Ihe Roman Viktyuk Theater in north-eastern Moscow was originally supposed to show Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov’s allegory of life under Stalinism. The program that is posted at the bus stop in front of the theater points this out. All performances have been canceled until next Thursday. Shortly after President Vladimir Putin announced “partial mobilization” on September 21, a “conscription point” was set up in the theater founded by director Roman Viktjuk (1936-2020), who came from Lviv and a Ukrainian family. Many recruits and their relatives photographed a banner on the facade advertising a premiere of Gogol’s Dead Souls; it was taken down.
Muscovites who have received draft notices advance. In the morning some of them are waiting in the autumn sun. A bearded man is drinking a last beer, holding the can in one hand and his wife in the other, with the packed army rucksack standing next to him. A young woman tells someone on the phone how she bought “everything” for her husband, including medicine. A father and his son have not brought anything with them, they walk side by side to the entrance. After a short wait, the son disappears into the theater. The father stays outside, lights a cigarette. His son received his draft notice yesterday, “at work,” he reports. He doesn’t know where he will be taken.