Departed Russia of the Future

Author: Oksana Baulina for The Insider. Translated with permission.

Two years ago, The Insider wrote about how neither mass searches, administrative arrests, nor heavy fines could stop the heads of Navalny's regional headquarters. After Navalny was poisoned and sentenced in a trumped-up case, the situation has drastically changed: by the end of 2021, almost none of the opposition leader's key allies were left in the country, because they were threatened by the 'extremist' criminal cases with enormous prison sentences. The Insider spoke with former coordinators of Navalny's regional headquarters to find out how they made their decision to leave, how they crossed the border, what they do in exile, and under what conditions they are willing to return to Russia.

Ivan Zhdanov, former director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, says it took Navalny's team six months to recover from the new reality, when offline work in Russia had become impossible. The Regional Headquarters, the main project of another Navalny associate Leonid Volkov, was shut down, but that did nothing to save its staff from the pressure of the law enforcement agencies. And the former coordinator of the headquarters in Ufa, Lilia Chanysheva, was placed under criminal investigation for 'establishing an extremist community'. At present she is in the pre-detention center No. 6 in Moscow, and three lawyers were not allowed to visit her. Chanysheva faces up to 10 years.

'I walked 30 km to the border.'
Alexei Schwartz, ex-coordinator of the Headquarters in Kurgan

The day before the all-Russia rally on January 23, when Navalny flew to Russia, a friend picked me up in a cab. We were supposed to go to him to get ready for the event tomorrow. And we were chased. A car tailed us, lined up behind us, but didn't overtake us. And at the traffic lights, law enforcement ran up from all sides, shouted [that it was a] criminal investigation, knocked our phones and wallet out of our hands. We couldn't even pay the driver! They grabbed us and tied our hands. The man holding my hands behind me was very nervous. That is, I was standing calmly, but he was shaking and I found it funny. Then they took us to the police station, in two cars, each with four police officers. At the station, the FSB (the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation — REM) officer couldn't make a report properly and even mixed up the names of my friend and me.

They kept me in jail until the trial. The trial took place just as the rallies began in Kurgan. I was given 30 days in jail. The conditions at the detention center were torturous. I got very ill and had pus coming out of my ears. The doctor came and said, 'Listen, you're not going to die today. Get out of here - and run straight to the hospital. I can't do anything, I don't have any equipment or even medication.' And the cop replied, 'He's been given a month, there's no way he can go to the hospital.' The doctor told me to ask my relatives to bring me medicine. My girlfriend came, but they wouldn't let the medication through.

Then they took me to a cell. They didn't give me any food, motivating it by the lack of paperwork. In the evening the officers from the Center for Countering the Extremism came to 'talk'. They wanted me to give them the keys to the office. I said, 'What are you talking about? What would have to happen for me to give them up?'

At some point they put an elderly man in my cell. He smelled terrible, because he had a gangrene. His legs were literally rotting. I am from the countryside and I know how rotten meat smells. After a few days he couldn't get up anymore and was [going to the toilet] under himself. The stench was terrible. Even the police officers did not come into our cell.

I wrote a complaint and was summoned by the Prosecutor's Office to inspect the poor conditions of our detention. When they put me in jail the second time, the doctor called me in and started pressing me about why I publicized the situation with this elderly man since they had an inspection come because of that.

I served exactly one hundred days in prison this year. My chronic illnesses worsened, my vision deteriorated, my right eye could not distinguish colors well. My eyesight began to deteriorate very badly in prison because of the poor lighting.

I saw that the authorities would not give up. I understood that everything was being done to incarcerate me. I didn't marry my girlfriend on purpose, we lived together for seven years and didn't register our marriage, to keep her safe. But they came for her anyway, and she was arrested. My parents were searched and interrogated on the New Year's Eve. You can imagine: on January 6¹, the parents were at the interrogations. The Investigative Committee was specially opened for them, to interrogate them, asking why I dodged the military service. That is, I realized that nothing would help — they went after my family. And in prison I decided that we were going to apply for resettlement in Germany.

I am an ethnic German, in our village German traditions were observed, we have relatives and family friends who live in Germany. We were engaged in documentation and information gathering. But the fact was, our family [history] remained in the NKVD² archives, the documents were classified, and it was very difficult to get information. My grandfather was exiled, I was born in the settlement where he was serving his sentence. So, roughly speaking, I grew up in the Gulag.

The hardest thing for me was to leave Russia. I was actually under an undertaking not to leave the city and to behave properly. There was a great risk of being caught somewhere at the airport or at the border. So that's what happened. We got up very early and I bought a ticket an hour before boarding. We immediately got into a cab and flew to Moscow. We were followed, and it was a little bit stupid. People are following you, you go to the bathroom, and they wait. You get off, take your luggage, go to the Aeroexpress (a train to the airport — REM), wait for the next flight, and they're still waiting for you by the carriage. We go out of the subway, make a lap to download the map. When we go back in, the same people are following us again. My wife and I pretended that we were about to jump into the subway car. At the very end they jump, and we get off, and they just drive away. We threw off our tails and quietly went to get the last documents we needed to cross the border.

My wife and I crossed the border separately. I had to walk 30 kilometers to the border, but they caught me still on the Russian side, took me to a cell, it lasted a very long time. In 2017 I made a promise to myself never to lie, but in this situation I had to break it. It was very hard to tell a lie, but it saved my life. And I was released at the Russian border. I can't tell you more about it, unfortunately.

Then in the country I came to they shook my hand and told me, 'Good luck, but don't stay here too long, keep running.'

I can't say where I am now, for the security of the country that temporarily sheltered me. I was explicitly told at the border checkpoint to keep my head down, or they could easily ask for an extradition or exchange.

I don't regret working as a coordinator for Navalny's Headquarters one bit. It was one of the best things I ever did. It was a springboard, where I could realize myself as an activist against uranium mining in the Kurgan region. I got to know some of the best people in the country, with some of them I keep in touch as friends. I would do it again if I had the choice and knowing the whole path.

I'm not going to go back to Russia. I am going to continue my scientific work in Germany. In Russia there is not even trivial equipment and technology for this.

'I don't want to be a crying emigrant.'
Irina Fatyanova, former coordinator of Navalny's Headquarters in St. Petersburg

I've been in Georgia for the past few weeks, and I've managed to adapt a little bit, sorted out some basic everyday issues.

In April, when the case from the Moscow prosecutor's office for declaring the Anti-Corruption Foundation 'extremist' was launched, a lot of people who worked in the headquarters wondered what to do next. It was clear that it would not be easy to get involved in politics. I talked to a lot of people — lawyers, attorneys, a psychologist — and analyzed this question for myself. And then I decided what my red line would be. Everything before that, the criminal cases connected with the 'Dadin's article'³, with the blocking of roads, and everything else that was hanging over me, that was a risk I was ready to take. But the 6 to 10 years — a term that might be faced by Liliya Chanysheva, the former coordinator of the Headquarters in Ufa — that was a red line for me.

Before that, a number of former coordinators had already left Russia, and the circle had narrowed. I'm probably in the top ten, who they could come after with such a criminal case.

But if I went back in time, I would have done exactly the same thing. It was inevitable that I would end up at the HQ — my values, my previous life experience, my civic position - everything led me to this and to running for office. I do not believe that I or the people I worked with did anything illegal. We all see these excerpts from the case file saying that participation in the elections is a crime, it's absurd.

It's clear that in six years in prison I won't be able to do anything useful. And this is an additional burden on everyone who helps political prisoners: human rights defenders and lawyers. They kept writing to me, 'Please go away. We are very worried about you.'

I flew through Yerevan with a Russian passport and I left a day later for Georgia. The only problem was at the border when I was flying out of St. Petersburg. As a result I was standing for 10 minutes at the passport control and then they took me to a separate room to the department head for another 20 minutes and asked different questions — where I was going, why, for how long, when I was coming back, and they called somebody. At that point I was worried that I wasn't going to leave now, and this was the only plane, my ticket would be used up and everything would be delayed.

I still have a lot of emotions about it. My campaign slogan is 'I'm not afraid, and neither are you!' It kept taking on some new meaning for me, for the whole team, and for the volunteers. I always felt and still feel this responsibility for the fact that I used this slogan to encourage people to do something cool and to participate in the elections. For me, accountability to the people was the main factor that kept me from leaving.

Really, the whole campaign was like you're constantly battling to get something basic, important, and useful done. They put sticks in your wheels, you beat your face against the table, then you get up again after a moment of sadness and go forward. It was like some kind of marathon where you constantly have to bring yourself up to speed. I feel like I've been hit even harder now and it's even harder to recover from that. A strategic retreat, let's call it that.

I have a remote job in Russia. It is not related to politics, but I would not like to say publicly what kind of work it is. For now, the main thing is that it is there, because I like it, it inspires me, motivates me. Secondly, it occupies a lot of time, so I do not have much time to think about how bad it is that I left Russia.

I associate my life with Russia and St. Petersburg — no other places. But I have this attitude that while I am not in Russia, I don't want to be a crying emigrant who sits on a suitcase every day. I want to live a full life, to integrate into the culture in which I am. I want to fulfill myself wherever I am.

'Thought I was going away for two weeks, but now I don't know when I'll be back home.'
Semyon Kochkin, former coordinator of Navalny's Headquarters in Cheboksary

I left almost immediately after the Investigative Committee press release of September 28, saying that Navalny and his comrades-in-arms had set up an extremist community in the form of Navalny's Headquarters in 2011, and they had opened cells in 38 regions. And I was like, 'Well, this is about me. I worked as the coordinator of Navalny's Headquarters in Cheboksary from 2017 until the liquidation of the headquarters. A cell!'

I considered that the probability of arrest is very high. In the end, that's what happened. Lilia Chanysheva was charged for what has been a legal And, man, we even paid all our taxes.

A friend and a human rights defender wrote to me, 'I never told you this, but you're in real danger right now. You need to decide if you're willing to take new risks. There's a super difficult option — to stay. Or leave and wait it out for a few months.'

After the closure of the Headquarters, I began a public campaign in my region for the Duma elections, filming investigations, making videos, advising people how to vote, how to kick United Russia out of Chuvashia. I understood that the locals were obviously after me and that it would be better to sit it out, but I didn't expect things to get so hectic so quickly.

I had a day planned: I was going to my grandparents, they lived 100 km away from Cheboksary. There's a station there where you can take a train to Moscow. I bought tickets from Cheboksary for the train, then had to do a number of things and go to my grandparents, but I didn't manage to see them.

As soon as I came out of the building's entrance, an official from the 'E' Center (Center for Countering Extremism, a division within the Ministry of Interior — REM) detained me and took me to the police station. They made two protocols for displaying or promoting extremism: for the symbols in the form of two 'Smart Voting'⁴ logos, one on Twitter and one on Facebook. They kept me overnight at the station. In the morning they drew up another protocol, for mentioning Navalny's headquarters without a notification about the organization being designated extremist. They took me to court, but the courts didn't want to consider these protocols.

While the cops didn't understand what was going on, I got in my car and left. My things were packed, I took a BlaBlaCar and left for Moscow. But I didn't get to see my grandparents. They basically stole that time away from me. Maybe I can get the grandparents out here.

Now I've been in Tbilisi for over two months. I thought I was going for two weeks or a month, and now I don't know when I'll be back home.

It's amazing that the new center of Russian life has become the Georgian city of Tbilisi. Who would have said it would be like this, I wouldn't have believed it a year ago. I continue to work on my [social media] channel. While I was living in Cheboksary, that was all I did after the closure of the Headquarters.

I now have the task of bringing my two cats here, and that's some incredibly difficult stuff. I don't want to carry them in the luggage compartment. Plus, the landlady of the apartment we rented is against cats.

Moving is a tough thing. It's hard and frustrating not seeing your friends and family.

I'm really scared for those who are now under criminal charges and can't leave. All the HQ coordinators are cool professionals. We know how to do cool things, handle super difficult situations. We are creative, in general, and all of us realize ourselves if not in Russia, then in another country. I'm not worried about that, but I am worried about those who stay under prosecution and who will have trials in criminal cases. That's who I'm afraid for.

I had a dream since I was 18 to work as a coordinator of a presidential candidate's headquarters in my home town. What we did was awesome! We kicked out the head of the republic, we kicked out a thug mayor, and we took away the mandates of the United Russia party in the elections. What should I regret? I haven't done anything wrong, I haven't violated a single article of the Criminal Code. If we talk about administrative cases, they are all absurd. I have a huge file. If you stack it up, you can bring back a whole grove.

We can't regret that the regime is crazy. I was beaten by an alcoholic — is that my fault? No, he's the crazy alcoholic. And now the regime is crazy, disgusting, evil, and aggressive. Should we blame Alexei Navalny for the regime locking everyone up? Alexei couldn't help but come back, and I don't think he regrets what he did. In terms of morality, it was the right thing to do. Okay, the regime is willing to destroy politicians, but when they recognize a book lovers' community as foreign agents? Blame it on Alexei? He couldn't have done it any other way, he acted in good faith, and I think that if it were possible to take it all back, he would have done it the same way. The issue is crazy Vladimir Putin, not Alexei.

'I decided to leave because I would be useless in prison.'
Maria Petukhova, former coordinator of Navalny's Headquarters in Kaliningrad

Before the January 23 rally, our campaign was left without a coordinator. The previous coordinator was summoned to the Center for Countering Extremism a few days before the rally, they conducted the so-called 'preventive work' with him, after which he recorded a video message on Instagram saying that he did not need to go to the rally and was relinquishing his duties as the coordinator. I became acting coordinator. I have had to organize to the rally, I could not fail.

I realized that I would be followed, I left for another apartment. But they tracked me down. On the eve of the rally, I saw through the window that there were suspicious cars standing in the courtyard, blocking the entrances. In the morning there was a full complement: police and Center 'E' officers.

I began feverishly thinking of options. For example, to go down a rope ladder from the fourth floor. I almost started ordering a ladder from an online store. But there was little time, and I decided that I could try to change. I cut a few strands off, put glue on my face, and glued myself a mustache and a beard. I hid my hair under a hat, put on glasses, and some old jacket. It was unclear that I was a girl.

It turned out quite plausible. But I still had doubts — they had my face in all the databases, but surprisingly it turned out that they were pretty dumb. I walked half a meter away from them, and they didn't realize it was me. My heart was beating really hard. I thought they were going to grab me now and say, 'What kind of a circus are you running?' But I came around the corner of the house and exulted, 'Yes, yes! I fooled them!'

That's how I got to the rally. They tried to detain me right at the rally. And there were quite a lot of people there for Kaliningrad - about three thousand people. People stood up against the wall, so I wouldn't be dragged off the podium. I felt a great admiration and unity with people.

Still, I was detained after the rally and sent to a holding center for seven days. An FSB officer came to the detention center. He was regaling me with facts from my life that no one else knew, giving me all kinds of details. He tried to frighten me with the idea that there would be blood and I'd pay for it, that it was all a takeover of state power.

We talked for about forty minutes, and I was quite rude to him, because we were on unequal terms. I told him that, too. He replied, 'Watch out, we're collecting materials on you. If you do that again, you'd go to a place not so far away.'⁵

I served my seven days, and when I got out they took me away again. They charged me with hooliganism, that I was cursing on the street, and they locked me up again for five days. When I was serving my second sentence, I thought that nothing would prevent them from locking me up as long as they wanted, just like they did in the summer of 2019, when Ilya Yashin served five terms in a row.

It wasn't that fear crept in then, but some unpleasant feeling. It made me wonder if I wanted to go to prison or if I wanted to do something else. I would be useless in prison, and that would probably break my spirit. When you know when you're getting out, you just fill that time. And when you don't know, like Alexei Navalny, you need some other resources not to despair.

I decided to apply for a Lithuanian visa, but I was detained at [the entrance of] the Lithuanian consulate. I didn't have a phone, they identified me through the 'Safe City' cameras. I walked with my friend from the cab to the gates of the consulate and I heard her say: 'Masha, Masha, the ['E' Center officers]!' I didn't even have time to turn around. They grabbed me by the arms, grabbed me and took me away. They took me for a long ride around the city, brought me to the Interior Department, and then to court.

Then I managed to get a Polish visa very quickly. I bought my ticket less than a day before my departure, so it wouldn't get into the database. I spent about an hour at the border guards' window. They were calling somewhere, going somewhere, double-checking my documents a few times. This is a car crossing, and there was no way I could have run up to the Polish border guards and shouted that I was asking for asylum. It was unsettling, but eventually a border guard came out, recorded on camera that I was aware that I was leaving Russia, and let me go.

I didn't give up politics, I didn't give up activism. I participated in the 'Vote Abroad' Project. Before the election, I and several other people assembled a team, made a website, ran social media, and tried to tell Russian immigrants — both those who had lived abroad for a long time and those who had recently arrived — that if they had Russian citizenship, they were entitled to vote at any consulate in federal elections. It's amazing that almost half of the people didn't know about this. And we got amazing feedback. There was a wonderful case where, at the expense of voting in London and Paris, a candidate recommended by the 'Smart Voting' won in the Tomsk region. It was great, and it showed that you shouldn't sit idly by and you can change something, even when you don't have the resources.

I am currently working on a women's media project that talks about women's issues, gender, juvenile issues, and LGBT. This is a wide range of problems that are taboo in Russia. We have traditional values, patriarchy — everything is so wonderful! But there is no law on domestic violence, minorities are oppressed, there is no protection for women. And if a man wants to go on maternity leave, there will be public pressure, because it is not a man's job to be on maternity leave.

Also, I help my colleagues to integrate migrants, to integrate Russians into Polish culture. I want people to know that Russia is not only Putin, nuclear weapons, poverty, cold, and vodka. Russians are generous, kind people. They are not to blame for what is happening in the country right now. Russia is not Putin. I want to get that across to people, because there are a lot of stereotypes among people in Europe and America thanks to propaganda and actions like the annexation of Crimea.

I continue to do what I've been doing. It may be taking a little bit different forms, but you can't get that out of me.

'I had to explain to my young children that I'm not in jail because I'm a criminal.'
Sergei Bespalov, former coordinator of Navalny's Hadquarters in Irkutsk

I was the most senior coordinator in Navalny's headquarters — I'm 47 years old now. I'm a grown-up man, I have four children. I was not particularly afraid of some kind of pressure. I put a 'Navalny' sign on the back window of my car and posted it on social media. A huge number of people wrote to me, 'They're going to smash my window, don't even doubt it. As a result, this glass is still there, nothing happened.

Inside Irkutsk, there was an unspoken gentleman's agreement: only I and the staff members who were on the payroll were put in jail for holding rallies. For all the other people it was safe to participate in the activities of the Navalny campaign. In January this tradition was broken: for the first time in Irkutsk, grassroots protesters were arrested. I myself did not even make it to the January 23 rally — as soon as I left home, I was detained and spent 10 days in jail.

When I was first arrested, I was so angry and literally fuming that this was unfair. There was such a sad, but funny moment. When I came out of the isolation ward, my wife came up to me and said: 'For the kids, you were on a business trip.' The next day my first-grade son comes home from school and says, 'Daddy, somebody's parents in our class were watching TV and said that Stepa's daddy was in jail.'

And then he looks at you like that, and you realize that you now have to give the kid a lecture about how not everyone in our country who is in prison is a criminal. I had to tell my two children at a young age that there is an unjust regime that represses people.

I understood that the regime would get tougher and there would be criminal prosecutions. Inwardly I decided that I would not be ready to continue when I was criminally convicted.

I was sued by a supporter of NOD⁶ — these people are very aggressive [Putin supporters]. She claimed she came up to talk to me on the central square, and I allegedly hit her on the arm, and she felt unpleasant pain and suffering. On February 12, I was sentenced to restriction of liberty.

I had a big argument with my lawyer about it. He insisted that I leave before the pronouncement of the sentence, fearing that I would be arrested in the courtroom. When you come to the courtroom for the reading of the verdict, and there's a guard there, your first thought is, 'That's it, you've done it. I should have left earlier.' But I believed that if the HQ coordinator was the first to run away, then such coordinator [is of no use].

I understood that I would be released from a Russian prison without health and without teeth that would not be knocked out, but would fall out on their own. All that time I would have no financial participation in the life of my children and my family, they would become impoverished, and I myself would become an additional burden for all my relatives — financially, in the first place.

Restriction of liberty is a regime where you are not immediately sent to prison. But for one violation you can immediately go to jail. Realizing that I could have conducted such a 'violation' very quickly: for example, a police officer could draw up a report that I was using foul language — the next day I went to Turkey, and from there to Lithuania.

Lithuania was more of an accident. In 2018 I was imprisoned three times for rallies, and in the detention center I decided that I would specialize in forest management. You can't just walk around with a poster saying 'Putin, go away!', you have to propose something. I went to Lithuania, because there are private forests there, and people speak Russian. I got acquainted with the local human rights activists. They said, 'If things get really bad, we'd help you.'

All in all I spent 77 days in various places of detention. I had four 'trips', if one may use that criminal term. Irkutsk is a very old prison, and under the tsar there was a stable next to it. This stable was converted into a special detention facility.

They kept trying to organize some kind of a 'wrong' social surrounding for me. They [put in my cell] a man who was an HIV-dissident, he was already dying, he had spots on his skin that were bleeding. When he walked into the cell, he said: 'I'm HIV-positive. I was told that one dude should come to his senses.'

I carried the tubercle bacillus on me after my second term. The doctor told me that I had a man in my cell who was coughing badly. I went to the Tuberculosis clinic, they found a reaction, I was prescribed two medications, I took them, and I am fine, I do not have TB.

Some homeless people were brought to me. The employees apologized, saying, 'Because of you they declared a homeless "operation" in the city. We're sorry, we don't like it either.' I made these people bathe and wash their clothes, because it was impossible to be in the cell because of the stench.

I can't say that it was terrible there, but our detention centers in Russia are not the right place to be, even for people who have violated something.

I'm not the most usual Navalny supporter, not just because I'm the oldest, but because I have a lot of experience in small and big business. When I was 30 years old, it seemed to me that money ruled the world, and I was actively earning it: I worked in Yukos and other major companies in director's positions. But you realize very quickly that this is not all you need in life. I went into small business: in the 90s it was possible to do it almost anywhere, the authorities were not yet pressing it, people had a lot of money, the economy was growing. For a long time in our country we had the feeling that there was no need to fight for freedom: it had fallen into our lap on its own in 1991, and then high oil prices followed. It was great — we had money, we were happy, and no one bothered us.

But now there is no money, and people are bothered quite seriously. And not just Alexei Navalny, but a huge number of people who are forced to live in fear or flee the country. Those who couldn't defend themselves are sitting in jail. Putin and his fellow stalwarts want an atmosphere of fear and terror in the society, because they themselves understand nothing but fear and terror.

I feel sorry for our country because people are living worse lives than they could have without Putin. I believe that Alexei Navalny has made the biggest contribution to fighting and destroying our Russian authoritarianism, which has now become classic fascism, just like in the textbooks. Of course, I would have preferred a different political career, but we are living the life we have, and I have nothing to regret.

This era will pass, a lot of people will be ashamed of the way they behaved afterwards. Life is always cyclical. Putinism will end and those people who thought they had cut us out of life will most likely find themselves cut out of life next.

References:

¹ Orthodox Christmas Eve, a state holiday in Russia — REM

² The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, abbreviated NKVD, was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union — REM

³ A criminal article named after political prisoner Ildar Dadin — REM

⁴ A tactical voting strategy developed by the team of Alexei Navalny to help deprive the United Russia party of votes in regional and federal elections — REM

⁵ A common reference to a prison — REM

⁶ The National Liberation Movement, abbreviated NOD in Russian, is a Russian political movement — REM