Parents of dancers at Novorossiysk memorial report pressure on girls

After the dance at the memorial in Novorossiysk, Ekaterina Scherbedinskaya was fired from her job, and Margarita Radetskaya, her colleague in the dance studio, was expelled from college, their relatives report.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on April 24 a video was posted on the Internet, in which girls from the Novorossiysk dance studio performed the dance "tverk" near the Memorial Complex "Malaya Zemlya" (Small Land). Law enforcement bodies treated the action as "petty hooliganism" and arrested the dancers for 10-15 days. According to one of their relatives, the girls repented of their deed.

On May 5, Scherbedinskaya came out of the special detention centre of the MIA department for Novorossiysk after serving 10 days in custody, and was fired from the training centre "Greenwich", where she worked, said her mother Tatiana Nagibina. According to her story, their daughter has no chance to find another job in the small Novorossiysk; and they think about leaving the city.

The other dancer Margarita Radetskaya, who was arrested for 15 days and should get at large on May 10, was expelled, in absentia, from the third year of the Novorossiysk College of Radio-Electronic Instrument-Making, said Marina, her mother.

According to Margarita's parents, their daughter is in depressed condition and believes that her punishment was unfair.

Her family has no plans to leave Novorossiysk; and parents hope to reinstate her at the college, since teachers had no claims to Margarita as regards to her studies.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.