some black swan shit

MOSCOW — A masked man threw acid in the face of Sergei Filin, the artistic director of the legendary Bolshoi Ballet, on Thursday night, leaving him with third-degree burns and possibly threatening his eyesight, Bolshoi officials said on Friday morning.

The attack followed a series of anonymous threats to Mr. Filin, 42, a dancer who rose through the ranks of the world’s largest ballet company to become its head.
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As dancers kept an overnight vigil at the burn unit where he is being treated, his colleagues said they suspected that professional jealousy was behind the attack. In recent weeks, his tires were punctured and his car scratched, and his cellphones and personal e-mail account were hacked and correspondence published, his associates have said. A relative had offered to supply Mr. Filin with a bodyguard, but Mr. Filin refused because he did not believe that the threats would lead to physical violence, said Dilyara Timergazina, his assistant and adviser.

The threats, she said, “don’t show that someone with great conceptual thinking is behind that, but someone very primitive, with unhealthy aspirations — I don’t know how to put it — someone full of hate.” (via)