568 replies to this topic

[volcanohunter]

In fairness, it's like that everywhere. Opposing attorneys wrangling for stiffer or more lenient charges is part of the process. Intent matters, but so does the degree to which a plot succeeds. There will be differing levels of punishment depending on whether someone succeeds in depriving another person of his life, his arm or his finger. In this case the maximum degree of punishment would apply if Filin were completely blinded and/or severely disfigured, and a somewhat milder sentence would be applied if he were not completely blinded or permanently disfigured, though there would be jail time in either case.

[Jayne]

Ismene has translated an interview with Tsiskaridze  

http://www.ismeneb.c..._dismissal.html

Quote

At the same meeting, Ruslan Pronin told us about the situation around Batyr Annadurdyev, a friend of the accused, Dmitrichenko. In his capacity as company manager, he informed us that Filin, in a phone call, demanded the dismissal of [dancer] Batyr Annadurdyev and Batyr had signed off this notice. Once Pronin said that, it was clear to me that now he would be the first to be fired. After all, he dared to say it to everybody.

I'm going to make a map to try to keep track of all the people, who used to be friends - but now enemies, etc.  This is getting hard to track.  But sadly Russia is prosecuting government reformers instead of using them to clean up messes like the Bolshoi.

As was mentioned earlier in the thread - maybe Filin was a corrupt manager - and a victim of an attack.  And maybe Nikolai is arrogant and dramatic - and he's also right about somethings.  Who knows what will happen next.

[Mashinka]

Good points, Jayne, Pronin's changing sides is very significant, should Filin emerge as corrupt, Pronin's close association with him would damage his reputation in the ballet world.

Tsiskaridze's got a view on everything, but he has lifted a few stones that needed lifting over the years, it's just a shame that what was discovered underneath those stones was never effectively dealt with.

[volcanohunter]

The performer's union is working on a new collective bargaining agreement. Svetlana Lunkina is involved from afar. Ruslan Pronin may remain at the Bolshoi as the full-time union head, if elected to the post.

http://izvestia.ru/news/550435

[Helene]

Ismene Brown just tweeted a link to her blog for the news from isvetzia.ru that Dmitrichenko's lawyer is disputing Filin's medical condition.  From Brown's intro to the translation:

Quote

The lawyers representing the men accused of attacking Bolshoi Ballet artistic director Sergei Filin were yesterday finally allowed to see the medical opinion which earlier this week pronounced that Filin had suffered “grievous injury” to his health. At once they announced they would demand a second set of medical opinions, as, they claimed, the documents did not back up the pronouncement.

This is a link to Brown's blog post that described the treatment of his skin, including some photos that are not for weak of stomach.

http://www.ismeneb.c...-_pictures.html

[volcanohunter]

On Saturday a Russian channel aired a soapy interview with Anzhelina Vorontsova. It was filmed in Kazan, where she made her debut as Giselle with Tsiskaridze this past week. There was little new in it, but there were a few ostensibly "picante" moments.

Vorontsova's teacher from Voronezh, Tatyana Frolova, reveals that her former pupil does not keep in touch even though it was Frolova who facilitated Vorontsova's fateful trip to a competition in Perm, paying for transportation herself and giving Vorontsova with her own tutus and tiaras.

There is footage of all three of Filin's wives speaking well of him. Mind you, Galina Stepanenko did not sit down for an interview, and given her current post I don't blame her, so the program used existing news footage of warm words between herself and Filin's mother.

Filin's father-in-law is a businessman who supplies the Ministry of Internal Affairs with footwear, though I won't speculate whether providing shoes for Russian policemen rises to the level of a conflict of interest.

Vorontsova claims that despite Filin's investment in her, there were "reasons" why she could not join the Stanislavsky Theater after she finished ballet school, but does not specify what they were. She is also evasive in answering questions about her relationship with Filin, though she states that Dmitrichenko is her first boyfriend, which perhaps undercuts insinuations about Vorontsova being one of Filin's conquests.

Olga Smirnova wades into the matter by criticizing Vorontsova's ambition. This is unfortunate. Smirnova's coach Marina Kondratieva was doing an effective job of pooh-poohing Vorontsova all by herself.

Tsiskaridze's other pupil Denis Rodkin reiterates the narrative that although Dmitrichenko is the kind of person who could sock someone in the face if he were sufficiently angry, he is not the sort to plot behind anyone's back.

http://www.ntv.ru/pe...poved_baleriny/

[Helene]

If I'm understanding the chronology, according to Dmitrichenko, he had a conversation with Zarutsky, in which he railed against Filin, and Zarutsky offered to beat Filin up, to which Dmitrichenko agreed.  Nothing happened for months, at which point Dmitrichenko stopped thinking about it, but during which time, Zarutsky planned the attack, buying the car battery and cooking down the battery acid to make it potent.

Then Zartusky demanded payment and Dmitrichenko's help in staking out Filin to see when he'd leave the party. Dmitrichenko said he feared not paying him, and it's quite possible he was afraid not to do the stake-out.  He enlisted a fellow dancer who has admitted to being in the car and described Dmitrichenko's behavior; this dancer was never arrested, and even if Dmitrichenko's defenders are arguing the police beat or coerced a false confession from him, the police did not have the fellow dancer in custody to do the same.

Dmitrichenko had to do three things:  1. accept Zarutsky's offer 2. pay Zarutsky and 3. do the stakeout, and he told a judge he had done the first two, and there's a witness to the third.  The first two required zero planning or attention span on his part.  I don't understand the argument that Dmitrichenko couldn't possibly have been involved because he was one to lash out and that was the end of it:  he did lash out to Zarutsky, and he was too frightened to cross Zarutsky by not paying him when Zarutsky contacted him after months.  The only thing that required any initiative on his part was the stake-out, for which he enlisted a fellow dancer (without telling his colleague what it was about).

As far as him not plotting, he vented, a thug offered to beat up the enemy, and how is a guy, especially one with a short fuse, supposed to turn down that offer without looking like a wimp?  A guy who says he has nothing for which to apologize because he only wanted his boss beaten up, not attacked with acid, is generally not the kind of guy who would say to a thug, "That wouldn't be right."

[Jayne]

I tried to watch that link, but it was so schlocky that I couldn't finish it.  Ugh, of all the things Western Democracy has imported to Russia, gossip TV is one of the worst!

[elena]

Helene, on 19 May 2013 - 06:54 PM, said:

If I'm understanding the chronology, according to Dmitrichenko, he had a conversation with Zarutsky, in which he railed against Filin, and Zarutsky offered to beat Filin up, to which Dmitrichenko agreed.  Nothing happened for months, at which point Dmitrichenko stopped thinking about it, but during which time, Zarutsky planned the attack, buying the car battery and cooking down the battery acid to make it potent.

Then Zartusky demanded payment and Dmitrichenko's help in staking out Filin to see when he'd leave the party. Dmitrichenko said he feared not paying him, and it's quite possible he was afraid not to do the stake-out.  He enlisted a fellow dancer who has admitted to being in the car and described Dmitrichenko's behavior; this dancer was never arrested, and even if Dmitrichenko's defenders are arguing the police beat or coerced a false confession from him, the police did not have the fellow dancer in custody to do the same.

Dmitrichenko had to do three things:  1. accept Zarutsky's offer 2. pay Zarutsky and 3. do the stakeout, and he told a judge he had done the first two, and there's a witness to the third.  The first two required zero planning or attention span on his part.  I don't understand the argument that Dmitrichenko couldn't possibly have been involved because he was one to lash out and that was the end of it:  he did lash out to Zarutsky, and he was too frightened to cross Zarutsky by not paying him when Zarutsky contacted him after months.  The only thing that required any initiative on his part was the stake-out, for which he enlisted a fellow dancer (without telling his colleague what it was about).

As far as him not plotting, he vented, a thug offered to beat up the enemy, and how is a guy, especially one with a short fuse, supposed to turn down that offer without looking like a wimp?  A guy who says he has nothing for which to apologize because he only wanted his boss beaten up, not attacked with acid, is generally not the kind of guy who would say to a thug, "That wouldn't be right."

Sounds about right to me.

The detail I can't ever seem to forget (and which I think changes things a lot) is that Zarutsky was jailed for beating someone so badly they later died. He seems like a very violent person; by associating with him, venting about Filin to him, and accepting the offer to have him beaten, it seems like he knew great harm would come to Filin in some way - whether acid was talked about or not. Of course, this is just my opinion.

[volcanohunter]

elena, on 20 May 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

The detail I can't ever seem to forget (and which I think changes things a lot) is that Zarutsky was jailed for beating someone so badly they later died.

Then the question has to be whether Dmitrichenko knew this. Would an ex-con necessarily reveal the details of his convictions?

Filin's father-in-law has reacted angrily to the television program that aired last Saturday. In particular, he denies that he supplies anything to the Ministry of Internal Affairs--having been in the energy business--and by extension the inference that he would be in a position to influence the investigation. He is also upset that Saturday's show used footage from an earlier program in which the Filin-Prorvich family had agreed to participate. He states that the family had only agreed to the first program on the understanding that they would have complete editorial control, which was not ultimately given to them, and that they disapproved of its footage being recycled in a program that he claims was ordered by the people behind the attack on Filin in the first place, with the aim of influencing the investigation. He does not provide proof or name names.

http://argumenti.ru/.../2013/05/255395

[Helene]

From Ismene Brown's blog, an article from Interfax, with a warning that at the top are photos of Filin's burned skin

Filin’s eyes are permanently closed*
*While they wait to see if an eye tissue transplant takes.

and from Business Gazette, word from Tsiskaridze:

They’re using my name for PR for themselves

[Mashinka]

Ms Brown continues to monitor the situation closely and in her latest blog she quotes a letter from Filin's father in law expressing outrage at the editorial content of a TV programme he appeared in.

To me this sounds like an interesting piece of investigative journalism: Ms Brown of course puts a very different spin on things.

http://www.ismeneb.c...aims_libel.html

[Alayna]

I saw the TV program online and it looked more like a typical piece of tabloid TV trash than investigative journalism. And with the way Sergei Filin and his family have continued to be attacked by some of Dmitrichenko's supporters I don't blame his father-in-law for being outraged and upset.

[volcanohunter]

In a report about the Benois gala the other night, Tatyana Kuznetsova related that when accepting his award for lifetime achievement, Pierre Lacotte paid tribute to Filin, but this was apparently greeted with fairly scant applause. I don't know who was in the audience that night; presumably not Bolshoi dancers, who would have been happy to have a night off between runs of Flames of Paris and Swan Lake. I also don't know how any language barriers were overcome. Kuznetsova related the contents of his speech, so either she understood the original, or some sort of translation was provided.

http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2193999