An entire department of the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service)—or directorate, I’m not sure which is bigger—is already busy going around to our landlords across the country and threatening them with dire consequences if they rent us space.
The interesting thing is that these threats are completely empty: nothing happens, and nothing can happen, to those who just shrug and say, “We have an official contract.” But some people are easily frightened and terminate the agreements.
That’s how we’ve already lost 23 venues across the country, and the most absurd situation is in Moscow. There are a lot of volunteers here, and obviously the Kremlin has decided they must not be allowed to gather in one place. Every venue either refuses outright, or agrees and then backs out later (when you meet them, they put on a terrified look and point upward at the ceiling). Or they even agree, sign the contract, and then cancel anyway.
And our search is made even harder by the fact that we need a space for 3,000 to 5,000 people, and there just aren’t many of those, as you can imagine.
Just the other day, we thought we had definitely secured Club Volta. We signed the contract, prepared a design plan, bought fabric and carpeting to hide how shabby the place looked. We announced that the opening would definitely take place. And immediately after that, some nonsense started. At the same time as various trash outlets like LifeNews, the club published a strange statement saying they would not work with us because the contract was not made out to me personally. The director and the founder stopped answering their phones and now only send sad-face emojis.
So the grand opening on Wednesday has been ruined too. Volkov got so angry that he decided to record a video.
No wonder—now he has to find somewhere to put mountains of carpeting.
But we decided: to hell with it. We’ll do without a grand opening, and the Moscow campaign headquarters will simply start operating on Monday.
And in that case, the meeting with volunteers will take place right out on the street. June 12. Here is the Moscow Facebook group.
Come join us.