In the opinion of experts, this initiative will lead to the closure of hundreds of repertoire theatres, strict government control over the earnings of theatrical troupes and even to direct dictate to the stage.
Under these bills, some companies are to be granted the status of "national asset", as is the case in other countries. These assets will apparently include Mariinsky theatre, Bolshoi Theatre, Maly theatre, Moscow Art Theatre and the Big Drama Theatre.
As to companies that will not be in a position to claim the national property status, they will have either to prove their right to getting state grants for definite productions (simply speaking, state order) or to adopt the self-supporting principle and, on being bereft of tax benefits, to make deductions to the treasury on a par with restaurants and casinos.
The reform is being worked out in secret. Practitioners representing the Russian theatre are barred from designing documents which have a direct bearing on their life.
"The reform which boils down to giving the state all the money we shall earn for further redistribution and issue of subsidies will begin in 2005. If nothing changes, the Satiricon theatre will just stop its existence," says the theatre director Konstantin Raikin.
In his opinion, theatrical companies will survive only if they "avoid state oversight". But cultural institutions are not liable to privatisaiton, under law.
