Director Kirill Serebrennikov received three years probation in the case of "The Seventh Studio." Together with two other defendants in the case, he must pay the Ministry of Culture almost 129 million rubles. 

The Meshchansky court of Moscow sentenced director Kirill Serebrennikov to three years probation and a fine of 800,000 rubles, RIA Novosti reported. Serebrennikov was found guilty of embezzlement of nearly 129 million rubles allocated for the cultural project Platform. The prosecution previously requested six years in prison for the director and a fine of 800,000 rubles.

 

Producer Aleksey Malobrodsky and former CEO of Seventh Studio Yuri Itin also received suspended sentences. Malobrodsky was given two years probation and a fine of 300,000 rubles, and Itin - three years of probation and a fine of 200,000 rubles.  According to TASS and RIA Novosti, the court forbade Malobrodsky and Itin to hold positions in state institutions.  

Sofya Apfelbaum, the former head of the Department of State Support for the Arts of the Ministry of Culture, was assigned a fine of 100,000 rubles as the main punishment, but she is exempted from it due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.  In his last word before the verdict, Serebrennikov called the claims against him unproven and ridiculous.

 

“Platform” is Serebrennikov’s pilot project, conducted at the Vinzavod plant in Moscow. Serebrennikov presented the idea of the project in 2011 at a meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, who was the president of Russia at that time, and asked for state support. From 2011 to 2014, the Ministry of Culture allocated 216.5 million rubles to the Platform. The money was received by the autonomous non-profit organization Seventh Studio, created by Serebrennikov to implement the project.

The case of the Seventh Studio began in 2017. The investigation stated that the budget money allocated to the Platform was partially stolen. A  fraud case was initiated (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code).

Several people were accused: Serebrennikov, former employees of Seventh Studio Alexei Malobrodsky, Yuri Itin and Nina Maslyaeva, as well as ex-head of the Department of State Support for Art of the Ministry of Culture Sofya Apfelbaum, who signed the documents for the grant. Yekaterina Voronova, who worked at the Seventh Studio as an executive and then general producer, was put on the wanted list and was involved in the Platform project.

 

Maslyaeva, who worked in Seventh Studio as the chief accountant, the only one of the defendants pleaded guilty. She made a deal with the investigation and testified against colleagues. Her case was set aside in a separate proceeding.

 

Three examinations were conducted in the case. The first examination estimated the damage at 133 million rubles, the second found that the defendants had not stolen, but, on the contrary, saved the money of the Ministry of Culture. The third examination, the findings of which were announced on June 1, estimated the damage at almost 129 million. At the same time, the Ministry of Culture stated that before the criminal case, it had no complaints against the Seventh Studio regarding the expenditure of allocated funds.

 

Sources: https://www.forbes.ru