Vladimir Putin signed a decree awarding the artistic director and director of the Mariinsky Theater Valery Gergiev with the Order of Merit to the Fatherland, 2nd class. The document is published on the official Kremlin website.
Gergiev was awarded for his contribution to the development of national culture and art and many years of fruitful activity, the text of the decree reads. On May 2, the artist turned 70.
Gergiev – People’s Artist of Russia, Laureate of State Prizes, Hero of Labor. Conductor and artistic director of the Opera Company of the State Academic Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) since 1988. In 1996 he became director-artistic director of the theater, taking charge of the orchestra, the opera and ballet troupe.
He was awarded the Order of Friendship, the Order of Alexander Nevsky. He was conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra from 2015 to 2022. After the start of the JMD in Ukraine, the authorities in Munich demanded that Gergiev “clearly and unequivocally distance himself” from the Russian operation in Ukraine , then stopped cooperating with him, because “it didn’t happen”.
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