Police could not say Tuesday whether they expected further arrests immediately, but did say that their investigation would likely spread beyond Petersburg's most famous theater.
"I can confirm that there was a group working there," said Alexander Nizyuk, press officer for the St. Petersburg police. "And not only there."
Anatoly Malkov, the director of the 212-year old theater, and Oleg Vinogradov, the theater's choreographer, were arrested Friday and Saturday, respectively, in connection with taking a $10,000 bribe from a Canadian impresario, who cooperated with the police, for the right to organize a foreign tour.
While investigating Malkov's office, police found $150,000 in cash and ordered an audit of the theater. Malkov was released from jail Monday, and Vinogradov was released Tuesday. Neither have been officially charged.
"The investigation in connection with bribe-taking is still under way," Nizyuk said. Investigators have said the company's leaders allegedly took bribes as a routine matter of course when organizing foreign tours.
Malkov, according to Interfax, said the $10,000 was not a bribe, but merely a bonus. But police marked the money, and Malkov has not denied accepting it. "The investigation will have to prove it was a bribe," Tatyana Moskolenko of the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office, told Interfax.
Leaders of the theater world said Tuesday that bribe-taking was not unheard of in the arts.
"It's not like discovering America to say that Russia is corrupt," said Sergei Margulis, deputy secretary of the Russian Union of Theater Artists. "Unfortunately, it is reality."
Margulis reserved judgment on people he called gifted and talented artists.
"If the court proves that they're guilty, then they're guilty," he said."Until then, we should not judge them.
Nevertheless, he said individual psychology, and not Russia's difficult financial situation, may have played a role in the incident.
"These are not the poorest people in the country," he said. "Sometimes, people want even more. Temptations exist. Only the person himself can explain this."
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