Watchdog

Legendary Russian rock musician Andrei Makarevich has had three concerts cancelled following a tour in Ukraine and public criticism of Moscow's role in the conflict there.

Representatives of a restaurant in the Kazan, capital of Russia's Tatarstan region, said on September 12 that a Makarevich concert scheduled for September 27 had been cancelled for "organizational reasons."

Last week, performances scheduled for September 19 and 26 in the Volga River city of Samara were called off for what the venues said were "technical reasons."

Makarevich, frontman of the band Mashina Vremeni (Time Machine) since the Soviet era, has come under a hail of criticism from pro-Kremlin media.

In Ukraine last month, he gave concerts for refugees from the eastern part of the country, where government forces have been fighting pro-Russian separatists Kyiv and the West says are backed by Russian soldiers and supplied with Russian weapons. Russia denies it.

His new song, "My Country Has Gone Mad," went viral in the Internet in recent weeks.

Based on reporting by ITAR-TASS and bileton.ru

A U.S. citizen of Azerbaijani origin, Said Nuri, has been deported from Azerbaijan after what he called days of intimidation and harassment.

Nuri wrote on Twitter on September 12 that he was ejected from his native country and told he could never return.

He said that after he arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia, from Baku, he received an anonymous email warning him not to forget that his relatives remain in Azerbaijan.

Earlier this week, a sexually explicit video showing Nuri and his girlfriend circulated on the Internet.

On September 4, Azerbaijani officials barred Nuri from leaving the country and questioned him in connection with an undisclosed investigation.

A former deputy chief of the pro-opposition youth group Yeni Fikir (New Opinion), Nuri left Azerbaijan several years ago after a treason investigation was launched against his organization.