In Central Asia, the concerts of pro-war Russian celebrities are canceled in solidarity with Ukraine · Global Voices

When music, war and politics become one

Ukrainian and Kazakh flags hung in a Kazakh yurt in Bucha, Ukraine. Screenshot from YouTube channel CurrentTimeAsia. Fair use.

On September 14, the Kazakh events agency Vi Project announced the cancellation of concerts by the Russian comedy group Kamyzyaki. They were scheduled to take place in early October in the capital Astana and Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty. The organizers made this decision after a wave of “negative public feedback on the high-profile public actions of the artists of the Kamyzyaki group.”

This statement referred to the public online petition to cancel the concerts. This came after it emerged that several members of the group, including its leaders Azamat Musagaliev and Denis Dorokhov, took part in a state-organized concert in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, which is currently occupied by Russia. After the concert, Musugaliev and Dorokhov gave an interview in which they shared how they learned “a lot of history” and wished local people “good health, peaceful skies and smiles.”

Here is a YouTube video with the interview of the group members in Donetsk.

It was not the first time since February 2022 that concerts by Russian celebrities supporting the war against Ukraine were canceled in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries. Still, it was notable as several of the group’s members, including their frontman Musagaliev, are ethnic Kazakhs from Russia and were warmly welcomed on their previous visits there.

In contrast to the governments in Central Asia, which take an ambiguous position, ordinary people in the region have made their political stance clearer by expressing their solidarity with Ukraine. One of the reasons for this was calls to cancel concerts by Russian Z-list celebrities, a name given to those who supported the invasion of Ukraine.

A very first sign of this trend was the decision to indefinitely postpone the Zhara music festival planned for the summer of 2022 in Kazakhstan after Azerbaijan refused to host it after the start of the war. In Kazakhstan, this music festival was called the “Z Battalion” because many of its participants supported the Kremlin’s war effort and the letter Z is associated with pro-war Russia.

In February 2023, festival organizers announced that the event would be held at a different location “due to the political situation in the country and the world.” Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent was chosen as a replacement location, but organizers there also had to cancel the event due to a public backlash.

Likewise, concerts by Russian singer Grigory Leps, which were scheduled for summer and autumn 2023, were canceled in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. After videos emerged of Leps promising Russian soldiers one million rubles ($10,385) for every Western tank they destroy in Ukraine, people called for her to be canceled.

Here is a YouTube video in which Leps explains the initiative to pay Russian soldiers money for destroyed tanks in Ukraine.

In addition, the concerts of two other Russian singers, Polina Gagarina and Larisa Dolina, in Kazakhstan in 2022 have been canceled. Both took part in the concert organized by the Kremlin to mark the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea in 2022.

Such levels of public activism have put local authorities in a difficult position before the Kremlin, with which they have close political, economic and security ties. With each cancellation, relevant state authorities said they had nothing to do with the decisions of private companies that organized concerts. The Kyrgyz government went a step further and canceled the concerts of the Russian rapper Morgeshtern, considered a foreign agent in Russia, and the music band Bi-2, known for their anti-war stance, to give the impression that this was not only Pro-war celebrities are subject to censorship from the public.

The war in Ukraine has further widened the gap between the political leadership and ordinary citizens in Central Asia, highlighting different perceptions and reactions to the war. The longer the war lasts, the more obvious these differences become.