenly obsessed with false information [voice-over: “Why were you brought here?”] I had a misfire in understanding what was happening.”
Did it help: no. Charlotte has been charged on four criminal counts, including “disseminating fake news about the Russian army” and “discrediting the Russian army.” He’s now under arrest in a pretrial detention center.
“When I see a person, I look into their eyes
It doesn’t matter what you look like
It’s important what you’re talking about
When I don’t see a person, I look up at the sky
It doesn’t matter what I look like
It’s important what I’m talking about”
Blogger Nastya Ivleeva, singer Philip Kirkorov, rapper Vacìo, and others
To whom: everyone.
For what: for an “almost naked” party, at which the guests were dressed scantily; Vacìo even came wearing only a sock over his penis.
Quotes:
Vacìo: “I want to say that I don’t support LGBT people in any way and didn’t want to make any propaganda about it. I condemn LGBT supporters. I apologize for offending the feelings of other people and for being involved in such a terrible video at such a difficult time for our country.”
Philipp Kirkorov: “I went through the wrong door. Yes, I knew about the event, had received an invitation, promised to come and came, but I didn’t know about the nature of the events that would take place behind that door. And so I left.”
Ksenia Sobchak: “I can tell you for sure for myself, my friends, I definitely did not want to offend anyone. If someone is offended by my appearance, I apologize for it.”
Did it help: We don’t know yet. It seems that the backlash against Ivleeva and her guests is still underway.
Source: WTF (Mediazona) email newsletter, 28 December 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader
MOSCOW, Dec 28 (Reuters) – A rapper who attended a celebrity party with only a sock to hide his modesty has been jailed for 15 days, sponsors of some of Russia’s best known entertainers have torn up their contracts, and President Vladimir Putin is reported to be unamused.
An “almost naked” party at a Moscow nightclub held at a time when Russia is engaged in a war with Ukraine and the authorities are pushing an increasingly conservative social agenda, has provoked an unusually swift and powerful backlash.
A video clip of Putin’s spokesperson listening to an explanation from one of the stars who attended has been circulating online. Baza, a news outlet known for its security services contacts, has reported that troops fighting in Ukraine were among the first to complain after seeing the footage and that photographs of the event reached an unimpressed Putin.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesperson, on Wednesday asked reporters to forgive him for not publicly commenting on the burgeoning scandal, saying: “Let you and I be the only ones in the country who aren’t discussing this topic.”
Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that the event had “stained” those who took part, but that they now had a chance to work on themselves, according to the Ura.ru news outlet.
The fierce backlash from the authorities, pro-Kremlin lawmakers and bloggers, state media, and Orthodox Church groups has been dominating the headlines for days, displacing stories about rising egg prices and allowing people to let off steam by railing against the show-business elite instead.
The party, in Moscow’s Mutabor nightclub, was organised by blogger Anastasia (Nastya) Ivleeva and attended by well-known singers in their underwear or wearing skimpy costumes who have been staples on state TV entertainment programmes for years.
DOUBLE APOLOGY
Ivleeva, who has since become one of Russia’s most recognised names, is seen in one clip showing off an emerald-studded chain around her backside worth 23 million roubles ($251,000) at a time when some Russians are struggling to get by.
She has since issued two public apology videos for the event which spanned Dec. 20–21.
In the second tearful apology, released on Wednesday, Ivleeva said she regretted her actions and deserved everything she got but hoped she could be given “a second chance.”
Her name has since disappeared as one of the public faces of major Russian mobile phone operator MTS, the tax authorities have opened an investigation that carries a potential five-year jail term, and a Moscow court has accepted a lawsuit from a group of individuals demanding she pay out 1 billion roubles ($10.9 million) for “moral suffering.”
If successful, they want the money to go to a state fund that supports Ukraine war veterans.
“To hold such events at a time when our guys are dying in the (Ukrainian) special military operation and many children are losing their fathers is cynical,” said Yekaterina Mizulina, director of Russia’s League for a Safe Internet, a body founded with the authorities’ support.
“Our soldiers on the front line are definitely not fighting for this.”
Many of the party’s famous participants have recorded apologies, including journalist Ksenia Sobchak whose late father Anatoly was once Putin’s friend and boss.
SOCIAL CONSERVATISM
The scandal comes at a time when Putin, who is expected to comfortably win another six-year term at a March election, has doubled down on social conservatism, urging families to have eight or more children, and after Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that LGBT activists should be designated as “extremists.”
Nikolai Vasilyev, a rapper known as Vacio who attended wearing only a sock to cover his penis, was jailed by a Moscow court for 15 days and fined 200,000 roubles ($2,182) for propaganda of “non-traditional sexual relations.”
Other more famous names have had concerts and lucrative state TV airtime cancelled, contracts with sponsors revoked, and, in at least one case, are reportedly being cut out of a new film.
The scandal has angered those who support Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Standing outside the Bolshoi Theatre on Thursday, Nadezhda, one Moscow resident, told Reuters she was outraged and thought those who took part should be punished and not shown on TV anymore.
“If you’re partying at least don’t film it,” she said. “At such a difficult time (for Russia), they should at least be ashamed. Aren’t they ashamed before those who are fighting for us?”
Alexander, another Muscovite, said those who attended had not broken any law and were free to do as they pleased at what was a private event.
But one woman who said her nephew had lost both legs in combat wrote in a post to the League for a Safe Internet that the stars should pay for prosthetic legs for her relative and others to make amends.
“That would be a better apology,” the unidentified woman wrote.
($1 = 91.6205 roubles)
Source: Andrew Osborn, “Russian stars’ semi-naked party sparks wartime backlash,” Reuters, 28 December 2023
In her first social media post about the scandalous party, released five days ago, Nastya Ivleeva wasn’t apologetic or teary-eyed at all. ||| TRR
The situation around the “naked party in Moscow,” in the course of which the Russian patriotic crowd has canceled many quite pro-regime figures, quite tellingly illustrates the degradation of Russian society. Previously, there were two realities: the reality of official propaganda, and a parallel reality in which there was “contemporary art,” “kinky parties,” and “Knife magazine.” In exchange for symbolic loyalty to the regime, one could gain comparative individual freedom.
Now that time has come to an end. There will be no individual freedom even for the chosen ones. The only freedom that remains for Russians is the freedom to vote for Putin and the freedom to apologize to Kadyrov.
There is something incredibly funny about the fact that Russian culture, after all its sobbing about imaginary [culture] “cancellation” [on the part of the west], has finally joyfully taken the plunge and canceled itself.
Source: Aleksandr Wolodarskij (Facebook), 28 December 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader
Nastya Ivleeva’s popularity almost guarantees trial purchases by loyal followers and innovative consumers. Photo: