Writer Mikhail Shishkin refused to represent the "thieves' regime" at the Book Expo America exhibition

The writer Mikhail Shishkin left the Russian delegation at the book exhibition Book Expo America 2013, in order to have nothing to do with the "thieves' pyramid" returning his country "in the Middle Ages," writes The Guardian .

In 2013, the writer Mikhail Shishkin, the winner of the Russian Bouquer, National Bestseller and the Big Book, was invited by the Federal Print and Mass Communications Agency for the Russian Federation to participate in a large literary event - the Book Expo America exhibition - as part of the Russian delegation. He represented Russia at the Book Expo 2012, and the repeated appearance at a well -known book event would promise him large bonuses in relations with American readers, publishers and booksakers, the newspaper writes.

However, this year the writer refused to participate in Book Expo on the Russian side. “Not because my schedule does not allow me to do this, but for ethical reasons,” the author emphasized.

"The political development of Russia and, in particular, last year, created an absolutely unacceptable and humiliating situation in the country - both for the people and for the great Russian culture," says Shishkin.

“I, as a Russian person and citizen of Russia, is ashamed of what is happening in my country. Taking part in the book fair as part of the official delegation, using the possibilities that open to me as a writer, I simultaneously take the obligations of the state, whose policy I consider destructive for the country, and the system that I reject,” Shishkin said.

“A country where power is seized by a corrupt, criminal regime, where the state is a thieves' pyramid where the elections have become a farce, the courts serve the authorities, and not a law where there are political prisoners, where state television has become a prostitute, where the impostor groups carry out crazy laws that return all of us to the Middle Ages, such a country cannot be my Russia,” the writer added.

Mikhail Shishkin said that he would like to represent "another Russia, my Russia - a country free from impostors, with a state structure that protects human rights, and not corruption, a country with free media, free elections and free people."

He emphasized that he decided to withdraw from the Russian delegation independently.