Russian mayor orders quote from ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov on choreography school wall to be replaced by ‘words of a true patriot’

Yevgeny Moiseyev, the mayor of the Russian city of Kislovodsk, announced Sunday that a quote from ballet dancer and choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov will be removed from a local choreography school because he spoke out against the invasion of Ukraine.

Photos published by the mayor show the following quote from Baryshnikov on one of the school’s walls: “I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.”

“I’m currently working to figure out who approved the idea to feature a quote from a person who, while he may be a genius, abandoned his native country and doesn’t support it, our heroic boys, or our president in the fight that we all, as a country, and as the entire city of Kislovodsk, are waging for our future, the future of our children, and the entire country,” wrote Moiseyev.

He said he’s ordered for Baryshnikov’s quote to be replaced with “the words of one of our geniuses, a true patriot of their native land.”

Mikhail Baryshnikov was born in Soviet Latvia. In the 1970s, he emigrated to the U.S., where he joined the American Ballet Theatre and began performing in films and on Broadway. He now leads the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Baryshnikov began raising money for Ukrainian refugees along with writer Boris Akunin and economist Sergei Guriev as part of the True Russia project. The Russian authorities have banned the initiative as an “undesirable” organization.