Composer Hakobyan commented on the choice of his music for Humennik's program

Composer Edgar Hakobyan, to whose waltz "Onegin 1805" Russian figure skater Pyotr Gumennik will perform at the Olympics in Italy, expressed confidence in an interview with Izvestia on February 8 that from a legal point of view the athlete would not have any problems.

"They write to me in the morning that there are some rights issues. What problems can there be? We don't have any problems. It is not discussed how something like this was "resolved". Well, of course, I was happy to give everyone the rights, of course. There are no problems in the legal part," the composer said.

Hakobyan explained that his work has been closely connected with figure skating for many years. And the music he creates already includes the possibility of skating to it from the very beginning.

"That my music will sound — of course, I am very pleased. I am extremely glad that this work was chosen. But I'm not happy that they can take it and set conditions at the last moment for the athlete to change the music. This is not a very pleasant fact when the program is set and there is already music of its own. <...> Comrades may decide that at the last moment it is possible not to grant the rights or something. Well, I consider this kind of action to be blasphemy," the composer commented.

Humennik's problems with music at the Olympics. What is known

The day before, Humennik was banned from performing at the Olympics to the soundtrack from "The Perfumer" due to copyright issues. In response to the injustice towards the athlete, social media users launched a hashtag, which translated into Russian sounds like "Let Peter Humennik ride under the "Perfumer". Later, Humennik's coach Veronika Daineko informed Izvestia that the figure skater would perform at the Olympics to the waltz "Onegin 1805" by Edgar Hakobyan.

Figure skating coach Tatiana Tarasova told Izvestia that Humennik successfully performed at the Olympic selection to the soundtrack of "Perfumer", and then they did not warn about possible copyright problems. She also called the situation around the performance of the Russian athlete disgusting.

Lawyer Arkady Bukh reported earlier in the day that the ban on the performance of Russian figure skater Pyotr Gumennik to the soundtrack from the film "The Perfumer" at the 2026 Olympics may be related to anti-Russian sentiments in the European Union.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.