Kirill Serebrennikov has been charged with embezzlement and faces 10 years in prison. Supporters have compared his trial to the purge of directors during the Soviet Union and the censorship of leading writers under the Tsars. “People of culture have always held the most dangerous position in Russia,” Liya Akhedzhakova, a celebrated actor who starred in Soviet classics like Office Romance, told the Guardian in court on Tuesday. “They are the first to be targeted.”