Why we need Khodorkovsky

Rachel Polonsky on the fight to save a private school that is threatened by Russia’s new cultural and economic thuggery

Moscow

In Britain, it is easy to forget what an important human freedom non-state education represents. In post-totalitarian Russia, where civil liberties are in first bud in a hostile climate, this recently regained freedom is menaced, not so much by state ideology as by the rampages of power and money unrestrained by an adequate legal system. My children’s school, a modestly resourced ‘Classical Gymnasium’ founded ten years ago, is threatened with closure at the end of this academic year. Its rented premises have been sold by the City of Moscow to a shadowy company with only a mobile phone number as its address, which plans to build a massage centre on the site of this unique institution.

This is one poignant example of the vulnerability of non-profit-making cultural institutions in a society in which corrupt financial interests can get away with anything provided they do not become involved in liberal politics, and in which legislation is applied as an instrument of political power. The Russian State (formerly the Lenin) Library, the nation’s equivalent of the British Library, has been unusable for the past four years. The fabric of the building is in terminal disrepair, the stacks are unsafe, most books are inaccessible. Meanwhile, neon casinos, gaming arcades, beauty parlours, lingerie shops and strip clubs flash their charms in all corners of this real-estate Babylon among the gold domes of fabulously restored churches. There is nothing here but temptations of the flesh and temples for the repentant soul.

As I go about the City of Reconstruction that Moscow has become, only the proliferation of gourmet coffee shops alleviates my woe. In my street, a faceless office block has just gone up in the midst of a harmonious classical ensemble of early 19th-century university buildings.