Moscow design week, Putin’s tiger and Edward Snowden; news you may have missed

Moscow Design Week opens

Moscow Design Week, an event celebrating the development of culture, design and business in Russia, has opened this week, with events and installations themed around “Innovation to save the planet”. A selection of events, from talks about the media, restaurant design and how to create innovative spaces will run throughout the week, in addition to exhibits of some of the latest in art, culture and furniture design.

Exhibit B goes to Moscow

Controversial live art installation Exhibit B has gone to Moscow’s Museum of Modern Art after its performance at London’s Barbican centre was cancelled following protests. Criticising the “human zoos” that treated Africans as scientific objects through the 19th and 20th centuries, the installation has both wowed and offended critics.

Putin’s Siberian tiger crosses into China

The saga of the Siberian tiger, Kuzya, which was released into the wild by the Russian president in May, has taken hold of the media, with its first forays across the border into China reported last week. The latest report is that the tiger, having stumbled across a village, went on a rampage in a henhouse, killing a number of chickens.

Putin signs law on 20% foreign shareholding in media

President Vladimir Putin signed into law a controversial bill limiting foreign shareholding in Russian media organisations to 20%. The law, to come into effect in 2017, will force some of the biggest media companies, including Condé Nast and Axel Springer, to sell majority stakes in their companies to Russians or face closure.

Edward Snowden approached by political party to host TV series

American whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been approached by Russia’s nationalist Liberal Democracy Party (LDPR) to host a television programme on secret services and intelligence gathering. The proposed series is set to explore all aspects of international intelligence activity and will be aired on the party’s own TV channel LDPR-TV.

Moscow’s Teatr.doc threatened with closure

Actors and theatre professionals around the world have signed an open letter to Moscow’s mayor to appeal the recent eviction notice handed to teatr.doc, the theatre institute, over the “illegal redevelopment of its premises”. The letter’s signatories have cited the institute’s importance in the international theatre world.