"Stop dividing society! The theater must exist!" said Riga City Council member Ainars Slesers at a rally in support of the Mikhail Chekhov Russian Theater. The political force led by A. Slesers, "Latvia First," decided to organize a picket outside the theater after the new Minister of Culture Nauris Puntulis (National Alliance), without any discussions with the theater's management, its staff, or experts, issued an order that effectively banned any communication from the theater with audiences in Russian — the logic of the order being that the Russian language should disappear from the theater's posters, the theater's website, and the theater's social media accounts. Naturally, the sign at the entrance to the theater, which features the theater's name in Russian alongside Latvian, should also be removed. "It is unacceptable that the business card of a state-funded theater is written in Cyrillic," the Minister of Culture stated. And although the Minister of Culture stated that the theater could continue to stage performances in Russian, the "Latvia First" party believes that the threat to the existence of the theater in the Russian language is quite real, as evidenced by the increasing public calls to stop state funding for the Chekhov Theater in Russian. "Why should Latvian taxpayers support an institution whose management publicly fights to preserve the position of the Russian language in the urban environment while genocide is being carried out in the name of that same language in a neighboring country?" lamented publicist Juris-Alberts Ulmanis in an interview with Latvijas avīze, who has long been campaigning for the closure of the M. Chekhov Theater. "The existence of a Russian-language theater with state funding is not some kind of gift from the government or politicians! Russian-speaking residents, who make up a third of the population, also pay taxes and have the right, guaranteed by the Constitution, to preserve their cultural identity. I always say: we do not divide the citizens of Latvia into right and wrong; everyone has equal rights! And we will fight for this," concluded Ainars Slesers at the crowded rally outside the theater.