Mikhail Shufutinsky’s concerts in Germany scheduled for October 2022 have been cancelled. More precisely, they have been postponed to the fall of next year, according to the information of German concert agencies involved in organizing tours of Russian and Ukrainian artists. The reasons for the postponement of the autumn tour of Shufutinsky are formulated on the website artist-production.de like this: “Due to the difficult geopolitical situation, the organizer is forced to reschedule the planned tour! All previously purchased tickets remain valid.”
Tickets for the concerts of Irina Allegrova, which should take place from October 22 to October 30 this year, are still on sale, however, the girl who answered the private call of the author of the article at the ticket office said that she advises not to buy them, because the concerts, as she believes, will also be rescheduled until better times. The cashier offered to buy tickets for the concert of the Ukrainian singer Tina Karol, whose tour will take place in November this year in various concert halls in Germany. “Tina is a wonderful singer, her concerts will definitely not be canceled,” the girl assured me. “Concert agencies are late informing us about the cancellation of concerts, so we are still selling tickets – in the hope that the audience will be able to use them next year,” a ticket office employee said.
At the time of publication of this publication, the editors did not receive a response to DW’s official requests to concert agencies with a request for specific information about the reasons for the cancellation or postponement of performances by Russian artists.
Will Allegrova come to Germany?
While tickets for the concerts of Irina Allegrova are still on sale, the director of the concert hall for two thousand seats in the city of Pforzheim located in the west of Germany – Congress Centrum Pforzheim – Daniel Schuch told DW in an interview that the concert of the Russian singer on October 26 in this hall has already been cancelled. “It was not our decision, but the concert agency,” Shuh emphasized. The administration of the concert hall in Pforzheim, having studied the position of the artist in relation to the war of Russia against Ukraine, was going to refuse to provide her with a stage, but the concert agency was ahead of them.
According to Russian media, Irina Allegrova did not express her attitude to Russia’s war against Ukraine for a long time, but later admitted that she supported the Kremlin’s position and raised money for the Russian military.
The concert of Maxim Galkin is also canceled
In Pforzheim, artists from the Russian Federation used to perform very often – with concerts, theatrical performances, ballet performances. According to the director of the concert hall, the concerts of the Russian group “Hands Up”, scheduled for November, were also canceled, and the concert of Maxim Galkin was first postponed from the spring of this year to the spring of next year, and then completely canceled. Daniel Schuh was very surprised by this: “As far as I know, Galkin openly opposed the war in Ukraine and because of this was recognized as a “foreign agent” in Russia. The reason for the cancellation of his concert remains a mystery to me,” Daniel Schuh admits in an interview with DW.
Until the end of this year, there are no artists from Russia in the program
“We are now more careful in the selection of Russian artists to whom we provide a platform, we collect information about them and their statements about the war in Ukraine in order to avoid scandals in the future,” Daniel Schuh clarifies. According to him, there is not a single concert of artists from Russia in the program of the concert hall this year. “If earlier artists of the state opera and ballet theaters performed Swan Lake or The Nutcracker on our stage, this year they are not in our program. Instead, other ballet troupes perform with this repertoire,” Daniel Schuh regrets.
He believes that it is very difficult to separate art from politics. “That is why we try to stay apart from these disputes, and only in exceptional cases, such as, for example, when it comes to propaganda of war or racism, do we refuse to provide a concert venue,” said the director of the Congress Сentrum Pforzheim concert hall in an interview with DW.
Shufutinsky tour postponed to next autumn
The well-known Russian human rights activist Olga Romanova, who, fearing persecution at home, lives in Berlin, could have been involved in the cancellation of Mikhail Shufutinsky’s speeches in Germany. On your Facebook page Romanova said that Shufutinsky’s concerts were canceled and that she may have had a hand in it. DW contacted the human rights activist for details.
“This story has a preface that needs to be mentioned. In May of this year, “Rus Sitting”, which I head, was awarded the medal of the German Foundation. Theodor Heuss Stiftung). Among others, I was congratulated on this award by the member of the Bundestag from the Social Democratic Party Katrin Budde (Katrin Budde), who serves on the Culture and Media Committee. We began a correspondence with her, and she invited me to talk to the Bundestag in early September of this year. Of course, empty-handed, my colleague Yuri Borovskikh and I could not go there, we collected materials on the topic of supporting Russian journalists and musicians who are forced to flee the Russian regime, and handed her a list of people who, in our opinion, need to be supported, ” Olga Romanova told DW.
“We also told the Bundestag deputy Catherine Budde that Russian artists supporting the war in Ukraine, such as Shufutinsky, are coming to Germany on tour. He not only performed in the occupied Crimea, but, according to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, took part in action “The Best Warriors of the World” in a military hospital and sang there for the wounded soldiers who fought against Ukraine. In addition, he is included in the “Peacemaker” database and he is forbidden to give concerts in Ukraine. The deputy was very surprised by this and asked to leave the collected by us materials. And now, a month later, in early October, we learned that Shufutinsky’s concerts were canceled, or rather, they were postponed to the autumn of next year,” Russian human rights activist Olga Romanova, who lives in Berlin, said in an interview with DW.
Politicians in Germany do not cancel concerts
In response to DW’s request to Bundestag member Katherine Budde regarding the cancellation of Shufutinsky’s tour, the editors received a written response with the following content: “I did meet and talk with Ms. very “pro-Russian”, but he is allowed to give concerts in Germany.I am not familiar with the work of this singer, but I think that in principle it should not be so that those who support aggressive war, contrary to international law, have the opportunity to give concerts in Germany. Due to several weeks of meetings of the Bundestag and my trip abroad, I still have not been able to do anything, but the fact that the concerts were postponed by anyone, is most likely due to the fact that the artist supports Putin’s war. Given these circumstances, I consider the decision of the organizers to cancel the German tour the right one.”
Yury Borovskikh, a colleague of human rights activist Olga Romanova, who also lives in Berlin and took part in a meeting with a member of the Bundestag, in a conversation with DW noted that there are no mechanisms in Germany to cancel the concerts of Russian artists supporting the war in Ukraine, because they are not included in the official sanctions lists. “We have already collected extensive information about Russian artists supporting the war in Ukraine, and are developing proposals for creating a legal mechanism that would prohibit them from performing concerts in Germany. We are not happy that Shufutinsky’s concerts, for example, are simply postponed and not canceled We will send our proposals to the German politicians for consideration,” Yury Borovskikh specified.
As we noted above, the editors of DW did not wait for answers from concert agencies regarding the cancellation of Shufutinsky’s performances in Germany. A call to the phone number of the ticket sales office listed on the website of the artist-production concert agency was answered that sanctions were not applied to Russian artists, and Shufutinsky’s concerts were postponed due to the lack of halls. One can only guess what actually caused the cancellation of Shufutinsky’s concerts: the empty halls or the “difficult geopolitical situation” …
At the same time, an insider close to the circles of Russian artists, but who wished to remain anonymous, explains the cancellation of concerts in Germany by the fact that the artists themselves do not want to go on tour. They are in limbo, they are afraid to face hate abroad, they are afraid of angering Russian officials and they are just waiting, the DW interlocutor emphasized. According to him, the best pay in the Russian Federation is now at official custom-made concerts in support of the war, and there are practically no venues for performers who do not support the war.