A concert by Neschastny Sluchai in Udmurtia has been canceled. The organizers were misinformed that the lead singer, Alexei Kortnev, was listed as a "foreign agent" when he doesn’t have such status. Alexander Karenin-Smakotin, a co-founder of the Uchuchudu Music Weekend project, spoke to the 7x7 media about the incident on March 14.
Alexei Kortnev was scheduled to perform at the Votkinsk Museum on April 9 as part of the Uchuchudu Music Weekend project. The head of the museum informed Alexander Karenin-Smakotin that she had been summoned to the "competent authorities" who claimed that Kortnev was a "foreign agent" and should not be allowed in. Despite Kortnev not being listed in the Justice Department register, the arguments made by the organizers were ineffective.
Karenin-Smakotin stated, "We are facing a true threat to Russian culture in the very place where it should be protected." He suspects that the "enemies of Russia" referred to in the state media are present in the Ministry of Culture of Udmurtia.
The location of the new concert site is being kept secret, and only selected individuals such as a lawyer, journalists, and public activists will be invited to monitor it, according to the project's co-founder.
Uchuchudu is an educational music project established in 2016 that trains participants in songwriting and production.
Since the beginning of the war, musicians who have voiced their opposition to the invasion of Ukraine have had their shows canceled. Various venues in Russian cities have created their own lists of "banned" artists. For instance, on March 14, 2023, the organizers of the Pskov Student Spring released a post with the names of 66 performers "not recommended in our premises." The post was later taken down, but Pskov Gubernia managed to capture a screenshot of the list, which can be viewed here.
On the same day, the female pop-punk band Kiss Kiss announced that they had ceased performing due to reasons beyond their and the organizers' control. The band members had previously spoken out against the war in Ukraine and supported their colleagues who were persecuted for a similar position.
