MOSCOW, February 2 (RIA Novosti) – A prominent Lithuanian theater director had to spend Saturday night at a Moscow airport after being refused to enter Russia over alleged law violations.
Mindaugas Karbauskis, the artistic director of Moscow’s Mayakovsky Theater since 2011, wrote on his Facebook page that he flew into the city’s Vnukovo airport on Saturday when the border control officials said that he had been barred from Russia till November 23, 2015.
Karbauskis, a Lithuanian citizen, said that the officials cited unspecified minor violations that he had committed in Moscow.
The news was followed by an outcry from Russia artists that prompted the migration officials to interfere.
The Federal Migration Service’s spokeswoman Zalina Kornilova confirmed that the artistic director has been denied access to Russia over wrongdoing, but didn’t elaborate. She said, however, that the ban would be revoked soon.
The Mayakovsky Theater’s director Leonid Osharin told RIA Novosti that the migration officials would grant Karbauskis a permission to enter Russia by Sunday evening.
“Mindaugas didn’t sleep last night, he will take a rest at his home in Vilnius and will fly back to Moscow,” Osharin said.
The 42-year-old prize-winning director, Karbauskis has studied and worked in Russia for about a decade, having staged a number of successful performances at Moscow’s several major theaters.
