Internal conflicts: In Russia, Bolshoi ballet chief hit by acid attack

Sergei Filin suffered injuries to the face, head and eyes.

MOSCOW: The head of Russia’s Bolshoi ballet Sergei Filin was hospitalised on Friday with severe burns after a masked assailant threw acid on his face, in an attack the theatre linked to internal conflicts.

Filin, a former acclaimed dancer who was appointed to his post in 2011, suffered injuries to the face, head and eyes late Thursday when the attacker cornered him near a residential house in central Moscow.

“I got scared, I thought he is going to shoot me,” said the 42-year-old, sitting in a Moscow hospital room with his face almost totally bandaged talking with the Ren-TV channel.

“I turned around to run, but he raced ahead of me,” he said. The attacker had his face in a mask and wore a hood, Filin said. “Only his eyes (were visible).”

The assailant fled the scene and no suspects have been identified so far, police said. However, both police and his colleagues had little doubt that Filin was targeted because of his professional work in the Bolshoi.

Doctors are currently battling to save Filin’s eyes, he said. “The eye operation is about to start,” he told journalists at the theatre.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2013.