Latest news with #RussianCulture
Russia Today
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Putin slams ‘barbaric treatment' of Russian culture
Russian culture is facing tremendous pressure abroad amid unprecedented attacks on anything linked to Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said in a meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill. The president thanked the patriarch for his role in preserving the Russian culture and Russian language under such circumstances. Safeguarding Russian culture 'is particularly important nowadays when we are witnessing not just attacks on Russia but barbaric treatment of our culture even if it is a part of world culture,' Putin said during the meeting on Saturday. Such actions 'do not reflect well' on those behind the attacks, the president stated, adding that Moscow has not seen such a level of animosity 'for a long time.' Putin did not name any specific examples of what he called 'barbaric treatment' of Russian culture. His remarks came amid an unprecedented campaign to purge anything linked to Russia in Ukraine. Kiev has been demolishing monuments and renaming streets deemed even remotely linked to Moscow or Ukraine's own Soviet past. In December, the Odessa city council ordered the demolition of a 19th century monument to Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, which was designated a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. Later the same month, an Odessa monument to the renowned Soviet poet, singer, and actor Vladimir Vysotsky was removed as well. The council described both monuments as symbols of 'Russian imperial policy.' Since the escalation of the conflict in 2022, the campaign to remove historical links to Russia and its culture has intensified in Ukraine. Kiev passed a law on what it called the 'decolonization' of street signs, monuments, memorials, and inscriptions. In December 2022, a statue of Catherine the Great was taken down in Odessa. The city was founded under her reign in 1794. Kiev also accused the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of maintaining ties to Russia despite the church declaring independence from the Moscow Patriarchate in May 2022. The Ukrainian authorities have launched a crackdown against the UOC that has included numerous arrests of clergymen and church raids. Ukraine's Western backers have also used the conflict between Moscow and Kiev as a pretext for a crackdown on Russian artists, singers, and cultural figures. In a recent incident, a Russian photographer, Mikhail Tereshchenko, who won the World Press Photo Foundation contest in 2025, was banned from attending his award ceremony in Amsterdam.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Festivities underway at Erie's annual Troika Russian Festival
The Troika Festival has kicked off in the historic East Bayfront neighborhood, celebrating Russian culture at the Russian Old Rite Orthodox Church of the Nativity. Running for three days, the festival offers attendees a chance to experience Russian music, food, and beer. The event began with a blessing and bell ringing by Father Pimen Simon from the Church of the Nativity of Christ. 'We certainly wouldn't start any endeavor without prayer,' said Father Pimen Simon, emphasizing the importance of blessing the festival's food and activities. WATCH: Brian Wilk live at the Troika-Russian Festival Despite the cool weather, the festival continued with a variety of traditional Russian dishes. Co-organizer Mary Wassell highlighted the food offerings, including vareniki, a dumpling stuffed with fried cabbage, onion, and mushrooms, and a beet salad. The festival's profits are reinvested into the local community. Mark Sokoloff, a parishioner, noted that the funds help improve the lifestyle of residents in the lower east side of Erie. Erie resident Patty Gyuratz expressed enjoyment at the festival, noting the abundance of activities, bands, and live music. The 15th annual Troika Festival continues through Sunday, providing a cultural experience and supporting community initiatives in Erie. All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by WJET/WFXP. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat from a broadcast script into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by WJET/WFXP staff before being published. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Reuters
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Reuters
He was inspired by exiled Russian artists. Then he became one
LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) - Russian film maker Roma Liberov had long been fascinated by writers who fled the country after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. He never imagined that he would one day become an exile himself. In the midst of the COVID pandemic in January 2021, Liberov left Russia because of a powerful conviction that its people had become "hostages of the state" and that a long-simmering conflict with Ukraine would erupt into full-scale war. Thirteen months later, his fears became reality when Russia invaded its neighbour. In 2023, he was designated as a "foreign agent", making it very risky to return. Yet even now, Liberov said he suffers doubts, and wonders if he should have stayed. Despite throwing himself into projects in his new adopted home, Britain, he worries that by choosing to leave, he cut himself off from the mainstream of Russian culture. Had he remained in Moscow - even in a climate where people risk jail for speaking out against President Vladimir Putin or criticising the war - his voice would have been "incomparably louder", he told Reuters. "It's always louder when you're in the same cage, when you experience the same difficulties, when you are with your country and with your people, with all its grief and joy. And now ... for those who stayed in Russia, I'm a betrayer, I'm an alien, I'm someone who left." Artists who move abroad are "condemned to be forgotten in our home country... We need to declare that we exist," he said. "We Exist!" is the title Liberov gave to a 2023 "film concert", opens new tab he produced that features Russian musicians now spread across the world from Montenegro to Argentina. It is also the name of the cultural foundation, opens new tab he runs from London, which aims to promote arts throughout the Russian diaspora. POEMS OF EXILE When Russia was convulsed by revolution and civil war more than a century ago, an estimated two million people fled abroad including artists, musicians and poets. Some, like Vladimir Nabokov, author of "Lolita", became famous in the West, while others lived in near-obscurity, haunted by the desire to return home but able to do so only in their imaginations. Liberov is equally fascinated by those who made the opposite choice and remained in Russia despite the danger of persecution, such as the poet Anna Akhmatova. Akhmatova wrote dozens of poems reproaching her former lover Boris Anrep for leaving her, and Russia, behind - foreshadowing what Liberov calls the "terrible conversation" taking place today between those who stayed behind and those who left. She endured surveillance by the NKVD secret police, expulsion from the Writers' Union and her son's arrest, while other writers and artists including her friend Osip Mandelstam perished in Josef Stalin's camps. Several Akhmatova poems are included in Keys to Home, opens new tab, an album compiled by Liberov in what he calls his farewell to Russia. It features music by artists still inside the country, though Liberov said seeking partners there was a tough process during which he discovered "things I'd prefer not to know". "People were selfish, scared. People lied, people were false. People avoided (me), people did not respond," he said. But he declines to engage in personal recriminations. "If we're going to blame those who stayed and they're going to blame those who left, it leads to nowhere, just to further separation." JAILED ARTISTS From exile, Liberov, 44, has tracked the repression of fellow artists with horror. In a high-profile 2024 case, a playwright and a director, Svetlana Petriychuk and Zhenya Berkovich, were sentenced to six years each in prison for "justifying terrorism" in a play about Russian women who married Islamic State fighters. Inspired by a defiant speech that Berkovich delivered to the court in verse, Liberov created a widely viewed YouTubevideo in which her words were turned into rap-style lyrics, accompanied by drawings made inside the courtroom. Last July Russian pianist Pavel Kushnir, 39, died in a Siberian prison where he had launched a hunger strike while awaiting trial on charges of inciting terrorism, after posting anti-war material online. Thanks to Liberov's efforts, a recording of Kushnir playing Sergei Rachmaninov's preludes has been restored and released on Spotify and Apple Music, and a scholarship was established to support young pianists from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus who want to study in Europe. Concerts, opens new tab dedicated to Kushnir are taking place this month in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv and Berlin. Liberov is pessimistic about what lies ahead. Russia squandered the opportunity to reinvent itself as a free country after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he said. "And so the question now is: will we... ever have this chance again? I pray for that, but I doubt it. If we have this chance I would love so very much to go back home and to work there."
Jordan Times
12-05-2025
- General
- Jordan Times
Russian Language Day held to promote cooperation, cultural exchange
The event aims to boost bilateral cultural friendship and exchange and provide an opportunity for UJ's students and the local community to gain a "closer" understanding of Russian heritage and traditions (Petra photo) AMMAN — School of Foreign Languages at the University of Jordan (UJ) on Sunday held Russian Language and Culture Day, in cooperation with the Russian Embassy and the Russian Cultural Centre in Amman. The event aimed to boost bilateral cultural friendship and exchange and provide an opportunity for UJ's students and the local community to gain a "closer" understanding of Russian heritage and traditions, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. Dean of the School Marwan Jarrah, in the presence of the Russian Deputy Ambassador to the Kingdom Kseniya Kerpichenko, noted the importance of cultural exchange and the role of language as "a bridge of communication." Jarrah also underlined the school's continued endeavour to build channels of "constructive" cooperation, adding that the UJ is "proud" of the academic programme to teach the Russian language and is "constantly" striving to enhance cooperation with prestigious Russian universities. Meanwhile, Director of the Russian Cultural Centre in Amman Alexey Bukin said that it annually offers 175 scholarships to Jordanian students to pursue their studies in various disciplines at Russian universities, which contributes to enhancing mutual academic and popular ties. The Cultural Day programme featured diverse shows that reflected "richness" of Russian culture and a screening of a short film about Russia, as well as other folkloric and literary activities. Page 2
