Faces
We selected only 16 individuals out of several hundred political prisoners in Russia to be the subjects of our exhibition. During the time the exhibition has been running, five of them were released through prisoner exchanges (see the "The Released" page), and one — Alexey Navalny —was killed in prison.
Grigory Melkonyants
...and hundreds of other names.
Please read also the text by Victoria Ivleva about what a Russian prison is today...
Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev
Alexey Gorinov
Deputy
7 years of imprisonment
On March 15, 2022, deputy Alexey Gorinov participated in a completely ordinary meeting of the Council of Deputies of the Krasnoselsky district in the center of Moscow. One of the items on the agenda was the issue of holding a children's drawing contest. "What kind of competition dedicated to the Children's Day can we talk about when we have children dying every day? For information there are about a hundred children dead in Ukraine. I believe that all the efforts of civil society should be aimed only at stopping the war and withdrawing Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine," Gorinov said there. The head of the Council of Deputies Elena Kotenochkina supported her colleague.
The Investigative Committee of Russia drew attention to this short conversation and opened a criminal case against both deputies under the article on "fakes". Kotenochkina managed to leave Russia, but Gorinov stayed. Not even because he decided to challenge the system, but because he didn't think he was in any danger. "I was not harassed, threatened or even hinted at any danger until my arrest. I still wonder why the authorities in the face of law enforcement agencies suddenly came on to me. And even so furiously," – he said in November 2022.
Alexey Gorinov was a deputy back in Soviet times: a junior researcher at the Moscow Institute of Engineers of Geodesy, Aerial Photography and Cartography was elected to the district Council of the Dzerzhinsk district of Moscow. He remembers those times with nostalgia — it was much freer than it is now. Shortly after Yeltsin crushed the resistance of the parliament with tanks in 1993, Gorinov, outraged by this retreat from democracy, ceased to be a deputy. He became a successful lawyer, starting in the 2000s to help detainees at rallies for free.
At the trial, Gorinov behaved with dignity, even in the cell for the defendants, he held a single picket, holding up a sheet of paper A4 with the text: "Do you still need this war?" The bailiff tried to close Gorinov with his powerful body so that no one would see the poster, and the judge sentenced the deputy to 7 years in prison.
Gorinov became the first person to receive a real sentence under a new article in the Russian criminal code that punishes "fakes" about the Russian army.
Photo by Vladislav Lonshakov
Alexey Nuriev
fireman
Roman Nasryev
policeman
19 years of imprisonment
On August 1, 2023, Russian media reported that 11 military enlistment offices were set on fire in Russia in just one day. In many cases, the arsonists were elderly people: for example, in Arkhangelsk, a 76-year-old pensioner attacked the military enlistment office, and in Kaluga – a 78-year-old pensioner. All of them claim that they were forced to do this by phone scammers either by threatening the health of relatives, or by promising to write off loans.
But, of course, there are also ideological arsonists of military enlistment offices in Russia. Such on October 11, 2022, residents of the city of Bakal in the Chelyabinsk region the commander of the department of the fire and rescue unit, 37-year-old Alexey Nuriev and 28-year-old Roman Nasryev tried to set fire to the building of the local military enlistment office. Nothing happened: the fire was extinguished by the guard, and only a fragment of linoleum was damaged.
However, the attackers at the military enlistment office were not only detained, but also tried for committing a terrorist act, which resulted in a huge time frame: the court sent both to prison for 19 years.
Relatives describe both friends from Bakal as family people who liked to spend time with their children. Nuriyev has a young daughter and a 19-year-old stepson. Nasryev raised a 4-year-old daughter, and a small son was born when his father was already in jail. In his testimony, Nasryev says that his attitude to the war in Ukraine began to change in the late spring of 2022 due to the fact that "a lot of the civilian population of Ukraine began to die." The friends were prompted to arson by the mobilization announced in Russia: Nuriev was very worried about his stepson of military age.
In July 2023, human rights activists from Memorial recognized Nuriyev and Nasryev as political prisoners, although before that it was believed that the violent nature of the action prevented them from obtaining this status. However, this time Memorial decided that "the court did not prove either intent to create a danger to human lives, or that they wanted to destabilize the activities of the authorities," and "their actions can be qualified under a lighter article on intentional damage to property."
Nuriyev and Nasryev also do not consider their action to be terrorism. In court Nasryev said: "I knew from social networks that by performing such actions, people express their disagreement with the mobilization and the "special military operation". From conversations with others, I concluded that such actions do not cause fear among the people, since no one has ever suffered as a result of them. Moreover, people are sympathetic to this position of disagreement."
Photo by Alexandra Astakhova
Michael Krieger
Activist
7 years of imprisonment
After the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the song "Chervona Kalina" became one of the symbols of resistance to the Russian invaders. The march of Ukrainian legionnaires during the First World War in February 2022 was performed by the soloist of the hip-hop and rock band "Boombox", who signed up for the territorial defense of Kiev. Later, Pink Floyd used a fragment of his song in their composition Hey Hey Rise Up, the funds from the sale of which went to humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
It is not surprising that soon in Russia they started to prosecute people for the performance of this song. In Crimea, due to the fact that "Chervona Kalina" was played at a wedding, the restaurant owner received 15 days in prison, a DJ and a dancer – 9 days each, the groom's mother – 5 days, and the bride's mother was fined 40 thousand rubles.
Mikhail Krieger, an activist of the Russian anti-Putin movement, sang "Chervona Kalina" while standing in a "cage "in a Russian courtroom, when the prosecutor asked to send him to prison for 9 years" for publicly justifying terrorism and "publicly inciting hatred and hostility." Krieger's fault was that he wrote in his Facebook two posts. In the first, he said: "We can state that in our country, monsters from the Cheka have seized power over people. And they eat people with a crunch, smacking their lips," and called a hero a man who in 2018 blew himself up in the FSB building in Arkhangelsk.
In the second post, Krieger said the following about Putin: "Believe me, when and if I live to see this KGB crum hanged, I will fight as hard as I can for the right to participate in this spirit-raising event."
Krieger is not the most visible, but very active participant in the democratic and human rights movement since the late 80s of the XX century. He regularly participated in rallies and campaigns in support of political prisoners. Krieger is an excavator operator by profession, and in recent years he has been engaged in renting construction equipment and delivering food in his own car. Although you can't call Krieger an opposition leader, the security forces really wanted to isolate him if they convicted him in 2023 for words written in social networks a few years earlier.
We can say that Krieger voiced what many people in Russia think, but are afraid to say, so as not to end up where the activist ended up. In May 2023, the court sentenced him to 7 years in prison.
Photo by Igor Podgorny
Yuri Dmitriev
Human rights defender
15 years of imprisonment
On July 1, 1997, human rights activist and local historian Yuri Dmitriev discovered a mass grave site of victims of the Great Terror near Medvezhegorsk, called Sandarmokh. Later, Dmitriev headed the Karelian branch of Memorial, a society dedicated to the study of political repression in the USSR and modern Russia. After Putin, a native of the KGB, came to power, Memorial was persecuted. In 2014, it was recognized as a "foreign agent", and in 2021 it was simply liquidated.
Criminal cases against the organization's leaders and human rights defenders have become one of the methods of intimidation and pressure on Memorial employees. On the night of June 27, 2018, Dmitriev was detained and charged with manufacturing child pornography and illegal possession of weapons. The formal reason was photos of his adopted daughter, which were made for the health diary and reports to the guardianship authorities.
The court sessions lasted 5 years. Dmitriev was initially acquitted, but the prosecutor's office appealed the verdict. A new criminal case was opened against the human rights defender, this time under the article on sexual violence committed against a minor.
Dmitriev was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison, but then – an unprecedented case — the term was increased up to 15 years. "Dmitriev was retaliated for the fact that the historian called those whose portraits are now usually hang in power offices next to Putin’s as murderers. And he proved the crimes of the chekists of the past, who became idols for the current ones," – journalist Renat Davletgildeev commented on the verdict.
The Memorial Human Rights Center became one of the three winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. After the outbreak of war, most of its employees were forced to leave Russia. Criminal cases were initiated against several people remaining in the country, and the organization's website was blocked in Russia.
Photo from social networks
Natalia Filonova
Activist, pensioner
2 years and 10 months of imprisonment
In Buryatia, where pensioner Natalia Filonova lives, the mobilization was tough — men were grabbed right on the streets and sent to military enlistment offices. Police officers went to their homes and, after giving the person half an hour to pack things, took them away.
Natalia has been fighting for people's rights all her life. She published a newspaper and collaborated with opposition political movements. After February 24, 2022, she took an anti-war stance. In April, Filonova boarded a city bus, saw the pasted letter Z, which has become a symbol of Russian aggression in Ukraine, and demanded to remove it. The driver called the police instead.
In September of the same year, she was detained at a rally against mobilization. The state prosecutor claimed that a 60-year-old woman then attacked four police officers who were with her in a police van. They also insisted that Natalia had hit one of them in the face with a pen, and had broken a finger to another one.
After her arrest, Natalia was initially placed under house arrest because she had a disabled foster child in her care. But tragedy struck. Her husband, with whom they live in different villages, was hospitalized with a heart attack. The son, who was staying with his father at the time, was left alone. Natalia warned the inspector that she would leave her apartment and went to rescue her relatives.
As a punishment, the court sent the pensioner to a pre-trial detention center, and her son to an orphanage. Later, he was able to send a message from there that other children were bullying him on the direct instructions of the director of the institution.
Filonova went on a hunger strike, but this did not lead to anything: on August 31, 2023, Filonova was sentenced to 2 years and 10 months in prison.
Photo by Alexandra Astakhova
Dmitry Ivanov
Activist, student
8.5 years of imprisonment
On June 1, 2022, Dmitry Ivanov was supposed to defend his diploma at the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Moscow State University — the main university in Russia. Ivanov missed this important event because he was in a special detention center, where he was sent for 25 days for repeated violation of the rules of holding a rally. Upon the last day of his arrest, the security officials detained Ivanov on a criminal case. In July, he was expelled from the university as not having passed the state final certification.
People who know Ivanov claim that he has a talent for exact sciences, but the quiet life of a programmer was not to his liking. Ivanov attended his first rally in 2017: then in Moscow, people took to the streets because of the investigation of Alexey Navalny about the corruption of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. As he was a minor, his mother took him away from the police station that time and asked him not to attend any more rallies. But Ivanov has already decided that he must fight for justice: in 2018, when dozens of MSU students and teachers opposed the creation of a fan zone for the World Cup under the windows of the main building of the university, he created an anonymous Telegram channel "Protest MSU".
Ivanov supported all political prisoners both on the Internet and at court sessions, and went to almost all public actions. The police were very annoyed by him, and they responded to his activity with constant arrests: in 2020-2022, he spent more than 100 days in special detention centers.
When the war broke out in Ukraine, the security forces had the opportunity to get rid of the annoying activist. Ivanov was accused of spreading "fakes" about the Russian army, holding 11 posts in his Telegram channel: mostly other people's posts about the events in Bucha, Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities against him. "All the accusations against me look absurd, and the article on which I am being tried, in principle, should not exist. It is easy and pleasant for me to take a consistent position and tell the truth," – Ivanov said at the trial.
The materials of the Ivanov’s case state: "By his criminal actions, Ivanov D. A. misled an unlimited circle of people regarding the legality of the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation during a special military operation, undermined the authority and discredited the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to society, causing citizens who read the above statement to feel anxiety, fear, trepidation and insecurity from the authorities".
In March 2023, 23-year-old Ivanov was sentenced for this "terrible" crime to 8.5 years in prison. To recover at the university and defend the diploma without re-completing all studies is possible only within 5 years.
Photo by Sota
Maria Ponomarenko
Activist, journalist
6 years of imprisonment
Maria Ponomarenko became involved in political activism when she was over 40 years old. In 2020, she became interested in the problems of former pupils of orphanages who, due to corruption, did not receive their proper housing. At the same time, she got a job in the online project Rusnews, known for its streams from protest actions in Russia.
The activist managed to get criminal cases opened against the officials. "She stirred up such a hornet's nest. There was everything: threats to the family, calls. Apart from fines and security forces. I even told her sometimes: "Mash, maybe you will calm down? I'm worried about you." And she said to me: "No, I will go all the way," said her friend and activist Yana Drobnohod.
After that, Ponomarenko was detained several times at various protest actions. For the video "Putin resign! Khabarovsk, I'm with you" in TikTok, in which she called the president a "cunt" for not fulfilling his promises, she was fined 50 thousand rubles (then about 500 euros).
Ponomarenko spoke out against the war in Ukraine. Already in April 2022, she was detained in St. Petersburg for a Telegram post where she wrote that the Russian military had bombed a drama theater in Mariupol. Since the Russian Federation denies its involvement in this crime, Ponomarenko was charged under the article about "fakes" about the Russian army. The journalist herself is sure that this is how she got revenge for the fight against corruption in Barnaul.
Her daughter Ekaterina describes her mother as: "A strong woman, she is confident in herself, she will break through everything." Thus, in the pre-trial detention center, Ponomarenko continued to fight: she told other prisoners the truth about the war, spoke out against pressure from the prison administration, and in early September 2022 even cut her wrists.
Ponomarenko had problems not only with the authorities. When she was unexpectedly released from the pre-trial detention center to house arrest, she found herself in the same apartment with her ex-husband, a supporter of Putin and the war in Ukraine. One day he almost strangled her, and Ponomarenko voluntarily returned to prison, not wanting to be in the same room with such a person (the address for house arrest is assigned by the court and it is almost impossible to change it).
In February 2023, Ponomarenko was sentenced to 6 years in prison. Ponomarenko's two daughters were virtually left without parents: the mother is in prison for her anti-war stance, and the father went to fight with Ukraine.
Alexei Liptser
Lawyer
Awaiting sentencing,
faces up to 6 years in prison
Lawyers working on political cases in Russia have long been akin to doctors in a hospice. Just as a terminally ill patient cannot be saved from death, a political prisoner cannot be saved from punishment. However, lawyers can alleviate suffering and provide moral support—unlike family members, they have unrestricted access to their clients.
The number of acquittals in political cases in Russia is approaching zero. Judges pretend to conduct an adversarial trial, but in reality, everything is decided as soon as the case is transferred to court. It is unthinkable to acquit someone who “discredits” the Russian army or is accused of treason.
A suspended sentence or community service is now viewed as an acquittal. For a 3 or 4-year prison sentence instead of the maximum 7 years, a lawyer might be awarded a medal.
In 2023, Alexei Navalny was sentenced to the full 19 years for leading the “extremist organization” FBK. Yes, it’s harsh. But since Navalny’s arrest in 2021, his lawyers have done everything they could. They also managed to pass Navalny’s messages, allowing him to run social media even from a high-security prison, giving hope to opponents of the Putin regime.
Alexei Liptser, 37, stopped defending Navalny in the summer of 2022, but in October 2023, he, along with colleagues Igor Sergunin and Vadim Kobzev, was sent to pre-trial detention. The investigation claims that the lawyers, using their status, “ensured regular transmission of information” between FBK participants and Navalny, allowing him to “continue performing the functions of a leader and head of an extremist community.”
“Memorial” declared all three lawyers political prisoners, noting that the investigation is not even attempting to prove their involvement in extremist crimes but simply wants to “intimidate the legal community and ensure that those accused and convicted in political cases are left without qualified legal assistance.” Navalny called the arrest of his defenders “demonstratively unlawful” and said they are being persecuted “for excellent and professional work.”
“Before, even the KGB didn’t reach dissident lawyers. How leadenly vile this all is,” commented journalist Andrei Loshak on the arrest of Navalny’s lawyers. Such things indeed only happened during Stalin’s time.
Photo by Fortanga
Zarifa Sautieva
Activist
7.5 years of imprisonment
On February 23, 1944, Joseph Stalin began forcibly evicting more than 500,000 Chechens and Ingush people from their homes in Central Asia. When Operation Lentil, which was being prepared in secret — people were given about half an hour to get ready — ended, the authorities explained: "Many Chechens and Ingush people betrayed their homeland, went over to the side of the fascist invaders, joined the saboteurs and¬ intelligence groups."
Using his favorite principle of collective responsibility, Stalin punished everyone: women, children, and the elderly were loaded into freight cars heading east. Those who resisted were killed. Thousands of people did not survive the long journey, tens of thousands died in the new place: there was no shelter, no food, no medical care. Only after Stalin's death Chechens and Ingush were allowed to return to their homeland.
Zarifa Sautieva worked as a deputy director of the Memorial Complex for Victims of Repression in Ingushetia. This museum is dedicated primarily to the terrible history of the Ingush deportation. Sautiyeva led the project "I am an eyewitness", for which she recorded the memories of deportees on video.
In 2018, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his Ingush counterpart Yunus-Bek Yevkurov agreed to exchange territories of their republics. After learning about the signing of the document, the Ingushs were outraged not only by the fact that the republic was losing its land (including family cemeteries), but also by the fact that the head of the region did not ask their opinion. Preparations for the exchange were made in secret, just as Operation Lentil.
Almost the entire republic rose up to protest against the agreement with Kadyrov: several tens of thousands of people came to rallies in the capital of Ingushetia. For a region with half a million people in the North Caucasus, where it is not very common to rally, these are crazy numbers.
It is also not customary in the North Caucasus for women to exercise independence in principle, and even more so to take political actions that are not coordinated with the authorities. Patriarchy still reigns here. Nevertheless, Zarifa Sautieva became an active participant in the protests. She was not married, and despite the dissatisfaction of her male relatives, she conducted live broadcasts from the rallies and called for people to go out on the streets in her social networks. "Even if she was a smartass, it would be a useless option to make a leader out of a woman," Sautieva's brother Khazir said later, but the security forces decided otherwise.
At first, the authorities tried to act carefully, but in March 2019, when the protest rallies resumed with renewed vigil after a break, the protesters were dispersed by special forces. People resisted, and several policemen were injured.
Zarifa Sautieva was arrested after the rally: out of 8 defendants in the "Ingush case" initiated soon after, she is the only woman. Her lawyer said that in Sautieva’s case they wrote: "By her presence, she obliged the male population of the republic to ensure her safety as a woman in any way." In Ingushetia, they say that the authorities "specifically decided to humiliate the entire nation, to make it as painful as possible."
All those involved in the" Ingush case "were found guilty of "organizing violence that threatens the life or health of government officials" and "participating in an extremist community" — the authorities claim that the organizers of the rally were going to overthrow the head of the region Yevkurov.
In December 2021, Zarifa was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison. In October 2022, she married another convict in the Ingush case, Ismail Nalgiev.
Photo by Memorial
Vsevolod Korolev
Documentary filmmaker, poet
7 years in a penal colony
It all started, as it is usually in modern Russia, at 6 am — with a search and a broken door to the apartment. FSB officers broke in and charged Vsevolod Korolev with spreading "fakes" because of several posts on social networks about crimes committed by the Russian army, including in Bucha. This was in July 2022.
Since the beginning of the war, Vsevolod Korolev has not only written about what is happening in social networks, he managed to make several documentaries about activists opposing the war in Ukraine. His works are dedicated to the artist Sasha Skochilenko and journalist Maria Ponomarenko, who were arrested for spreading "fakes" about the Russian army.
Korolev also went out to anti-war protests, at one of which he met a girl named Lida. They recently moved in together, but only managed to live together for a month.
The case against Korolev began to fall apart in court. Mikhail Baranov, who, according to the investigation, wrote a denunciation against Korolev, changed his testimony and spoke out in his defense: "Everyone can write whatever they want. This is an expression of freedom of speech to which everyone has the right."
Prior to his arrest, Vsevolod Korolev organized water excursions along rivers and canals, and in his spare time, as a volunteer, he helped people with mental disabilities. "Seva doesn't regret anything. For me personally, Seva's fortitude was a revelation. I always knew about his unconditional, independent kindness, justice, honesty, but only this situation fully revealed all his qualities," – said Korolev’s girlfriend Lida.
In March 2023, judge Marina Goryacheva of the Vyborg District Court of St. Petersburg sentenced Korolev to 3 years in a general-regime colony, although the prosecutor had asked for three times more. Vsevolod's father commented: "He got lucky in this lottery." Relatives hoped to see Vsevolod free already this year (a day spent in pre-trial detention is counted as one and a half days in a general-regime colony).
Unfortunately, in July, upon appeal, another judge corrected the "mistake" of the colleague and increased Vsevolod's sentence to 7 years.
Photo by Sota
Igor Baryshnikov
Pensioner
7.5 years imprisonment
It seems like a typical story in today’s Russia: 63-year-old engineer Igor Baryshnikov was sent to prison for Facebook posts in which he wrote about the bombing of the maternity hospital in Mariupol, the atrocities of Russian soldiers in Bucha, and other horrific events of the war in Ukraine.
However, the cruelty shown by prosecutors, judges, prison staff, and doctors towards this sick, elderly man is still shocking.
During the investigation, Baryshnikov was kept free under a travel ban, as he was caring for his paralyzed 96-year-old mother Yevgeniya, a Holocaust survivor. He himself was in poor health: during the trial, a chronic illness worsened, and he was fitted with a cystostomy (a tube placed in the bladder, exiting through the abdominal wall). Doctors also suspected he had cancer, but no biopsy was performed to confirm or refute the diagnosis.
Witnesses for the prosecution stated in court that Baryshnikov “holds opposition views and criticizes the government,” and “5-6 years ago, he displayed anti-Putin slogans in his windows and tried to impose his political views on elderly people.” The pensioner was indeed an opposition activist in the town of Sovetsk: in 2021, he served 30 days of administrative arrest for participating in public protests. However, this can hardly be considered a serious aggravating circumstance.
“I am being charged with a serious crime. Yet I haven’t killed anyone, robbed anyone, raped anyone, or stolen anything from anyone,” Baryshnikov said in his final statement, asking the court to consider his health condition. The court was unmoved by his words: in June 2023, the pensioner, with a hole in his abdomen, was sent to a penal colony for 7.5 years for spreading “fake news” about the Russian military. “With this one sentence, the court essentially killed two people,” commented the pensioner's lawyer on the judge’s decision.
A month and a half later, Baryshnikov’s mother, who had been taken into the care of social services, passed away. In her final days, according to the lawyer, she constantly held a non-functioning phone to her ear, repeating: “Igor, my son, you’re suffering…”
Her son was not allowed to attend her funeral, and by December, his own health had deteriorated. “I feel terrible: I can’t sit, even on my side, I experience groin pain, have difficulty moving, and have painful urination,” he wrote from the colony. He had to clean his cystostomy tube daily in unsanitary conditions.
In January 2024, Baryshnikov was transferred to a prison hospital, where they replaced his cystostomy, but still refuse to perform the surgery that would eliminate the need for it entirely. In July 2024, nearly 8,000 Russians sent appeals to Russian authorities demanding that Baryshnikov be given surgery. In August, the UN Human Rights Committee joined the call.
Photo by Alexandra Astakhova
Antonina Favorskaia
Journalist
Facing up to 6 years imprisonment
“I’ll send you my account number so that, with your huge salary as a federal judge, you can top it up because my money is running out, and thanks to your rulings, it will run out even faster,” opposition leader Alexei Navalny joked, standing behind bars in his prison uniform. The court was hearing yet another lawsuit filed by Navalny against the administration of the "Polar Wolf" penal colony in the northern settlement of Harp, Russia. Navalny appeared via video link from the colony, with the camera showing him on a TV screen, then switching to the prosecutor and judge, who were smiling. This video was filmed by journalist Antonina Favorskaia on February 15, 2024.
The next day, FSIN announced that Alexei Navalny had died in the colony (his associates believe he was murdered on Vladimir Putin’s orders). A month and a half later, on March 29, Favorskaia herself was imprisoned, accused of collaborating with Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), which had been designated extremist in Russia even before the war.
Favorskaia worked for the online outlet SOTAvision, attending all of Navalny's court hearings and documenting scenes at his gravesite, where tens of thousands of people came to pay their respects.
Initially, she wanted to be an actress, studying at a theater institute. In 2017, she even appeared in a commercial for Russia’s most popular navigation app, developed by Yandex. However, after the invasion of Ukraine, when hundreds of journalists fled Russia, she switched to political journalism. “My place is in Russia. I am convinced that if you want to make your country better, you have to live and work in your homeland,” she wrote from the detention center.
In the summer of 2023, she was the only journalist covering the trial of Zarema Musaeva (the mother of two brothers who run the Chechen opposition Telegram channel “Aadat”) in Grozny. Her colleague from Novaya Gazeta, Elena Milashina, who had come to Chechnya for the same purpose, was beaten, shaved, and doused with green antiseptic by unknown assailants.
"Fear just makes your life worse. If you’re already doing this work, you have to understand the risks. Either you don’t do it at all and perform in children's plays, or you go all the way," Favorskaia said.
In addition to Favorskaia, four other journalists were arrested in 2024: Reuters producer Konstantin Gabov, Sergey Karelin (who worked with Associated Press), SOTAvision journalist Artem Kriger (Artem’s uncle Mikhail is one of the heroes of our project), and RusNews staffer Olga Komleva. They were all accused of working for FBK, known globally for its investigations into corruption among Russian officials and its popular YouTube channels.
In 2022, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights center “Memorial” recognized Favorskaia and her “accomplices” as political prisoners, stating that “the journalists are being accused of ‘participation in Navalny’s extremist organization’ due to their professional activities.” Favorskaia herself believes she is being persecuted because of “the article about how FSIN tortured Navalny.”
In April 2024, Favorskaia was awarded the "Redkollegia" prize for "Courage and Dedication to the Profession."
Photo from Instagram
Polina Yevtushenko
Entrepreneur
Facing up to 22.5 years imprisonment
25-year-old Polina Yevtushenko met 36-year-old Nikolai Komarov on social media. They started communicating and occasionally met in person. On the morning of July 12, 2023, she took her daughter to kindergarten, and when she stepped outside, more than ten plainclothes officers attacked her from behind. "They put a plastic tie on my hands and threw me into a car as if I were a sack of potatoes. They didn't explain anything. I thought they were bandits taking me to be killed," she later recounted.
Yevtushenko was sent to a detention center, charged with preparing to commit treason, and Komarov became the main witness for the prosecution.
It turned out that the man had intentionally gained Polina's trust: she did not hide her anti-war stance, while Komarov attended rallies of the pro-government movement NOD and, apparently, had long cooperated with law enforcement. In 2017, he infiltrated Navalny's headquarters in Samara and, after six months, published "exposé" videos about it.
"I was going on friendly dates, and then it turned out that this person had been recording our conversations on a voice recorder from our very first meeting," Yevtushenko said in a letter from the detention center. Based on these recordings, the FSB, it seems, decided that the young woman was "inciting a resident of Samara to commit high treason—joining the Freedom of Russia Legion, consisting of Russians fighting on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces." "He asked me a bunch of questions about the legion, and I answered him," said Yevtushenko.
In her Instagram account, which Yevtushenko had been running in Ukrainian since October 2022, she published photos of banknotes with anti-war inscriptions, provided links to a petition demanding the impeachment of Vladimir Putin, and to the "I Want to Live" project, which helps Russian soldiers surrender. In the account description, it read: "No to war! Russia will be free from 'Putler'! Glory to the heroes of Free Russia and Ukraine."
The FSB evaluated her posts as grounds for several more criminal charges, including "spreading fakes about the Russian Armed Forces": the security forces stated that she "posted propaganda materials creating a positive image of a structural unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces," and published "instructions for Russian military personnel on how to surrender."
Shortly before her arrest, Yevtushenko had posted a photograph in which she holds a diploma from a program for young entrepreneurs, standing next to the Minister of Economic Development of the Samara region. She had recently opened an online store selling women's sportswear on Wildberries, engaged in running and swimming, painted, and was learning to play the drums. Yevtushenko is a natural blonde but loves to dye her hair in different colors. At the time of her arrest, it was blue.
Her six-year-old daughter Alisa is now living with her grandmother. "My daughter doesn't know why I disappeared. I took her to kindergarten and disappeared. She calls out into the void: 'Mom!' My mom wrote to me about this. I feel so sorry for my daughter. I can't imagine what she feels, even though my mom tells her that I love her and will definitely return," wrote Yevtushenko.
Based on the combined charges, Polina Yevtushenko faces up to 22.5 years in prison. There will be no information about the progress of the trial until the verdict is announced: treason cases in Russia are conducted behind closed doors.
"Memorial" has recognized Yevtushenko as a political prisoner, stating that "such a blatant asymmetry in the response from the prosecution and the court indicates that the case of Polina Yevtushenko is not so much an attempt to punish a specific person for an act of genuine public danger, but rather a signal to the entire society that now literally any form of support for Ukraine and disagreement with the essentially unlawful activities of the authorities will be punished in the most severe manner."
Photo by Alexandra Astakhova
Artyom Kamardin
Poet
Sentenced to 7 years in prison
“They beat Artyom, humiliated him, and forced him to insert a dumbbell bar into his anus as deeply as possible, threatening that if he didn’t do it, they’d shoot him in the leg. They filmed everything and then showed it to me, pulling my head up by my hair. They called us ‘Nazi scum’ and said ‘killing us isn’t enough,’ threatening to shoot our legs and gang-rape me,” recounted activist Alexandra Popova.
Artyom Kamardin is her boyfriend, a mechanical engineer, who participated in the "Mayakovsky Readings" on September 25, 2022, in Moscow. The tradition of reading poems by the monument to the Soviet poet dates back to the 1960s. On that day, Kamardin read a poem about the pro-Russian separatists in Donbas, a not-so-flattering one.
The next day, law enforcement officers broke into the apartment where he lived with Popova and began torturing the couple.
Along with 31-year-old Kamardin, two other participants of the poetry readings were arrested: 21-year-old Yegor Shtovba and 26-year-old Nikolai Dayneko. A few months later, the poets were found guilty of incitement to acts against state security and inciting hatred or enmity. Kamardin was sentenced to 7 years in prison for his poem, Shtovba received 5.5 years, and Dayneko, after pleading guilty and making a deal with the investigators, was sentenced to 4 years.
“It’s unacceptable to be judged for art. An artistic expression can be interpreted in various ways, and there will always be those who misinterpret it,” said the poet in court.
On May 24, 2023, Kamardin and Popova got married in the pre-trial detention center. Artyom came to the wedding wearing a Brioni jacket, lent to him by a cellmate. Since filming was not allowed in prison, all wedding photos and videos feature Popova with a bouquet of flowers, but without her husband and without a ring, which she replaced with a replica of handcuffs around her wrist.
Photo by Alexandra Astakhova
Grigory Melkonyants
Сo-chair of the election observation organisation ‘Golos’
Faces up to 6 years in prison
In 2011, a film crew from the state TV channel NTV stormed the office of the “Golos” association, which monitored election violations in Russia. The journalists asked questions about the association’s sources of funding. The staff refused to answer, while Grigory Melkonyants, then the deputy executive director, filmed the incident on his phone and managed to say the phrase “NTV is Surkov’s propaganda” 87 times in 7 minutes.
At that time, Vladislav Surkov was an influential official, the deputy head of the presidential administration, and was building what was called “sovereign democracy” in Russia. Honest elections didn’t fit into that concept at all. Melkonyants’ phrase became a popular meme, and the fraud during the 2011 parliamentary elections sparked mass protests in Moscow and other cities.
The Kremlin launched a life-or-death struggle against “Golos,” which had been operating since 2000. In 2013, “Golos” was declared a foreign agent, and in July 2016, the court dissolved the association, but “Golos” continued as a movement to protect voters' rights. In 2021, the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), which included “Golos,” was declared undesirable in Russia (cooperating with such organizations can lead to imprisonment).
In October 2022, Melkonyants and other “Golos” leaders, along with regional activists, faced searches. But Melkonyants wasn’t planning to leave Russia. He was a diplomatic person and didn’t position himself as an opposition figure. From 2015 to 2016, he even served on the Expert Council of the Russian Human Rights Commissioner and was part of the expert group of public observers under the Central Election Commission (CEC).
Despite this, in August 2023, Melkonyants was detained for allegedly organizing the activities of an “undesirable” organization. However, neither the “Golos” movement nor the association had been declared undesirable, and ENEMO included only the long-dissolved association. Melkonyants himself did not deal with the organization’s international activities.
“‘Golos’ materials contain biased conclusions about the impossibility of fair elections in Russia. Pseudo-experts criticize Russian election law, and they question the remote electronic voting procedure on flimsy grounds,” said Vasily Piskaryov, a deputy from the ruling party.
In prison, Melkonyants has maintained his signature mild sense of humor. He refers to his imprisonment as an “ethnographic expedition.” “The beginning was very promising. And the expectations were met. I’ve managed to live in three Moscow detention centers, change nine cells, and meet more than 100 cellmates. The experience is, of course, unforgettable. I drew a beautiful mandala based on my birthdate, adapted to watching news and crime reports on TV, switched from tea to chicory, and learned to heat food using a water bath, a heater, and two plastic tubs,” he wrote in a letter. He also shared a playlist of songs that are blasted in the cell at full volume at 6 a.m.
As a true specialist in election law, Melkonyants continues to monitor elections even from detention. After the 2024 presidential election, he “out of habit” sent recommendations to the CEC on how to improve the process. Even after his arrest, he insists that people should participate in elections, even if they are unfair, despite the government’s efforts to convince citizens of the futility of the electoral process, trying to bring only controlled voters to the polls.
“Our Constitution enshrines freedom as the main requirement for elections—they must be free. I’ve dedicated 21 years of my life to realizing this meaningful principle—and I don’t regret it. I’m sure: it’s all worth it, and the time will come when together we will bring the dream of free elections to life,” Melkonyants wrote from pre-trial detention.
Media reports indicate that Melkonyants’ arrest shocked many system politicians and officials in Russia. The head of the CEC, Ella Pamfilova, even cautiously expressed support for the “Golos” co-chair: “I really hope they investigate this objectively because sometimes his professional criticism really helped us.”
The human rights center “Memorial,” which declared Melkonyants a political prisoner, stated: “The sole purpose of holding ‘elections’ during an aggressive war is to demonstrate the level of support for the current political regime, which seeks to obtain a blank check from the people to continue this war. This approach excludes any attempt by society to participate in or monitor the electoral process, thus triggering political repression.”
Russian prison
It is difficult to explain to people in Western Europe what a Russian prison is like, it’s odours and dispositions - on both sides of the bars.
I’ll tell you a well-known fact: any prison is a reflection of society - if society is humane and follows the law, the prison will be humane, whereas in a tyrannical society it will strangle and humiliate people.
The aim and task of the Russian penitentiary system is not to reform a person, but rather to destroy his personality. The singleminded pursuit of this goal creates a legalised system of blunt and cruel humiliation which most other countries would consider torture, including long-term detention without warm clothes in freezing cold cockroach infested cells, the prohibition of any mail correspondence and visits from relatives, harsh beatings under the guise of punishment for disobedience, refusal to provide competent medical care, disgusting food and water that makes the teeth rot…
Right now, at the very moment as you are reading these lines, the heroes of our exhibition are face to face with a Russian prison. Imagine what they are feeling and support them!
Author Victoria Ivleva