The Russian House Berlin offers concerts, language courses, children's films, exhibitions. At first glance: cultural exchange. At second glance: a programme that ranges from overt state propaganda to subtle cultural self-projection – and that is precisely its strength.
Not every film shown here is propaganda in the classical sense. Some are works of art. Some are children's films. Some are poetic art house cinema. And yet they form a coherent whole: Russia as a profound, suffering, culturally rich nation – far removed from the war, the sanctions, the bodies in Bucha.
Four examples from the current programme.
State production, Kremlin prize, Roscosmos
Cultural nation, great poets, the Russian soul
Children's film, mountain idyll, no agenda – apparently
The first feature film shot on the International Space Station. A Russian surgeon flies to the ISS to save a cosmonaut. A co-production of Roscosmos and the Russian state broadcaster Channel One. The message is unmistakable: Russia is a world power – despite sanctions, despite war, despite everything.
Roscosmos itself described the project as "a unique scientific and educational endeavour." The production was accelerated to beat Tom Cruise and Hollywood to the milestone – a space race in the tradition of the Cold War.
A poetic art house portrait of the poet Mikhail Lermontov. Long takes, no conventional dramaturgy, a focus on mood and inner torment. Not an overt state film – and that is precisely what makes it interesting.
The propaganda here lies not in what is said – but in what is deliberately left out: the war, the dead, the sanctions. Instead: Russia as a nation of great poets, deep feeling, tragic beauty. An image that travels well internationally – and works precisely because of that.
A children's film. Eight-year-old Baha lives in a remote mountain village in Dagestan. No villains, no agenda, no politics. Rugged Caucasus landscapes, authentic faces, a warm story about childhood and growing up.
Who would think to question it? That is precisely the point. A children's film disarms. It invites families, builds sympathy, projects an image of Russia – one of vastness, authenticity, humanity. None of it is false. And yet: it is an image that has been carefully chosen.
Alexander Schmorell was a member of the White Rose resistance group. He was executed by the Nazis in 1943. He was four years old when he came to Munich from Russia. Russian was his first language.
The Russian House presents an exhibition focused precisely on this: the "Russian soul" of this resistance fighter. Under the official patronage of the Russian Embassy. In the fourth year of Russia's self-portrayal as the anti-fascist liberator of Ukraine.
A victim of National Socialism is posthumously turned into a screen for imperial mythology. That is not interpretation – it is the logic of this exhibition, in this building, in this year.
The pattern
No single film, no single exhibition proves anything on its own. That is the point. The pattern emerges from the combination: state cinema alongside art house alongside children's film alongside memorial exhibition – a programme that reaches everyone, repels no one, and makes Russia appear as a normal, rich, profound cultural nation.
While Russian missiles strike Ukrainian cities. While dissidents die. While sanctions apply that nobody enforces.
The Russian House is not a clumsy propaganda institute. It is a skilled one. And that is precisely what makes it more dangerous.
One further observation: roughly 90 per cent of the films shown have something to do with war – in a house whose director insists that politics is not on the agenda. The war films in the programme either adopt a Russian historical perspective – the Second World War as a Soviet triumph – or they present Russia as a suffering but steadfast nation. Criticism of the current war against Ukraine: absent.