Vladimir Kiselev, the founder of the legendary band Zemlyane, musician and producer, published a large letter where he sincerely wonders about the rallies in Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk in support of Russian soldiers who are in the zone of the special military operation.
“What is the use in that? Why do it? If motorists want to help the special military operation so much, let them work better as cab drivers for a week and use the money to buy medicines and body armor,” Kiselev wrote in the letter.
Vladimir Kiselev also criticized the concerts held a thousand kilometers away from the front line in different cities in support of the special military operation in Ukraine and gave the example of Russian pop stars who were not afraid and went to Donbass to raise the fighting spirit of our soldiers as they did during the Second World War. Now Zemlyane, Elena Sever, Yulia Chicherina, Grigory Leps, Yulia Baranovskaya, Django, Larisa Dolina, and Roman Arkhipov are going to Luhansk, Donetsk, Mariupol, and Melitopol absolutely free of charge. They also bring with them necessary humanitarian aid in the form of medicines, night vision devices and drones.
“Not only is this generally associated with great risk, there are known facts of attempts by Ukrainians to disband us in the Kherson direction and explosions in the vicinity of our actions in Luhansk, but that is half the trouble,” wrote Kiselev.
At the same time, officials at various levels prevent the organization of such trips, disrupt the concerts, prohibit border crossings under far-fetched pretexts. In his letter, the artist does not name the officials, but he is greatly indignant about the ideological work with the population, which he considers a failure.
“The quintessence of viciousness and proof of the failure of the policy of the aforementioned departments is the practice of bringing people from all the villages, surrounding villages and businesses to the performance of the head of state, setting up some unthinkable overgrown artists on stage,” wrote Kiselev.
“Much of this is due to the failure to form new creative elite. And where are the stars?” asks Kiselev. “Today the work of officials in this direction looks more like a bull in a china shop. Some stars were sent out of the country, and in their place unknown boys and girls were put, who say and sing whatever they are told to for money. They don't know how to work with real stars with an attitude.
“This is proof of the inability to find a common language with, of course, snarky and prickly, but self-sufficient stars, unlike those tame “starlets” who are “patriots” for state money, performing away from the special military operation, but not forgetting to demand their royalties,” wrote Kiselev. He promised to publish another accusatory letter in the near future.