Media: Serebrennikov’s case was initiated by the “confessor of Putin” Tikhon

The persecution of director Kirill Serebrennikov is Bishop Egorievsky, a member of the Presidential Council for Culture and Art of Tikhon (Shevkunov), who is called the confessor of Vladimir Putin. As the rain reports , two federal officials said this to the channel.

In private conversations with Putin, the interlocutors of the rain told, Tikhon expressed dissatisfaction with Serebrennikov’s work. At the same time, officials said that they did not know what Putin's reaction was.

Another source of the channel - close to the FSB - said that Tikhon’s claims to Serebrennikov were also aware of the leadership of the special services. The bishop, among other things, is the governor of the Sretensky Monastery, located near Lubyanskaya Square; FSB officers often visit this monastery. According to the interlocutor of the rain, informal relations between the leadership of the special services and the monastery were established, even when Putin was the director of the FSB. Tikhon’s opinion was concluded by the source, could affect the decision to develop the Gogol Center headed by Serebrennikov.

In March 2015, speaking in the Ministry of Culture at the discussion of the performance of Timofei Kulyabin “Tangeyer” , Tikhon casually mentioned Serebrennikov, quoting the director’s phrase: “It is necessary to explain this obscurantism once and for all that they do not go into foreign territories.” “How are they going to explain this to us?” The bishop continued. “Maybe like this,” and quoted Lenin’s letter about the need for a “decisive and merciless battle to the Black Hundred clergy.”

In July of this year, the chief of the Echo of Moscow, Alexei Venediktov, said that the premiere of Serebrennikov’s ballet “Nureyev” was disrupted after the call of Tikhon, the head of the Ministry of Culture Vladimir Medinsky. The bishop himself said to TASS: "Alexey Alekseevich Venediktov is lying."

59 -year -old Tikhon is a movie scan by education. Since the late 1980s, already a novice, and then a monk, shot several documentary films. The tape "The death of the empire. The Byzantine lesson" in 2008 received the Golden Eagle Award. Tikhon often comments on the films of Russian directors. In particular, in April 2015, he criticized Andrei Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan”, saying: “Everyone who violently applauds Pussy, they violently applaud the“ Leviathan ”. The authors of the film knew their audience, their intellectual customers both in Russia and abroad.”

Serebrennikov is accused of the case of the Seventh Studio, which became known at the end of May. The case is qualified under part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code (fraud on an especially large scale), which provides for up to 10 years of the colony. According to the TFR, in 2011-2014 the Ministry of Culture allocated to Serebrennikov over 214 million rubles to implement the Platform project, launched for the development and popularization of modern art. To embody the project, the director formed an autonomous non -profit organization "Seventh Studio".

However, it is said in the case, Serebrennikov gave other defendants an indication of overstating data on the quantity and cost of events. The TFR also states that the director instructed to ensure the conclusion of the Seventh Studio with firms and private entrepreneurs controlled by him, including one-day companies, and fictitious contracts for the implementation of the Platform project. The funds transferred under these agreements were allegedly cashed and distributed by Serebrennikov between the defendants.

The total amount of theft, which was charged to the director and other accused, is, according to the SKR, at least 68 million rubles.

In addition to Serebrennikov in the case, the former director of the Seventh Studio Yuri Itin, former Glavbukh Nina Maslyaeva, former general producer Alexei Malobrodsky, former executive producer Ekaterina Voronova and director of the Russian academic youth theater, and a former head of the Ministry of Cmultia Sophia Apfelbaum are held.

Voronova fled the country, and the case against it was allocated to separate production. Malobrodsky was imprisoned in a pre -trial detention center. Itin, Serebrennikov and Apfelbaum at different times were sent under house arrest. Also, under house arrest, Maslyaev was transferred from the pre -trial detention center after she testified against herself and other accused.

In addition to Maslyaeva, none of the defendants in the case pleads guilty.