The museum will bring to court

Conflict in the Museum of Cinema may end with a court

Former Director and Founder of the Museum of Cinema Naum Kleiman can sue the new head of the museum Larisa Solonitsyn and officials of the Ministry of Culture of Russia. He stated this in an interview with Radio Liberty. In his opinion, the reports of the department, which is led by Vladimir Medinsky, are unfounded about financial violations in the activities of the Museum of Cinema. Larisa Solonitsyna refused to talk about the results of financial inspections, citing the fact that all the claims of the auditors relate to the period when she has not yet worked in this institution. On the eve of all researchers of the Museum of Cinema, led by Naum Kleiman, not having achieved the resignation of the current director Solonitsyna, announced the dismissal and sent a letter to the Minister of Culture of Russia.

Three months ago, in his statements of Radio Liberty, the founder of the Kino Museum Num Kleiman and the current director Larisa Solonitsyn spoke with restrained optimism about compromises and made plans for the future. All this time, some disagreements were seeping in the press inside the team, but it did not reach an open conflict. And suddenly on October 24, all researchers of the Museum of Cinema announced the dismissal, sending a letter addressed to the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky. The document was published on the website of the institution, in it the employees explained their decision with disagreement with the activities of the director of the museum of Larisa Solonitsyna, who was appointed to this position in July 2014. The answer from the official department followed immediately. The Deputy Minister of Culture of Russia Elena Milovzorova openly supported Solonitsyn and spoke about financial violations. "Based on the results of the check of the Museum of Cinema, the control and audit department of the Department of Control and the personnel of the Ministry of Culture in August 2014 revealed violations in the activities of the previous leadership. A total of about 4 million rubles were illegally spent from the federal budget," the Ministry of Culture said in a letter. The founder of the Kino Museum Num Kleiman categorically does not agree with these accusations.

- Yes, this is a completely wonderful document. I burst out laughing. Firstly, it is an absolute falsifyman, as they say now, absolutely absurd claims. For example, why did we not put the square on the balance of the museum, which are allocated to us by Mosfilm. "Mosfilm" lent us to us. We were sheltered by the homeless until the time of receiving our own premises. It’s the same as coming to a friend to visit, and then say - I'm sorry, I write your apartment for myself. How can it be?! The same thing with the Eisenstein Museum, which is stubbornly considered part of the museum. And this is the cradle of the museum, from where everything has grown. The funds of this cabinet were the beginning of the museum collection, and the museum was the only one, which is why I was instructed to make a museum. I was the only museum unit in the Union of Cinematographers. On the other hand, we saw how compromising is riveted. We were asked questions during the audit. For all these questions, we gave explanatory notes, starting with the fact that they incorrectly believe - 46 thousand units of exhibits, which are supposedly absent, while they are before their eyes. They incorrectly considered some units that recently came to our museum collection. And ending that they are riveting to us some incorrect bonuses, some services, allegedly not rendered, which is absolutely not true! Everything is proved by documents. All this was removed during the audit. They were satisfied. And when the audit ended, the results did not show us. Solonitsyna completely refused to show their team. And she read out to me, holding a document in her hands, some fragments. From which I understand that there was nothing like that there. They excavated the first issues of the audit and now they pretend to be the final option. Or it was drawn up ahead of time in case we suddenly not converge in characters, as it is customary to say now.

-Returning to the question of unlawfully spent means for the scientific and memorial complex of Sergei Eisenstein. We are talking about a two -room apartment in which you have repeatedly given an interview, including Radio Liberty. This is a very modest apartment. Everything that is from furniture is littered with books, archival documents, etc. You are made a complaint - why did you not transfer this apartment to the balance?

- This is another absurd claim. This is a housing fund, which was once transferred to the Union of Cinematographers on the expense of its limits so that when the Union is built by the Eisenstein museum, as the widow will be taken away, this apartment will be returned to the Moscow City Council. All these years, utilities have been paid. This is not rent. This is precisely the targeted use of a two -room small apartment for museum purposes in 28 residential sq.m. Larisa Ottovna herself never came to the museum, although Kinovist could visit this shrine of not only our Russian, but also world film art. No, she was not at all interested. Then she began to talk about why we would not separate it all. Eisenstein’s things are somewhere somewhere, and transfer the apartment to the museum to balance so that, there may be foreigners there, for example, that is, to make a mini-hotel in this small apartment, where not everyone will enter now. Naturally, I explained to her that this is all impossible. This belongs to the city hall now. This is state property, firstly. Secondly, no one drives us from home. We regularly pay all utilities. Thirdly, we can only translate into a good real room equipped for an apartment-museum or house-museum, as is now being done all over the world. Larisa Ottovna did not heed this. Moreover, she still believes that we paid salaries to our employees is unlawful, since they are in another place. This is the same as in the Bakhrushensky Museum to make a complaint why numerous branches of this museum receive a salary. Yes, this small complex was not decorated as a branch, because then it was necessary to make an individual, to start an accountant on two employees. It's absurd! They are just a department of our museum.

- Another of the claims - the working hours were violated. How do you comment?

- As for the regime. We each person performs several functions. He is not only a keeper, not only a researcher who attributes the resulting thing, describes it, introduces it to the directory, he not only with himself a laboratory assistant, because he digitizes it and puts it in the catalog, he is also a compliance. We have one on each fund, rarely - two people who actually go to people. For the most part, we have those monuments that have been preserved in private collections. The state regularly destroyed everything that was at the film studio. They did not need it for all these reorganizations. And people kept. People come to our families, sometimes buying gifts, of course, very insolvent former filmmakers or their descendants for their money, of course, not for the money of the state. They disassemble their archives there. They put them in order. They select what is really museum value. Then they bring to the museum and work with them. In addition, there are in the archives. In order to attribute a thing, you sometimes need to rummage a lot of materials. For example, in RGALI we had several employees regularly. Naturally, there can be no work from the call to the call, from 9 to 18. I said - guys, we must save everything that can be saved. Now more than in the Civil War of materials and monuments of film culture because of this crisis-both the crisis of cinema and the museum crisis, unfortunately. Naturally, many sometimes spent 10 or 12 hours of working time, but not necessarily at their own table. And this is reproached to us that we have a loose discipline. Let them check the effectiveness of our free labor and the stick work that Larisa Ottovna is trying to introduce.

I have to say that for me this is a shock. Because I really relied that a young energetic film expert, as we thought, but in fact an absolutely uneducated person, can do something for the museum of the movie, get out of the deadlock in which we found ourselves after we lost the film center. No, now we realized that it was sent as a liquidator. I do not know - this is an intentional activity or it simply turns out due to the complete incompetence of the highest leadership of the ministry. In any case, I can say that we will not allow us to destroy the museum - with the help of the public and, I hope, with the help of those officials who understand that this is not our place of work. It's just that this is the cultural heritage of the country.

- When we talked in July, your mood was different. You talked about the creation of an independent public board of trustees. How much this question has advanced based on the fact that several months have passed?

- The fact is that Medinsky requested from me a list of those people whom we could see in a public council. And for his part, the Board of Trustees was undertaken to help with money, some, perhaps, ties to the museum to move forward. Instead, by the end of the year, we suddenly received a series of persons appointed by Medinsky, headed by Konstantin Ernst, under the name "Public Council". Moreover, in this list there was not a single surname that we asked for public council. Then we said - well, then we will create a trusteeship advice. But, unfortunately, this was not accepted by the ministry. When we started crisis phenomena, I called Konstantin Ernst several times in the expectation that, perhaps, he, as the head of the public council, will help us allow this inside the museum. Unfortunately, he did not find the time or the opportunity to answer.

- What will you make in response to financial claims? Where will you protect your honor - will it be a court? ..

-Yes, we asked the Trudovik lawyer. We phoned him yesterday. We must meet him today or tomorrow. We will sue for diplomation and for insulting human, and not just professional.

- In your opinion, why did you happen like you and your colleagues wanted?

-Maybe we did not understand that there was some kind of plan. Believe me, I'm not paranoid. I do not see some kind of conspiracy here, although it may be that the installation was given-this "Museum of Kleiman", as they said, to destroy. Although this has long been a museum of the whole team and the whole country. It seems to me that just a very low culture of this person, which at first looks extremely respectable, but after a while its absolutely primitive logic and huge non -education is suddenly discovered.

“Do you think someone is worth it?”

- I think that there is more than one person, otherwise she would not have kept herself so confident, but this is imaginary patronage. I think that if the public voice is strong enough, they will retreat, ”said Naum Kleiman.

Larisa Solonitsyna also answered Radio Liberty questions:

- What is the essence of the conflict, from your point of view? When we spoke in July, I gave the floor to Naum Ikhilievich and you, you had a restrained optimism about the fact that you would come to some world, agreement and establish work. Why didn't it work?

- I do not want to comment on this situation for one simple reason now. Firstly, there are comments by the Ministry of Culture, no matter how Naum Ikhilievich belongs to them. Secondly, to be honest, I would not want to comment on and criticize the actions of the Museum of the Cinema.

- He said: "They are trying to discredit us."

-I just do not know a single statement in which I would somehow try to discredit either Naum Ikhilievich, or the team of the Museum of Cinema. In fact, I have recently given only two interviews - Izvestia newspaper and the Profisinema website. You can see them. Absolutely no defamatory information addressed to anyone from the employees of the Museum of Cinema there. On the contrary, I expressed my gratitude for the cooperation that we had, for the ideas that we discussed, which we submitted as a result as applications to the Ministry of Culture. Therefore, I do not really understand.

- Naum Ikhilievich spoke about financial claims. Allegedly, those claims that were, they were distorted, that is, the museum, museum employees, led by Naum Ikhilievich, managed to prove that all the funds that were spent on purpose. And no unlawful amounts are spent. He opposes those who make financial claims. This, apparently, is addressed to you too, because without your indication, such an audit was unlikely to be held that would come to such a result.

- This audit is always carried out. The audit is carried out in any institution where the new leader comes. This is a completely ordinary practice. Personally, this has nothing to do with me. Each new person, coming to a new place, wants to understand what he is dealing with. In general, I do not see, frankly, this is neither special nor illegal. As for the results of the audit, they are official. Actually, I did not provide them with the media. Where they came from, I do not know, but this is a completely official certificate of verification. It would be strange for me to comment on him. This audit was conducted by professional auditors. I understand this much worse, so I will not comment on in any way.

“But you have complaints.” One of them was violated by the working hours.

- The fact is that in this act of verification one of the points is the lack of internal labor regulations.

- But you personally have claims that the museum employees were not at the workplace at the moment when you believed that they should be?

- I believe that in general, all employees of any institutions, including state, primarily state ones, should be at the workplace during working hours if their work is connected with this. We have the work of our employees, stock employees, is associated with those exhibits that are in the museum. If they work with them, they can only work with them at the workplace. Of course, there are some cases when it is necessary to go to another museum, to the library, etc. But no one has ever forbidden anyone.

- However, this item stands, relatively speaking, in the indictment. This was opposed by Mr. Kleiman, trying to protect his reputation and colleagues.

- I do not know how the rules of the internal labor schedule, being a mandatory position for each state institution, can affect the honor and dignity of anyone. This is a mandatory position for any state institution.

-Why didn’t you have a relationship?

- I am afraid that it is no longer being discussed about issues of honesty at this stage. I will refrain from any comments and criticism to the employees of the Museum of Cinema. I do not want to say anything that could just hurt someone's feelings.

- How then will this whole story end? Naum Ikhilievich and the team submitted an application for care. What next?

“I don't know how this situation will end now.” I live in the present tense. I don't know what will happen tomorrow. I prefer to resolve issues as they arise. To date, I have 17 statements about the care on the table. I am talking with the employees of the Museum of Cinema. What these conversations will bring or not, how the situation will continue, I can’t say yet, because I myself do not know this.

- What is the position of the Ministry of Culture? It is clear that it is on your side. But they will also have to solve this problem. Surely you consult with them?

- The Ministry of Culture quite definitely expressed its position. I can’t add anything to this comment.

-The fact is that you somehow take off your responsibility, that there are financial claims to Naum Ikhilievich to Naum Ikhilievich, citing the fact that this is all the result of an audit. And you have nothing to do with it.

- This is really the result of an audit. These violations took place at a time when I did not work at the Museum of Cinema. How can I bear some responsibility for them or somehow comment on it? These are third -party people who are not employees of the Museum of Cinema, whom I did not know.

- Naum Ikhilievich says that they reported on all finances.

- Then it is necessary, probably, you need to ask for comments from those people who conducted this audit, or from the Ministry of Culture, where all these documents are sent. I think it will be right.

- In this case, you are an observer, it turns out?

- So I am an observer. This is not I conducted this test. This came three people from the Ministry of Culture. I think that the Museum of Cinema should exist much better than it has existed for the past 10 years. There is absolutely all grounds for this. This is a unique amazing place that should have a very happy fate, ”said Larisa Solonitsyna.

The conflict at the Museum of Cinema was commented by the chairman of the Russian film critics Guild Andrei Shemyakin:

- After the museum, in many respects by the efforts of a number of people, was in principle saved, now rights are presented on it. This is the most outrageous. Because it’s very easy to get involved in, so to speak, a fight, to say: "With whom are you, Vasya?" This is our favorite way to solve these problems. And the solution should be such that the museum should be preserved, and preserved with those who created it. А все остальное – это уже решение на конкурсной основе. Объявляется конкурс музейных концепций и, соответственно, выбирается директор. Может победить опять Лариса Оттовна. But this is another question. Любое государство, заботящееся о своем престиже, как минимум сохраняет Музей кино изначально. Это важнейшая часть культурной политики каждого государства. Я думаю, что это просто обычные наши вещи, когда культура финансируется по остаточному принципу. В любой момент любой из нас потенциально перед этим государством виновен в том, как и что он делает, как себя ведет. И независимое поведение вызывает, естественно, ярость, – полагает Андрей Шемякин.