The Makao Luxury Village Resort company, which provided its concert venue for Grigory Leps’s performance, announced on June 19 the unilateral termination of the contract with the concert organizers.
The concert was planned for July this year in the city of Konaev, Almaty region, Radio Azattyk reports.
The cancellation of the concert was preceded by a discussion in the Kazakh segment of social networks. Many users expressed dissatisfaction with the arrival of a Russian artist who supports the war in Ukraine. The news about Grigory Leps’ planned concert in Konayev coincided with the announcement made by Leps and Nikolay Baskov – they will hand over one million rubles to anyone who destroys the tanks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. As noted by Radio Azattyk, Kazakh social networks reacted negatively to the news about Leps’ arrival in Kazakhstan and demanded the cancellation of his concert.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions, Russian artists lost a significant share of the market where they could perform concerts. In particular, this affected those who openly supported the war and whom Ukraine declared a “threat to national security”, according to the publication of Radio Azattyk. Due to this, Russian stars began to travel to “friendly” Kazakhstan. And here, in some cases, their concerts were canceled after the local audience learned about the artists’ pro-Kremlin views on the war in Ukraine. Yes, the concerts of Larisa Dolina and Polina Gagarina did not take place. The performance, in which the pro-war actor Sergei Glushko plays, was canceled.
At the same time, in November 2022, Philip Kirkorov’s concerts were held in Almaty and Astana.
