The staff of the Voronezh Chamber Theater published an open letter and spoke out against the dismissal of artistic director and founder Mikhail Bychkov. The letter was published in the theater's public page.
The letter is addressed to the regional Ministry of Culture, the Governor, the Ministry of Culture of Russia and the Presidential Administration. The artists asked for the return of the artistic director and invited the Minister of Culture of the Voronezh Region to meet with the theater troupe. “It seems to us that we deserve an explanation for such a sudden decision, which obviously runs counter to the interests of the Chamber Theater and its audience,” the letter says. It was signed by 63 people.
Bychkov’s dismissal became known on November 22. The Vesti Voronezh publication, citing a “source in the regional authorities,” wrote that after the start of the war, the artistic director “did not lose the desire to write open condemning letters, and the theater made no attempts to support the SVO participants and members of their families with discounted tickets.”