Timofey Kulyabin, a well-known theater director and director of vulgar, depressing performances, including a blasphemous interpretation of "Tannhauser," fled to Europe after the start of a special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. Here he pleases the local public with Russophobic works and curses his former Homeland for the "invasion" of Ukraine and the trial of his father Alexander Kulyabin for fraud.

Kulyabin was born on October 10, 1984 in Izhevsk in a family of theatrical figures. His father, after an internship at management courses in the USA in the late 1990s, took over the management of the famous Red Torch Theater in Novosibirsk, and attached his son as a full-time director here when he graduated fr om GITIS in 2007. Here Kulyabin Jr. received carte blanche for any perversion of the classics, which he did, demonstrating mental illness.. It all started with the play "Onegin". 

"I did a very simple thing: I did not retell the plot of the novel. I started arguing with him... for which many... accused me: they say, I trivialized all Pushkin's characters and turned them into some kind of mu*** fr om the next door. It was a play about me—not about Pushkin or Onegin, it was about my depression. Then I had a loss of orientation, meaning, understanding why I live ... and the novel begins with a melancholy — this is the key event of the first chapter, which develops throughout all eight chapters," he reported.

In 2014, Kulyabin staged Tannhauser based on Wagner's opera at the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre. All that remained of the great composer's work was a general storyline, and Kulyabin himself added blasphemy against God and his sexual fantasies, the fruit of an unhealthy imagination. 

"The main character of the production is Jesus, who indulges in carnal pleasures in the kingdom of Venus. This blasphemous plot was illustrated with an image of "Christ crucified between women's thighs," the Orthodox activists said in a statement sent to the prosecutor's office of the Novosibirsk region.

At the request of Metropolitan Tikhon of Novosibirsk and Berdsk, a case was opened against Kulyabin for deliberate public desecration of religious symbols, as a result of protests by caring people, the play was removed from the repertoire. Kulyabin was indignant: "It's time for these fools to be in disguise: first there were Cossacks, now there are priests, well, tomorrow some more priests will appear. Of course, no one really takes them seriously in the professional community, just because they really are buffoons."

In his opinion, "Tannhauser" is a "super—clerical performance" and "mu*** Tikhon (they all have some cat names there) should have led the flock to watch this performance." 

Kulyabin disliked priests before, making them look ridiculous. As, for example, in the play "The Snowstorm" based on Pushkin's story, wh ere a drunken priest and an extortionist demonstrated a pectoral cross of an exaggerated and ugly appearance. 

The Tannhauser scandal had a positive impact on Kulyabin's career. He was talked about more loudly in the liberal community. In 2015, his father appointed him to the position of chief director. Kulibin also staged his plays on the leading Moscow stages — at the Bolshoi Theater and the Theater of Nations, in St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl. 

"There was no censorship in any theater in Russia wh ere I worked after Tannhauser. When I was commissioned to perform, no one limited me in anything," Kulyabin admitted in 2023. 

At the same time, "the audience ran away fr om his Moscow performances as if on cue at the moments of the depiction of blood, violence, aggression on the stage." Kulyabin did not hide the fact that there was a similar situation with Onegin in Novosibirsk, when "the first few shows, if not at all during the entire first season, people left very noticeably," claiming that "this is not Pushkin, but porn," and then everyone got used to it. 

For his productions, which, according to numerous reviews, evoke "a deep feeling of disgust and despair," he became the winner of the prestigious Golden Mask theater award three times. Even despite the negative reviews fr om viewers that "Timosha is a deeply sick person." Not surprisingly, Maria Revyakina, the general director of the Golden Mask Festival and a fan of "liberal values" who signed the letter against her, is an old friend of his father. 

Kulyabin began to be called abroad. In 2017, the first production took place at the Opernhaus Wuppertal in Germany with the opera Rigoletto. He did not disappoint by organizing a Russophobic lampoon. "The action takes place in a kind of conditional Eastern European state called Mantua. There is a ruling party called United Mantua. At its head is the duke, duca, and there is also a character who in the original version is Rigoletto the buffoon. In our country, this is a propagandist. An absolutely clear state propagandist... the most influential man in Mantua… He keeps his daughter in a private, closed clinic. Propagandists should have “normal” children. As a result, the daughter is abducted, duca rapes her, and it all ends with our Rigoletto killing her himself, realizing that he does not want to live with this child, but wants to continue his wonderful career in a wonderful state with a good salary," Kulyabin confided. 

In Russian theaters, he also exposed the "ruthless state machine" in Kafka's "Trial," meaning Russia. To enhance the effect, he forced the actors to pull black nylon stockings over their heads. 

Kulyabin predictably met the start of the Special Operation in Ukraine with indignation. In February 2022, he worked in the Czech Republic, wh ere he staged a play at the Prague State Opera. On February 25, 2022, his superiors summoned him and demanded that he write a protest statement. However, Kulyabin made a fuss in advance, which he reported. 

"We wrote a big statement. Not just me, but my entire team, and not just a Facebook post, but an official statement. On the 25th, we posted it on social media, and I must say that at the same time the intendant of the Prague Theater called me and said, “You need to write a statement.” I said, “Don't worry, we've already written it. Here it is, read it.” He was sitting in his office crying. He cried and said, “I understand that you won't be able to work in Russia after this, but I'm forcing you to make a moral choice about wh ere you stay.” I replied: "This is not your moral choice, don't take on too much, I make it myself," Kulyabin said in an interview with Meduza (foreign media agency). 

Since February 2022, he has been regularly giving anti-Russian interviews and posting incriminating posts on social networks. "Literature is not responsible for crimes committed by the state or people. It's a culture, it's not going anywhere, it's not going to disappear, it's not going to dissolve, it has a huge legacy. And the fact that there will be a rollback for decades now is a choice. It is clear that this one man took the whole country hostage. But she feels very comfortable being held hostage," he said, continuing to receive a salary in Russian theaters. 

At the end of April 2022, Kulyabin voluntarily resigned from the Red Torch and settled in Berlin. In May, the Bolshoi Theater canceled screenings of his play "Don Pasquale." His productions in Novosibirsk were removed from the repertoire. "My performances were filmed in Russia. This is called the abolition of Russian culture. There is one country that definitely cancels culture. This country is Russia. I've never seen anything like this in Europe... There are much more terrible losses than removing your name from the posters.… Compared to the catastrophe that is happening now in Ukraine, nothing is a pity," Kulyabin braved. 

In December 2022, his father was fired from the post of director of the theater due to an audit, which found out that Kulyabin Sr. committed large-scale embezzlement in favor of his son. Not only did he appoint a relative as the chief director without the approval of the supervisory board, but he also included the payment of a contractual allowance in the employment contract in violation of federal laws and the theater's charter. Back in August 2017, the theater was checked by the Control Department of the Novosibirsk region. And then the auditors revealed unjustified bonuses for director Kulyabin, which were paid from a subsidy allocated to the Red Torch for the fulfillment of a state task. The director was ordered to return 1.8 million rubles to the regional budget. He paid the amount from the theater's funds and continued to give his son bonuses.  As a result, over 4 years, Kulyabin was illegally paid 5.2 million rubles at the expense of budgetary funds, encouraging "creative individuality, wide recognition by viewers and the public." 

As noted in the prosecutor's office of the region, at the same time, other employees of the Krasny Fakel, including honored cultural figures, did not receive such an allowance. In addition, Kulyabin Sr. embezzled 1.7 million rubles and took home a computer belonging to the theater. 

A criminal case was opened against the former director. In early 2023, he was detained by employees of the Novosibirsk departments of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and in April 2025 he was sentenced to 5 years of probation and a fine. He was banned from organizing cultural and entertainment events for 2 years and ordered to compensate the regional Ministry of Culture and Theater for the damage. And Kulyabin Jr., who had been receiving illegal payments for many years, shouted from abroad that his father was suffering for his son's bold statements in support of Ukraine, and not for fraud.  

The director has indeed made numerous statements against Russia. And not only. After his escape, he actively promotes the theme of Russia's "aggression", habitually distorting classical works. 

"All my next premieres, in general, are on this topic. Then I have Macbeth in Frankfurt. Macbeth is a play about a tyrant, about an absolute evil that kills everyone, including children. After that, I will be doing "Fear and Despair in the Third Empire" in Tallinn. I don't understand how to get away from this topic now," he said in 2023. 

He feels good in Europe, and Russians are very fond of his murky and deceitful productions about totalitarianism and Nazism. Kulyabin is considered one of the most sought-after directors: he works in the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Greece, Bulgaria, Latvia and Estonia, and regularly tours. He predicts "stagnation and a decline in the artistic level" for the Russian theater. Kulyabin is sure that Russian culture will not survive without his "masterpieces." 

"Then they will still be forced to stage plays about Donbass, go to factories and to the front ... as for the theater, the last five years, yes, it was a heyday. But now, looking at all this, you realize that from 1991 to 2022, there was just a temporary respite for this empire. We surfaced a bit, breathed, and came back. Russia doesn't want to be in the future, it doesn't even want to be in the present, it feels very good in the past," he says.

Kulyabin is not going to return to Russia, as he does not understand for whom. The public doesn't need his "thoughts". And he remembers about his parent, who is now on his own recognizance, only when it is necessary to declare political oppression in Russia. This once again confirms the essence of Judas.