Note Book

Russia is working on a new culture policy – one that identifies western culture as “foreign and hostile” and seeks to only fund projects that support traditional values.

According to a draft of the policy, published by Interfax, multiculturalism and tolerance are deemed as harmful, while a singular “cultural code” would be created, based on the premise that “Russia is not Europe.”

Foreign cultural values “lead to psychological stress, alcoholism, drug addiction, abandonment of children” and other vices, the policy document states, and must be avoided. Dangerous cultural manifestations would include contemporary art and “at the very least should not receive state support,” the document says, and in the best case “the state must remove the negative influence from the public consciousness.”