President named after Chekhov – Newspaper Kommersant No. 241 (7442) dated 12/27/2022

The A.P. Chekhov International Theater Festival has announced the names of its new leaders. Mikhail Shvydkoy became the president of the festival, and Karina Tsaturova was appointed the general director.

The chair of the most famous international Russian theater festival was empty a few weeks ago, when Valery Shadrin, president of the International Confederation of Theater Unions and general director of the Chekhov Festival, died. He was one of the founders of the festival and its permanent director for thirty years – the first Chekhov festival took place in 1992. The festival very quickly gained weight, became famous and authoritative in the world, and after 2001, when Chekhovsky organized the World Theater Olympics, unprecedented in scope and diversity, in Moscow, the fame and reputation of the festival became unshakable.

Of course, over time and with the gradual saturation of the Moscow festival market, the face of the Chekhov Festival changed: if at first it introduced Russia to the first persons of the world theater and the productions of theatrical experimenters, then later the festival became more interested in choreography, exotic theatrical traditions of distant countries, musical performances, new circus, more democratic genres. Along with this, the directorate was engaged in the production of its projects and regional initiatives, in particular, the recently appeared Pacific Festival in Vladivostok. The authority of Valery Shadrin in the theatrical environment was unshakable, he was, as they say, the face of the festival and its sole heavyweight leader. But, naturally, the years took their toll, and it was no secret to anyone in Moscow that in the corridors of the Ministry of Culture and the Moscow government, the main donors of the festival budget, they began to think about the fate of the festival and about the form of transit to the future (in a purely legal sense, the Chekhov Festival is non-state institution: its founder is not the Ministry of Culture, but the International Confederation of Theater Unions, formed in 1992 on the ruins of the Union of Theater Workers of the USSR).

Nevertheless, the death of Valery Shadrin was an unexpected and therefore especially heavy blow for the festival. The appointments announced today show that the general understanding of the situation is that abrupt appointments of people from the outside are too dangerous, especially in an environment where international ties are becoming more and more elusive. Therefore, it was decided to maintain the status quo. Mikhail Shvydkoy, the presidential special envoy for international cultural cooperation, had no previous formal relationship with the Chekhov Festival, but he undoubtedly understands well the meaning and the way the institution works – both as a former minister and as an experienced official who came from a theatrical background. After all, as a spectator of the festival.

It is obvious that Mikhail Shvydkoy will become, first of all, a speaker and a lobbyist for the festival in the corridors of power. And the direct operational management will be carried out by Karina Tsaturova, the widow of Valery Shadrin, who managed the finances of the Chekhov Festival for many years and was the Deputy General Director in recent years. The immediate plans of the directorate are clear – to implement the program of the next festival, already announced by Valery Shadrin, scheduled for the spring of 2023 (for obvious reasons, the emphasis is on Asian and Latin American exotics). And what will happen next is incomprehensible not only to the Chekhov festival, but to no one at all.

Esther Steinbock