Press Release, 20.05.2021

Photo: Academician Andrei Sakharov / Photo by Sergei Guneyev, RIA Novosti

The photo exhibition of the Andrei Sakharov Center* “Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov: Anxiety and Hope”, which will not take place in Chistoprudny Boulevard due to the ban of the Moscow Mayor’s Office, will be held at the central office of the Yabloko party (31 bldg. 2, Pyatnitskaya Street).

Yabloko was preparing its own photo exhibition for the 100th anniversary of the outstanding Soviet academic and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov. It was supposed to open on his birthday, 21 May. However, when it became known about the refusal of the Moscow Mayor’s Office to approve the exhibition in Chistoprudny Boulevard, Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov turned to the Director of the Andrei Sakharov Centre, Sergei Lukashevsky, with a proposal to host the exhibition in the party office in the centre of Moscow.

“We also wanted to show rare photographs of Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov and tell about his life and views with the help of quotes from his works and speeches. But after the boorish response of the officials that “the content is not agreed,” we could not help but offer the Sakharov Centre to show its exhibition within the walls of our office, especially since our exhibitions coincide conceptually. In Yabloko, such content has been agreed upon,” Nikolai Rybakov says.

The exhibition will open at Pyatnitskaya, 31, bldg. 2, on 21 May at 14:00. The opening ceremony will be attended by Sergei Lukashevsky, Nikolai Rybakov, Chairman of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee Grigory Yavlinsky and MEP Petras Auštrevičius (via a video conference call).

The photo exhibition will run on weekdays until 4 June from 12:00 to 21:00. Admission is free.

On May 21 a Zoom-marathon dedicated to Andrei Sakharov’s 100 anniversary will start on the Yabloko party’s Youtube channel at 15:00. It will be attended by Chairman of the Memorial Society Sergei Kovalyov, Co-Chairs of the Moscow Helsinki Group Vyacheslav Bakhmin and Valery Borshchyov, Chairman of the Civic Assistance Committee Svetlana Gannushkina, writer Alexander Arkhangelsky, Moscow City Duma deputies Yevgeny Bunimovich and Maxim Kruglov, politician Vladimir Ryzhkov and others.

* The Andrei Sakharov Centre was enlisted  by the Ministry of Justice in the register of “foreign agents” in accordance with the provisions of Article 13.1 paragraph 10  of the Federal Law “On NGOs”. This decision has been appealed in court.