In Ulyanovsk, a criminal case was opened against the artist Egor Kholtov for insulting the religious feelings of believers (Part 1 of Article 148 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the Ulyanovsk news agency.
On April 26, the regional department of the Investigative Committee announced the initiation of a case, although the name of the suspect was not reported in the press release of the security forces. Later it became known that we were talking about Kholtov.
According to investigators, from 2014 to 2021, the artist published on social networks “images and texts containing mockery of images revered in Christianity.” It is unknown what preventive measure was chosen for him. SOTA writes that Holtov is now free. The publication also drew attention to the fact that the Ulyanovsk resident’s page on VKontakte has been deleted.
Today, the Ulyanovsk police published a video of Holtov’s arrest. In the video, security forces break the door lock to the artist’s apartment, and later break into his home and throw Holtov on the floor, after which they twist his hands behind his back.
In March, security forces conducted a search of Kholtov in connection with a case of treason, which was brought against Pussy Riot member and former Mediazona publisher Pyotr Verzilov.
Curators from the FSB. How Russian artists were interrogated and searched in the treason case of Pyotr Verzilov
Holtov is one of the most famous artists of Ulyanovsk, he regularly published images of his works on Instagram. The most popular of them was the work of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, in which Vladimir Lenin is depicted as a gopnik.
Holtov himself characterizes his works as depicting “the most UNCOMFORTABLE Russia.” According to the Ulyanovsk news agency, Kholtov is a pseudonym that the artist chose because it “reads very funny backwards.”