http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02 … shoi-acid/

'I am ready to return to the stage' says dancer convicted of infamous Bolshoi acid attack
Pavel Dmitrichenko

'I am ready to return to the stage' says dancer convicted of infamous Bolshoi acid attack
Pavel Dmitrichenko
Pavel Dmitrichenko CREDIT: DMITRI BELIAKOV
Roland Oliphant, moscow
26 FEBRUARY 2017 • 7:00AM
Like thousands of ballet dancers, Pavel Dmitrichenko is focused on one goal – getting on stage at the Bolshoi Ballet. 

"Why shouldn't someone who dances well, who has worked there for 11 years before, do the job if he is able to?" said Dmitrichenko, a lithe, talkative 33-year-old. “I don’t see any reason why not.”

But Dmitrichenko is no ordinary dancer.

In 2013, he was jailed for organising a horrific acid attack on Sergei Filin, the Bolshoi Theatre’s then artistic director.

The case sent shock waves through the Russian and global artistic community, partly for its brutality – the battery acid thrown in Mr Filin’s face nearly left him blind, as if intended to deprive him of his profession – and partly because of the light it cast on what one former artistic director described as a “cesspool” of rivalries and cruelty blighting the world famous company.

Dmitrichenko, who was released after serving nearly three years of his six-year sentence at the end of May last year, said both he and the theatre are keen to put the case behind them.

Dmitrichenko is escorted before a court session in Moscow in 2013
Dmitrichenko is escorted before a court session in Moscow in 2013 CREDIT: REUTERS
“The Bolshoi has been my home for 11 years before all this happened. I don’t want to dance anywhere else,” he said over cappuccino in a Moscow restaurant.

For Dmitrichenko, dancing is in the family. His mother and father were both ballet masters, and like most professional dancers he began training early, and at his parents’ insistence.

“Anyone who says ‘when I was six I decided to be an artist of the ballet’ is talking rubbish,” he said.

“When I was born, in 1984, diplomats and members of the Bolshoi Theatre were allowed to travel abroad, but everyone else was stuck behind the iron curtain. So it was considered prestigious."

He not only enjoyed it, but proved to have talent, and at the age of 18 he was recruited into the corps de ballet at the Bolshoi.

Shortly afterwards, he said, he caught the eye of Yury Grigorovich, the legendary ballet master who ran the Bolshoi for decades, and began to receive headline roles as a soloist.

His career took off, and by 2012, just before his dramatic fall from grace, he was making headlines as the eponymous unhinged Tsar in Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible.

Pavel Dmitrichenko performing as Ivan the Terrible during a dress rehearsal
Pavel Dmitrichenko performing as Ivan the Terrible during a dress rehearsal CREDIT: GETTY
Then, on January 17, 2013, came the horrific attack on Mr Filin.

Amid  global shock at revelations of vicious rivalry at the world's most prestigious ballet company, police arrested Dmitrichenko.

It was, he said, a bitter experience that left him profoundly disillusioned with the Russian criminal justice system.

“I never admitted my guilt,” he repeated several times during an interview with the Telegraph. “The case against me was fabricated. It is as simple as that.”

He had a string of arguments that he said demonstrated he was framed, including that one of the investigators has since been arrested for attempting to obstruct the course of justice in a separate case.

He also claimed that when he was first arrested, investigators tried to bully him into testifying against Nikolai Tsiskaridze, a flamboyant and outspoken principle dancer at the company who was in an open feud with Mr Filin.

The pressure, he said, included torture.

"They beat me. And they’d lock me for four to five hours at a time in the back of an unheated police van in winter,” he said.

“When I refused to say Nikolai was the organiser, they said ‘OK, now you’re the prime suspect.’ I said ‘go on then, prove it’,’’ he said.

He also said that he was pressured into saying in court that he had complained about Mr Filin to Yuri Zarutsky, the man convicted of carrying out the attack, and had gone along with the idea that the artistic director be “roughed up.”

After a trial that made headlines around the world, Dmitrichenko was sentenced to six years for organising the attack. Zarutsky was sentenced to ten years. A third man, Andrey Lipatov, was sentenced to four years for acting as a getaway driver.

Since his release last year, his said he has focused on one thing: getting back into the theatre he regards as “home.”

Such is his devotion to the Bolshoi, he said, since his release he has turned down several offers of work from other prestigious theatres, including two world famous foreign companies, which he declined to name.

When he set foot inside the theatre’s famous building opposite the Kremlin for first time since his release in September, it was, he said, an emotional moment.

“No one at the theatre believed all that nonsense [about my guilt],” he said. “It was like a celebration. From the dancers, to members of the orchestra, the front of house staff, there was nothing but positive emotions."

Last autumn, Dmitrichenko was granted permission to attend morning rehearsals so he could get back in shape - a move that caused a mild ripple of controversy when it was reported in the Russian press.

For Dmitrichenko, the notion that his future career might be dogged by controversy is almost incomprehensible. At any rate, he said, he certainly isn't bothered by the idea. 

As far as Russian law is concerned, he has paid his debt to society. "And if the company sees no reason why I shouldn't be there, if the directors see no reason I shouldn't be there, why shouldn't I?"

"If people who don't know the whole story want to write things, let them," he said with a shrug. "Any scandal is the best kind of advertisement anyway."

Nonetheless, it is an obviously delicate issue.

Mr Filin, who after more than 30 operations has regained sight in one eye but lost it in the other, said in a New York Times interview last year that he did not feel safe at the theatre because of the prospect of Dmitrichenko’s early release.

He left the artistic directorship in March last year, and supporters say partly due to the sheer physical and emotional toll of his ordeal.

Sergei Filin
Sergei Filin CREDIT: AP
He now runs a choreography workshop, but is no longer involved in the day to day running of the theatre.

The two have crossed paths since, but Dmitrichenko brushes off their meetings. “I just went into a room and he was there. He said hello and that was that,” he shrugged.

Insiders say that Vladimir Urin, the no-nonsense director who was brought in to clean up the fallout of the acid attack in 2013, and Makhar Vaziyev, who replaced Mr Filin as artistic director last year, have worked hard to put the dark saga behind the Bolshoi.

Dmitrichenko praised them both for creating a "relaxed professional atmosphere in which people don't just work, but take real pleasure in doing so."

While Mr Urin has confirmed granting the dancer permission to rehearse and train in the theatre, he has made clear that doesn’t necessarily mean he is being rehired.

Instead, the director has said he will make a decision about Dmitrichenko’s future only if and when he has regained his fitness, and if a suitable vacancy comes up. 

Dmitrichenko said that after long hours in the rehearsal hall, he was already in shape.

Dmitrichenko has been granted permission to attend morning rehearsals
Dmitrichenko was granted permission to attend morning rehearsals last year
And he seemed confident that sooner or later, he will again be dancing for an audience.

“I am fit,” he said. “Today, I’m ready to perform.”

Does that mean we will see him back on stage in the near future?

He paused before answering the question. "I know the answer," he said with a smile. "I'll send you an invite."