A musician busking in central Moscow was detained last week by police on charges of “organizing an unauthorized mass event,” the LifeNews website reported Tuesday.
Semyon Lashkin, a former runner-up on Russian television talent show Golos, had began playing his cello in the street after a rehearsal with his band, Radio Kamerger.
Lashkin said he was detained by police officers who confiscated his instrument. Moscow's Tverskoy district court also issued Lashkin with a 10,000 ruble ($154) fine on Tuesday after finding him guilty of “organizing a mass event in public place,” LifeNews reported.
“They [the police] could not even explain why the instrument had been so needlessly confiscated, depriving a musician from giving planned performances,” the band's artistic director Olga Openok wrote on her Facebook page Monday.
Lashkin plans to appeal.
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