Named the main reason for the justification of the guard who painted the eyes of the picture in the “Yeltsin Center”

The canvas was not damaged, in addition, the museum received insurance in the amount of 250,000 rubles.

A court in Yekaterinburg acquitted a Yeltsin Center security guard who drew eyes with a ballpoint pen on faces depicted in a painting by Malevich’s student. With 63-year-old Alexander Vasiliev, who turned out to be a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and the first Chechen war, all charges were dropped. The case was dismissed for lack of corpus delicti. However, the defense believes that it is too early to put an end to the scandalous process.

The art scandal at the Yeltsin Center took place in December last year. 63-year-old security guard Alexander Vasiliev painted eyes on the faces depicted on the canvas “Three Figures” by the student of Kazimir Malevich, the artist Anna Leporskaya. The CCTV footage shows Vasiliev approaching the painting, pulling out a ballpoint pen from his pocket and painting eyes on the faceless figures.

The canvas, whose permanent “home” is the Tretyakov Gallery, is insured for 75 million rubles. The damage from the actions of the security guard, according to the conclusion of the examination, amounted to 250 thousand rubles. Investigators opened a case under the article “Vandalism”.

Alexander Vasiliev himself, even at the start of the investigation and later in court, repented and apologized. The man did not hide the fact that it was really he who had added round eyes to faceless figures. But the children who were at the exhibition at that moment allegedly incited him to a daring act. The guard claimed that it seemed to him that it was not an expensive work of art, but an ordinary children’s drawing. During the trial, the man explained that he asked the children if it was their drawing, and one of the students answered in the affirmative. Moreover, according to Vasiliev, the guys looked at the picture and wondered why the faces on it had no eyes, no mouth and nose. Here Vasiliev, out of the kindness of his heart, decided to rectify the situation.

The court of first instance sentenced the security guard to 180 hours of compulsory work. In addition, during the hearings, it turned out that Alexander Vasiliev suffers from a mental disorder (how exactly, the court did not specify – this is a medical secret). Therefore, in addition to the main punishment, the pensioner was also assigned compulsory outpatient treatment by a psychiatrist. However, the defendant has been registered with such a specialist for a long time.

On appeal, the case took a very different turn. Firstly, the lawyer of the elderly security guard, Aleksey Bushmakov, proved that his client would not be physically able to work 180 hours. Vasiliev has health problems. He is a combat veteran, fought in Afghanistan and was seriously wounded in the first Chechen war.

In addition, the Verkh-Isetsky Court of Yekaterinburg, which considered the case, called a restoration specialist.

– The expert broke the main thesis of the accusation: the painting did not suffer any real damage, it was not damaged or disfigured. The restorers have already removed the eyes from the canvas. There was not even a trace of pressure left on it with a ballpoint pen. Moreover, the insurance company has already paid 250 thousand to the Tretyakov Gallery. That is, there is no fact of damage, no damage from Vasiliev’s actions, – says Alexei Bushmakov.

This, by the way, is the key difference between the “Three Figures” case and the no less famous scandal with the painting “Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on November 16, 1581”. Recall that in 2019, 38-year-old Igor Podporin from the Voronezh region attacked the famous painting by Ilya Repin in the hall of the Tretyakov Gallery and cut the masterpiece with a knife in several places. The motivation of the vandal was somewhat similar to the explanations of the guard of the Yeltsin Center. It seemed to Podporin that the picture did not reflect real historical facts and discredited the good name of Ivan the Terrible. The result of that process is 2.5 years in a colony.

For Alexander Vasiliev, the main trump card was just the absence of “wounds” on the canvas. The court dropped all charges against the security guard and dismissed the case for lack of corpus delicti. According to the lawyer, the guard is very happy, but is in an exhausted state of mind:

– He’s very happy. But he is very tired and is worried not only from the trial itself, but also from the increased attention from journalists. He constantly apologized and realized that he had done something stupid, ”said Bushmakov.

However, the outcome of the appeal cannot be called a final victory. According to the defender, the prosecutor’s office does not exclude that it will soon demand a review of the case in the court of cassation. There is another risk for Alexander Vasilyev – the insurance company that paid compensation to the museum now has the right to file a civil claim against the security guard for 250 thousand rubles.