Outspoken Russian artist goes missing in Berlin

Police divers were searching a lake bed in Berlin yesterday for traces of a controversial Russian artist and outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, who disappeared from her new home in Germany's capital a week ago after saying she was going out shopping.

Anna Mikhalchuk, 52, moved to Berlin with her husband last November after angering the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church with a Moscow exhibition that the authorities said was "blasphemous" and which was subsequently ransacked by nationalist Orthodox thugs.

Divers were searching a lake near her home in the city's Charlottenburg district and more than 80 other officers were combing the surrounding area for clues that might help explain her sudden disappearance.

Mikhalchuk, who speaks fluent English but little German, left her home on Good Friday at about 3pm and disappeared without trace. Her husband, the philosopher and author Mikhail Ryklin, 60, said she simply picked up her coat and told him she was going out to buy some food. He added: "Her disappearance remains a complete mystery. Only minutes beforehand, she had been speaking to one of her friends on the telephone and had arranged a meeting with her in Berlin for the next day."

Mikhalchuk, who exhibits under the name of Alchuk, took part in Caution Religion an art exhibition at Moscow's Andrei Sakharov Museum in 2003 which included a work depicting a naked woman nailed to a cross. Authorities described the exhibition as "openly insulting and blasphemous". She was subsequently tried on charges of "inflaming religious hatred." Mikhalchuk was acquitted but the museum's director and an associate were fined.

Michalchuk and her husband are Jewish, and Mr Ryklin said: "A politically motivated or anti-Semitic crime cannot be ruled out."

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