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The identity of the security guard who vandalized a classical painting in a gallery in Moscow was revealed by the media as a former veteran war hero, decorated for courage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
He admitted today: “I’m a fool, I made a mistake.”<\/p>\n
Vasiliev could face jail after police opened an investigation into vandalism, already saying he was prompted for action by some teenage girls attending an abstract art exhibition.<\/p>\n
“To be honest, I do not like paintings in exhibitions. They left a difficult impression on me. “Every time I went I tried not to look at them,” he says.<\/p>\n
“I also watched how people reacted to them, then there were those 16 or 17 year old girls, discussing why the figures had neither eyes, nor mouth, nor beauty.”<\/p>\n
And one of them asked me, ‘You made the eyes, you work here.’<\/p>\n
Vasiliev says he believed the paintings were works by teenagers and not expensive works of art.<\/p>\n
Saying he had no idea how much the paintings cost, the ex-military added: “If I had known they were not children’s paintings I would not have done so. “I did not know they came from Moscow and cost so much.”<\/p>\n
Once a lieutenant in the war in Chechnya, he further said he was seriously wounded and at the time did not believe he would survive.<\/p>\n
In 1995, he was one of 36 soldiers who survived a fierce battle and has been honored for his courage.<\/p>\n
His nurse wife, Julia, says he is a ‘normal’ man but can sometimes be as naive as a child.<\/p>\n
After the incident the painting was removed to return to the Moscow gallery for repairs.<\/p>\n
The cost of the renovation is set at $ 2,500 and will be paid by the company where Vasiliev worked.<\/p>\n
Exhibition curator Anna Reshetkina said the guard was on his first day of work there.<\/p>\n
“His motives are unknown but the administration believes it could be a detachment from the sense of reality,” she said.<\/p>\n
The Russian daily Art Newspaper<\/strong><\/a> said that fortunately the damage had not penetrated deeply as not much force had been exerted with the pen.<\/p>\n