"The psychological state is quite a serious point of integration here. We have constant problems here, starting with language, money, status, visa extensions or non-extensions, documents. These fluctuations - if one does not have support in time - end tragically: some families break up, many return, there is a certain criminal component. In general, everything is complicated. That's why I thought of organizing psychological support, psychological help. It's clear that people don't have money for psychologists, and it's not in the tradition of Soviet and post-Soviet people to go to a psychologist. But sometimes such direct help is so necessary that I thought it was necessary to give people the opportunity to get it. I applied for a grant from Prague 4 in my place of residence, found psychologists, did some interviews, chose four: specifically a Ukrainian, a Belarusian and a Russian, with whom we did a program, started working with Prague 4 and the Ministry of Interior, and they supported it. The funding was open for two years".
Translated by automatic translator (DeepL)
"But then came Crimea and the war. And without human rights and politics, it was difficult, not only difficult, but indecent. Any cultural action had to make its point. Why am I more active here than others? Simply because the default position for Czechs is, of course, that Russians support Putin - and it doesn't matter if those who live in Russia or those who live here. To get out of this line, out of this crowd, you have to do something, you have to clearly articulate your position - and that's what I'm doing. Now I'm seen clearly as the anti-Putin democratic opposition, one of its active representatives - there should definitely be someone at the head, an icebreaker, a frontman, because there are a lot of organizational issues, and there should be a person who expresses and embodies all this."
Translated by automatic translator (DeepL)
"When the big projects started, I travelled around the world, talked to my colleagues and it became clear to me that we are insanely overpaid, that our salaries are 2-4 times higher than the salaries of similar professionals in the same positions in agencies in other countries. And the obvious question is: "Why?" when we don't know much about anything? People graduate from vocational schools, universities, colleges, learn from respected advertising gurus. They have a hundred-year history of advertising, whereas we started doing it five years ago on our knees. And suddenly it turns out we're getting two, three, four times as much. This has to do with my economics training - I was painfully sensitive to this, I understood how pricing worked. And it started to scare me. If we were overpaying, it was clear that it was easy money, not from the market, but from other sources. Now we realize that a lot of money is laundered abroad, selling guns and drugs and everything else.
Translated by automatic translator (DeepL)
Anton Litvin was born on 24 March 1967 in Moscow, then in the USSR. He graduated from the Moscow Finance Institute in 1990 and worked as an accountant in commercial firms. He made the performances „Shadow of Victory“, „The Yellow Devil“, „Crucify Him“ and others. In the second half of the 90s he graduated from the School of Advertising, was an art director, copywriter, creative director in English, Canadian and French advertising agencies in Moscow. He created the performance group Escape program, with which he participated in prestigious biennials, and produced a number of political performances, solo exhibitions and films. He curated the exhibition „The Second Trial of M. Khodorkovsky“. In 2012-2014, he was a member of the Russian Protest Action Committee, organized anti-Putin rallies, the „March against the Scoundrels“ and actions against the war with Ukraine. In Czech exile, he organizes protests in response to Russia‘s crimes against rights, freedoms and peace. He achieved the naming of Boris Nemtsov in the square in front of the Russian Embassy in Prague. He organizes and runs the annual KULTURUS and Vysotsky-fest festivals, runs the School of Cultural Youth and the „Anonymous Migrants“ psychological help center on the basis of grants from the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic and Prague district authorities.
Translated by automatic translator (DeepL)
