On 1 July, despite all the obstacles created by the city administration, charitable concert “NeTramplin Party: “Music Against Torture”, dedicated to the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, took place in Nizhny Novgorod, after all. As we have previously reported, previously the city administration and the Ministry of the Interior stated that the event which was planned at the Grebnoy Canal, would be considered unauthorized, later HARAT’S PUB refused in the nick of time, despite the signed contract – the owners of the building, where the pub rents its premises, have made a strong stand against the event. As a result, the event took place in the “The same old place”, the owners of which kindly assisted us to make it happen.
As we have previously reported, on 28 June of «Music Against Torture» festival organizers Artem Proudnikov was called to the administration of the Nizhny Novgorod for a conversation, in the course of which Deputy Head of City Administration Mariya Kholkina informed him that the planned event organized together with the Committee for the Prevention of Torture is unauthorized with all the ensuing consequences. Head of the Department of Public Order Organization and Interaction with Executive Authorities and Local Governments of the Nizhny Novgorod region of the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia for the Nizhny Novgorod region Aleksandr Pinevich, expressed even more specifically, having told Proudnikov that he could not conduct a concert, and he was warning about if beforehand.
Artem Proudnikov is the organizer of numerous concert activities in Nizhny Novgorod, including at “NeTramplin Party”. Concerts of such format successfully and without hindrance were conducted at one and the same location four times already, one of them – this year. And not a single time the Ministry of the Interior, the City Administration or owners of the venue where these activities were held, had any problems with that.
In addition, previously the Nizhny Novgorod administration refused to authorize the picket in Nizhny Novgorod, referring to the fact that Bolshaya Pokrovskaya street, where it was planned, was not designed for such activities.
According to our information, a lot of owners of the concert venues of the city received calls from some man who introduced himself as a “representative of the security service”, with a highly persistent suggestion to refuse to conduct this concert – failing which they should be prepared to numerous checks and troubles.
Despite that, on 30 June an agreement was reached with HARAT’S PUB on conducting the charitable rock festival and all the required documents were signed. However, in the evening of the same day, the owners of the building, where the pub rents its premises, have made a strong stand against the event. Negotiations which lasted till Saturday afternoon, did not bring any result.
As a result, the owners of ‘The same old place” helped out and provided their premises for the concert.
Lawyer with the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Sergey Babinets: “Unfortunately, all but one concert venues in the city refused to work with us due to the pressure exerted by the city administration. However, the earthly bureaucratic tricks proved to be futile for the flying spaghetti monster, and the rock concert took place, in the end. It was not exactly the format we wanted initially. We managed to find the venue in the nick of time, that is why we had problems with notifying those who wanted to listen to real heavy music. We apologize to those citizens of Nizhny Novgorod whom we failed to notify about yet another change of the rock concert location. But we learn our lessons and next time we will be ready for inadequate stance of the city administration and we will conduct everything at the highest level. Thanks to everyone who supported Aleksandr Dmitriyev suffered from torture”.