The suffering of Victoria Ivleva. Victoria Ivleva is a bright journalist, a brave volunteer and a talented photographer

Victoria Ivleva is a photographer and journalist, born in 1956 in Leningrad. Graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University. She worked for many years at Novaya Gazeta, her works were published in Ogonyok, Moscow News, German Spiegel, French Figaro, English Guardian, American The New York Times and other publications. In the late 80s - early 90s she filmed in almost all the hot spots of the disintegrating USSR. Worked a lot in African countries, helping various international humanitarian missions. In 1991, she filmed the report “Inside Chernobyl”, becoming the only journalist to visit the reactor, and then the only one Russian woman, which received the World Press Photo Golden Eye's highest award. She was awarded the prize of the Union of Journalists of Russia (2007) and the German Gerd Bucerius Prize (2008). Ivleva’s personal exhibition “The Apotheosis of War” was held at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2005), and “27 Photographs” was held in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod(2010). Photo album Temps Present de la Russie (France, 1988). Equipment: Nikon F4 and Nikon D3.

(Total 21 photos)

1. View of Maly Golovin Lane

2. Paveletsky Station Square and Valentin Serov’s painting “Girl with Peaches”

3. Moscow bakery "Moskvorechye"

5. Moscow bakery "Moskvorechye"

6. Car wash on Krasnoproletarskaya street. Night shift

7. A girl reading in the metro on Arbatskaya

8. Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Cheryomushki

9. Last subway train. Sokolnicheskaya line

10. View from the window in the rain

11. Esquire fan at home on Kostyansky Lane

13. Metro station "Mezhdunarodnaya"

14. A girl in a subway car at the Lenin Library station

15. Dog on the playground. Nezhinskaya street

16. Man in a subway car

Russian journalist Victoria Ivleva has visited many hot spots around the world. After the outbreak of hostilities in the East of Ukraine, she criticized the actions Russian authorities and went to the region to volunteer. Thanks to her and her comrades, several hundred people were able to leave uncontrolled territories and live a peaceful life. Until September 5, the Izolyatsiya Foundation in Kiev is hosting a photo exhibition by Victoria Ivleva, “The Birth of Ukraine.” Platfor.ma talked to the journalist about why she feels guilty before our country, how empire became a diagnosis of Russia, and what the author saw after traveling all over Ukraine.

You filmed inside the Chernobyl reactor hall after the accident (Victoria became the only journalist in the world to do this; she received an award for that report World Press Photo. -Platfor.ma), repeatedly visited the combat zone and were captured in the East of Ukraine. Are you familiar with fear?

Of course, I am familiar with fear. For example, I am deathly afraid of scorpions and snakes. I probably know the fear of the Soviet government and the special services, like every person who lived in the Soviet Union and who now lives in Russia and disagrees with the existing policy in some way. But this is such a distant, not entirely real fear. Because the real one still doesn’t let you do something. And if you continue, it means you’re not very afraid. They didn't really scare you. But somewhere on the periphery of consciousness this fear still exists.

But if we talk about what worries me most of all, rather than frightening me, it is, of course, Ukraine. Ukraine is the country closest to us, which has never done anything bad in Russia’s life, especially if we think of it in the system of new relations since 1991. Even the entry of troops into Czechoslovakia, even the Georgian war somehow had a different effect on me. Because, most likely, I have never seen anything more unfair in my life. Although it is impossible to talk about justice in war in any case: since people are dying, then what kind of justice can there be?

This feeling of injustice, guilt, does not allow me to sleep. Filming at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was a good journalistic story, with the right amount of danger. This is a normal situation that any real journalist would subscribe to. A story that stirred the blood, but there was no feeling of guilt for anything. An accident happened, a catastrophe occurred. But this is definitely not my fault. What is happening now before our eyes, of course, is completely different.

- Your photo project is called “The Birth of Ukraine”. Many people also associate Maidan with the last two yearswith birth new country and a new people. Why do you think this happened only 25 years afterthe emergence, in fact, of the state of Ukraine?

Because it was necessary for an unworn generation to grow up. It was necessary not to touch people for 25 years. The country could not have been born on ruins Soviet Union. Although, as it turns out, these were not ruins at all - it stood and still stands. The point is not even that a generation of new people who did not live under the USSR had to grow. People who were not taught to be afraid had to grow up. They didn’t grow up in Russia. And for you - yes. Moreover, this generation is not age-related. It’s just that if they don’t touch you for 25 years - even if they stopped touching you at 30, and you became 55 - then you are different. You stopped being afraid.

What is born in your country new people, it was clear to me both during the Maidan process and after. This feeling was simply in the air, and it was perfectly shown in Loznitsa’s film. Yevtushenko has the following lines in his poem “Stenka Razin”:

It’s worth enduring everything without tears,

to be on the rack

if sooner or later

sprout

on the faceless ones...

After the Maidan, faces grew. And although you hear from all sides that nothing is changing, thieves are in power, the war, which could have been ended in one second, is not ending, they are all tied up there, etc., etc. - and much of this, alas, is true - so, despite all this, I still see a huge gap between Ukraine and Russia. I see that the vector is chosen correctly. It’s a pity, of course, that Ulitka Cherepakhovna is now moving along this vector; I wish it were Puma Gepardovna. Does not work. But still this is a movement in the right direction.

I had the opportunity to travel along the entire front line from the Ukrainian side, and there I saw many people who, no matter how much they wanted, simply could not leave the region: the elderly, the sick, simply the poor. Which of the people who stayed there impressed you the most?

Oddly enough, I can't pick one. When you volunteer - and I was mainly involved in removing people - you think in a slightly different way and about something else: did they take all the documents, did they accidentally forget the children somewhere, did they lock the house. These are the simple everyday things. They take up 99% of the time. And not talk about what happened and what will happen. Not before that. It all becomes unimportant. This superstructure thing is going away. What remains is the basics - how to survive.

And the saddest thing I saw was this change of fate. Moreover, the fate of everything that is in those parts, not just people, is changing. Even a change in the fate of nature. Because when there is a tank in the middle of a sunflower field, the sunflowers should not like it. Tank and sunflower flowers do not mix.

This is a change in the fate of people who lived their lives, which perhaps seemed not at all interesting to journalists and neighbors. But they lived and quietly rejoiced. They sat down in the evening on the rubble, looked at the setting sun - and they were happy. And now their fate has changed, they sit down in the evening on the rubble, look at the same sun, and it is obscured by a tank. And this shouldn’t happen, a tank shouldn’t block the sun for anyone... Or a person got ready to do something, made some plans, and the war took over and destroyed everything. And he will never get around to doing anything again.

I went to the village of Opytnoye, there are almost no people left there now, only 30 or 40 people. They live in terrible conditions, in basements. And you are driving in this village. Half of it is destroyed. In the other part there is no one at all - empty houses. And you think: two years ago, hollyhocks grew here, people walked around calmly. They had some aspirations and hopes. And suddenly once - this change of fate. This is what absolutely kills me. I can't think about this without crying.

In your profile on Snob in the “Dream” section it is stated: in order for the war to end, the Russian Federation will repent and become different. Regarding the other Russia - how exactly can this happen, thanks to what? Let's say Putin leaves, but where will those tens of millions of people who support his ideals go?

Well, you know, Hannah Arendt was surprised at how easily the German consciousness turned around after the war. And here I think the same.

I happen to be the champion in our part of the world in terms of the number of dead people seen. I don’t brag about this, but this is a fact of my biography: I was at the war in Rwanda and saw piles of corpses that were covered with earth and the next dead bodies were loaded on top. Otherwise it was impossible to dispose of them. And I know for sure that nothing can be done with the dead, but while a person is alive, very, very much can be done with him and his consciousness.

So I think that changing consciousness is quite simple - first you need to abandon the idea of ​​empire at the state level. There was the British Empire or the Ottoman Empire. They were - and they weren’t. And nothing, they live, everything is fine. I'm not sure that this will be the case for us. But objectively, everything will change sooner or later, because progress cannot be stopped.

Do you think Ukraine can still slide back into hopeless corruption and the cycle of essentially identical rulers?

I don't think so. You are not an imperial nation. And this is your great happiness. You are free, there are no imperial shackles on you, you are not afraid to fight and speak. The air of freedom is felt here. But if you have lived your whole life in a cage, and then they take you outside and say: come on, get up, then you get up and first fall. But within a day you realize how wonderful it is to walk not on all fours, but on two legs. It is natural for a person not to be a slave.

And you don’t have another thing that accompanies empire - a sense of the sacredness of power. No one falls on their faces, no one kisses Poroshenko’s hands.

As for corruption, it exists in every country in the world, only the scale differs. And corruption on such a scale as in our area is a normal Soviet legacy. The further you go from communism and the principle “The end justifies the means,” the less of all this will happen.

I wrote in 1915 about the main cult of my Motherland - war.
Life only confirms that I am right, it would be better if I were wrong...

I think about traditional values ​​and suddenly I realize that the only traditional value for my country is war. War on everything that is different. War to a victorious end - it doesn’t matter whose, maybe no one’s, but to a victorious end. Why is that? But nothing else in all 70 years of existence Soviet power and twenty-five years of the existence of the new Russia was never cultivated, did not become the main thing in state propaganda, culture, education. Songs about the war - from childhood, stories about heroic pioneers who died at the fronts or, conversely, who became sons of a regiment - from the same childhood, magnificent military parades and festivities - all my life. The cult of war followed any person living in this territory from birth to death. Drive across the country from Kaliningrad to Nakhodka - count how many streets are named after people who killed others. It was as if there was no one else, as if no one else loved this land and did nothing for it.
War is our main cult. War as a system of life, as a worldview, as a value, as the main event, as a justification for oneself and all possible terrible meanings.
And this cult will be worse than Stalin.

Tonight I again accompanied Bishop Gregory on the plane to Salekhard on his way to Oleg. Exactly a week ago, the bishop tried to get to IK-8 in Labytnangi to visit Sentsov, but the FSI authorities considered that this visit was inappropriate.
Yeah.

That's right - IMPOSSIBLE.

Then the FSIN issued a statement on this matter, however, it did not say anything about the inappropriateness, but said that the bishop did not have a document allowing him to care for the Ural federal district. A couple of days later, another information appeared on the website of the local FSIN about how, without any invitations, a local priest, Father Bogdan, came to Sentsov’s medical unit, asked if Oleg wanted to confess and if he needed anything, Oleg refused and the priest left...

Bishop Gregory straightened out the papers, and yesterday, after a message from Dmitry Dinze, Oleg’s lawyer, that Sentsov’s health had deteriorated greatly, the bishop urgently got ready to travel.

And before that, the head of the Human Rights Council under the President of Russia M.A. Fedotov sent a letter to the director of the FSIN, Colonel General G.A. Kornienko, asking him to explain how, given that the Constitution grants us all freedom of conscience, can a bishop get to the convicted person.

And the director of the FSIN explained everything in detail on two pages, and it turned out that, in general, two things were needed: a referral to visit the colony from a religious organization and a request from a convicted citizen. And the director of the FSIN writes to the chairman of the HRC that if these conditions are met, then “the issue can be resolved positively.”

And so Bishop Gregory flies to Salekhard, takes the ferry to Labytnanga across the great Russian Ob River and comes to the colony IK-8 to the warden. The head of the colony looks at all the documents, the registration certificate of the religious organization, the metropolitan’s decree on the care of the Urals, nods his head and says:

But we do not have a request from the convicted Sentsov to meet with you!
“I understand,” Bishop Gregory answers, “I got ready so quickly and received explanations from the director of the FSIN only on the seventh in the afternoon, that is, just a few hours before the trip, so please inform Sentsov that I am here.”

No,” the head of the colony answers, “I can’t do this (I’ll say in advance, I searched, but nowhere, absolutely nowhere in any document of the Russian Federation is it written that this is not possible, moreover, when his friend Askold Kurov came to Oleg, it was just like that - they went, asked, received consent) .

Why can’t you do this, it’s just a hundred meters to walk or a little more, asks Bishop Gregory.

And because,” the head of the colony replies, “this will be regarded as pressure on the convicted person.”

Having completely forgotten that the local priest Father Bogdan had literally just come without any permission from this very convicted person.
Well! Bishop Gregory came out of the gates of colony number eight and began calling the duty line of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, the telephone number of which we found on the FSIN website. They promised to look into it, but were very surprised at this answer about pressure, and to call me back.

And the bishop and I decided that, of course, it was necessary to urgently send a letter to Oleg through the FSIN service. The bishop went to the website of the Federal Penitentiary Service for letters, filled out everything in order - and here is the answer - “PROCESSING OF LETTERS HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY STOPPED.” Then the bishop remembered that lawyer Dinze had told him that letters were not being delivered, the delay was almost two weeks, Oleg was not even receiving letters from his mother, because the censor was on vacation.

OK. The bishop also called the local FSIN, forgetting about the inappropriateness of a visit to Sentsov. The deputy chief says to him:
“You,” he says, “are a bishop, send a telegram to Sentsov.”

So how can I send a telegram if there is no censor, it won’t be delivered to the addressee? - the bishop asks meekly.
“They will deliver, they will deliver, don’t think so,” said the deputy chief.

Well, Bishop Gregory sends this telegram:
“Dear Oleg! Yesterday I spoke with Dmitry and immediately got ready to go to your colony again. I arrived at night and am now in Labytnangi, waiting to meet you. Please report this to the colony management. Big greetings to you from Yuri Alekseevich Dmitriev, whom I visited the other day. He, like you, does not give up. See you soon. Bishop of the Association of Orthodox Communities of the Apostolic Tradition Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko.”

The telegram was sent urgently. The bishop settled in a hostel in Labytnangi. Waiting.

But no one knows how long we will have to wait.

PS. Since no one from the FSIN called the bishop back, he decided to disturb the duty officer himself. And he dialed the same number again from the FSI website: 8 495 982 19 00. And there he was:
- Why are you calling here?
- This is the number of the FSIN duty officer. I took it from the site.
- There is no such number on the website. Who gave it to you?
- I found it on the website.
- And I’m telling you that there is no such number on the website. You will be answered in due course.
-Can you find out who I’m talking to?
- It is forbidden.
Beep-beep-beep...
It was at 15:55.

PPS If anyone needs me in connection with this note, please write to FB. The phone is temporarily not working.

The head of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, Colonel of the Internal Service, Alexander Novikov, refused to Father Grigory (Mikhnov-Vaitenko), Bishop of the Apostolic Orthodox Church, in a meeting with Oleg Sentsov.

Federal Law No. 103 dated April 20, 2015 allows clergy who belong to duly registered religious associations to visit people in prison. Personal meetings can last up to two hours each; the number of such meetings is not limited by law. Moreover, if the parties wish, this meeting can take place in private and even out of earshot of third parties.
It would seem that everything is clear; there is and cannot be any other interpretation of the Law.
But here's what really happened.

Bishop Gregory says:
- I flew to Salekhard on a night flight from Moscow, and immediately went to the village of Kharp, where the Federal Penitentiary Service is located - it’s on the other side of the Ob, I had to cross by ferry - and was at the department in an hour and a half.
Colonel Novikov met me extremely kindly, I showed me documents, including a special direction signed by Metropolitan Vitaly, the manager of the affairs of the Union of Orthodox Communities of the Apostolic Tradition. In this direction it is said that I have been appointed responsible for conducting work in prisons of the entire North-Western District, which includes Yamal. Our communication with the colonel went completely normally until he asked the prisoner’s last name. Hearing “Oleg Gennadievich Sentsov, born 1976,” Alexander Nikolaevich Novikov
He simply changed his face and told me word for word:

I don’t see the expediency of your meeting with Sentsov!

My attempts to appeal to the law, reason, conscience and mercy led to nothing, Colonel Novikov simply pressed the button, called the duty officer and gave him the order to escort his comrade, that is, me, to the door.

Bishop Gregory left a written statement to Colonel Novikov with a request to allow a meeting with Sentsov in accordance with the law, but by 14:00 in Moscow no one had contacted the holy father, and there was no reaction from the local prosecutor’s office, where Bishop Gregory also left a statement about non-compliance with the law by the leadership of the FSIN Yamalo- Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
The head of the Human Rights Council under the President of Russia, Mikhail Fedotov, and the office of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation, Tatyana Moskalkova, are also aware of what happened.

As is known, the deprivation of the Jews' will and ability to resist during the Third Reich occurred gradually: first a yellow star - then not walking on the sidewalk - then a ghetto with separate apartments and even water flowing from the tap, although the trickle became thinner and thinner, but it doesn’t matter what to perform there, there is an apartment; and in the finale, when everyone has come to terms with everything, one-way calf carriages called Treblinka-Auschwitz-Ravensbrück-Mauthausen-Buchenwald. (Then, of course, there will be the city of Nuremberg, but none of these people will be affected by the happiness of Nuremberg, they will be dead, they will try to weave handbags from their hair, they will try to weave soap from them, and their gold teeth will be pulled out of corpses and given for melting down).

During this entire process of depriving the Jews of their will, demonstrative reprisals took place: first fines, then beatings, then confiscation of property, then executions, but so, lightly, very low, but so that they understood that this could affect anyone and the choice of the victim is completely random, the determining factor in the choice - Jewishness. Well, yes - and all this happened against the backdrop of victorious reports about the fall of France, the Netherlands, Belgium, bad luck with England, but this is temporary, but look at Rommel’s tanks in Africa - well, etc. etc., you know all this without me.

Well, approximately the same thing with the suppression of the people’s will to resist is happening in Russia against the backdrop of the troubadour of the First and other channels about unprecedented successes, rising living standards, improving medicine, education and generally living up to a hundred years without pain. And all this became possible only with the same president, because who, if not him. And in fact, Russia is great, but there is no one to choose, as political instructor Klochkov used to say from the non-existent Panfilov heroes.

So, about Russia. First - Dima Yakovlev's Law: they ate it, choked, of course, out of habit, some even vomited, but they ate it. Then - bigger fish: the annexation of Crimea and the war with its closest and dear neighbor - Ukraine - well, here too, they coughed, spat, many even had allergies, but nothing, they devoured, swallowed, choked, but digested. Against this background - demonstrative imprisonments for disproportionate terms in the Bolotnaya case, the fight against bloggers, with reposts, with picketers, in general with everyone who has not put their head between their knees, their eyes on the floor, but is still trying to look at something and not even believe their eyes. But they chewed it all up, almost no longer vomiting.

And Channel One increased the number and turnover of troubadours, acquiring glorious assistants in the form of LifeNews and Russia Today, sorry May French, as they say.

And now, when there is no will for anything, when fear has crept into the heart of almost everyone, and the main thing for almost everyone has become to sit quietly and walk, and to squeeze sideways past the dashing, and to keep their head permanently between their knees, and their eyes completely close, and insert into the ears whatever is inserted - now the main thing comes - GRADUAL
(according to the Government as reported by Interfax here)

INCREASING THE PENSION AGE SINCE 2019,
for women by eight years - from sixty-three, for men by five - from sixty-five. And they, Russian men, seem to live on average to just over sixty-five.

Our people, of course, are now gobbling up everything - well, after all, they’re not actually going to make soap out of us! Taught by experience recent years, he will also send thanks directly to the president for the fact that he can spend so much more time at his favorite machine (scalpel, board, broom, drawing board) in his favorite team for the benefit of the Motherland!

But seriously, maybe it should be raised, this retirement age, but first, still, we need to stop spending our taxes on war, and more than one, we need to defeat or at least reduce corruption, and, most importantly, learn not to be afraid of your people and discuss with them such radical measures affecting millions before the government meeting. He’s not a fool at all, our Russian people, he’s simply poisoned by the TV that works for our taxes.

Is not it?

PS I forgot to say that the average life expectancy in Russia is 72.4 years.

The words of Akhmat Khadzhi Kadyrov on the building of the Grozny airport: “My only weapon is the truth. And any army is powerless against these weapons.”

“And the Lord said to Satan: Have you paid attention to my servant Job? For there is no one like him on earth: a blameless, just, fearing God and shunning evil.”

Book of Job, ch.1-8

In Arabic Job will be Oyub. Oyub Titiev, the head of the Chechen branch of Memorial, was detained on the morning of January 9 of this year as he was leaving the village of Kurchaloy. In his car, they found 206.9 grams of marijuana in a black plastic bag placed inside another bag. And a little bit of green grass was scattered right on the rubber mat under the seat near the driver.

I didn’t know Oyub Titiev, but I didn’t have enough imagination to imagine that the head of the Kadyrov-hated and one of the last independent human rights organizations remaining in Chechnya would be driving around the republic with marijuana, and even scattered on the floor of the car, I didn’t have enough imagination, especially since Chechnya was hosting at that time, another tough month against drug trafficking.

According to investigators, the hemp obtained by Oyub in unknown place at an unknown time, it is unknown from whom, it was transported by him to an unknown destination for an unknown purpose. Witnesses - this is again the investigation's version - were found almost immediately, Oyub was brought to the police station, and he refused to testify.

A friend saw Titiev’s detention, and he informed the family about it. Relatives and a lawyer immediately rushed to the police, where they were lied to for a long time that there was no Oyub at the station - and only the intervention of the head of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, Mikhail Fedotov, and the Commissioner for Human Rights, Tatyana Moskalkova, forced the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Chechen Republic to admit that Oyub had been detained.

Oyub’s own version is more credible to everyone who knew him. He was actually stopped by a patrol car, one of the police officers distracted his attention, and the second, while Oyub was not looking, opened the door to the salon and “found” there something that he himself could have just put there. After this, Oyub was taken to the police in his own car, where for an hour he was forced to admit to drug possession by a man who introduced himself as the head of the criminal investigation department. He also promised to fabricate a criminal case against Oyub’s son under Article 208 (participation in illegal gangs). “I again refused and said that we would sit together,” Oyub writes in a complaint alleging police misconduct. And he adds: “I told the boss that in any case I would not admit to an uncommitted crime, and that they should do everything according to the law.”

If you want it according to the law, you will get it according to the law,” answered the head of the criminal investigation department.

Chechen Republic. City Grozniy. Staropromyslovsky District Court, which is considering the case of Oyub Titiev.

Chechen Republic. City Grozniy. Every hearing in the case of Oyub Titiev in the Staropromyslovsky District Court is always attended by his relatives, friends and colleagues who do not believe in Oyub’s guilt, and journalists from different cities of Russia. The courthouse is located behind a high fence with barbed wire in front of which there are concrete pillars.

Chechen Republic. City Grozniy. Staropromyslovsky District Court. Sisters Oyuba Titieva, Khava (left) and Zhiradat, as always, came to the court hearing. This is an opportunity to both support your brother and exchange a few words with him during the break.

New law

Titiev in his own car, accompanied by a police officer, was taken to where he was detained, the officer came out, two traffic police officers appeared and began to inspect the car, and in the same place under the seat they found the same black bag inside another bag and the same green grass on the rug.

But then everything really went according to the law: a group was called, witnesses were called, a report was drawn up, Oyub was again taken to the police, and the case started. And it happened with such unprecedented speed that seasoned lawyers began to suspect: weren’t half the documents prepared in advance in order to get everything done quickly and have time to imprison Oyub before the World Cup? In Chechnya, however, there will only be training sessions for the Egyptian national team, but who knows...

Psychological pressure was again put on Oyub, forcing him to write a letter to Putin, Bastrykin and Bortnikov:

“If I somehow plead guilty to the offense I am charged with, it would mean that I was forced to plead guilty by physical force or blackmail.”

The very long-term existence of “Memorial” in Chechnya - a territory of cruelty, humiliation and unimaginable injustice, elevated to law, a territory where the Russian Constitution, replaced by the Ramzan Constitution, has long been completely forgotten and is not in effect - is equal to a miracle. And Oyub was one of those who daily, quietly and imperceptibly, without noise or pathos, performed this miracle. In this sense, he was the direct opposite of Natasha Estemirova, who worked at Memorial until her terrible death at the hands of murderers in 2009. Natasha's human passion, Natasha's pain for everything that was happening, Natasha's bleeding female heart forced her, despite the danger, to shout about what was happening in Chechnya everywhere she went. After Natasha’s body with bullets in her chest and head was found a hundred meters from the Caucasus federal highway, Memorial left Chechnya for six months, and then, upon returning, continued to defend people’s rights no less intensely, but withdrew the Chechen office from public space, prohibiting its employees from giving interviews.

Attacks on Memorial in Chechnya intensified after the Russian Ministry of Justice recognized it as a foreign agent because the organization took money for its work from other states. But what to do if your own, dear ones, who, it would seem, should be more interested in justice than others, do not give money to those who are trying to protect people from tyranny? And for some reason, pointing out to the state the mistakes it has made, and sometimes crimes, is considered in our country to be a betrayal of national interests, and not a desire to make one’s country better and cleaner. Some kind of continuous “atu him” and “fas”.

Ramzan Kadyrov feels this “face” very well and puts it into practice on a Caucasian scale, multiplied by the complete disregard for human life.

Although it was thanks to Memorial that details of crimes became public, including mass shootings of people in 2017 without charges or trial. Most likely, it was this story that became the last straw that led to Kadyrov’s inclusion in the sanctions lists (with the wording “controls the administration involved in disappearances and extrajudicial killings”) and his excommunication from his main and favorite toy - Instagram, where Ramzan Akhmatovich, except wise thoughts, constantly posted photos of his children and family.

Magomed Daudov, Chairman of the Chechen Parliament, said this: “I declare with responsibility that I am one of those who are behind the situation related to sanctions and blocking of the accounts of the Head of the Chechen Republic in in social networks,/…/ are human rights defenders.” And he added in a very simple way: “If there had not been a moratorium in Russia, then with the enemies of the people there would have been “Salaam Aleikum” - and that’s all.”

The moratorium and Moscow’s obvious dislike for the murders of famous people in Chechnya probably saved Titiev from “Salam Aleikum” - they decided to deal with him in the old proven way, by planting drugs and fabricating the case, while the intimidation of “Memorial” continued even after the arrest of Oyub - in January in In Ingushetia, in Nazran, the organization’s office was burned, and in Makhachkala, Dagestan, the head of the department was beaten. Pressure from the authorities forced the owner of the apartment rented by Memorial in Grozny to terminate the contract.

There is no longer “Memorial” in Chechnya, just as there is no protection from arbitrariness. There is only Oyub left - and he is behind bars.

Chechen Republic. City Grozniy. Staropromyslovsky District Court. Oyub's sister Zharadat and great-nephew Khamzat in the courtroom


Chechen Republic. City Grozniy. Staropromyslovsky District Court. Human rights activists and journalists who came from Moscow and other cities are in the courtroom. Unlike Moscow, where very often court hearings are held in completely empty halls, here in Grozny there are always people ready to come and support Oyub.

Chechen Republic. City Grozniy. Staropromyslovsky District Court. The bailiffs in court are not very used to the attention of journalists.

Chechen Republic. City Grozniy. Staropromyslovsky District Court. Petr Zaikin, Titiev’s defense lawyer, addressing the investigator: “Do you generally understand that as soon as an employee law enforcement commits an illegal act - and planting drugs on Oyub Salmanovich is exactly that - is this employee no different from professional criminals?”

Chechen Republic. City Grozniy. Staropromyslovsky District Court. Oyub Titiev in the courtroom.

It must be said that the Oyub case itself was put together very professionally, almost perfectly, but when you begin to understand its intricacies, you see incredible, sometimes reaching the point of absurdity, efforts of the police to hide traces of their crime and fulfill the authorities’ task of imprisoning the undesirable: twenty-three disappear from the case material evidence, including an unknown person who is now shooting a traumatic pistol, a video recorder from Titiev’s car, a geolocation device and three mobile phones Oyuba.

When asked about video recorders and video cameras along the route of Oyub’s car, NINE organizations respond that the video cameras on the buildings were not working that day! Can you imagine that the video surveillance system simultaneously failed at Sberbank and Rosselkhozbank, at the city administration, the prosecutor's office, at the Chechenenergo building, and at the FSB the cameras worked, but only to “monitor the perimeter of the fence and do not allow surveillance of nearby objects”?

You can not?

So I can’t.

But the Chechen investigation can. In general, it can do a lot of things: for example, they take samples from Titiev for the presence of drugs - swabs from the palms and cuts of nails, and the envelopes with the samples are sealed, taking Oyub to another room. And the drug is detected on the palms, but not on the nails. Why? Yes, replacing the swabs, especially in Oyub’s absence, is elementary, but this won’t work with nails - DNA analysis will interfere.

Or this pirouette: witness B. at the identification parade does not recognize Oyub, a protocol is drawn up about this, which, to the chagrin of the investigation, everyone signs. But Chechen legal thought does not sleep: the next day, the investigator leading the case is quickly transferred to the status of a witness and confrontations Titieva with him, with B., and with witnesses. And they all unanimously claim that B. Oyuba identified him. What about the protocol? No way - it turns out that the investigator simply filled it out incorrectly, and the witnesses and B. signed it without reading it. That’s not what happens in Chechnya.

Here is an excerpt from the poetic and philosophical testimony of witness B., who had previously been twice convicted of possession of marijuana, and, according to him, had repeatedly seen Oyub smoking cannabis during the day on the street between houses. B. remembered Titiev so well that he instantly recognized him from a photograph on a news website on a minibus passenger’s tablet:

Answer: Because that day I had a conversation with the nasvay seller at the kiosk. The seller began to reproach me for buying nasvay to consume it at this time, since the night from Thursday to Friday is considered a holy night. I felt ashamed, and I decided not to buy nasvay and went home. Arriving home, I prayed and thought for a long time about the seller’s words. I seriously thought about my behavior, and it was from that day that I stopped using nasvay, so I remembered that day.”

It is not clear how this proves Oyub’s guilt, but it is clear that a clumsy attempt is being made to reduce the matter to the fact that he is a drug addict.

Khadijat, employee of the Chechen branch of Memorial (name changed):

- It was very important that the office did not stop its activities, so that a place was maintained in Chechnya where people could come with their troubles. Human rights work made it possible to help one’s fellow citizens; sometimes simply writing a competent missing person report could save a life. We understood that our activities, which shed light on lawlessness, terribly irritate the leadership of the republic. Oyub always tried to save us, protect us, and dealt with the most difficult and difficult cases himself.

Svetlana Gannushkina, chairman of the Civic Assistance committee, member of the Memorial board:

- You can only engage in human rights activities in Chechnya at the risk of your life. And Oyub, going to work every day, understood perfectly well that any day could be his last. And, nevertheless, he went out in order to once again make the secret obvious, he could not help but go out.

Tanya Lokshina, Human Rights Watch:

- Oyub is a very traditional Chechen man, God-fearing, observing all Muslim traditions. And these very words - drugs, drug addict - were a terrible curse for him. He even said them in a whisper, like an obscenity. He is also literally obsessed with sports. I went to the gym almost every day, and even ran for kilometers on business trips. What kind of marijuana is this?

How long have you known him?

I think about fifteen years.

Oyub Titiev is refused to initiate a criminal case against police officers.

A few days ago I was at one of the hearings of the Stary Promyslovsky court in the city of Grozny on Oyub’s complaint against another refusal.

The court itself is located behind a fence with barbed wire, and in front of the court, as if someone is about to storm it, there are concrete gouges. Entrance to the territory is through a special gatehouse. In the courtyard, everything is buried in roses; on the building itself there are huge, almost floor-high, portraits of Putin and Kadyrov Jr. One thing is bad - the toilet is in the yard, and the toilet is completely rustic - a hole in wooden floor.

In the court itself, absolutely everyone - from the bailiff to the chairman of the court, Lipa Lechinovna - speaks politely and as equals, which, after the Moscow courts, seems like an act of unprecedented education, friendship and intelligence. Without any problems, the judge allowed me to take photographs during the trial. The hall was full: all of Oyub’s relatives always gather for each meeting: three sisters - Zharadat, Khava and Roza, brother Yakub, their many children, and sometimes grandchildren and great-grandchildren, friends and courageous colleagues come, independent journalists come from different cities of the country.

After Moscow's half-empty courts, such support seems surprising. During the break, relatives approached Oyub, who was sitting in a cage, and no one growled at them, and after the end of the meeting, the convoy did not immediately take Oyub away - he allowed his relatives to say goodbye to him.

Chechen Republic. Restaurant in the village of Kurchaloy.

Chechen Republic. The village of Kurchaloy. Zharadat, sister of Oyub Titiev, on the ruins of Oyub’s ancestral house, which fell under renovation.

Chechen Republic. The village of Kurchaloy. Museum of Akhmat Hadji Kadyrov Skullcap of Akhmat Hadji and his watch displayed in the museum.

Chechen Republic. The village of Kurchaloy. Museum of Akhmat Khadzhi Kadyrov. Akhmat Khadzhi Kadyrov with his sons. On the left is Ramzan. On the right is Zelimkhan

Diploma of the Moscow Helsinki Group Prize Laureate, which Oyub was awarded in May 2018.

Well, what else can I say about this trial?

Everything else was like in Moscow or in any other city in the country during custom trials, when the court is used not to establish the truth, but solely to settle scores: a wonderful, well-founded, passionate, humane, appealing to the conscience speech of lawyer Pyotr Zaikin, a minute muttering of a person touched by this the speech of the investigator (Zaikin simply said that from the moment law enforcement officers begin to commit crimes, they are no different from persons who are professionally engaged in criminal activities), the facelessness of the prosecutor, and the judge’s decision to refuse. He read it, however, very clearly, so that every word was audible and understandable, and allowed the windows in the hall to be opened wide. The meeting lasted two hours...

Because there are a lot of small truths stuck inside the big lie, the lie itself will not turn into truth,” one relative of Oyub said after the trial.

And then his sisters and I went to Kurchaloy, the village where their parents returned in 1957, after deportation, and began to build the house in which Oyub lived his whole life.

This house no longer exists, it fell under an all-Chechen renovation, the main difference of which from Moscow is that no one is interested in the opinion of the residents at all, they are simply told: you lived here - and now you will be there. And no one is against it. This “there” does not always happen right away; sometimes you have to live with relatives for several months while waiting. But there is time to dismantle the old housing yourself and drag everything you need from there - often they give so little time for relocation that not everyone has time to do it. In general, of course, not like in 1944 during the deportation, but still forced, and this makes it unpleasant...

Relatives began to dismantle the house after Oyub’s arrest, the roof was removed from it, it gapes with windows without glass through which recently glued ones are visible bright wallpaper.

Oyub will never enter his childhood home again.

New house for the Oyub family, neither good nor bad, there is a whole street of such houses, and in place of the old one, they will either build some kind shopping mall, or they will expand the territory adjacent to the new gigantic and completely disproportionate to the village of Kurchaloy mosque.

This is the local “road to the temple”.

For this purpose, a park with ugly grottoes, opened just a few years ago, will be demolished, and even the brand new buildings of the sports school and the Akhmat Hadji Kadyrov State Museum, which displays funny photographs of Akhmat Hadji of the sixties in bell-bottomed pants, his beaded Islamic skullcap and dishes made from which he ate somewhere.

Right before the afternoon prayer, a man appears near the Kurchaloev mosque with a small table, on which he busily places bottles with multi-colored liquids shimmering in the sun - as it turns out, these are perfumes, two hundred rubles for two milliliters. Some, garnet-colored, are called “Blood of the Shahid.”

You can smell it,” says the seller and opens the lid of the bottle.

I smell it. The people standing around did too. None of us like the smell of a suicide bomber’s blood; it seems too languid and artificial.

Maybe you can smell something else? – the seller asks hopefully. - Look, Chanel is also Opium.

Also two hundred? – I clarify.

“Yeah,” the seller replies.

Do they take well?

They take it normally,” the seller sums up our meeting and loses all interest in me.

Endless renovation and construction of absurd multi-storey structures that disrupt the usual way of life is taking place throughout Chechnya on a kind of universal scale. And this is not only the laundering of exorbitant money, but also the personal whims of Kadyrov, who believes in all seriousness that everything around him is his.

It’s like this here, no matter what you ask:

Who owns it?

“To him,” they answer meaningfully.

Him too.

What about this?

It is to Him, but still to Him.

And it feels like you are in the sole domain of the padishah, who, depending on the mood and location of the stars in the sky, can allow his people to live and even sometimes breathe a little - or maybe not.

And, of course, the construction of skyscrapers, which have become sort of like business card Chechnya, redrawing the usual horizon lines and violating traditional silhouettes is part of the work to erase the memory of the difficult history of Chechnya in the 20th century - about the deportation, about two terrible wars and in general about everything that happened within these old walls and courtyards.

I look at the crazy architectural delights that reach into the sky in the center of Grozny, at the new, the size of the French Pantheon, dome of something as yet unknown - they say that this is a theater to which the next non-rebka will be brought - at the incredible size of the mosque, stuck around throughout Chechnya, and I think about the, alas, so far unfulfilled dream of Oyub Titiev - the creation of a laboratory for identifying the bodies of those killed during the two Chechen wars and after them, because there are graves with unidentified bodies of Russian citizens in almost every Chechen village.

For a mother living in a shack and waiting for her disappeared son, this laboratory is more important than the mansions and skyscrapers being built here, as Oyub himself said about this at a meeting of human rights activists with the President in 2010 during Medvedev’s thaw.

But no one here is particularly interested in mothers from shacks, the memory of two the most terrible wars states against their people are persecuted by everyone possible ways, and they are even called here not wars, but bashfully “actions” or operations.” In all of Chechnya there is not a single monument to the fallen CIVILIAN residents. Their exact amount and the names are still unknown. There is also no monument to the missing. And not even the killed children.

I'm talking, of course, about public place memory, reminding everyone of the suffering of the people and the crimes of the authorities against them.

There is a general problem with public memory here. Chechnya is the only republic affected by deportation where the day of eviction (February 23, 1944) is not a day of memory and mourning. Now in Chechnya it is ordered to mourn on May 10, when Kadyrov Sr. is commemorated. It turns out that the death of one, even if outstanding person, here it is considered more significant and painful than the tragedy of the entire people...

Chechen Republic. The village of Kurchaloy. Museum of Akhmat Khadzhi Kadyrov. Photo of Akhmat Khadzhi Kadyrov. Kazakhstan. 1960s.

Chechen Republic. Grozny. Sewing studio on the market.

Chechen Republic. Grozny. A rug on the market.

Chechen Republic. The village of Kurchaloy. A salesperson with a perfume table before the start of prayer.

Chechen Republic. City of Argun. Population thirty-six and a half thousand people. Mosque named after Aimani Kadyrova, mother of Ramzan Kadyrov.

Oyub Titiev is precisely the one who missed this tragedy through himself and his life.

Before the court hearing in Oyub’s case, I conveyed several questions to him through my lawyer. This is what he replied:

“How did you become involved in human rights advocacy? You were a school physical education teacher, weren’t you?

By coincidence: war, fighting, purges, extrajudicial executions - these are the reasons.

What is your ideal human rights activist?

An ideal human rights defender must love his country, his people and fight for better life in this country.

In your area, as you know, people not only live long, but also remember for a long time. Why is the cult of personality being revived in the Caucasus, many of whose peoples suffered so much from repression during Stalin’s times?

The people simply do not have the strength to resist; they are tired of wars and lawlessness.”

Stas Dmitrevsky, employee of the Natalia Estemirova Documentation Center:

- After the death of Natasha, any employee of the Chechen office of Memorial is a person who consciously took a high degree of risk. Oyub stood at gunpoint in the literal sense of the word. I don't know how many people he saved the lives of, but I am one of those people.

Before leaving Chechnya, I went to the most big mosque the city of Grozny, the size of which I have seen only in dwarf Brunei. To the right on the balustrade there was some kind of fenced-off nook, curtained with a large piece of fabric. Inside the nook were scarves, and on a hanger hung long, floor-length dresses for inappropriately dressed visitors. Several young women, having changed into dresses, did not go inside, but began taking pictures of each other in front of the mosque and giggling cheerfully.

A woman sitting on a stone bench, in a harsh and dissatisfied voice, ordered me to pull my shirt collar closer, lower my sleeves completely, and leave all my things under the bench.

“And the number,” I asked rather stupidly.

They didn’t answer, I stepped through the ranks of the women’s and men's shoes and entered the mosque, repeating to myself, just in case, three words I knew: Allah Akbar and Bismillah. Words were of no use, no one paid any attention to me and did not force me to pray.

Inside the mosque it was cool and not crowded, despite it being Friday. On the second, women's, floor there were about thirty women: several were praying very quietly, three girls in black were solving some kind of quest about Saudi Arabia, and near the balustrade hanging over central hall mosque, a young woman, also dressed in black, was dozing, stretched out on the carpet. Beside her, the iPhone was quietly glowing with text messages. It was a very relaxed and pleasant space, almost homely, without Kadyrov’s oversight, more like a cozy home.

It was wonderful.

Court hearings in the case of Oyub Titiev continue.

The building of the Staropromyslovsky District Court in Grozny is located behind a high fence with barbed wire, in front of which there are concrete gouges. Every hearing on Titiev’s case is attended by his relatives - brother Yakub, sisters Zharadat, Khava and Roza - and friends and colleagues who do not believe in Oyub’s guilt. At the end of May, Titiev’s nephew was detained on suspicion of drug possession - the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, spoke about this in his Telegram channel.

In Moscow, court hearings on political cases are held in completely empty halls. The courthouse in Grozny is filled with journalists and human rights activists. After Titiev’s detention, Kadyrov called human rights activists “enemies of the people.” “There is no place for such people in Chechnya,” he said.

Employees of the Memorial human rights center wearing T-shirts with Titiev’s image and calls for his release. Titiev headed the Grozny branch of Memorial in 2009. His predecessor in this position, Natalya Estemirova, was killed. The investigation considers human rights activities to be the main motive. The case has not been solved.

Bailiffs in Grozny are not used to media attention.

In May, the court considered the complaint of Titiev’s lawyer Pyotr Zaikin against the investigator’s refusal to initiate a criminal case against the police officers who detained the human rights activist. The defense believes that the police planted drugs on Tetiv. Lawyer Petr Zaikin (center), addressing the investigator: “Do you generally understand that as soon as a law enforcement officer commits an illegal act - and planting drugs on Oyub Salmanovich is exactly that - this officer is no longer any different from professional criminals?”

Oyub Titiev in the courtroom. The human rights activist previously worked as a physical education teacher; he lived in the republic during both Chechen wars, and since 2000 he has worked at Memorial and the Civil Assistance Committee. There he was involved in monitoring human rights violations, protecting Muslims and humanitarian projects.

Oyub Titiev is taken out of the courtroom

Argun. Population 36.5 thousand people. The city suffered greatly during two Chechen wars and is now almost completely rebuilt - on federal funds. But it is customary to thank Kadyrov for the restoration of the republic in the region. The three vertical steles in the background are part of the new mosque named after Ramzan Kadyrov's mother, Aimani.

Chechnya is one of the largest recipients of federal subsidies in Russia. In 2018, the region will receive 28 billion rubles in federal subsidies. 84% of regional budget revenues come from gratuitous receipts from the federal center. In 2011, when asked where the republic got its money, Kadyrov simply answered: “Allah gives.” In the photo - one of the towers of the Grozny City complex

The village of Kurchaloy. Central entrance to the stadium. Kurchaloy is the administrative center of the district in which the Kadyrovs’ ancestral village of Tsentaroy is located. Perhaps this is why portraits of the first president of Chechnya, Akhmat Khadzhi Kadyrov, hang everywhere in Kurchaloy; there is a small museum named after him, which displays funny photographs of Kadyrov Sr. from the 1960s in bell-bottom pants, his Muslim cap and dishes from which he was somewhere ate The inscription in Chechen in Russian means: “Welcome, blessed month of Ramadan!”

A girl on Akhmat Khadzhi Kadyrov Street in Kurchaloy.

Zharadat near Oyub’s ancestral house in Kurchaloi. The house fell under local renovation, which differs from Moscow in that in Chechnya people are not asked if they want to move, but are simply commanded: you will go here, and you will go here. Along with the house, quite a lot came under renovation large territory with a newly built park, a sports complex and even a museum of Akhmat Hadji. Everything will be demolished in order to develop the surrounding area of ​​the enormously huge - for 5 thousand people - new mosque.

Titiev's sisters: Khava, Roza and Zharadat in Khava's house

Chechen Republic. City Grozniy. Minarets of the Heart of Chechnya mosque on Putin Avenue.

Chechen Republic. The village of Kurchaloy. A salesperson with a perfume table before the start of prayer. Perfumes are not directly related to prayer, although some have surprising names, for example, “Blood of the Shahid.” They are also deep red in color.

Chechen Republic. City Grozniy. Passers-by near the model Eiffel Tower on Putin Avenue.

Chechen Republic. City Grozniy. Billboard dedicated to the World Cup. The Egyptian national team will train in Chechnya. During the World Cup in Chechnya, the trial of Titiev will continue. All evidence in the case is based on the testimony of Chechen police officers.

I constantly think about Alexei Malobrodsky, handcuffed in a hospital room.

And I’m also thinking about the fact that yesterday evening in Lenkom there was The Cherry Orchard with Zbruev, in Sovremennik - the play The Sun Walks Along the Boulevards, dedicated to the legendary creators of this theater, on Taganka - the unfading Tartuffe, and in the Moscow Art Theater something was on, and on Malaya Bronnaya, and in the Mossovet, and in the RAMT, and in the Youth Theater and more in almost one hundred and seventy Moscow theaters.

And not one of the theaters - not one! - did not cancel the performance.
Didn't go on stage in any of the theaters main director and did not address the audience with a groan, with a word, with a verb.
Not even on any Moscow stage was there an action of solidarity with the most worthy man tormented by the authorities.
There was not a single gesture of compassion in any theater foyer.
Not one of the great actors addressed the respectable audience during intermission and reminded them of the handcuffs on a man with a seriously ill heart.

THE SPACE OF THE RUSSIAN THEATER remained deaf to human pain.
THE SPACE OF THE RUSSIAN THEATER turned out to be incapable of collective solidarity.
How is this possible? What is this?
Where are you, theater masters, all together?
Where are you, theater, as a collective action in the struggle for a person who, as the hero of one famous play and played by many used to say, sounds proudly?
But you are not there.
You remain silent.
And there is nothing behind this except sticky fear and banal cowardice...

Why the hell do I need you, such a theater? A theater that from the stage talks about goodness, honor, solidarity, but in life is a coward to stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of one of its comrades?

What would it be like for you if everyone stood up collectively, publicly, from the stage?
That's even interesting.
Your theaters would be closed, or what? Would Volchek be retired? Wouldn't Zakharov be made a confidant of the President next time? Would Zhenovach be transferred to a remote province by the sea as the leader of an amateur performance?
Aren't you funny?
And even if so, then so what? Doesn’t humanistic theater say that human life comes first?
And don’t tell me how you can’t risk the whole troupe for one thing. Because in fact, the only way it is necessary is for everyone to take risks - for one.
Because that’s the only way they help their own people.

You don't have Yuri Petrovich. He could do it. And his Taganka would stand up for Malobrodsky.

No, I still don’t understand how it is possible for the Patriarch, priests, other believers, great doctors - Roshal, for example, or the Minister of Health Veronika Skvortsova, subtle actors - Mashkov, Mironov, or, for example, Piotrovsky, director museum of world significance, or women are different - so how is it possible that all of them, these seemingly humanitarian people, without batting an eyebrow, without batting an eye, dutifully listened for an hour and a half to the story of how we will kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill and on the way to this killing we will kill some more people in need of help, because the money that we could spend on treating them and saving them from death, we will spend on building metal nuclear monsters with which we will kill!

And no one ran out of the hall, even pretending to be sick, or protested either during or after this militaristic madness.

And no one raised their hands to the sky and exclaimed - stop! Remember how human blood smells, how decaying corpses stink, how eyes glaze over and what is alive becomes dead before your eyes, and there is no turning back...
Nobody.
No one.
All cowards.
All are murderers.
Everyone applauds the war.
She loves to come when they applaud her like that.
Kadyrnya covered Russia.

Photo by Dmitry Azarov / Kommersant

I went here, citizens, to the Country of the Yellow Devil, and to its very heart. To Washington. Even the State Department saw it once.

I traveled at my own expense, on personal business, which, of course, doesn’t suit me anymore, but oh well, there’s nowhere to take tests anyway.
And she returned from there, I must tell you, in the most perfect state of semolina porridge and complete relaxation, just like a non-person became from these eternal smiles and hypocritical sushi-mushi and deliberate politeness, just so as not to lose the client. Well, I come, say, to a supermarket, like our “Perekrestok” or “Fifth Continent”, or maybe it was licked straight from them. Of their own, the stump is clear, they never had anything of their own. Foreigners did everything to them, they told me this many times on our TV, and the TV itself was invented by an emigrant from Russia Zvorykin, even a small child here knows this. (About Zvorykin, by the way, the honest truth, it’s a pity that he did it there, and not in the Motherland, she did not give him such a chance, the Motherland).

So, I come to the supermarket and, let’s say, go to the culinary section. And there lies all sorts of different things, and, in particular, something made either from fish or seafood. Well, like such cute meatballs. It’s just not clear to me whether it’s raw or if you can just buy it directly and chew it. And behind the counter stands this blackish grandmother in big glasses. Well, I ask her, auntie, is this raw or can it be eaten?

And so, no, to shave me off, to say, can’t you see, or something, take off your eyes, put on glasses, but can’t see anything, so that I immediately understand that it’s raw and needs to be cooked, so this grandmother detains me for a few minutes with something like this (if she spoke Russian, it would sound exactly like this):

Oh, daughter, now I’ll tell you everything. Here are these cutlets, they’re made from crab, when you want to cook them, grease your baking sheet with oil, preferably olive oil, sunflower oil won’t work here, and even better, I’ll tell you my grandmother’s secret, so put a piece of parchment or tracing paper what, and the cage is already in sight. And straight into the microwave for three minutes.

And, the American bastard, he doesn’t even ask if I have a microwave, that is - any normal person of ours understands - he humiliates me on a national basis. Well, I smile in response, as is their custom, and even, overpowering myself and despising her for being a creep, I ask, did she try it herself or what?

Well, of course, my daughter, she says, she tried it. So delicious, you'll lick your fingers. But this, daughter, is only if you love fish and seafood.

No, I say. “I just asked.”

Well, I think now she’ll show her real face and yell after all so that I don’t distract her with all sorts of stupid questions.

And she answered:

Well, that's right. If you are interested, you should always ask.

What's it like, huh? Just some kind of arch-hypocrisy. There’s just so much people won’t do to bewitch a client and squeeze money out of him.

And right by the end of the trip I was yearning for our honesty. Some enemies of Russia confuse it with rudeness, but these are enemies. And I really wanted to hit him in the forehead.

And the next day, after I escaped from the American sticky and tenacious embrace, I went to the dry cleaner. And I lost the receipt. And I confess my guilt - immediately, from the threshold, I rush up to the counter, flickering and dejected.

Sorry, I say, I lost the receipt.

Give me your passport,” the receptionist tells me, looking through me high into the wall behind me.

So, I don’t have a passport with me, but I have all sorts of other documents with photographs and stamps,” I mumble.

Others won't go! - she answers victoriously, well, as usual they answer a defeated enemy. - Must be filled out special form with the document number.

So I know the passport number, the series, and the department code. And when it was issued, and by whom, and I can describe the things to you down to the last detail,” I mumble again.

WILL NOT FOLLOW! - she snaps. And just like Marshal Zhukov on a white horse herself.

Okay, I give up. - Just show me, please, the trousers that I handed over, there was a hole in them, I just want to see how they sewed them up, the trousers are not mine.

No, he says, I won’t show it.

Well, here I start to push, I’m still in my homeland.

So, I say, am I violating the Constitution of the Russian Federation by asking you to look at your trousers?

Of course,” she answers with knowledge of the Constitution. - You’re still violating it!

And he looks so that the boa constrictor’s gaze on the rabbit fades.

But as? - Well, I’m not done with my finger either.

“No way,” she replies. - None of your business.

Well, let me see, since it’s none of my business, I’m delivering a completely absurdist text.

Yeah, what if I show them to you, and YOU GRAB YOUR PANTS AND RUN HARD WITH THEM, huh?

Inspector. Silent scene.

And here is the epilogue:

I lose the battle and trudge home, imagining on the way how I would run headlong along the Garden Ring with my trousers at the ready.

No, America will never defeat Russia. Imagination is not enough.

In the photo: the author with the Capitol in the background

BOOK

In the spring of 2014, independent journalist and photographer Victoria Ivleva traveled across Ukraine, covering it all from Donetsk to Ivano-Frankivsk. Excerpts from travel notes Ivleva posted it on her Facebook page, and then compiled it into a book in which text and photographs complement each other. What the neighboring country lived and thought about between the Maidan and the war, where the roots of the terrible events taking place before our eyes go, is what Victoria Ivleva is trying to find out during her trip to Ukraine on the eve of the war.

WHAT IS THE FEE FOR?

The book was published in Kyiv in a small edition. Our task is to publish 1000 copies of the book in Russia. For this, an amount of 550,000 rubles is required. If it turns out that more people want to have this book and more money is collected, we will increase the circulation.

QUOTE

Victoria Ivleva:

How unnecessary, worthless, petty and unimportant everything seems in comparison with this rolling horror of war, clattering louder and louder, rumbling more and more unceremoniously, pulling more and more into its orbit. more people. What? How? How? When? What can I do to stop this? Nothing. No way. No way. Never.

My children will judge me and they will be right.

I am guilty.

And don't wash yourself off. Don't stop staring. Do not wipe with a handkerchief.

« This book is a unique fusion of words and images. The author absorbs the whole person: his appearance, the inhabited landscape, the furnishings of the house, and what is asked from within - the spoken word. Replies from fellow travelers, shouts from the crowd, memories of very old people; laconic and reliable, like black and white photographs, stories of Maidan participants; the thoughts of people trying to make up their minds in the turmoil of the present; letters from schoolchildren from east to west and from west to east and from different parts of Ukraine to Russia - the fault lines have already been marked and have passed through every soul. But every soul still lingers on the threshold, deafened by the roar of time, and tries to listen to the quiet voice of conscience. Capturing such a moment is infinitely important, because it is evidence of human freedom and responsibility."

VICTORIA IVLEVA

Photographer, writing journalist. World Press Photo laureate for reporting from inside the Chernobyl reactor, nominee for the Andrei Sakharov Prize for the story of orphans left in Russia because of the Dima Yakovlev Law. One of the few Russian journalists who is equally skilled with pen and camera. Published in leading media in Russia and abroad. For eight years she was a special correspondent for Novaya Gazeta.

An exhibition of photographs by Victoria Ivleva, “The Apotheosis of War,” was shown at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, as well as in 10 other cities in Russia, Tbilisi and Kyiv.

She worked in almost all conflicts during the collapse of the USSR, was in the war in Rwanda, and worked a lot with humanitarian organizations in Africa, participating in the delivery of food. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, he has been involved in volunteer activities, mainly evacuating civilians from the combat zone, while filming stories for the Dozhd TV channel.

EXCERPT FROM A BOOK

“The entire hour and a half before Zhitomir, across from me on the train, a woman of immense size sat in a jacket made of what looked like nubuck. She had a colorful scarf on her head, hastily tied under her chin. The woman was about fifty years old, she sat motionless, thinking about something of her own. , only occasionally wiping her tired face with her large, overworked, monumental hand, she looked completely simple, the kind the great actress Mordyukova loved to portray in films...

And suddenly I thought: woman, you can’t even imagine what a happy quarter of a century you have lived! You weren't shaking with horror, what's yours? only son will be called up for military service and he will be sent to Chechen war, first or second, to the city of Grozny, straight to the assault, as many young Russian boys ended up; your brother did not serve on the submarine that sank, but the signals from which continued for several days, not allowing humanity to sleep; your child could not be burned in a captured school in Beslan, and you could never be captured by terrorists, because they never existed in your country. You didn’t work at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, and an avalanche of raging water didn’t knock the life out of your big body... Your power changed all the time - maybe they were all bad, but at least they were different. You were not dispersed at rallies and demonstrations, they did not stand on your throat so that you could only wheeze... You simply lived in your half-asleep, peaceful and affectionate country, which shook itself once in two thousand and four and then again plunged into a pleasant slumber with orange dreams. For a whole quarter of a century no one touched or raped you at all, they just stole from you selflessly, on a grand scale.

Lucky girl!

And then, imperceptibly, from this peace and non-violence a whole unflogged generation grew up, a generation of those who were not taught to fear.

It came out onto the Maidan as soon as the first blood was shed."

PHOTOS FROM OTHER PROJECTS OF VICTORIA IVLEVA

Angola. Playground

Zaporozhye. Uganda. Boy Soldier

Tajikistan. Portrait of a refugee with a child

Afghanistan. A refugee and her son visiting local residents.