A report from the funeral of the poet Lev Rubinstein, which emphasized his Jewish origin, was removed from the Express Newspaper website. RTVI drew attention to this. The text of the note has been preserved in the web archive.
Describing farewell to the poet in Moscow, the anonymous author of the note made several anti-Semitic attacks, noting the “slightly bulging eyes” of those gathered and mimicking what he thought was a “Jewish” accent.< /p>
He called Lev Rubinstein a “Russophobe” who “dedicated his entire 76-year life to the destruction of our country.”
“Of course, the deceased lived in grand style: his violent anti-Russian movement was generously paid foreign agent Khodorkovsky. And after a ridiculous accident near the synagogue in Maryina Roshcha and the subsequent death of the Russophobe, all Western newspapers shed crocodile tears,” says the deleted publication.
In addition, the author argued that Rubinstein considered the Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev “a hero of the national liberation movement,” and “the return of Crimea to his native harbor plunged the poet into depression.”
The text about the funeral ended with the words: “Laughter and that’s all.”
Today the article disappeared from the Express Newspaper website. Editor-in-Chief Sergei Nikitin told RTVI that he was not aware of the publication. According to him, the text was removed by the editors because it “seemed too much to them.” As Nikitin noted, he was informed about the removal of the material by “another person” through “third parties” during a morning correspondence on “an entirely different matter.”
Express Gazeta previously belonged to Komsomolskaya Pravda, but since 2017 year, the publishing house tried to sell the tabloid. The deal took place in 2021, businessman Valery Burtsev became the new owner. He owns the Forward Media media group.
A deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly from Yabloko, Boris Vishnevsky, after the news of the removal of the article from the newspaper’s website, wrote that because of the publication he would appeal to law enforcement agencies with a request to open a criminal case under the article of inciting hatred or enmity (Article 282 of the Criminal Code).
Lev Rubinstein is a representative of the Moscow conceptual school. In the 1970s, he worked in a library and wrote down poems on blank cards; this later became his personal artistic technique — many of Rubinstein’s poetic texts are structured like catalogs or lists.
On January 8, Rubinstein was hit by a car at a pedestrian crossing in Moscow. He was hospitalized at the Sklifosovsky Research Institute of Emergency Medicine in serious condition. Six days later, the poet’s daughter announced his death at the age of 77.
On January 16, Express Gazeta published an article about the priest Alexei Uminsky, who was banned from serving and deposed because of his anti-war positions. “The liberal Westerner and Russophobe will no longer be able to fool his flock. If you believe the ancient chroniclers, since the time of Ivan the Terrible, such behavior was called “the heresy of the Judaizers,” wrote Express Newspaper, calling Uminsky a “werewolf in a cassock,” “a bastard,” and a “schismatic.”