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The manager of the Georgian restaurant ‘Nino-Vano’ has been found guilty under an administrative offence for desecration of a religious object (Part 2, Article 5.26 of the Administrative Code) and fined 150,000 roubles (approx. US$1,650). This was reported on the website of Magistrates’ Court Section No. 11 in the Lenin district of Orenburg, a city in the southern Urals.

The case was launched over the restaurant’s promotional flyers, which featured an image of St Basil’s Cathedral with khinkali dumplings instead of domes.

The flyers were reported to authorities by a restaurant patron, Natalya Sukhovey, according to the publication 1743.ru. Following the complaint, the prosecutor’s office carried out an inspection and interviewed the lawyer for the local Russian Orthodox Church diocese, who insisted the image on the flyers “is a direct desecration of a sacred object.”

“[The judge] concluded that the image used grossly violated the religious feelings of Christian believers,” the court’s press release stated.

At the hearing, the restaurant’s representative said that the complainant’s dissatisfaction was actually due to the service at the restaurant, not the flyers:

“On 1 September, a large, detailed review appeared on social media explaining that Natalya Sukhovey was unhappy with the service at the restaurant: her dishes were served with delays; she wanted to take advantage of a special offer, but the waiter said it wasn’t available on a holiday, and so on. In this review there is not a single word about the flyers, which allegedly offended the feelings of the religious family.”

  • In October in Simferopol, the main city of Crimea, the owner of the Mexican restaurant El Pastor (‘The Shepherd’) was fined 100,000 roubles (approx. US$1,100) under the same article. In this case, the protocol concerned an image on the wall of Jesus Christ surrounded by a flock of sheep, with a boombox on his shoulder.
  • Last summer in St Petersburg, the owner of the bar S’aint was fined 30,000 roubles (approx. US$330) under a criminal case for offending believers’ feelings (Part 1, Article 148 of the Criminal Code). The prosecution was prompted by the use of Christian symbols in the bar’s design: the venue’s sign was a pink neon cross, the menu featured images of the crucified Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Holy Grail and Eucharistic symbols, and religious symbols and attributes were used in the bar’s interior decoration. One patron claimed that the interior caused them moral distress.