“Loathsome, semi-Asiatic, barbaric, treacherous and vile”

These are the exact words used by the film director Nikita Mikhalkov to describe the Yeltsin Centre, which he has yet to visit…

Mikhalkov might not have actually travelled the thousand miles from Moscow to Yekaterinburg’s Yeltsin Centre but he is nevertheless certain that “[the Yeltsin Centre] is sowing the seeds of destruction of the next generation’s national consciousness.”

What prompted one of Russia’s most celebrated filmmakers and courtiers (Mikhalkov is renowned not only for winning an Oscar, but for cuddling up to the Kremlin) to lash out, from the podium of the Federation Council, at the Yeltsin Centre, which opened a year ago to great fanfare, with Putin and Medvedev in attendance?

The official reason is the Yeltsin Centre’s decision to show visitors an animated film, which, according to Mikhalkov, portrays Russia as “loathsome, semi-Asiatic, barbaric, treacherous and vile.” Mikhalkov went on to elaborate what exactly he found lacking in the eight-minute film: “Why is there not a single peasant, worker, scientist, soldier, admiral or general? Why?!”

We should point out that the film, which begins with the words “Russian democracy was born long before Russian autocracy,” does in fact have its fair share of military personnel (how could a tale of the Second World War be told without them?); the fruits of academic labour are also on display (a rocket flies into space; an atomic icebreaker smashes through the ice, etc.); peasants and workers too are also there in plain sight: at one point two animated characters morph into the famous Industrial Worker and Collective Farm Girl monument.

Nevertheless, Mikhalkov, standing before Russia’s upper house, demanded that the Yeltsin Centre “correct its programme” and “present the other side of the country.” The incensed director even remarked that it was a question of national security.

Pavel Lungin, himself a well known film director, and one of the founders of the Yeltsin Centre, translated Mikhalkov’s oratory back into the language of the 1930s, when the genre of denunciation was in vogue: “I consider it my duty to warn of the dangerous sabotage that is poisoning the ideological atmosphere of our country. I haven’t seen it myself, but I feel it with my heart. Everyone is to blame: Yeltsin, his museum, his contribution to history, the people who work there. They shall get their comeuppance…”

According to political analyst Georgy Satarov, Mikhalkov’s problem as an advocate of strong state power is that in the Yeltsin Centre he has run up against an “institution, which believes that freedom is inherently Russian, that the power elite can be both despised and deposed (also characteristically Russian), that people have inalienable rights, and that it is the duty of any state to protect and promote these rights.”

On the other side of the political divide, we have Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, who leapt to Mikhalkov’s defence: “By depicting Russian history as an ill-fated alternation between absurdity and benightedness, the Yeltsin Centre has let down Yeltsin himself. It turns out that the many generations of our ancestors were all ‘out of step’ and only Yeltsin was ‘in sync.’ It’s hard to say whether it’s comical or stupid, or both.” Later, however, Medinsky was called to order by Prime Minister Medvedev and quickly withdrew from the discussion.

The Yeltsin Centre, which welcomes and promotes nonconformist festivals, performances and films, and holds topical public debates, has certainly vexed conservatives of all stripes. Even at the best of times, these people are eager to castigate the Yeltsin Centre – but, recalling Putin’s commitment to the Yeltsin family (a vow to protect them), they are unable to act.

Naina Yeltsina, the widow of the first president of Russia, responded to Mikhalkov a day later. She described the director’s statement as deceitful and recalled how he was a confidant of Boris Yeltsin during the 1996 election: “I could not have imagined that 20 years on he would so readily deny his words and actions. If the Yeltsin Centre is seen as a kind of continuation of Yeltsin’s cause, the rabid reaction will suit the various guardians of Boris Yeltsin. If the Yeltsin Centre is able to sting someone higher up, Yeltsin himself would hardly have objected. Towards the end of his life, his disappointment with his successor was overwhelming. The former prime minister and now opposition leader Mikhail Kasyanov recalls how, during his last meeting with Yeltsin, the latter complained that his phone was tapped and taught Kasyanov how to fight back: ‘Buy more [phones]. Cheap ones that you’re not sorry to see go. Get rid of the phone after every conversation, just throw it out.’”

Although Yeltsin’s family has immunity in Russia, the first president’s legacy has been quite deliberately erased and discredited. The propaganda has been so zealous of late that a poll by Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda delivered the following outcome: 95% of respondents called Yeltsin an extremist and only 5% a reformer.

But whatever people think of Yeltsin the man, Yeltsin the centre receives almost unanimous praise:

Stanislav: “The most modern museum in Russia. Worth a visit even if you’re not a fan of Yeltsin and perestroika.”

Anna: “Regardless of all the controversy about the nineties and the persona of Yeltsin, the museum is a kind of flashback. That time really did exist.”

Memory, however, unfortunately has a habit of playing tricks with people. Just ask Nikita Mikhalkov.