In an open letter to Vladimir Putin, legendary dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov said Putin’s “world of fear” will die from its own horror unless it wakes up.
“Mister President,
Frightened, your yard servants ordered to block our website – the website of True Russia. Their fear is so very predictable. This very fear however invests us with greater confidence in our chosen path.
In my childhood, the role of an occupant was imposed upon me, the son of the Russian officer in Latvia yet it didn’t stick. I learned Latvian language, and then, at the age of 26, rejected all roles that your thin-necked precursors tried to impose upon me. I rejected them forever. I have lived a free man of the free world for almost 50 years now — with no roles forced onto me by others, and with no fear. And people still consider me Russian as they consider my friend, Boris Akinun a Russian writer, and Sergei Guriev a Russian economist.
People like us brought more honor to the Russian world than all your inaccurate high-precision weapons. Your Russian world – a world of fear, a world that burns Ukrainian language textbooks – will not exist while there are people like us – True Russians vaccinated in childhood from this plague. And our world will live on despite all your bans.
We know how to keep the values of a true Russian world. And yours will die from its own horror unless it wakes up.
You know what you fear. You know whose munition is precise.
Mikhail Baryshnikov”
Baryshnikov is the founder of the True Russia project. The project has called for an immediate end of the war in Ukraine, and raises money to support Ukrainian refugees. True Russia’s website contains database of social, cultural and scientific initiatives of the Russian-speaking communities around the world. Baryshnikov posted the letter after Moscow ordered the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office to block the website of True Russia on May 24.
