Kirill Sererenikov was detained on suspicion. Full analysis: why and why Serebrenikov was arrested

MOSCOW, August 22 – RIA Novosti. Investigators on Tuesday charged the famous director and artistic director of the capital's Gogol Center theater, Kirill Serebrennikov, with fraud on an especially large scale. The filing of charges was preceded by the detention of Serebrennikov in St. Petersburg on the set of a film about Viktor Tsoi on suspicion of organizing the theft of at least 68 million rubles allocated for the Platform project in 2011-2014. The cultural figure himself did not admit guilt during interrogation by the Investigative Committee of Russia, and the Basmanny Court is expected to decide on the issue of choosing a preventive measure for him on Wednesday, August 23.

Back in May, law enforcement officers conducted searches at the Gogol Center and Serebrennikov’s house as part of a case of theft of government funds in the non-profit organization Seventh Studio, which he founded. Meanwhile, many public figures did not remain aloof from what was happening and expressed their opinion regarding the detention of Serebrennikov.

The director became the accused

The official representative of the Russian Investigative Committee, Svetlana Petrenko, told reporters on Tuesday that director Kirill Serebrennikov was charged with fraud on an especially large scale, and during interrogation he did not admit guilt.

“The artistic director of the Moscow Gogol Center theater, Kirill Serebrennikov, was charged with... fraud on an especially large scale... During interrogation as an accused, he did not admit his guilt,” she said.

Serebrennikov was charged with fraudThe artistic director of the Gogol Center is accused of organizing the theft of at least 68 million rubles allocated for the Platform project. Serebrennikov himself did not admit guilt.

This is not the first such situation related to Serebrennikov and the Gogol Center. Back in May, law enforcement officers conducted searches in the theater and Serebrennikov’s house as part of a case of theft of government funds in the Seventh Studio, which he founded. According to the investigation, the Russian Ministry of Culture allocated about 70 million rubles to the Seventh Studio for performances and tours. The accused, according to investigators, stole money with the help of fictitious documents about the organization of the play "Dream in summer night".

Currently under arrest are the ex-director of the Gogol Center Alexei Malobrodsky, the former accountant of the Seventh Studio Nina Maslyaeva, and its ex-general director Yuri Itin is under house arrest.

Serebrennikov has headed the Gogol Center since 2012. This year the director was awarded one of the most prestigious awards in the field of theatrical art - “Europe - a new theatrical reality”, the award will be presented in December in Rome.

Preventive measure for an artist

Serebrennikov's lawyer Dmitry Kharitonov told RIA Novosti that his client was detained in St. Petersburg, where he was filming a film, and taken to Moscow, accompanied by security forces. The defense lawyer said that at the time of his arrest he was on a business trip in Vladimir, from where he left by the first train.

At about 2 p.m., the lawyer arrived at the Investigative Committee, and in his presence the interrogation of Serebrennikov began, which lasted almost four hours. All the time that Serebrennikov was in the Investigative Committee in Moscow, a large number of journalists were near the department building, who were waiting for further developments. The press also gathered near the Gogol Center after Serebrennikov’s arrest; the theater itself was closed.

At the end of the interrogation, the director’s lawyer said that a preventive measure for Serebrennikov would be chosen on Wednesday, August 23, in the Basmanny Court.

“Apparently, he was taken to the first detention center. He was charged under Article 159 Part 4, he did not admit guilt. Tomorrow at 12.00 the Basmanny court will decide on the preventive measure,” Kharitonov said.

According to him, Serebrennikov believes that the accusation is absolutely absurd. “The “platform” was a project that took place,” the lawyer added.

What about Tsoi?

As the director’s lawyer clarified, Serebrennikov was in St. Petersburg at the time of his arrest filming a film about Viktor Tsoi. Filming a picture about little known facts biographies of the famous rock musician began in St. Petersburg at the end of July. The script for the film was written by Mikhail and Lily Idov.

The film company Hype Film and producers Ilya Stewart, Mikhail Finogenov and Murad Osmann are working on the project. Rental is scheduled for 2018. The film will feature songs by Viktor Tsoi, as well as the music of Western rock musicians, which influenced the formation of Russian rock.

The screenwriter of the project and former editor-in-chief of GQ magazine Mikhail Idov reported on his Facebook page that Serebrennikov’s new film about Tsoi is two-thirds completed, and its filming will be completed no matter what.

“The brilliant Kirill Serebrennikov has been arrested. I can’t believe it - Lily Idova and I were on set just the day before yesterday. He was in a great mood and all about work,” he wrote.

According to him, “in the end, all that the state will achieve is to deprive Russia of another talented person.”

© Ruptly

Public people did not stand aside

Russian public figures did not remain aloof from the events taking place. Former Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation, head of the board of the Center for Strategic Research Foundation, deputy chairman of the Economic Council under the President, Alexei Kudrin, believes that the investigation should not arrest Serebrennikov.

“The arrest of the director is clearly an excessive measure before the trial, especially after the president’s words about the excessiveness of arrests of entrepreneurs,” Kudrin wrote on his microblog on Twitter.

The famous animator Yuri Norshtein expressed his support for Serebrennikov. According to him, he does not believe that such a talented person could be the organizer of the theft of funds.

First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Culture, People's Artist of Russia Iosif Kobzon considers it premature to comment on the detention famous director Kirill Serebrennikov, but I am sure that creative people should not break the law.

The first deputy chairman of the committee, director Vladimir Bortko (Communist Party of the Russian Federation), indicated that the committee will monitor the Serebrennikov case.

“As for taking control, helping, of course (needed - ed). But here we need to divide it into two parts. If he is accused of some kind of ideological violations or, God forbid, political crimes, then here I will stand to the death, so that they don't touch the wonderful director Serebrennikov. As for financial violations, if I were an accountant, I would comment on them. But since I am not an accountant or an investigator, I cannot comment," Bortko told RIA Novosti.

Russian writer, publicist and political figure Eduard Limonov, in turn, believes that if the Investigative Committee of Russia decided to detain director Kirill Serebrennikov, then the Investigative Committee has evidence of his guilt. According to Limonov, if a person steals, he must be punished, and it does not matter what position he holds.

The head of the Union of Theater Workers (STD), Alexander Kalyagin, vouched for Serebrennikov to the Investigative Committee, asking to change his preventive measure. “The Chairman of the Union of Artists of the Russian Federation A.A. Kalyagin appealed to the Investigative Committee with a personal guarantee in connection with the detention of the artistic director of the Gogol Center K.S. Serebrennikov,” says a message on the union’s website.

Who will retain the Gogol Center?

The situation regarding the question of who will replace Serebrennikov in the theater during his detention was clarified by the head of the Moscow Department of Culture, Alexander Kibovsky. According to him, the duties of the head are now performed by Deputy for Finance Yulia Kalinina. According to Kibovsky, there are currently no plans to appoint another candidate.

Artistic director of the Gogol Center, previously a witness in a theft case budget funds, delivered from St. Petersburg to Moscow, he is charged with organizing fraud on an especially large scale. tells how events around the artist developed and why he turned from a witness into a suspect.

The Investigative Committee suspects Serebrennikov of organizing the theft of 68 million rubles

This money was allocated from the budget for the implementation of the experimental project “Platform”. “We wanted to come up with something at the intersection of modern art trends - theater, dance, music and media, so that they intertwine with each other,” Serebrennikov said about his plan. For the work of “Platform”, he founded a troupe called “Seventh Studio”. Its general producer was Yuri Itin, who also worked part-time as the head of the Gogol Center, and Nina Maslyaeva was appointed chief accountant.

The first searches at Serebrennikov’s house and at the Gogol Center took place back in May

Three months ago, investigators announced that the director was a witness in a theft case (then the estimated amount of theft was 200 million rubles). A few days later, Maslyaeva and Itin were detained and taken into custody, and in mid-June Malobrodsky. All three are suspected of fraud with Platform funds.

Accountant Serebrennikova has already admitted her guilt

Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky also called not to exaggerate in connection with the investigation. Serebrennikov, according to the official, has always been kind to the authorities; he certainly has nothing to be offended by. “I hope the investigation will be carried out as impartially as possible and without demonstrative harshness. Because creative people react more to form rather than to content,” the minister emphasized.

The Deputy Minister of Culture of Russia called Serebrennikov's detention a sad situation. He noted that the Ministry of Culture will not control the fate of the Gogol Center in the absence of the director, since this is the task of the Moscow Department of Culture. The capital's department stated that Yulia Kalinina, the institution's deputy artistic director for financial matters, will act as head of the theater instead of Serebrennikov.

Scandalous news about the theft of budget funds in the Seventh Studio, founded by Serebrennikov, began to arrive in May of this year. First, searches were carried out at the Gogol Center and the director’s apartment. Serebrennikov acted solely as a witness. However, during the investigation, an apartment in Germany worth 300 thousand euros was discovered. The property was purchased in 2012, during the period of financing of the “Seventh Studio” by the Ministry of Culture. Schemes for withdrawing budget funds under fictitious agreements were established. 160 shell companies were involved in laundering public money. It also became known that in the theater under the leadership of Kirill Serebrennikov, a number of tenders worth about 5 million rubles were won legal entities, the founder of which is himself.

Thus, while in budget service, the director was engaged in commercial activities, including winning tenders from his own theater through the individual entrepreneur Serebrennikov. Obviously, there is no such amount of smoke without fire. We can only hope that the investigative authorities will objectively look into Serebrennikov’s case, not paying attention to the lamentations of the liberal public.

The Tsargrad TV channel learned the opinion of cultural figures about the situation surrounding the case of Kirill Serebrennikov and the Seventh Studio. Here's what's on this moment say the director's associates.

Anton Dolin, film critic: “I’m not a lawyer, I don’t know any details about whether he’s really guilty of anything and I can’t say anything about it. I can say definitely: the court has not yet made a decision on his guilt. This case, to put it mildly, is dubious and unproven, judging by the way it has already unfolded. In particular, by the way they tried to prove the theft of funds for the production of a performance that allegedly was not staged, despite the fact that the performance was staged. For example, I was personally present at it. Not I really understand why it was necessary to arrest the director now.”

Joseph Raikhelgauz, theater director: “The fact that he was arrested is true. And what happens there can be determined by our fairest court in the world, you know. We cannot but trust the Russian court. Therefore, if Russian court He says that Serebrennikov stole it, which means he stole it. I'm kidding. I absolutely do not trust our court, our laws. I know Kirill Serebrennikov well, who has been in the theater for many years. His main occupation: he rehearses and produces performances, writes and stages. He makes films. He goes to major international festivals and glorifies our country. And if he stole something, which I absolutely do not believe, then I would like a fair and evidentiary trial to prove it.”

Stanislav Govorukhin, director: “They called me in for interrogation. So what’s special here? I personally have already been called in for questioning a hundred times in connection with all sorts of such matters during my cinematic career.”

Karen Shakhnazarov, director: “No, I don’t comment on all this. It’s impossible anymore. You’re not the first to contact me. Well, why comment here? Nothing is known yet. Time will pass, it will be possible to understand what, why, why."

Vladimir Menshov, director: “I don’t understand what to talk about on this topic at all. Well, they arrested me. That means there is some evidence. Well, let them show us this evidence. Then we’ll talk.”

Nikolai Svanidze, journalist, historian: “This is not normal, but this is not a provocation, I think. This is such a very, very excessive action. If we have some rational goals in mind here, this is a story about what can happen without any rationalism at all. But if we have in something rational, then, in my opinion, the goal here is to intimidate the entire creative community. Because it is impossible to explain it otherwise. Firstly, it can hardly be assumed that Mr. Serebrennikov, a world-famous director, is the main swindler and corrupt official in our country and stole more than anyone else, that no one “cuts off” our money, no one divides the state budget, no one “brings in”, no one “cuts” money, no one “makes money” on the construction of new stadiums.”

Andrey Kholenko, member of the Russian Film Directors Guild:“Of course, it’s very sad and very sad when a creative person is “closed” in “Matrosskaya Tishina”. I am not a big fan of the work of Kirill Serebrennikov. For some reason in my soul I don’t have the urge to go to the square and vote for him not to locked up, etc. Of course, it’s bad when any person is accused of something. I’m now returning from Optina Pustyn. There was a small filming there, several meetings, including with the confessor of Optina Pustyn - Father Zakhary. And somehow in a conversation today he said that if you have any doubts, consult your conscience. Because for a Russian person, God communicates with him through his conscience. And I think that you can’t buy conscience even for 68 million rubles. But one must consult one’s conscience.”

After interrogation, director Kirill Serebrennikov was taken to the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center. His lawyer Dmitry Kharitonov reported this to TASS.

According to him, the director had the intention to leave the territory of the Russian Federation in the near future. This was possible thanks to a residence permit in the Republic of Latvia and an apartment in Berlin, says a representative of the Investigative Committee. The witnesses in the case are the director's former subordinates. According to investigators, he can influence them, “including threatening them.” Thus, the daughters of accountant Maslyaeva have already been subjected to surveillance and pressure from Serebrennikov’s subordinates, the investigator claims.

“The amount of theft in the case will increase. Currently, we have not yet completed all the examinations,” said a member of the investigation team.

At the beginning of the hearing, lawyer Dmitry Kharitonov asked the court to include in the case materials personal guarantees for Serebrennikov, signed by Natalya Solzhenitsyn, director of the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Foundation Tretyakov Gallery Zelfira Tregulova, general director of the Bolshoi Theater Vladimir Urin, head of the Vera Foundation Nyuta Federmesser, singer Philip Kirkorov and many other public and cultural figures.

The investigation's response that Serebrennikov refused to testify is not entirely correct, the lawyer said. “He was detained early in the morning in St. Petersburg and taken to Moscow for eight hours. When at 14:00 I arrived at the Investigative Committee and the interrogation began, Serebrennikov only said that he had neither the moral nor the physical strength to read and comprehend the multi-page accusation,” Kharitonov said and added that, according to Serebrennikov, the accusation it was “incomprehensible” to him. Mention of the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was missing from the new charges brought against the defendants in the case by the central office of the Investigative Committee at the end of July, the lawyer said. Previously, the investigation's version was that the Seventh Studio embezzled money for the play and it was not staged. Now the mechanism of theft is not specified in any way: “It is impossible to defend against such an accusation.”

“I would like, of course, to be released, because I am not guilty. The charges brought against me seem incredible, absurd, impossible,” Serebrennikov told the court. “I have no intention of running away: I showed up at any call and told the whole truth - that the Platform project existed, budget money was spent only on it and I am very proud of it. All the people involved worked conscientiously.” According to the director, he “never suspected or accused” the Seventh Studio employees who were responsible for the economy.

The accused confirmed that he asked the investigation to return the seized international passport, since he needed to go to Germany for an opera production in Stuttgart. “This only concerned my contractual obligations. I had no intention of hiding,” he added.

Serebrennikov’s defense is ready to post bail for him, corresponding to the amount of damage in the case - 68 million rubles, said lawyer Kharitonov. “It’s clear that we personally don’t have that kind of money. But I think that if we go outside now, we will quickly collect them,” the defender clarified. At his request, directors Andrei Smirnov and Alexey Mizgirev, as well as publisher Irina Prokhorova, were questioned at the trial, and they gave a characterization of Serebrennikov’s personality.

Kirill Serebrennikov (Photo: Anton Kardashov / Moscow Agency)

“This case, in my opinion, is absolutely exaggerated. And what the investigator said here characterizes not Serebrennikov, but the work of our Investigative Committee,” exclaimed Smirnov. “I have no reason to doubt Serebrennikov’s professional integrity. In general, to see him behind bars and the fact that they brought him here in handcuffs is outrageous.” According to him, just the list of cultural figures who vouched for the director “is enough to understand where the truth and goodness are here.”

“He leads a rather modest life, which is subordinated to one thing - his work. I know Kirill as a very honest person; I myself staged a play at the Gogol Center and I know that the work there is built on full inclusion - emotional, creative. Apart from work, nothing else exists for people there,” Mizgirev said.

“From my point of view, Serebrennikov is an outstanding director and theater figure. And he is, this is an indisputable fact, the pride of our country. His project made Russia a leading theatrical power. I can say that this is a crystal honest person whose purpose in life is creativity. Pardon the pun, but he is an absolute unmercenary. And I'm ready to make any deposit to really great person I wasn’t in a pre-trial detention center,” Prokhorova summed up.

The meeting took place to the sound of applause and shouts from Kalanchevskaya Street - hundreds of his supporters came to the courthouse to support the director.

Detention of Serebrennikov

The director early in the morning of August 22 in a St. Petersburg hotel, he was in the city filming his film about Viktor Tsoi. Serebrennikov was taken to Moscow, where, following interrogation at the central office of the Investigative Committee, he was charged with organizing fraud.

According to the investigation, in 2011 Serebrennikov came up with and developed a project for the development and popularization of contemporary art “Platform”, for which in 2011-2014 the Ministry of Culture allocated more than 214 million rubles. To implement the project, the director created the independent non-profit organization “Seventh Studio”. The company’s employees provided the Ministry of Culture with “action plans within the framework of the Platform project, which contained deliberately unreliable, inflated information about their quantity and cost,” drew up false reports, as well as fictitious contracts for work that were not actually carried out, according to the Investigative Committee. The defendants in the case transferred budgetary compensation for these works to the accounts of shell companies and cashed them out, and then Serebrennikov distributed them among the participants in the scheme, investigators are convinced.

The Seventh Studio case

The case of fraud with state subsidies to the Seventh Studio company was initiated back in 2015, but it became known only after, at Serebrennikov’s house and at several other addresses. Earlier, the Investigative Committee brought charges against Seventh Studio accountant Nina Maslyaeva, former director of Gogol Center Alexey Malobrodsky and ex-general director of Seventh Studio Yuri Itin.

Serebrennikov until recently remained in the status of a witness along with several other company employees, as well as the former head of the state support department of the Ministry of Culture, Sofia Apfelbaum. The country's leadership decided to abandon criminal prosecution of him, citing sources close to officials and the director himself. However, after searches and interrogation in May, Serebrennikov’s passport was confiscated, he himself told the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

At the beginning of August it became known that Maslyaeva. According to the protocol of her interrogation, Itin, Serebrennikov and Malobrodsky created the Seventh Studio ANO “to carry out criminal intent.” The accountant helped them cash out the subsidy from the state; The defendants in the case disposed of the cash at their own discretion, Maslyaeva told the investigation. Previously, she stated that in total, at least 100 million rubles had been withdrawn from the Seventh Studio account since 2014. in favor of fly-by-night companies. Maslyaeva's daughters, meanwhile, as they assumed, were from Serebrennikov's former colleagues and associates.

Initially, individual defendants in the case were charged with fraud in smaller amounts: they were accused of stealing 2.3 million rubles allocated for the production of the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and that they, together with unidentified persons, prepared false reports on work for 1. 2 million rubles, which were not actually carried out.

At the end of June, the investigation of the case was entrusted to the central office of the Investigative Committee. On July 25, a new charge was brought against the accused. In it, the essence of the act that the defendants are charged with is not specified, Malobrodsky’s lawyer, Ksenia Karpinskaya, explained to reporters. “It simply says that they worked in the Seventh Studio and spent public money. How exactly is not specified,” the defender said.

In the case of the theft of budget money allocated to the Seventh Studio company in 2011–14. According to investigators, the total amount of stolen funds is 200 million rubles. After the search, Serebrennikov was interrogated as a witness and released.

The next day, security forces detained the former general director of the Seventh Studio, Yuri Itin, and the former chief accountant, Nina Maslyaeva. They were accused of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code); the amount in question was 1.2 million rubles. Itin was sent under house arrest, and Maslyaeva was sent to a pre-trial detention center; the latter admitted guilt and made a deal with the investigation.

On May 24, at the state awards ceremony in the Kremlin, actor Yevgeny Mironov handed Vladimir Putin a letter in defense of Serebrennikov. Answering the actor’s question about the reason for the searches in the theater, Putin pointedly: “Yes, fools.” Later he found it “ridiculous” to participate in the investigative actions of riot police.

However, a month after the first searches, the former director of the Gogol Center, Alexei Malobrodsky, who in 2011–12 served as the general producer of the Seventh Studio, was detained. He was also charged with fraud: according to the Investigative Committee, among the stolen money were funds for the production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” - the play was allegedly never staged (at the same time, the Shakespearean play is still on at the Gogol Center). The amount of damage for this episode was estimated at 2.3 million rubles. Malobrodsky himself, that he had nothing to do with the cashing of money from the Seventh Studio.

In early August, it became known that Maslyaeva had reported Serebrennikov, Itin and Malobrodsky, who allegedly “developed a plan to steal funds” from the Platform project. At the same time, Itin, Malobrodsky and Maslyaeva were charged with expanded charges: the amount of damage increased to 68 million rubles. Relatives of the ex-accountant of the Seventh Studio said that unknown people were watching them.

Employees of Serebrennikov's insurance company in St. Petersburg, where he worked on the film “Summer” about Viktor Tsoi. According to the director, security forces took him almost from the set, put him in a minibus and took him to Moscow; Kommersant reported that after his arrest, FSB operatives escorted him to the airport.

On the morning of August 22, Serebrennikov was already at the central office of the Investigative Committee, and towards the evening the director was charged with fraud. According to investigators, in 2011 he came up with the “Platform” project, for the implementation of which in subsequent years he received more than 214 million rubles from the Ministry of Culture. At the direction of Serebrennikov and Itin, Seventh Studio employees allegedly inflated the cost of events and then prepared false reports.

In addition, “Seventh Studio” entered into agreements with shell companies, the money for which “was cashed out and distributed by Serebrennikov among the accomplices.” The Investigative Committee named the name of another person involved in the case - this is the executive producer of the play “A Midsummer Night's Dream” Ekaterina Voronova, she was put on the wanted list.

After the searches, people came out in defense of Serebrennikov famous actors, directors (including Pavel Lungin, Alexander Sokurov), journalists and human rights activists. An appeal in support of Malobrodsky was made by TV presenter Vladimir Pozner, writers Vladimir Sorokin and Viktor Erofeev, conductor Teodor Currentzis and other cultural figures.

On Wednesday morning it became known that the investigation was asking to place the director under house arrest.

The meeting is scheduled for noon. Employees and actors of the Gogol Center gathered at the building of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow.

Moscow 24 on Twitter writes that the director has already been taken to court.

Echo of Moscow journalist Alena Vershinina writes that actress Victoria Isakova will act as a guarantor in court. TV presenter Leonid Parfenov and directors Vladimir Mirzoev and Boris Khlebnikov also came to support Serebrennikov.

Now there are more than two hundred people outside the Basmanny Court building. All the sidewalks around are crowded with people, reports a Mediazona correspondent. The entrance is crowded with photographers and cameramen. The paddy wagons arrived.

The director's support group and journalists are also standing outside the hall in which the question of the preventive measure will be considered. Kirill Serebrennikov was brought into the hall.

Get people in quickly! They are already out on my roadway! Speed ​​up the process! - a policeman speaks into the telephone at the courthouse. - The situation here is already serious.

Due to the large crowd of people with phones near the courthouse, the Internet does not work well.

Journalist Alexander Budberg, husband of Dmitry Medvedev's press secretary Natalya Timakova, came to court. The wife of businessman Oleg Deripaska, Polina, also came to support Serebrennikov.

The meeting begins after the protocol shooting. Some of the journalists managed to get into the hall, the rest of the correspondents are watching the broadcast in the corridor.

The judge explains Serebrennikov his rights.

Serebrennikov's lawyer Dmitry Kharitonov says that the defense has a large number of instructions, including from Natalya Solzhenitsyn, head of the Solzhenitsyn Foundation, singer Philip Kirkorov, TV presenter Andrei Malakhov, directors Fyodor Bondarchuk, Avdotya Smirnova, Alexander Popogrebsky and others.

The defender lists the names of the guarantors for a long time: actors Igor Vernik and Valery Garkalin, Evgeny Mironov, Konstantin Khabensky, Konstantin Raikin, Maxim Vitorgan, actresses Chulpan Khamatova, Victoria Isakova and Elizaveta Boyarskaya, director of the Bolshoi Theater Vladimir Urin, TV presenter Ivan Urgant, journalists Ksenia Sobchak, Nikolai Kartozia and Nikolai Svanidze, public figure Nyuta Federmesser and director of the Tretyakov Gallery Zelfira Tregulova.

He hands the judge a large stack of sureties.

After the judge has included the medical documents, the investigator takes the floor. According to the case materials, acting as part of organized group, Serebrennikov committed fraud. “Taking into account that Serebrennikov is accused of a serious crime, he can abscond from trial,” he says.

The microphone in the hall beeps.

Serebrennikov could influence witnesses in a criminal case if he remains free, the investigator adds. The director can also destroy evidence and avoid liability. He asks the court to place Serebrennikov under house arrest until October 19 with a ban on using the Internet and telephone.

Arguing in favor of house arrest, the Investigative Committee officer mentions that the director has real estate abroad and a residence permit in Latvia.

The prosecutor supports the motion.

Serebrennikov objects to house arrest. “I would like to be released because I am not guilty. “All the accusations seem incredibly absurd and impossible to me,” he says.

The director calmly explains that he always went to interrogations and cooperated with the investigation, answering all questions. All public money was spent on the project, he concludes.

Serebrennikov says that the Platform project was important for art.

“That’s why I’m asking you to let me go, really. I won’t run away anywhere, I can’t hide anywhere,” he says. In early August, the director said that after the searches, investigators took away his passport, although at that time he was a witness in the case.

Serebrennikov continues: “House arrest is an unreasonably harsh measure that will not allow me to work.”

Lawyer Kharitonov speaks: “House arrest is an unfounded request. There is no reason to believe that he will abscond from trial. All that the investigation has is a document about the purchase and sale of an apartment and data that he was going to go abroad to stage a play.”

Meanwhile, the crowd on the street is chanting: “Kirill! Kirill! Kirill!"

“My client had no intention of running away. All his thoughts were focused on work,” the defender continues.

He recalls that investigators interrupted the filming process several times. The lawyer insists that the investigation did not provide a single piece of evidence that Serebrennikov could escape somewhere.

On the street they shout loudly again: “Kirill! Bravo!" and applaud loudly. Hearing the noise on the street from the broadcast, people in the corridor also screamed and clapped.

The lawyer says that yesterday Serebrennikov did not refuse to testify: after the director was detained, he was driven from St. Petersburg to Moscow for nine hours, and by the evening he “did not have the strength to comprehend the accusation.” He assures that Serebrennikov will answer all the investigators’ questions later.

Kharitonov says the judge should give the director the opportunity to continue working.

The crowd at the entrance to the court began chanting “Freedom!” and “Kirill, come out!”

Defender Kharitonov continues his speech. He asks the court to release Serebrennikov on bail of 68 million rubles - this is the amount of damage that, according to the investigation, he caused.

“Now, of course, we don’t have that kind of money, but in as soon as possible, I think we’ll put it together,” he says.

Now the investigator has taken the floor, reports the Mediazona correspondent, but he cannot be heard due to the incessant screams from the street.

Dear citizens! Let me contact you! By your behavior you are interfering with the work of the court! - the policeman says into his bullhorn.

With your work you interfere with creativity! - they answer him from the crowd, applause is heard.

Please clear the roadway and do not interfere with the work of the court.

The applause fell silent because someone asked to be quieter, otherwise the lawyer’s words would not be heard.

Now the judge lists the papers included in the case - a statement from investigators, petitions from a lawyer, more than 30 sureties. The period for the preliminary investigation was extended until October 19. She says who was questioned and when.

Serebrennikov repeats again that he is an honest man and did not steal anything. The director believes that he was slandered.

Lawyer Kharitonov says that Irina Prokhorova is ready to give any amount that the court assigns as collateral.

Director Andrei Smirnov (“Belorussky Station”, “Once Upon a Time There Was a Woman”, played in the film “Elena”) enters the hall. He says that he has known Kirill for 20 years and knows him only from the good side.

The lawyer asks to tell why Smirnov acted as a guarantor. He replies that he knew Serebrennikov when he was still a “young talent.” Now he has become a famous talented director. The case against him is exaggerated, Smirnov believes.

“I have no reason to doubt Kirill’s civic integrity,” he adds.

There are no questions for him.

Now the director and screenwriter Alexey Mizgirev is speaking. He speaks of Serebrennikov's innocence.

Lawyer Kharitonov again talks about bail and asks to hear the editor-in-chief of the New Literary Review and literary critic Irina Prokhorova.

Prokhorova enters the hall. She says that she has known the director for the last 15 years.

The lawyer asks the guarantor to tell about her relationship with Serebrennikov.

From my point of view, he is an outstanding director, and I would say that he brought our country to the forefront of the theater movement,” says Prokhorova. According to her, his whole life is creativity.