Russian officials have prevented a leader of the Mari ethnic group from travelling to Finland. Vladimir Kozlov was to have attended a seminar bringing together the heads of 11 Finno-Ugric museums. Kozlov is the head of the small Literature Museum in Russia’s Mari Republic. Ildiko Lehtinen, head of the Finnish Cultural Museum, says that a total of five museum managers from the Mari Republic were invited to the seminar. Four of the invitations had passed through the republic’s ministry of Culture. Kozlov’s invitation came via a different route. The Finnish Embassy in Moscow had granted Kozlov a visa to travel to Finland.
In Vyborg, Russian border officials removed Kozlov from the train. They claimed that the even-numbered pages of his passport were missing.
"I reached Kozlov by telephone on Tuesday. According to him, his passport was intact when he gave it to the train attendant when he got on the train in Moscow. Furthermore, Finnish officials would not have granted Kozlov a visa if the passport had not been intact", Lehtinen says.
According to Lehtinen, Kozlov is now in St. Petersburg without a passport.
Vladimir Kozlov previously served as editor-in-chief of the newspaper Kudo + Kodu. The paper has ceased publication, following pressure from officials.
Kozlov was badly beaten in February last year by an attacker using an iron pipe. He suffered a skull fracture and sustained several broken ribs in the attack.
