Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he is “proud’ of his wife for her controversial Holocaust-themed ice-skating performance on a reality TV show on Sunday.
“I’m proud of my wife, that is all I can say,” Peskov was quoted as saying by the Russian news website Life.ru.
On Sunday, Tatiana Navka, Peskov’s wife, performed in a striped concentration camp uniform with the Star of David to the song “Beautiful That Way,” featured in the Holocaust movie Life Is Beautiful.
Her performance on the reality TV show Ice Age, similar to Dancing With the Stars, which pairs professional skaters with celebrities, caused condemnations from Western celebrities, including Michael Ian Black and Sarah Silverman.
In Russia, however, the performance didn’t stir any controversy, even among the Jewish community.
“I didn’t see any improper affectation in Navka’s dance,” Yuri Kanner, president of the Russian Jewish Congress, was quoted as saying by the local web magazine Snob. “It was clear what the skaters wanted to say.”
Meanwhile, Navka said she was surprised by the reaction to her performance.
“Honestly, I don’t understand what upset people,” she said on the air of Komsomolskaya Pravda radio. “And it’s amazing that the international press picked it up.”
