`Lolita` author Nabokov`s museum vandalised

St. Petersburg: Vandals have spray-painted the word "paedophile" on the wall of a museum dedicated to famous writer Vladimir Nabokov in St. Petersburg.

The Fontanka.ru news website said the wall was spray-painted by the same group that calls itself ‘St. Petersburg Cossacks’ who broke the museum`s window Jan 9 and have been sending ominous letters to the museum, accusing the writer of propagating paedophilia and threatening "God`s wrath". The Nabokov Museum is located in a mansion on Bolshaya Morskaya street where the celebrated writer and poet was born in 1899 and lived until November 1917. Nabokov is best known for ‘Lolita’, a story with paedophilic connotations, but was never accused of child abuse himself. A one-man show based on "Lolita" was cancelled in St. Petersburg in October 2012, after the play`s author received threatening letters from the anonymous ‘Cossacks’. However, the performance took place in December and January, and its organiser was beaten by three unidentified attackers. IANS