In late July this year, a few days before his 50th birthday, the exiled Russian film-maker Ilya Khrzhanovsky was landed with a 50,000 rouble (£450) fine by the Presnensky District Court of Moscow. This punishment was ostensibly for a Kafkaesque administrative offence relating to “procedures for the activities of foreign agents”. Khrzhanovsky himself thinks it was a symbolic birthday warning from the Russian authorities that he is still on their radar.
“It’s clear it is absolute nonsense,” Khrzhanovsky says. “I will not pay it. I am not a Russian citizen and I don’t want to pay any money to the Russian state.” He renounced his Russian citizenship last year, and is now a British, German and Israeli citizen.
