In the picture for 75 million, the security guard finished drawing the eyes with a ballpoint pen. Urgant and bloggers have already laughed at this topic, the prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal case. But behind all this hype, the main thing is lost — the human factor. Who, by an absurd accident, suddenly became a «vandal» and a criminal?
At the exhibition “The World as Non-Objectiveness. The Birth of a New Art» at the Yeltsin Center art gallery, two figures in a painting by a student of Kazimir Malevich have eyes drawn with a ballpoint pen. The estimated cost of the painting by Anna Leporskaya is 75 million rubles.
The police initially refused to open a criminal case, believing that the damage was insignificant. The Restoration Council of the Tretyakov Gallery estimated it at 250 thousand rubles. After the appeal of the Ministry of Culture to the Prosecutor General’s Office, a case was nevertheless initiated under the article on vandalism.
One of the most unusual crimes of recent years was solved quickly, simply by looking at video footage. It turned out that the Yeltsin Center security guard painted the eyes. It happened on his first day at work. Many laughingly called the man the co-author of the artist, and Ivan Urgant commented on what had happened in his evening program with humor.
Our colleagues spoke with security guard Alexander Vasiliev, who is accused of vandalism. The conversation turned out to be quite unhappy.
«I’m a fool for what I’ve done! — almost crying, now Alexander Petrovich scolds himself. “I tell everyone this now: both the prosecutor and the judges” (as he calls the police interrogators).
Alexander Vasiliev is 63 years old. He lives with his wife in a two-room apartment in a nine-story panel building in the South-Western district of Yekaterinburg. The spouse is not at home, she is absent for days — Yulia works in the red zone of one of the city’s hospitals.
Photographs of Alexander hang on the wall of the large room. On them he is still young, in military uniform, military orders and medals on his chest. At first we are not talking about art, but we are asking him about a past life. One of the most expensive and valuable awards is the medal «For Courage». He received it in the first Chechen war.
Alexander slightly confusedly recalls that battle: he was a senior lieutenant, out of 36 people in his detachment, four survived. He himself was seriously wounded: his head, lungs were pierced, his whole body was riddled with bullets. He was brought to a hospital in Moscow, the doctors then said: «Not a tenant.» And he survived. After being discharged from the hospital, the officer was discharged, giving the third group of disability. This was in 1995. He was then 37 years old.
From that moment on, I had to forget about military service: the shell shock affected my mental and emotional health. At the same time, Alexander worked for many years in various security companies. Apparently, he worked in good faith, because for all these years there were no complaints against him. True, there was a moment in his life when a criminal case was initiated against him — during a street conflict he threatened some unknown woman, she wrote a statement to the police. In recent years, according to the man, he worked as a security guard at the bank until the branch closed.
After the death of his first wife, Alexander Petrovich lived alone, and in 2014 his only son Sasha was killed — stabbed to death on the street. The crime was solved, the killer was found, sentenced to ten years, obliged to pay compensation to his relatives in the amount of one million rubles, but he never gave a penny.
Three years ago, the veteran met his current wife in the hospital, she was a doctor, he was a patient. Since then they have been together. Alexander Petrovich talks very warmly about his wife, now she is the only person who cares about him.
Vasiliev strove to work in order to be in business. In the private security company, which serves the «Yeltsin Center», he was helped to get a job by acquaintances from the veterans’ organization.
“At first I wanted to refuse, I was afraid that I would not be able to be on my feet all day, without the opportunity to sit down (the veteran has severe leg injuries. — Approx. Ed.). But they told me: if you work one shift, we will pay you right away. I went out. To be honest, I didn’t really like these works [at the exhibition]. They left a deep impression. I tried to pass by without looking.
I watched how people react, and now I see: children of 16-17 years old are standing, discussing why there are no eyes, no mouth, no beauty! There were girls in the company, and they asked me: “Draw eyes, you work here.”
I asked them: “Are these your works?” Them: «Yes.» They gave me a pen. I drew the eyes. I thought it was just their childhood drawings!”
At first, no one noticed the changes. “I look, people are walking by, smiling,” Alexander recalls. “Then, as I feared, from standing on my feet for a long time, my head ached. I warned the shift supervisor that I was going home.”
A few days later, the police came to Alexander. He didn’t even immediately understand what he was being accused of, and then he suggested: “Bring it, I’ll erase everything so that it’s not visible.”
He went to the interrogation with his wife. It turned out that the company of teenagers who allegedly incited the guard to «vandalism» did not get into the lens of the surveillance camera. “I would never get into other people’s paintings without asking. Why ruin someone else’s? If only I knew it wasn’t the children’s work of those guys! That the paintings were brought from Moscow and they cost so much! .. What have I done!
During our conversation, Alexander’s wife called from duty — she wanted to know how things were going, how he was feeling, whether he had taken the pills (there are mountains of packages with various drugs on the shelf). We talked to her about this situation.
“Sasha is an absolutely normal person in everyday life. But sometimes in some things he is naive, like a child.
“I thought they were children’s drawings,” Yulia tells us. — These are the consequences of a concussion. Sitting at home was hard for him, unbearable. I really wanted to work. I think it’s a tragedy for part of his generation. There are many people like him who have lost their health, thrown to the sidelines of life.
Now the veteran dreams of one thing — to forget everything that happened: “I want everyone to leave me behind, and I would live calmly as I lived with my wife,” he says sadly.
How he will have to answer for what happened is still unknown — under a criminal article, a man may face a fine or even arrest.
A source: