Sorry Nikita

Representatives of the Yeltsin Center, on May 6, received the Kennet Hadson Best European Museum of 2017, apologized to European colleagues for the words of director Nikita Mikhalkov, who compared the prize with the award of the Third Reich. This was reported on the website of the museum.

"The film director essentially allowed himself insulting statements not only to the Yeltsin Center, but also to dozens of beautiful European museums, which for forty years won this competition. The director did not even occur to what the contest" Best European Museum "was awarded and what projects were awarded in the press. - As representatives of representatives. Russia, awarded a high award, want to apologize to our European colleagues, whom a person who has a passport of our country publicly insulted and humiliated. "

On the eve of Mikhalkov, in a commentary on the radio station "Says Moscow" compared the award received by the museum with the Nazi "Iron Cross. “I am absolutely not surprised that Yeltsin Enter received the Kenneth Hudson Award. I am not surprised and reacting to it just the same as if I found out that a Soviet Union citizen, some kind of Kotsyubailo, who became a policeman, received the“ Iron Cross ”from the Wehrmacht,” the director said.

On Monday, Mikhalkov called his statement "artistic law". "In the Yeltsin Center" history is falsified and the time of destruction of our Fatherland is sung. And it is precisely for this that European organizations reward the Yeltsin Center “as the best museum of Europe,” the director said. “As an artist, I use a metaphor, and it is very simple - Yeltsin Center receives a reward for a service that contradicts the interests of our country.”

In December last year, Mikhalkov at parliamentary hearings on the implementation of the strategy of state cultural policy sharply criticized the Yeltsin Center . "There is a center in Yekaterinburg in which the destruction of the national self -awareness of people occurs daily," said the director. - At the highest technological level, a powerful program is implemented, which practically destroys the real representation of people about what Russia's history is. ”

“The conversation is not about closing the center, but to adjust this program. It is destructive,” Mikhalkov emphasized. “There can be no culture without an objective understanding of history. This is unrealistic.”

The press service of the Yeltsin Center noted that the organization’s activities are fully consistent with the authorized tasks and Russian law. “It must be reminded that Nikita Mikhalkov is not the first time publicly acting with the negative assessments of the Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg, including in his author’s television program“ Besogon ”on the Russia TV channel. The leadership of the Presidential Center B.N. Yeltsin deliberately did not comment on his statements, believing that any citizen of Russia had the right to release his point of view on any issue. At the same time, we more than once paid attention to the fact that the famous director never once visited Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg.

The widow of the first President of Russia Naina Yeltsin was also indignant at Mikhalkov's words.

Later, Mikhalkov visited the Yeltsin Center personally and said that he did not change his opinion regarding the exposition.

Yeltsin Center was opened in Yekaterinburg in November 2015. His opening was attended by President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, as well as famous politicians and cultural figures.