Exhibition shows satire not dead in Putin's Russia

MOSCOW, Jan 19 (Reuters) In Russia, television news bulletins sing the praises of President Vladimir Putin and many ordinary people think twice before criticising him in public.

But at an art gallery a stone's throw from the Kremlin an exhibition this week showed that biting political satire is still alive -- as long as you know where to find it.

Works by artist Andrei Budayev on display at the Novy Manezh gallery include a collage depicting Putin, accused by his critics of dragging Russia back into its repressive past, shaking hands with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Another picture had Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov covering his ears with his hands flanked by two officials, one covering his eyes and the other his mouth. Rights groups say Ivanov has turned a blind eye to brutal abuse of young conscripts in his armed forces.

One of the more grotesque works showed a blood-spattered Health Minister Mikhail Zurabov, who oversees Russia's ramshackle health-care system, about to lower a guillotine onto a new-born baby.

Russia's mainstream media does on occasion air criticism of Putin's ministers, but nothing directed at the president himself and certainly nothing as trenchant as Budayev's pictures.

The fact that they are on public display seems to disprove the view -- vigorously denied by the Kremlin -- that in Putin's Russia outspoken dissent is not allowed.

''No one tries to pressure me in any way,'' Budayev, a heavily-built man with dishevelled black hair, told Reuters.

''Some Americans came and saw my work ... and said: 'Exhibitions like that would probably be shut down in our country.''' EXCEPTION TO RULE But Putin's opponents who lament what they say is the decline of free speech, vigorous political debate and civil society, say events like Budayev's exhibition are just exceptions that prove the rule.

They say dissent is acceptable to the authorities as long as it is confined to the urban chattering classes and does not reach the masses.

Though it was held in central Moscow between the State Duma parliament and the Kremlin, Badayev's show was not widely advertised.

A few hundred people attended Tuesday evening's opening night and nearly all fitted the profile of members of the liberal intelligentsia.

By contrast Russia's best-known satire -- a long-running television series called ''Kukly'' or ''Puppets'' that used grotesque rubber figures to depict politicians in unflattering scenarios -- reached millions of people.

It was cancelled after the NTV station on which it was broadcast was taken over by state-controlled gas giant Gazprom.

Yelena Tsygankova, a journalist who visited the opening of Budayev's show, said she had mixed feelings.

''When this exhibition is next to the State Duma, it says that this is allowed and is welcome,'' she said.

But she added: ''Freedom of expression exists, as well as the freedom not to be heard.'' REUTERS SSC KP0917