The event is planned to be held on August 22 on Pushkin Square, and the mayor’s office had initially agreed to the event. However, a press release from the mayor’s office on Thursday stated that the organizers had only submitted the paperwork to hold a rally, not a concert.

Organizer Mikhail Shneyder was told by the city’s bureau for event management and safety that there’s no way to hold a rally and a concert at the same time. “You’re announcing all over the place that you’re holding a rally-concert, but that kind of format for an event does not exist. You will not be allowed to hold a concert and set up a covered stage,” Shneyder quoted the bureau as saying.

“I know that that kind of format doesn’t exist,” the organizer explained in response. “The law stipulates just a rally, but it’s for us to decide who is going to appear at our rally and how; if we want, we’ll call on a Buddhist and he’ll arrange 20 simultaneous chess matches.”

Regardless of any legal ambiguities, the organizers plan to go on with the show. Scheduled to be present are the groups DDT, OtZvuki My, Televizor, Padla Bear Outfit, and Barto. Journalist Artemy Troitsky agreed to host the event.

Yury Shevchuk, leader of DDT and an outspoken Kremlin critic, said the band had already purchased tickets to Moscow and was coming to the event for certain.

“Leap frog between the Moscow authorities – that’s a normal affair,” Shevchuk told Kasparov.ru. “We’re going to Moscow with an acoustic lineup and we’ll see there whether or not they’re going to let us play. That’s the kind of weather we have nowadays – either hot or cold.”

Yevgenia Chirikova, leader of the movement to defend the Khimki Forest, insisted that the Moscow authorities had no legal right to ban their event. “I don’t know a single law that would ban setting up a stage for a rally. The authorities’ quibbles are entirely baseless,” she said.

“Let them not allow the people to hear Shevchuk and demonstrate to everyone that they are inflexible and unpopular politicians,” the activist went on. “We have been supported by musicians of the very highest caliber, and a smart civil servant wouldn’t think to bother us.”

The felling of the Khimki Forest began this past July. An expressway from Moscow to St. Petersburg is planned to take its place. Ecologists and activists have spoken out strongly against the project, insisting that it violates the law.

As the Sobkor®ru news agency reports, the 100TV channel’s editorial offices were apparently concerned with nature of Televizor’s recent lyrics.

Televizor, which came out of the Soviet underground of the mid-1980s, describes itself as “one of the predecessors of Russian neo-romanticism and electronic funk.” The band, led by Mikhail Borzykin, was supposed to appear on the “100 Percent Sound” show, in a live musical performance.

While many of the group’s songs have nothing offensive about them, the group has never shied away from political themes and strong-mouthed lyrics. Their early recordings include songs titled “Your television is speaking with you,” and “Your dad is a fascist.” The band’s most recent album, Megamisanthrope, takes jabs at religion, war and materialism. Televizor’s latest songs have taken a sharp political edge, criticizing repressive authorities and imperialism. Borzykin is an active member of the opposition, and has performed at several demonstrations, including the March 3rd, 2008 March of Dissent in St. Petersburg.

“The songs of Mikhail Borzykin could not be aired, but not for political, but rather ethical reasons,” said Andrei Radin, the lead editor for the 100 TV channel. He explained the channel’s concerns for letting Televizor on the air, noting the “barefaced, explicit obscenity, and even unmentionable language” of Borzykin’s songs.

The singer himself said that “we were told that ‘now there’s such a situation, that we cannot allow this to happen.’”

Another television channel is apparently unhappy with Yury Shevchuk, the front-man of one of Russia’s most famous rock-bands, DDT. According to the North-West Political News Agency, the Kultura (Culture) TV channel has a standing order not to air any of Shevchuk’s songs. This year, he was also replaced at an annual commemorative concert for folk artist Bulat Okudzhava.

Shevchuk, who took part in the March 3rd March of Dissent in St. Petersburg, also performed at a concert after the mass-demonstration. Speaking during the protest, he explained that rock music in Russia and St. Petersburg most of all represents freedom. In a later interview, he added that he decided to march because “there was no other choice left.

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Televizor Official Site

DDT Official Site