Maria Maksakova
According to reports in the ‘Wall Street Journal’ and ‘HuffPost’, Mariinsky’s mezzo-soprano soloist Maria Maksakova who is also a member of the Russian Parliament, criticized the homophobic Russian law during a recent meeting of the liberal wing of Putin’s United Russia party. « We are seeing extremely negative consequences as a result of this law, with the growth of hate crimes,” Maksakova said. “Now we have a horrible problem, including with our investment climate, because for our artists it has become more and more difficult to work abroad.” According to a HuffPost translation, Maksakova added: « I’m not against our family values, but couldn’t we take ‘non-traditional’ out of this law through amendments? And expand the law, so that any harmful propaganda of a sexual character to minors became inadmissible … foreigners don’t see anything past the word ‘Non-traditional’ and the Russian artists trying to work abroad can’t just explain that this is not discrimination, but instead the public’s attempt to protect the children. Once they see this first line of the law, they are not all curious to see what the law is really intending to convey. »
