Party rock and roll

On February 17, a rock concert “Russia without fascism, war and violence”, organized by a number of opposition parties and movements, will be held in the capital's DC named after Gorbunov. As it became known to the "Gazeta", some domestic rock groups, among which mentioned "Bi-2" and "Spleen", for political reasons refused to participate in an anti-fascist concert. The organizers of the event stated that the producers of musicians explain their refusal by the presence of a certain unspoken agreement that they have with United Russia. The agreement seems to be imposed by a veto on socio-political actions arranged by other polytstructures.

The idea of conducting a rock concert “Russia without fascism, war and violence”, which belongs to the organization “Committee of Anti-Wennial Actions”, was supported by representatives of a number of opposition parties and public movements that participated in the anti-fascist rally on December 18 (we recall that the ATP, the “Yabloko”, the united civilian front, the Moscow Helsinki group and others took part in that action). The organizers intend to transfer the proceeds to the Fund for helping refugees and immigrants “Civil assistance”. Dolphin, Kalinov Bridge, Earr and some other teams have already been given their consent to participate in the concert.

But, according to Gazeta, one of the organizers of the rock concert Igor Korolev, a number of groups, in particular Bi-2 and Spleen, refused to take part in the concert, referring to an agreement with United Russia, which does not allow them to participate in promotions organized by other political parties. The producer of “Bi-2” and “Spline” Alexander Ponomarev, in an interview with the “newspaper”, did not refuse political motives, but refuted information about the agreement with the Party of power. “We have no agreements,” said Ponomarev. “I have a cultural fund“ Our Time ”, it is financed by the Russian government, so my groups would be unethical to participate in this concert.” To the question of the “newspaper”, why does he consider this event a political one, the director answered the question: “But is one of the parties finances this event?” Note that only the Union of Right Forces party takes a direct part in organizing the concert, in whose support Bi-2 performed concerts during the pre-election campaign in 2003.

But Ponomarev does not see the problem of fascism in the country. “I believe that this is all far -fetched,” he said. “There have always been and will be nationalist antics, just parties make PR.” Ponomarev noticed that his groups are far from politics.

Recall, however, the “Bi-2” frontman, as well as other representatives of the rock tusk-Boris Grebenshchikov, Zemfira Ramazanov, Vyacheslav Butusov, Sergey Shnurov, and Vladimir Shahrin, visited the deputy head of the administration Vladislav Surkov. According to media reports, the “Orange Revolution” in Kyiv, whose singers were popular Ukrainian rock bands, served as the reason. Judging by the deep silence of domestic rock singers regarding the content of the Kremlin conversation, an attempt to warn their participation in the "orange" events of the presidential administration was a success.