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Russia Detains Dancer in Bolshoi Acid Attack Russia Detains Dancer in Bolshoi Acid Attack
(about 3 hours later)
MOSCOW — Police officials in Moscow on Tuesday detained a dancer at the Bolshoi Ballet in connection with an acid attack in January on the company’s artistic director, Sergei Filin — a crime that gripped Moscow and threatened to haunt one of Russia’s most revered institutions. MOSCOW — Police officials in Moscow on Tuesday detained a dancer at the Bolshoi Ballet and two suspected accomplices in connection with an acid attack in January on the company’s artistic director, Sergei Filin, a crime that gripped Moscow and left one one of Russia’s most revered institutions in turmoil.
The announcement came after a burst of progress in the investigation that began early on Tuesday morning. Before dawn, the police also raided the homes of two suspected accomplices, both near a complex of summer cottages outside Moscow used by Bolshoi personnel. By evening, both suspected accomplices had been detained. Investigators said they believed the dancer, Pavel Dmitrichenko, hired two men to accost Mr. Filin outside his apartment building late on Jan. 17. As Mr. Filin punched in an entry code, the police said, a masked man called his name and tossed the contents of a jar of sulfuric acid at his eyes.
The dancer, Pavel Dmitrichenko, has been at the ballet since 2002.. Witnesses said he led the police to his apartment in Moscow early in the morning, and left with them after about 30 minutes. The crime set off weeks of soul-searching in this ballet-mad city, especially because Mr. Filin said he was sure he had been attacked over a professional grudge. Detectives worked their way through the ranks of the ballet, becoming so immersed in their investigation that they began asking Mr. Filin for tickets, he said in a recent interview.
An official at Russia’s Investigative Committee told the Interfax news agency that investigators believe Mr. Dmitrichenko ordered the attack. The man believed to have thrown the acid at Mr. Filin was identified as Yuri Zarutsky. The third man detained, said to have driven Mr. Zarutsky to the scene of the attack, was named as Andrei Lipatov. All three have been detained for 48 hours. Mr. Dmitrichenko’s name had not been raised publicly as a potential suspect. A theatrical, athletic dancer, he is a fierce advocate of classicism in the Bolshoi’s repertoire. He is also romantically linked with a ballerina in the company, Anzhelina Vorontsova, whose supporters blame Mr. Filin for stalling her career. Neither Mr. Dmitrichenko nor anyone representing him commented on Tuesday.
Mr. Filin suffered burns to his face and eyes when someone in a mask approached him outside his apartment near midnight on Jan. 17 and flung a jar containing sulfuric acid at him. He has undergone a series of operations in hopes of preserving his eyesight and is receiving further treatment at a clinic in Germany. Shortly after midnight, a spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry said that one of the three had confessed to the crime. “Therefore, we can consider that the crime has been solved,” the spokesman said, according to Interfax. The person who the police say confessed was not identified. The company’s spokeswoman, Katerina Novikova, said the day’s revelations had given her hope that the theater could leave a dark chapter behind.
Mr. Dmitrichenko, a soloist with the company, has never been discussed as a potential suspect, despite a deluge of commentary on behind-the-scenes power struggles at the Bolshoi. Katerina Novikova, the theater’s spokeswoman, said that she was not aware of any particular animosity between Mr. Dmitrichenko and Mr. Filin. “It’s important for the future, so that nobody acts like this because they will know that they’re going to be punished. It’s important for the theater, and it’s important for the whole country,” she said.
“In addition, I want to say that it doesn’t matter how sharp is the conflict between people — it doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “I think investigators should work and find proof. I would love to hope that the person standing behind this is outside the Bolshoi.” Investigators had been combing through the records of cell-phone calls placed from around the scene of the attack. Before dawn on Tuesday morning, police officers raided two homes in Stupino, a neighborhood outside Moscow that is also the site of summer cottages used by Bolshoi Theater personnel.
Another dancer, Nikolai Tsiskaridze — who has himself come under scrutiny because of his feud with Bolshoi management — said the two men had come in conflict over grants paid to dancers. He said Mr. Dmitrichenko served on the company’s commission on grants, and felt that Mr. Filin played favorites. “They clashed openly about money,” Mr. Tsiskaridze said. “Everyone knew it.” There they detained Andrei Lopatin, who the police believed drove the attacker to the scene, an investigator told the Interfax news service. Within a few hours, investigators had asked Mr. Dmitrichenko to lead him to a Moscow apartment registered in his name. A witness said they arrived together, and left empty-handed after about 30 minutes. At nightfall, the police announced two more detentions — that of Yuri Zarutsky, suspected of throwing the acid, and of Mr. Dmitrichenko.
Mr. Tsiskaridze said Mr. Dmitrichenko was in a romantic relationship with a protégée and student of his, the dancer Anzhelina Vorontsova. Ms. Vorontsova’s supporters say Mr. Filin has unfairly denied her starring roles because of feuding at the theater, something theater officials deny. All three men . will be held for two days pending a formal arraignment, likely on charges of inflicting grave bodily harm, which can bring a prison sentence of two to eight years.
“I am really sorry for everyone,” Mr. Tsiskaridze said after news of the detentions became public. He described Mr. Dmitrichenko as “a volatile person — he might throw a punch,” but added, “I don’t think he is capable of this.” He said he had not spoken to Ms. Vorontsova because she was dancing on Tuesday night, in the Balanchine ballet “Jewels.” The accusation against Mr. Dmitrichenko is certain to resonate in Moscow. Born into a family of prominent dancers, he told one interviewer that his mother tricked him into taking an entrance exam for a ballet school by promising him a Mars bar. . He was singled out by the Bolshoi’s longtime director Yuri Grigorovich, who led the company for three decades, and remained passionately loyal to him years after Mr. Grigorovich’s dismissal in 1995.
In a theater often torn between presenting modern repertoire and adhering to its classical roots, Mr. Dmitrichenko has gone on record as a passionate advocate of the second. He was so upset over a ballet writer’s criticism about the Soviet-era choreographer who led the company for three decades, Yuri Grigorovich, that he posted a tirade on the Web site of her newspaper, Kommersant. Ms. Novikova said she was not aware of any “sharp conflict” between Mr. Dmitrichenko and Mr. Filin, who cast him in the lead role in the ballet “Ivan the Terrible” last fall.
“All informed fans, viewers and especially artists laugh at your writings, because they display nothing but malice toward Grigorovich,” he wrote, according to text that was published on ballet forums. “Grigorovich is a recognized genius in the whole world, and when you write poorly about him, you simply disgrace the newspaper which publishes your words.” “In addition, I want to say that it doesn’t matter how sharp the conflict may be between people — it doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “I think investigators should work and find proof.”
At the time of the attack, Mr. Filin and Bolshoi officials said right away that they believed it was motivated by a professional grudge. When the raids were announced on Tuesday morning, Ms. Novikova said she hoped the police would be led to the crime’s mastermind. She noted that Mr. Filin had been harassed for weeks leading up to the attack, with barrages of calls to his cellphone and hackers breaking into his personal e-mail. Mr. Dmitrichenko had expressed grievances toward the company, complaining to Private Correspondent magazine that dancers’ salaries were so low that “migrant workers would not agree to work on a construction site for this money.”
“I am hopeful, because I know that the investigators have worked long and hard, and I am very glad that someone has been arrested,” she told Ekho Moskvy, a radio station. “I hope this is the right path, and the crime will be entirely solved, because it is important to know everyone who stands behind this: behind the attack on the Internet, the telephone calls, and above all the act of vandalism which was carried out on the 17th of January against Sergei Filin.” The principal dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze — who has himself come under scrutiny because of his feud with Bolshoi management — said Mr. Dmitrichenko served on the Bolshoi’s commission on grants paid to dancers and often complained about Mr. Filin’s decisions. “They clashed openly about money,” Mr. Tsiskaridze said on Tuesday in an interview. “Everyone knew it.”
Vesti, a Russian news channel, reported that the police had tracked the suspect down by checking the records of mobile telephone calls that were placed from the area around the attack. After news of Mr. Dmitrichenko’s detention was made public, Mr. Tsiskaridze said he was distressed because of the pain it would bring Ms. Vorontsova, who is his student and protégée. He said he had not spoken to Ms. Vorontsova about it because she was on stage dancing in the Balanchine ballet “Jewels.”
“I am really sorry for everyone,” Mr. Tsiskaridze said. He described Mr. Dmitrichenko as “an explosive person — he might throw a punch, for instance. But I don’t think he is capable of this.”
Mr. Dmitrichenko has also been known to lash out when offended. Years ago, after a prominent ballet critic displeased him with an essay on Mr. Grigorovich, he posted a tirade on the Web site of her newspaper, saying she was taking revenge for her own unsuccessful dancing career.
“All informed fans, viewers and especially artists laugh at your writings, because they display nothing but malice toward Grigorovich,” he wrote in the newspaper’s comments section. “Grigorovich is a recognized genius in the whole world, and when you write poorly about him, you simply disgrace the newspaper that publishes your words.”
Mr. Filin, 42, who is recovering from his injuries at a clinic in Germany, made no comment on Tuesday. In an earlier interview, however, he said he believed a group of people had planned attacks on him in hopes of wresting control of the theater’s top administrative jobs. He accepted the post of artistic director in 2011 just as Gennady Yanin, who occupied the more managerial position of director, filed for voluntary leave, after sexually explicit photographs of a man resembling him were sent to e-mail addresses in Russia and elsewhere.
“I felt that I became a continuation, the next participant in the story,” Mr. Filin said. “As one might say, ‘You’ll be next.’ ”

Sophia Kishkovsky contributed reporting.

Sophia Kishkovsky contributed reporting.