Dina Rubina’s Tour Cancelled in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia After Gaza Remarks Spark Backlash

Due to the scandal sparked by writer Dina Rubina’s controversial remarks about residents of the Gaza Strip, her scheduled literary tour across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia has been cancelled, Orda.kz reports.

Events planned in Almaty, Tashkent, and Tbilisi will no longer take place.

According to Russian outlet Abzats, the literary evening in Almaty, which had been scheduled for October 9, was cancelled. However, as of now, no official update has appeared on the ticket booking platform.

Rubina’s husband, Boris Karafelov, clarified that the cancellations were not due to health issues. According to him, the organizers abruptly called off the events in several cities without giving a clear explanation.

She won't have a concert in Tashkent. It's not because of Dina's health, she feels fine. They didn't really explain anything to us, for some reason they cancelled theirs — and that's it. And not only in Tashkent, but also in Almaty and Tbilisi, events were cancelled. The whole tour was cancelled, so to speak,
Karafelov said.

Despite the fallout, he noted that the writer remains active and is already preparing for autumn appearances in Israel and Canada.

The controversy began after Rubina gave an interview to journalist Mikhail Kozyrev on the Dozhd TV channel. In the conversation, she made comments suggesting that Israel “has the right to dissolve the residents of Gaza in hydrochloric acid” and “clear the territory of the sector and turn it into a parking lot.”

These statements sparked a wave of public backlash, especially after Kozyrev posted excerpts from the interview on his social media channels.

In response to the uproar, Rubina acknowledged she may have gone too far but also criticized the journalist’s conduct.

I waited for several days, watching the ninth wave of dirty hype that poured on me from the platforms of various companies-communities and back alleys, after my interview with the TV company ‘Dozhd’. This is a good interview on a variety of topics: life, literature, emigration, society. I am quite satisfied with this interview: it is long and filled with life. My life and the life of my country. However, the host apparently thought it was too benevolent, and for a sharper impression he molded from my various words and phrases some dirty appendage, which he then posted on his Facebook page,
 the writer said in her defense.

Dina Rubina previously opposed Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. She left Russia in the 2010s and has since lived in Israel with her husband.

Original Author: Alina Pak