The Ministry of Justice of Russia began checking the Yeltsin Center for the activities of a foreign agent. Deputy Minister Oleg Sviridenko spoke about this.
“Because these speculations about the fact that the activities of the Yeltsin Center, it falls under a foreign agent, it does not fall under a foreign agent, the implementation of activities, not activities, its entire internal kitchen … If there is such an opportunity, it is possible to organize and conduct a comprehensive audit by the Ministry of Justice and stop all these disputes once and for all?” he said.
Yeltsin Center is a public, cultural and educational center opened in Yekaterinburg in 2015 under the auspices of the foundation of the same name. Named after the first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin.
One of the main objects of the center is the Boris Yeltsin Museum, dedicated to the modern political history of Russia and the personality of Yeltsin. Also, the center has an art gallery, a film and conference hall, a bookstore, a cafe, an archive, a library, a science amusement park, coworking and other organizations. Lectures, concerts, exhibitions, festivals and various social events are regularly held at the venues of the center. The documentary film center operates in the cinema hall.
The museum's board of trustees includes Anton Vaino, head of the Presidential Administration, Pavel Krashennikov, deputy, and Yevgeny Kuyvashev, governor of the Sverdlovsk region.
Back in 2016, the then minister of culture, Vladimir Medinsky, published an article in which he stated that the Yeltsin Center was showing a film in which the history of Russia was presented as a “set of shameful abominations.” Medinsky made such a statement after criticizing the center from director Nikita Mikhalkov.
Mikhalkov has been criticizing the activities of the Yeltsin Center for several years in his television programs. In particular, he said :
“In the Yeltsin Center, history is falsified and the time of the destruction of our Fatherland is glorified. And it is precisely for this that European organizations award the Yeltsin Center as the best museum in Europe. I am deeply convinced that the overwhelming majority of sane people living in our country and wishing to continue living in it will agree with me. I say this as a citizen."