Russian theatregoers ‘held hostage at gunpoint’ in terrifying drama
RUSSIAN theatregoers are being taken hostage and held at gunpoint as part of a surprise act put on by veteran separatist fighters to hammer home the reality of war in eastern Ukraine.
Unsuspecting audience members at the opening night of a new play in Kaluga, about 120 miles south-west of Moscow, were shocked when burly men dressed in Ukrainian military uniforms and carrying guns burst into the auditorium, pulling people out of the crowd and firing blanks into the air.
The show was produced by pro-separatist actors from Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region and opened against a backdrop of heavy Russian losses after more than eight months of war. A local television channel broadcast footage showing members of the audience screaming while others looked on in disbelief as the armed men stormed down the aisle, shouting abuse at the crowd and manhandling them. Audience members could be heard shrieking: “Let me go!” and “It hurts!”
One audience member – a man wearing a jacket and a turtleneck sweater – was hauled on to the stage and forced down to his knees.
A bag was then put over his head and the soldiers dragged him off stage and pretended to execute him in the wings, with a burst of machine gun fire ringing out around the theatre, which usually hosts classical music concerts.
The performance was called Polite People in a nod to the phrase coined by Russian media to describe the troops who seized Crimea in 2014.
Vilen Babichev, an actor in the show, said that he had been fighting with Luhansk separatist forces against Ukrainian government troops since 2014.
The theatre group’s “immersive performance” was meant to bring home to Russians the horrors of the war they have personally experienced, he told Nika TV.
“I play the main villain whose part is supposed to show to all the viewers – all Russians – the nature of the enemy that Russia is fighting against, the enemy that attacked our land more than eight years ago,” he said. Roman Razum, the show’s director and the leader of a rock band, said the performance was an educational project.
“We explain that this is not just the Ukrainian people [fighting against Russia] but well-equipped and trained Nato fighters,” said Mr Razum, who was reportedly injured in Ukraine and had medals pinned to his uniform.
The show, which is expected to tour in 12 Russian cities, has received a grant of 10 million rubles (£14,300) from Russia’s culture ministry.
The performance caused an uproar online but authorities insisted that the violent outburst onstage was not spontaneous and that the viewers had been warned about what they were about to see in advance.
The organisers issued two warnings before the performance began.
People at the show “had a chance to leave at any moment in case it triggered negative emotions in them,” Kaluga’s government said in a statement, hailing the show for highlighting “the feats of heroes of the special military operation”, Russia’s byword for the invasion of Ukraine.
The mock hostage-taking bore an eerie resemblance to a real hostage crisis that unfolded in Moscow in 2002, when a group of Chechen militants burst on to the stage of the Dubrovka Theatre in Moscow and took more than 900 people hostage.
A video filmed at the Nord-ost musical showed the audience members greeting the armed men on stage with applause as they assumed they were part of the show.
Some 130 people died when Russian special forces stormed the theatre four days later and ended the siege.
‘People at the show had a chance to leave at any moment in case it triggered negative emotions in them’