April 8, 2015. Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky suggested that Sverdlovsk Film Studio should not be privatized and should be converted from federal to local government property instead, Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Public Property Management refers to Medinsky’s letter to Governor Evgeniy Kuivashev as stating.

‘The studio might try out a different format, talks on the subject are under way, with no details just yet. Nor do we have a specific interested investor or customer at the moment,’ the studio’s Director-General Mikhail Churbanov says.

Now Sverdlovsk Film Studio was actually on the privatization list for 2014. Churbanov then said privatization was a proviso for setting up a public-private partnership that was crucial to the studio’s development.