Paet: Residence permit of Russian Theater's artistic director should be terminated today

  • 2022-09-01
  • BNS/TBT Staff

TALLINN – According to MEP Urmas Paet, the contract and residence permit of Filipp Loss, the artistic director of the Russian Theater in Tallinn who made an extremely harsh statement on social media about the Estonian state, politics and people, should be terminated immediately, the daily Postimees writes.

"It is not acceptable that an outsourced head of an Estonian state theater is a character who hates our country. His contract and residence permit should be terminated today," Paet said.

"The supervisory board of the Russian Theater, which is financed from the Estonian state budget, should also seriously consider what kind of characters are hired," he added.

 A week before the expiry of his employment contract, Filipp Loss, the artistic director of the Russian Theater, made an extremely harsh statement on social media about the Estonian state, politics and people, in which he likened the situation of Russian citizens here to the situation of Jews during World War II, Postimees reports.

"Do you know why I, a Russian Jew who has only (already?) lived in Estonia for five years, am so offended and outraged by all this endless banging on about sanctions against Russians?" Loss said in a Facebook post in Russian on Wednesday.

"When, under sprightly toasts about support for the Ukrainian armed forces and the victory of Good over Evil, rotting, desolate Russophobia suddenly crawled out of all the cracks, and no one will wrinkle their noses and say loudly: Fuh!"

The post goes on to say: "The right moment, isn't it? To settle the scores for everything, trample on all the freedoms and rights of citizens of the Russian Federation, as if we didn't have enough problems without it. What happens to our rights next? At what line will our zealous neighbors stop? A one time, I remember, quite recently, they were just as zealous to exterminate Jews in Estonia..." 

Loss had added to the post a photo of Jews during World War II. He did not specify when he plans to leave Estonia or explain why he likens the refusal to grant tourist visas to Russian citizens to the killing of Jews during the Holocaust.

Loss' contract as the artistic director of the Russian Theater expires on Sept. 5, when the post will be taken up on an ad-interim basis by Svetlana Jantsek, the director of the theater.