In early February of this year, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation Liya Akhedzhakova announced that the play “The Gin Game” was removed from the repertoire of the Sovremennik Theater. According to the actress, the director of the theater, Yuri Kravets, called her and said that he had to do this because of angry letters addressed to her.
As it became known to the DW editors, the people’s artist was told that the theater was literally inundated with letters from Russians who were outraged that “the holy stage of Sovremennik is being desecrated by the Russophobe and traitor Akhedzhakova. The theater management called the Moscow Department of Culture – officials ordered the play to be removed from the repertoire” Gin game.
A few days later, the director and friend of the actress Kirill Serebrennikov announced a campaign in support of Akhedzhakova called “Letters for Leah”. In his post, he called what happened to her “unacceptable, nasty and vile”, urging all caring people to write letters to the actress with words of support.
Liya Akhedzhakova received more than 15 thousand letters. Serebrennikov announced this yesterday, March 6, 2023, in his telegram channel: “Dear friends! Thank you very much for the letters that you have been sending to Lia Akhedzhakova for the last three weeks. We are amazed at the number of these letters. We have received more than 15,000 letters of love, support, participation! We printed out all the letters and handed them over to Liya Medzhidovna. She is completely happy and thanks each of you!”
Deutsche Welle contacted Leah Akhedzhakova by phone and asked her to answer a few questions related to this action.
“People from all over the world wrote to me”
DW: Liya Medzhidovna, how did you perceive director Kirill Serebrennikov’s action in collecting letters in your support? There are over 15,000 of them.
Lia Akhedzhakova: I accepted this action with great gratitude. I read these letters and am touched endlessly. It turned out to be a very interesting project, because people wrote from all over the world, people from Russia and those who scattered around the globe. And such interesting destinies of these people are simply amazing. There is a wonderful printing house in St. Petersburg, and I told her that I have such wonderful materials that need to be preserved. In general, Kirill Serebrennikov and his assistant Anechka Shalashova have been my close friends for many years. And this is some kind of act, I can’t even attribute it to myself, this is some kind of special attitude towards actors who have long been known to our Russian viewers and who have scattered all over the globe. By the way, there are a lot of letters from those who are in Ukraine now. People sit under shelling and write letters of support to me – poignant and incredible.
– Did they send these letters to you in the form of a book?
– Yes, the girls from the Gogol Center printed out these letters for me. So far, these are four huge volumes – they are simply unbearable. And they say that there is just as much more, this is an incredibly interesting project, it is impossible for all this to be lost or lost. And it’s not that there are some declarations of love for the artist who accompanied them all their lives. No, that’s not the point. There are destinies, sometimes they are half-page texts, these are incredible destinies, this is the history of our country, a certain long period of life. There are memories from the eighties, and there are even earlier – to the present day. And I still don’t know how to turn them into an object that has been preserved and reached the audience, readers, people. These are incredible stories and destinies of my countrymen.
– Do people who wanted to support you tell about their destinies?
– Yes, these are letters of support, as love and memory of some performances that they saw with my participation. Some even saw the last and dearest performance for me, “First Bread”, which was removed from the stage of “Sovremennik” according to “letters of workers.” The youth played there. And its author is a young and very talented Rinat Tashimov and an equally talented Polish director Beniamin Kots. And all this was removed and thrown away …
“Kirill Serebrennikov is my man, and I am absolutely his actress”
– How do you feel now, Liya Medzhidovna, does the spectator support action, which Kirill Serebrennikov called for, somehow help you overcome this difficult period in your life?
Yes, it’s part of my life. Kirill Serebrennikov is my friend. That’s how long director Serebrennikov has existed, starting from Moscow, that’s how many years I’ve been friends with him. I love everything he does, I am absolutely his actress. Moreover, for my role in his divine film “Playing the Victim”, I received “Nika” for the best supporting actress, it was already my third “Nika” in our time. And I am glad that I got into such a wonderful film, although sometimes, despite the fact that I am an actress Ryazanova, I starred in very average films in which it would be better not to get into.
But in the case of Serebrennikov, I got to the same level at which the films of Eldar Aleksandrovich Ryazanov were made. And this is very expensive for me. And I absolutely share the meanings that are in the performances and films of Kirill Serebrennikov. I would even say this: I am his man, and he is my man. This also applies to his assistant Anya Shalashova, I thank fate that they are in my life. I am grateful to Kirill Serebrennikov and his students, the actors of the Gogol Center, to whom I, a modest artist of the Sovremennik Theater, signed diplomas. I don’t know why Kirill invited me then, but it was the only course that he brought up and graduated, and they were accepted into the Gogol Center. And I went there and watched how young, but already very high-class stage masters grow up. I don’t know how their creative destiny will turn out now without their director Kirill Serebrennikov. I am very worried about them.
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