Director of "Matilda" not found victim in "Svyataya Rus" case". RBC, 7 March 2019
Advocate Konstantin Dobrynin told the RBC that the ICR had not found director Aleksey Utchitel and his creative production association "Rock" victims in the case of the leader of the organization "Christian State – Holy Rus". According to the investigation, members of the "Christian State" set on fire two cars by the Moscow office of the Utchitel's advocate, and the director's studio in Petersburg, in protest against the film "Matilda", and also sent letters to the cinemas demanding to refuse to screen the film.
The Gryazinsky Court of the Lipetsk region will start considering the case of the leader of the "Christian State" Alexander Kalinin on the merits next week (the rest members of the organization have been convicted earlier by the Moscow Khamovnitchesky Court).
Utchitel's representative presented a petition for recognition of the director and the studio "Rock" as victims, but it wasn't satisfied. "We suppose that the court is under pressure in order to strike us off the case. For, if the court agrees with our position, it will have to consider the issue that charges brought against Kalinin were partial", – stated Dobrynin.
The RBC made a request to the Investigative Committee.
Kalinin is imputed compulsion to refusal to make a deal (p.1, c.179 CC), i.e., refusal to screen the film, and also arousal of hatred or enmity (c.282 CC). Utchitel's advocate thinks that his actions should be qualified under a more serious article which provides not up to two, but up to three years of imprisonment, because Kalinin has organized the attacks.
The organization "Christian State" attracted attention in January 2017 when it sent letters to the cinemas urging to prevent screening of the film about a love affair of the future Emperor Nickolas ll with a ballet dancer Matilda Kshesinskaya. The letter said: "Any banner, playbill, advertising leaflet containing information about screening of the film "Matilda" will be regarded as your intention to humiliate the saints of the Orthodox Church, and provocation to the "Russian Maidan". According to the creators of the film, they have been receiving threats from the "Orthodox pressure group" since February.
31 August unknown people threw bottles with Molotov cocktail at the building of the cinematographic studio "Lendoc" in Petersburg where the association "Rock" is located. 4 September in Yekaterinburg a man drove a vehicle loaded with gas cylinders and petrol canisters into the cinema "Kosmos" in protest against the screening of "Matilda". The fire was extinguished within 30 minutes. 11 September 2017 in Moscow unknown people burnt down two cars by the advocatory office of Dobrynin who represents Utchitel's interests.
In the end of September 2017 Alexander Kalinin, his brother Yury, Alexander Bayanov and Denis Mantaluts were detained in connection with the case. The actions of Yury Kalinin, Bayanov and Mantaluts were qualified as deliberate damage of someone else's property (c.167 CC). They were all sentenced to two years in penitentiary colony by the Khamovnitchesky Court in March last year.