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Pictured: Masha Slonim

28 May 2026

Welcome to the 42nd edition of the Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas

I’m one of thousands of Facebook followers of Russian-British journalist Masha Slonim. Masha and I met forty years ago when we were colleagues at the BBC Russian Service.

Scrolling through Facebook a couple of weeks ago, I unexpectedly discovered that Masha’s cousin, Nina Litvinova, had died. It was May 13. The next day, May 14, Masha posted again:

“Today, RIA Novosti reported, citing law enforcement sources, that our sister Nina Litvinova had taken her own life. In other words, the cops leaked this information. They also wrote that Nina had left a handwritten suicide note.”

Masha then published excerpts from Nina’s suicide note, explaining: “Of course, no one—neither RIA nor Gazeta.ru, which reported this—will publish the note…’

The note speaks of a feeling of helplessness, of the number of people in prison for not supporting the war against Ukraine, of how life had become unbearable. Of her shame that she had given up, surrendered.

Nina LitvinovaOn the evening of 12 May 2026, at the age of 80, Nina, a human rights activist and academic, was found unconscious beneath the windows of her apartment building on 3rd Frunzenskaya Street in Moscow. Clearly, Nina had thrown herself out of the window.

I found the story haunting, and not just because I could imagine where and how it happened—I had lived on 3rd Frunzenskaya Street when I worked in Moscow in 1998.

I wanted to understand why Nina Litvinova’s act had had such an effect not only on me, but on so many others—both those who knew her and those who didn’t—in Putin’s Russia and beyond.

I asked Masha to talk about her sister and the significance of her decision to take her own life.

QUESTIONS* Masha, how did you find out that Nina had died? Did you understand straightaway what had happened? * You published excerpts from the letter Nina left her family and loved ones. What do you make of her final note? * You grew up with Nina in Moscow—tell us about your family. Your grandfather was Maxim Litvinov, Stalin’s People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs from 1930 to 1939. How did you understand his role in the history of the Soviet Union? * Nina’s older brother was Pavel Litvinov, who on August 25, 1968, took part in the “Demonstration of Eight” on Red Square, protesting the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Did his actions influence the direction of Nina’s future life? * Pavel Litvinov left for America; you and your sister Vera also left, first to America and then to England. Why did Nina stay in Russia? What kept her there? * What did Nina do in her professional life? * Many people came to the wake for Nina in Moscow. What was your impression of it? * You wrote on Facebook that by publishing excerpts from Nina’s last note, you had taken the decision to reveal the real cause of her death and you accused Putin of Nina’s murder. What exactly did you mean? * Do you remember Irina Slavina, who died in 2020 after setting herself on fire in Nizhny Novgorod? She blamed the Russian Federation for her death…. And then there was Alexander Okunev in Kaliningrad who also committed an act of self-immolation on the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine—his death was hushed up and only came to light a little over a year later. How many more martyrs are needed for Russia to rid itself of its illusions about its president? * How would you put into a few words your feelings about Nina and what the nature of her death symbolises?

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8 May 2026

by Teresa Cherfas

Welcome to the 41st edition of the Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.

Ksenia Luchenko (pictured above) is the author of the book Благими Намерениями – Русская Церковь и Власть от Горбачева до Путина [‘With Good Intentions: The Russian Church and State from Gorbachev to Putin’] for which she received the ‘Prosvetitel’ award (Enlightener Prize) in 2025. That same year, her name was added to the list of ‘foreign agents’ and, in March this year, she was sentenced in absentia in the Russian Federation to eight years’ imprisonment under the ‘military fakes’ law. Ksenia left Russia in April 2022. Prior to this, she had worked extensively as a journalist and scholar in the field of church affairs and media.

This podcast was recorded on 7 May 2026

Questions: What prompted you to leave Russia so soon after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine? * Your book With Good Intentions* was published last year. Why did you choose that title? * In 2014, the annexation of Crimea took place, and shortly afterwards, the so-called separatist war in the Donbas region of Ukraine began. Did this mark a turning-point in relations between the Orthodox Church and Putin’s Kremlin, a turn that led to the ‘road to hell’? * In the summer of 2021, Putin wrote a lengthy treatise on his interpretation of Russian history and the place of the ‘Russian world’ in contemporary politics.. Could you comment on the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in shaping his worldview? * The Russian Orthodox Church is currently one of the main ideologues of the war with Ukraine, calling the war a holy war and glorifying death on the battlefield. In this context, what is a ‘holy war’ and what are the criteria for defining it? * And what about relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church? * An important event during Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika was the celebration of the millennium of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1988. In hindsight, does it seem surprising that it was celebrated so widely in a country that was still atheist – the USSR? * Patriarch Aleksy, who led the Russian Orthodox Church during that period, was succeeded by Kirill, who became patriarch in 2009. How did their characters differ? What role did this play in the Church’s subsequent relations with the state? * It is said that the only institutions that did not undergo reform following the collapse of the Soviet Union were the Russian Orthodox Church and the KGB. Is this true? * Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, did the Russian people welcome the revival of the Russian Orthodox Church? And to what extent has the revival of the Orthodox Church been related to the development of Russian nationalism? * For several years now, under Putin’s leadership, Russia seems to want to be seen as a bastion of so-called “traditional values.” These values have been enshrined in laws criminalising homosexuality and declaring the ‘dissemination of LGBT propaganda’ a criminal offence. What is the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in this legislation? How is its role in this sphere evolving today in connection with the war in Ukraine? * Today, Putin’s “holy war” against Ukraine seems to have been a precursor to the ‘holy wars’ of other global leaders – this is how Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon are justified, this is how President Trump presents his war against Iran, and this is the case with the jihads of the Ayatollah and Hamas. Does this surprise you in the 21st century? * Pope Leo XIV sharply criticised President Trump for his bombing of the civilian population in Iran, citing the Bible and God’s commandments. How did the Russian Orthodox Church react?– And Putin? * Are there dissidents among Russian Orthodox priests? And if so, what is the situation with them?

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20 March 2026

by Teresa Cherfas

Welcome to the second part of the 40th edition of the Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas

Today, we continue Tanya’s story from Mariupol. In the first part, we left her with her granddaughter in Krasnodar. Many moves lay ahead before they finally found a more permanent refuge in England.

This podcast was recorded on 13 March 2026

My questions:* In the last episode, you told us how you and your granddaughter reached Krasnodar. How did you leave Russia? And how did you end up in England? * Do you keep in touch with friends and neighbours who still live in Mariupol? * Do you dream of ever returning home? * What kind of future would you like to see for Ukraine?

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Welcome to the 40th edition of the Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas

Our latest episode is devoted to the story of a grandmother from Mariupol, who left her home three days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At that time she thought the bombing would end and she’d be back home in a couple of weeks. Four years and counting, she still hasn’t been home. Our guest today will talk about those events and memories of her flight from Mariupol. Her name is Tanya. This podcast was recorded on 12 March 2026

My Questions:* When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, you were living in Mariupol where you had spent your whole life. What happened that made you decide to leave your home of so many years? * What are your most vivid memories of that time, after you left your home?

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This month Mary Page’s guests to discuss Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and in particular the issue of prosecuting for war crimes and other human rights abuses committed by Russia in Ukraine, are both from the UK: the academic and human rights lawyer Bill Bowring (pictured left) and Steve Crawshaw, journalist, author and human rights activist (pictured right).Mary’s GuestsEmeritus Professor Bill Bowring is an academic since 1990 and practising barrister since 1976 who has since 2006 taught human rights and international law at Birkbeck College, University of London. Bill was a Trustee of the Redress Trust, working for reparation for torture survivors, which led the Victims Coalition in the drafting of the 1998 Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court. Bill worked with the Redress Legal Officer Fiona McKay who drafted the provisions for victims in the Rome Statute. Fiona went on to become Chief of the Victims Participation and Reparations Section at the ICC, from August 2004 till December 2015, 11 years. She now serves with Bill as a Trustee of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, taking a keen interest in prosecution of individuals suspected of war crimes in the conflict in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. With Colonel Reverend Nicholas Mercer, the senior Army Lawyer in Iraq who blew the whistle on British war crimes and resigned, Fiona has participated in teaching Bill’s course at Birkbeck on International Criminal Justice.Steve Crawshaw is a former UK director and UN advocacy director at Human Rights Watch and has also worked previously as Russia and east Europe editor, and chief foreign correspondent, at The Independent newspaper. He has also held senior roles at Amnesty International and Freedom from Torture. His latest book, Prosecuting the Powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice, was shortlisted for the Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing. Steve travelled four times to Ukraine while writing the book, as well as to Israel/West Bank and post-Assad Syria. His reporting as a journalist on Russia formed the background to Goodbye to the USSR (1992). Steve’s other books include Easier Fatherland: Germany and the Twenty-First Century (2004) and two books on creative protest: Small Acts of Resistance (with John Jackson, foreword by Václav Havel, 2010) and Street Spirit: The Power of Protest and Mischief (foreword by Ai Weiwei, 2017).
This discussion was recorded on 26 February 2026
Mary’s questions:1) Great efforts are being put into documenting war crimes and other human rights abuses committed by Russia during its war on Ukraine. What are the chances for prosecuting Russian actors?2) As you know, peace negotiations (such as they are) have primarily been between the US and Russia, and only more recently also involving Ukraine. How do you see these negotiations?3) How do you see the role and effectiveness of civil society organisations in today’s climate – on the international level human rights NGOs such as, for example, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and more local groups such as the Centre for Civil Liberties, the ZMINA Human Rights Centre or the Crimean Human Rights Group in Ukraine?4) Finally, what is your prognosis for the future of human rights at this point in the 21st century?

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Welcome to the 39th edition of the Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. Among the first guests on the podcast was Dmitry Oreshkin, the well-known political scientist. At that time we talked with him about the significance for Russia of that fateful day – 24 February – when Putin launched his war of aggression against the sovereign state of Ukraine.

Today, on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, we have invited Dmitry Borisovich on to the podcast again, this time to comment on the progress of Putin’s war and to talk about the current state of Russia against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world and shift in global politics.

A geographer by education, Oreshkin has extensive experience as a professional observer of the political, economic and social life of Russia today.

This podcast was recorded on 12 February 2026

My Questions1. A report published last month by the think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies claimed that since February 2022, Russian troops have suffered nearly 1.2 million casualties, more than any major power in any war since World War II. What do Russians still in Russia think about how the war is going?

1. How is the war affecting people’s daily lives?

2. When Donald Trump ran for president of the United States, he promised to conclude a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours. A year later, how do you assess Trump’s efforts to reach a peace agreement?

3. The well-known Ukrainian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk recently asked a question on social media: “ Why has Trump’s year of negotiations been the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion? The number of deaths and injuries has increased by 31 percent compared to the previous year.

Why did Putin not allow himself such brutal strikes on civilian infrastructure under Biden, whom Trump calls ‘weak,’ but totally destroys peaceful cities and disregards the ‘strong Trump’?” How would you answer her?

1. The same think tank I mentioned earlier ranks Russia as a second or third world country in terms of its economy. Can Putin continue the war indefinitely without fear that the economic consequences will be devastating for Russia?

2. Trump’s indecisiveness regarding Ukraine contrasts sharply with the US operation to capture Venezuelan President Maduro a few weeks ago. How do you think Putin and the Kremlin perceived Trump’s boldness regarding Venezuela?

3. This was followed by Trump’s demand to incorporate Greenland into the US. How did the Kremlin react to Trump’s declamatory speech in Davos and his subsequent climb-down when he saw the strength of opposition to his plan?

4. Many believe Trump is not interested in helping Ukraine and thinks this conflict is a problem that America’s European allies should resolve. What would that mean for Ukraine?

5. If Europe does not unite decisively to defend Ukraine, will Putin continue, say, with an attack on the Baltic states?

6. The real rival of the United States today is, of course, China. How would you describe Putin’s relationship with President Xi Jinping? Do Putin’s nuclear weapons compensate for Russia’s economic weakness in its own relations with China?

7. Many people are talking about the collapse of the rules-based old world order. Do you agree with this interpretation? How do you think the situation will develop over the next few years? How will this affect Putin’s future actions?

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19 January 2026by Teresa CherfasWelcome to the 38th edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. My guest today, Mikhail Fishman, is known to viewers of the independent television channel TV Rain as the host of his own weekly political programme, I Tak Dalee [‘And So On’]. Since the late 1990s, he has served as editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of Newsweek and also worked for The Moscow Times, where he covered the turbulent political developments of the newly created Russian Federation. In 2022, his book Preemnik [The Successor] about the life and times of Boris Nemtsov was published in Russia. The book became a bestseller. Fishman was motivated to write his book after collaborating with documentary film-maker, Vera Krichevskaya, on her 2016 film about Boris Nemtsov, The Man Who Was Too Free. Four years on, it has now been published in English translation under the title The Successor. Mikhail Fishman is with me today to talk about his book. This podcast was recorded on 19 January 2026.My questions First of all, congratulations on the publication of The Successor in English. Rereading the book in preparation for its English-language publication, how did it strike you after everything that has happened in the seemingly short time between the Russian and English editions? Did you have to rewrite parts of the text to reflect the new realities? * Although the book is about Boris Nemtsov, it is in many ways more like a chronicle of democratic changes that took place in Russia – and their complete collapse. In your opinion, what were the most dangerous threats to Russia’s democratic transformation during Yeltsin’s time? * How do you assess the events of autumn 1993, when dissident deputies holed up in the White House and government soldiers fired at the building? * To what extent did Yeltsin’s character influence the implementation of democratic reforms in the 1990s? When was this most evident? * Your book is called The Successor*. Why did you choose this title, given that it refers to such a short period of Nemtsov’s political career? Do you think Nemtsov could have become president of Russia? * On the eve of the 21st century, Yeltsin appointed Putin as his ‘successor’. Do you remember your own reaction when you first heard this news? * Relatively recently, Putin began to describe the Yeltsin era as the ‘wild 90s’, a time of poverty, humiliation and corruption for Russians. You were already working as a journalist and covering the main political events in Russia. How do you feel about this description of the Yeltsin era? How did you experience the impact yourself of what is described in the book as an existential crisis for Russia? * Tell us about Nemtsov’s role in the opposition to Putin. Did he have moral authority in the eyes of Russian society? * Did Nemtsov’s relationship with Ukraine have any special significance? Why did Ukraine in his view become a litmus test for the fate of Russia, not to mention for Ukraine itself? * The book states that ‘in Russia, the democratic experiment ended with Nemtsov’s murder in February 2015’. But in reality, it happened much earlier, didn’t it? * What do you think was the main reason for Nemtsov’s murder? * Aleksei Navalny also appears in the book. He and Nemtsov were acquainted, but Navalny was a generation younger. How would you describe them, as political figures, as leaders of the opposition? * In the book, you write that when Navalny was preparing to return to Russia, he did not take into account Putin’s intentions to invade Ukraine. Were Putin’s intentions regarding Ukraine already known in January 2021? * We will soon be marking the fourth anniversary of the Russian army’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. How do you remember that first day of the war? * You wrote that on that day Russia became a full-fledged dictatorship. What had changed? Was it only then possible to describe the political regime in Russia in this way? * The American poet Robert Frost wrote a poem called ‘The Road Not Taken’ about how an individual’s life could have taken a completely different turn, had they chosen a different path when the choice confronted them. Do you think that Russia had a ‘road not taken’?

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3 December 2025

by Teresa Cherfas

Welcome to the 37th edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.

Maria Alekhina, is a founding member of the Pussy Riot art collective. Pussy Riot’s performance, in February 2012, when they sang their Punk Prayer in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, led to the arrest of three of them, including Alekhina herself. They were sentenced to two years in a penal colony.

Olga Borisova, is also a member of Pussy Riot, but joined much later.

Political Girl:Life and Fate in Russia is Maria Alekhina’s account of the years since her release in 2014 up until she left Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine. Olga Borisova helped in the writing of it. Their book was recently published in English translation in the United Kingdom.

We are indebted to Emily Eccles, the translator of Political Girl, for facilitating this podcast with Maria and Olga.

This podcast was recorded on 30 November 2025. Photo credit: Pussy Riot.

Teresa's Questions:

• How did you become a “Political Girl”? Were you born a “political girl,” or did life make you one?
• Olga, what about you? Tell us about your path to Pussy Riot. (How did you become friends with Masha?)
• Masha, is it true that you and your two other Pussy Riot offenders were the first political prisoners in Putin’s Russia? Was it a shock for you to be arrested and sentenced?
• Why is feminism such an important element of Pussy Riot’s philosophy? And why is it so threatening to an authoritarian regime? (Feminism is a ‘mortal sin,’ according to the judge at your trial.)
• Masha, you wrote that when you were released from prison a couple of months early, thanks to Putin’s amnesty before the Olympic Games in Sochi, you found yourself in a different country. Please explain.
• Tell us about your performance in Sochi with other members of Pussy Riot, very soon after your release.
• Masha, you travelled to Kyiv to show solidarity with the Maidan protesters in 2014. How do you explain the difference between Ukrainians and Russians — why is it that Russians seem more passive and don’t protest en masse?
• Your book describes the constant surveillance, humiliation, persecution, and repression that accompanied you everywhere and always. Where did you find the strength to continue resisting the authorities?
• Do revolutionaries have special qualities? Would you describe yourself as a ‘revolutionary’, Masha? What about you, Olya?
• What is it that motivates you and makes you willing to sacrifice so much for?
• I hadn’t realised that Pussy Riot created Mediazona, an independent media outlet. How does it differ from other independent media outlets? What is its mission?
• You have often said that Putin’s third term as president was a point of no return for Russia. How did this happen, in your view?
• Your book is in English and seems to be written for a Western readership. What are the main things you wanted to convey or communicate to the West?
• The book has an entire chapter about the seemingly endless cycle of arrests and detentions you experienced. (You found both “good” and “bad” people among those who guarded you.) You have said that the whole of Russia can be found in these detention centres. What did you mean by that?
• When did you realize that there would be a full-scale war with Ukraine? Tell us about your thoughts in February 2022.
• How did you decide whether to stay or leave?
• It has been more than three years since you arrived in the West. How do you perceive the actions of Western countries towards Russia?
• And how do you see their actions to defend their own democracy?
• Do you believe in change in Russia? What kind of change?
• Exactly ten years after your performance of the “Punk Prayer” in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Putin announced the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. It seems that the Pussy Riot affair became a marker of what could be expected from Putin’s Russia: first there was the illegal annexation of Crimea, then increasingly harsh punitive measure against any dissent from the regime, and finally the full-scale war against Ukraine. What does it feel like to be a historical figure?

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Not long ago, the documentary film « Politzek » was premiered on French television. It was made by two women – one French and one Russian – and is dedicated to political prisoners in Putin’s Russia. Manon Loizeau is an experienced documentary filmmaker who has filmed in Grozny during the Second Chechen War, in Beslan, Belarus, Syria, Georgia in 2008, and other hot spots. Ekaterina Mamontova was born and raised in Moscow. In 2015, she graduated from VGIK, the most prestigious film school in Russia. For the past three years, she has been collaborating with independent Russian and foreign media outlets, shooting short documentary projects for them. Yesterday we caught up with Manon and Katya in a café in Paris to talk about how they managed to make such a film in Russia today under Putin, about their collaboration, and about their film « Politzek ». [You can watch Manon and Katya discussing the film on the French channel TV5Monde here.] This podcast was recorded on 30 October 2025.Questions* Manon, let’s start with you—is this a very significant film for you? After all, in your voiceover at the beginning of the film you say: “Russia is my beloved country, the country I chose when I was 20 years old…” In what sense did you “choose Russia”? To what end? * Tell us about the process of making the film. What was it like? * I understand that meeting Katya was key. Tell us about your first meeting. * What did you want to show the viewer or convey to them about the situation in modern Russia? * The film says that it was important for you, Katya, to bear witness to what happened in Russia. How did you understand this for yourself? * Katya, were there any moments in your professional or personal life that inspired you in your choice of career? * Manon, what tasks did you set for Katya? Were they achievable? * What did you think, Katya? How did you react? * What measures did you take to keep Katya safe? * Tell us about your collaboration, how did you work together remotely? * Tell us briefly about the people are showcased in the film. What guided you in your choice? Did you already know some of them? * Katya, did you use your phone to film or a proper film camera? * How did that work, given that there was a risk of the video being confiscated or something even worse? Were there moments when you were afraid? * Katya, at one point in the film you suggest filming a group, set up by some of your friends, who are writing letters to political prisoners. Tell us how that happened. It’s amazing that they continue to meet to write letters to prisoners to this day. Or has something changed? * What kind of feedback did you get about the film? * Manon, at the beginning of the film, you mention the horrifying number of political prisoners in Russia today. In the credits, you write that the film is dedicated to Belarusian political prisoners and Ukrainians in Russian prisons. The credits are accompanied by photos of many people, political prisoners who are still serving time for their political views. Were there any people you wanted to talk about but couldn’t reach? * What are your plans for the future? Both for yourself and for the film? Manon? Katya?

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3 October 2025

Welcome to the 35th edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas

Our guest today is actor and theatre director Alexander Molochnikov.

Alexander Molochnikov (personal archive)In this podcast we are making a break from our usual Russian-language format. This is because our guest has chosen not to speak in his mother tongue. At the age of just 22, he was the youngest director ever to stage a production at the legendary Moscow Arts Theatre. In 2022, aged 29, he had two productions running concurrently on two different stages of the Bolshoi Theatre – one a comic opera, the other a ballet based on Chekhov’s Seagull, for which he won the Golden Mask award. Then on 24th February, 2022, Putin invaded Ukraine…

His latest production, Seagull: True Story – a play that is so meta it has your head spinning – is currently on tour in London from New York. He has described it as his third Seagull, but only the second to fly.

This podcast was recorded on 2 October 2025.

[You can find on the Internet two recent Russian-language interviews Alexander Molochnikov has given to Yury Dud and Mikhail Zygar.]

Questions

• This podcast is about the time before and after the so-called Special Military Operation. What do you remember about the 24th of February 2022?
• You’ve described your current production in London – Seagull: True Story – as your third Seagull, but only the second to fly. What happened to the one that never took off?
• When did you decide you could no longer live in Russia?
• This is the first time we’ve done this podcast for Rights in Russia with a native Russian speaker in English. Is your decision not to speak Russian a political statement?
• What happened to your stage productions that were still in repertoire in Moscow after you left?
• Unlike many of your compatriots in the arts, you had a plan. What was that plan?
• You were a student at Columbia University in New York. What were your impressions of classes there?
• How did these experiences at Columbia inform the rehearsal process for your latest production: “Seagull: True Story”? How did you work with the actors to build the story and write the script?
• In Seagull: True Story, you make the point that the profit margin and commercial viability dictate what gets produced on stage in America and that that is every bit as restrictive on artistic expression as political censorship in Russia. What is your own personal experience of this in New York?
• I completely loved the theatricality of Seagull: True Story – it had an energy and a playfulness, using movement, mime, and props that made it an unmistakably theatrical experience. What is your experience of watching or taking part in theatre productions in the States, or indeed, London since you’re here?
• There’s a fantastic and surreal scene in it, where Putin, bare-chested on a horse appears to Kon, the director, in his dreams. And yet, there’s no Trump anywhere and no overt mention of the parallels between Putin’s Russia and Trump’s America.
• Do you think such parallels can be drawn?
• Kon, your alter-ego, if you like, is desperate to go back to Russia, to visit his mum, to mourn the death of his close friend, who died in a penal colony for speaking out against the war, but he can’t. It’s actually a very moving scene. Do you wish you could go back to Russia for a visit?
• On the one year anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, you posted on social media: “A year ago, at 6:30 a.m., I wrote: “Forgive us.” Today I know you won’t forgive me. I’m 30, I plan to live another 50-70, and I believe I’ll see the day when you will forgive me.” What makes you think that?
• What’s up next for you after Seagull: True Story? Where do you see yourself, professionally, in 10 or 20 years?

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Our guest today is Sergei Davidis, a Russian lawyer, human rights activist and leading member of Memorial. Sergei Davidis has extensive experience in organising various human rights initiatives and political protests in defence of democratic principles in Putin’s Russia. In 2010, Davidis founded the programme in support of political prisoners, which operates within Memorial, a programme he heads to this day. He is also a Memorial board member.In December 2021, a few months before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ordered the shutting down of Memorial, Russia’s oldest and largest human rights organisation. On 3 March 2022, Davidis appeared as a witness for the defence in the trial of Aleksei Navalny. On 4 March, security forces raided and ransacked the organisation’s Moscow office. A few days later, due to the increasing risks and virtual impossibility of continuing his work in support of political prisoners in Russia, Davidis decided to leave the country with his family. He currently lives in Lithuania. Together with his team, they track the number of political prisoners in Russia, organise support, and maintain a register according to the stringent standards adopted by Memorial.

This podcast was recorded on 25 September 2025.

Other platforms where you can find our podcasts include: Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes, and Amazon Audible.

My Questions

1 Could you tell us about the history of your project. When did Memorial decide that it was necessary to keep a record of all those individuals you consider to be political prisoners?

2 How do you define political prisoners? As you know, other organisations use other terms – for example Amnesty International refers to ‘prisoners of conscience’? What is the difference?

3 How many political prisoners are there in Russia at the moment?

4 My understanding is that under Gorbachev, all political prisoners were released and there were none under Yeltsin. When did political prisoners first reappear in Russia?

5 Two new laws in particular were introduced at the very start of the war criminalising ‘discrediting’ the Russian military or spreading ‘fake news’ about the Russian military. Could you explain the difference between those two laws and the differences in punishments?

6 read that some individuals are given ridiculously long terms in prison for an action which even in terms of Russian legislation would seem to be a minor offence – for example 13 years in prison for donating a small sum to a Ukrainian charity. That is far more than someone would get for murder. How do you explain that?

7 Russia these days has a whole range of laws criminalising individuals and organisations, for example the foreign agent laws, the laws branding organisations as extremist or as ‘undesirable’. How far are those convicted under these laws represented among those you classify as political prisoners?

8 To what extent is criticism of the Russian leader – Vladimir Putin – criminalised? Are people in prison simply for speaking out against Putin? That would tell us a great deal about the regime, given how focused it is on the personality of the leader?

9 If we consider Russia as an authoritarian state, in terms of the numbers of political prisoners in the country and the severity of the sentences, how does Russia compare with other authoritarian countries?

10 Your colleague Oleg Orlov was imprisoned for calling the regime ‘fascist’. Do you agree with that classification?

11 How much harder is it to do your work, based outside the country?

12 To what extent are you able to gauge the impact of your work, both inside Russia and internationally?

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18 July 2025by Teresa CherfasWelcome to the 33rd edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas

On 15 July 2009, Chechen human rights activist and member of the management committee of the human rights organization “Memorial,” Natalia Estemirova, was murdered. She was abducted near her home in Grozny and taken by car across the border to Ingushetia, where she was shot five times in the chest. The killers fled, leaving her body at the scene of the crime. Her only child was 15 years old. That child recently published a book about her mother, Please Live, and its author is our guest today – Lana Estemirova. My Questions Our podcast is called Then and Now, and most often it’s about how the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia has impacted people’s lives and perceptions. You wrote in your book that few people cared about your mother’s murder, or the Russian-Chechen wars, or the constant human rights violations, and that all these were but brief mentions at the end of the news, or cursory minutes of international meetings, if at all. By the time Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, you wrote, it was too late. What does that date mean for you now? * In your book, you write warmly about your relatives in Russia and in Chechnya. Are you in touch with them? Is there a difference between Chechens’ and Russians’ perceptions of the war in Ukraine? * I imagine it cannot have been easy to write your book. What was the process of writing like? Did you struggle to find your voice? * How would you describe your mother to people who didn’t know her? * Your mother’s close friend, Anna Politkovskaya, was killed in the entrance to her apartment building in Moscow in 2006. Do you remember that day? Were you worried about your mother and her safety? * Your book clearly outlines the stages of the Chechen wars and of Ramzan Kadyrov’s rise to power. How did you feel about him and his influence on your lives? I’m thinking about your protest against compulsory headscarves for schoolgirls, for example. * Two days ago was the anniversary of the murder of your mother, Natalia Estemirova. The title of your book, Please Live*, is a direct reference to that day. I read your account of how you learned of your mother’s death , about your reactions and emotions on the day and the immediate aftermath, and of how they changed and evolved over time, of your rage and sadness and your final acceptance of what had happened. These are almost indescribable feelings, and yet you describe them in unforgettable language. What were the most important lessons for you?. After all, the last sentence of your book is: “Happiness is victory.” What did you mean by that? * You recently became a mother yourself. Tell us about your feelings toward your baby daughter. What will you tell her about her grandmother?

You can read Teresa Cherfas’ review of Please Live. The Chechen Wars, My Mother and Me by Lana Estemirova here.

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Welcome to the 32nd edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. Today’s episode illustrates like nothing else the difference between ‘Then and Now’ in Russia. It concerns the transformation of an entire generation into an instrument of patriotism and militarism in support of Putin’s Russia. In January this year, the documentary film Mr. Nobody Against Putin premiered at America’s prestigious Sundance Film Festival. The film is set in School No. 1 in Karabash, a small town in the industrial Ural region with a population of 10,000 and an average life expectancy of just 38 years. The film offers a fly-on-the-wall glimpse of Z-patriotism in Putin’s Russia and shows how the education and propaganda machine works in one individual school. The hero of the film, and its co-director, is our guest today. He is the Mr. Nobody of the title. Welcome to our podcast, Pavel Talankin!

This podcast was recorded on 12 June 2025

My Questions* First of all, I would like to thank you for your important and courageous film. For those who have not yet seen the film, please tell us how it came to be made. * You worked as the events organiser, as well as part-time videographer, at School No. 1 in Karabash, your hometown. What role does the school play in the town? What kind of town is Karabash? * As I understand it, you yourself graduated from this very school. Why did you decide to return to work there? What did you like about your job? * In the film, you say you always felt lonely and different from other people. In what ways? * You created an especially open atmosphere in your office, where students came to relax. Tell us about it. * How has school life changed since Putin announced the special military operation in February 2022? How quickly did things change at the school? And in the town? * What were the new directives from the Ministry of Education? Did you have to change how you work? * There is a revealing scene in the film where a teacher cannot pronounce the words “demilitarization” and “denazification” in front of the children—she cannot do it, and you correct her… * And there is another teacher, a history teacher, who follows the new guidelines perfectly… * You wanted to quit your job. Why? * When did you realise that the footage you had shot could be important evidence of these changes in school life? * Tell us about the working relationship you developed with your creative partner during filming. * Did you have like-minded people around you with whom you could share your ideas? Or whom you could trust to film you for the movie? There are quite a few shots of you that someone else must have filmed. * For the viewer, the speed with which the students adopt their new skills in patriotic events, lessons, songs, and morning flag ceremonies is striking. The school changes before our eyes—the children are becoming different. How did you experience these changes yourself? And what about in your relationships at school? And in the town? Did it affect your work on the film? * We see how, at a teachers’ meeting, teachers find out that the school’s academic ranking has dropped, that they are not managing to allocate enough time and resources to traditional teaching. What do you think this tells us about values in Putin’s Russia? * In September 2022, President Putin announced a partial mobilization. Did this affect the mood and atmosphere at school? And in the wider town? * When did you decide that you needed to leave Russia? Was it a difficult decision for you? After all, your much- loved mother worked at the same school as a librarian, and you couldn’t even tell her what you were planning to do. * As the school’s event organizer, you organized the “Last Bell” graduation ceremony. You gave a speech in which every word seemed to be meant not only for the graduates but also for you, knowing that tomorrow would be your last day in your hometown. Everyone was crying, the children, the parents, and even the history teacher. What do you remember about that day? * Are you aware of what happened at the school, and in Karabash as a whole, after you left Russia? * What does love for your homeland mean to you? * What do you wish for your film?

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Welcome to the 31st edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now. Our latest guest is Marina Sapritsky-Nahum, a social anthropologist and author of the book Jewish Odesa, published in 2024 by Indiana University Press. The book explores issues of identity and tradition in the Jewish community in modern Odesa. Marina is currently a visiting fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the LSE.In a review of Jewish Odesa, Lucy Lopata-Varkas writes:‘Marina Sapritsky-Nahum’s Jewish Odesa is a compelling exploration of Jewishness in Odesa against the backdrop of Soviet history, Ukrainian nation-making, and ongoing European Jewish revivals. Drawing on an abundance of materials from history, oral testimonies, anthropology, and Jewish studies, Sapritsky-Nahum depicts a vibrant community whose connection to the port city never falters, despite waves of emigration to countries like Israel or the US, the changing political status quo, and fluctuating levels of religious observance.’ This podcast was recorded on 15 May 2025My questions: What led you to make a study of Jewish Odesa in the early years of the 21st century? * Did your own background influence your choice? Tell us a little about your own roots. * How does the approach of a social anthropologist differ from that of a historian in the study of a subject such as this? * The book begins with the stories and memories of an older generation of Jewish Odesans, those who grew up in the Soviet era. What did you learn from them? What defines them as Jews in their own eyes? And in the eyes of others? * Is oral history a useful tool in this kind of research? In the book, you write: ‘collecting the life stories of elderly Jewish Odesans is one of my most cherished memories’… What did you personally gain from talking to them? * After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a widespread resurgence of interest in religion. How did this manifest itself in Odesa after Ukraine declared its own independence in 1991? Was it a genuine Jewish revival? * Odesa occupies a special place in Jewish history and in the history of the Russian Empire and of the Soviet Union. How did this come about and what is the essence of Odesa’s identity as a Jewish city? * In the book you talk about traditions. This makes me think of the song ‘Tradition’ from the musical ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ based on the stories of Sholem Aleichem, a native of Odesa. Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Babel, Leonid Utesov, Mikhail Zhvanetsky and many other Jewish Odesans gave the city its special character. How would you describe this special character? * You write about the myth of Odesa – in what sense is it a myth? Can this myth survive the current war with Russia? * You completed your research for the book before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Are you still in touch with your interviewees? How has Russian aggression changed relations between different ethnic groups in Odesa? Is there a perceived threat to the Jews, since they were always associated with Russian culture and language? * There is a lot of controversy and debate surrounding the issue of monuments in Odesa. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, monuments were erected to famous Jews from Odesa, including the mythical Sashka and Rabinovich of Soviet-era jokes. Are they still standing? What about monuments related to Russian culture, such as the one to Pushkin, or to Catherine the Great (the founder of Odesa) and others? What does it say about modern Odesa? * In 2023, UNESCO designated Odesa a world heritage city. What do you think prompted this decision, and how will it benefit the city’s residents? * What has been the impact on the sense of identity of Odesa’s Jews of post-Soviet research into the part played by some Ukrainians during World War II? I’m thinking of Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis, involvement in the Holocaust and in particular in the atrocity of Babi Yar? * Are you planning to write a sequel to Jewish Odesa*? About the impact of the current war on Jewish life in Odesa? Do you have any thoughts on what your findings might reveal that you could share with us?

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Welcome to the 30th edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. Since the very first episode of this podcast, ‘Then and Now’ has referred to the rupture in people’s lives caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today, ‘Then and Now’ is equally applicable to the havoc raised in people’s lives across the world, as a result of President Trump’s first few months in office in his second term.

On 15 March, the Trump administration announced that it was freezing funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, including its Russian Service. Since the Cold War, Radio Liberty has broadcast in Russian, among other languages, and has played a significant role in spreading democratic values and an understanding of human rights in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including Russia, of course. President Trump’s decision to freeze Radio Liberty’s budget will deal a serious blow to Russian-speaking listeners in Russia and elsewhere.

My guest today is Andrey Shary, head of Radio Liberty’s Russian Service in Prague.

This podcast was recorded on 10 April 2025

My questions

• President Trump doesn’t always cite accurate data when he announces a new White House initiative. Tell us about the resources and the current work of Radio Liberty’s Russian Service. How many hours does it broadcast and on what platforms? How many staff does it employ and what is the size of its audience? What is your budget?
• What is the current situation with the implementation of President Trump’s executive order? We know that on 25 March a U.S. District Judge issued a restraining order that delayed the immediate shutdown of RFE’s operations.
• Tell us about the Czech Government’s initiative to save Radio Liberty. We also know that there have been motions put forward for the EU to intervene with support for Radio Liberty.
• What plans for saving Radio Liberty do you think are most promising among those being discussed in Prague right now.
• How do you personally feel about what is happening now? Do you see a possible way out of the situation?
• What role can Radio Liberty play in a world in which America has abandoned its traditional role as leader of the free world?
• Tell us a little about your own work at Radio Liberty – you’ve been working there for many years. What are some of your most memorable moments and impressions?
• When President Putin announced the start of the ‘special military operation’ in February 2022, how did you, as head of Radio Liberty’s Russian Service, respond? Did you set yourself new directives and objectives? Did you create new radio or online projects?
• What can you tell us about listeners’ feedback? Have you seen a rise in demand for Radio Liberty’s broadcast and online content since the start of the war with Ukraine? Which formats are most in demand among listeners?
• Perhaps the most important goal of Radio Liberty, established during the Cold War, was to demonstrate why democracy and freedom are worth fighting for. Do you believe that there’s still an audience for those ideals in Putin’s Russia now?
• Today, we see the suppression of democracy and democratic values in both Russia and America. Democracy is threatened by populist tendencies around the world, including in Europe, undermined by disinformation and all kinds of so-called hybrid warfare. What role can Radio Liberty play in this ideological war?

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My guest today is Alissa Timoshkina. Originally from Omsk in Siberia, Alyssa left Russia to study in England at the age of 15. She has been living and working in London ever since. She is the author of two cookery books – but cookery books with a difference. The first came out six years ago and is called Salt and Time: recipes from a Russian Kitchen, and the second about the cuisine of Eastern Europe, was published more recently and is called simply Kapusta. Between publication of her first and second book, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For Alissa, 24 February 2022 really did cut her life in two: “Then and Now”. In our podcast she explains why.

This podcast was recorded on 13 March 2025

My Questions

• Do you remember how you felt on the day Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago?
• You took a decision to help Ukrainians. Tell us about this initiative.
• What does home cooking mean for you? What are your most vivid memories from childhood?
• Were there any particular dishes you made for yourself in England as a teenager when you were missing family back home, to remind you of them?
• The title of your second book is Kapusta. What associations does this word have for you?
• You write in your book that food is the language of unity. But there are no recipes from Russia in the book. Even familiar recipes like borscht or sauerkraut or potato fritters are attributed to other countries or peoples. Why is that?
• If you were to hold your first book, about Russian cuisine, in your hands today, what would your thoughts be?
• When did you first realise that you were Jewish? What does it mean to you?
• You have written that your favourite pursuits are history and cooking. How have you managed to combine them in your professional life?
• Do you think of Russia as your Motherland? Or is that no longer possible for you?

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Welcome to the twenty-eighth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. My guest today is Natalia Soprunova, a mathematician, teacher and mother of four children. Her story is so inspiring that it is immediately obvious how much Putin’s Russia has lost as a result of the wave of emigration that followed the start of the invasion of Ukraine. Very soon it will be the third anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian armed forces and the beginning of a full-scale war against a sovereign state. Hundreds of thousands of citizens of the Russian Federation left their country after 24 February 2022. Each had their own reasons, their own fears and dilemmas. Each had a different choice. Today, we hear the story of one of them – Natalia Soprunova. This podcast was recorded on 13 January 2025.

My questions* Tell us a little bit about yourself, about your family. What has been important to you in your life? What moral principles have you followed. * You are a mathematician and educator. Tell us about your professional career in Russia and how it developed. * What was your inspiration when you decided to found your private school – Moscow School Workshop – in Moscow? How did it differ from state schools? * Could you have imagined that your professional world could experience a complete collapse so quickly and irrevocably? * Why did you decide to leave Russia? When you learned war had broken out – what did you think and when did you make the decision to leave and why? What was your main fear and your main reason? * Tell us how it was. You have, after all, four children…. * What is the fate of the children who studied with you at the Moscow Workshop School? And your teachers? * You and your family now live in Berlin. Tell us about the journey that took you there… * You joined the Russian Lyceum, which already existed in Munich. What kind of school is it? * How did the idea of Online Master School come about? Is it a virtual continuation of your school in Moscow? * What does this teaching work mean for you? And for the children and their parents? * Your experience as a teacher and the practical application of a new approach to teaching children – is that relevant to today’s Russia? What do you think about the system of education now in Russia? * How do you see the future? Yours and the future of your children? * These days some people are returning to Russia – the reasons are different: residence permits are not renewed or not granted, there are no jobs or sources of income. What do you think about this? * What is your attitude to people who have not left Russia? * Would you return to Russia? What would have to happen for this to become realistic for you? And the children? Is this new generation already lost to Russia?

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Welcome to the twenty-seventh edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. My guest today is Mikhail Shishkin, a Russian writer who has resided outside Russia for almost 30 years. Last September, Mikhail Shishkin announced a new literary prize – “ Dar” [“The Gift”]. The press release about the new prize states:

“The Russian Federation’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine, in addition to its primary goal – the destruction of a neighbouring state – is directed against the humanitarian values of world culture that unite us, and. of which the culture of the Russian language is part.. […] “Dar” Prize […] is for all those who write and read in Russian, regardless of passport and country of residence. The Russian language belongs not to dictators, but to world culture”.

The principle prize is in the form of a grant to cover translation costs for the winning work into English, German and French. Mikhail Shishkin’s own books have been translated into 30 languages, and he himself is the winner of a number of major Russian-language literary awards, including the Big Book Prize, the Russian Booker Prize and the National Bestseller. Shishkin’s most recent book is “My Russia: War or Peace?”. In this work Shishkin makes clear his attitude towards the Putin regime and its criminal war against Ukraine. As someone who writes in Russian and of Russian origin, Shishkin has never lost the burden of responsibility he feels for his country of birth. But today, his feelings of despair or alienation with regard to Russia have turned into action. In this episode, we talk about the point of the “Dar” Prize and why the prize is so important today. This podcast was recorded on 13 January 2025.

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Welcome to the twenty-sixth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. In this episode, you can hear the second part of my interview with Irina Shcherbakova, one of the founders of “Memorial”. I first spoke to her in October of this year [you can listen to podcast #24 on our website here, where you can also find links to our YouTube channel and other platforms]. Since we last spoke, there has been another blow to the impartial study of Russian history. On 14 November, the Moscow Museum of the History of the Gulag was shut. The official reason given was that it was a fire risk. This would seem to be the most recent link in the chain that has seen the shutting down of unauthorised interpretations of Russian history. Before that, the Perm-36 museum was declared a foreign agent and then seized by the local authorities; “Memorial” was declared a foreign agent and then closed in 2021; and, in parallel, the authorities took control of all public initiatives, such as the Immortal Regiment, honouring the memory of war victims. The main theme of our conversation today is: what role does insistence on the ‘correct’ interpretation of history play in the political and social life of Russia – and why is controlling the historical narrative so important for the Putin regime? This podcast was recorded on 18 December 2024.

My questions:

• What were the Putin regime’s first attempts to take over control of Russia’s history? This process seems to have begun almost immediately after the mass protests of 2011-12. What was its purpose?
• Particularly pronounced in President Putin’s third term, was the appearance of articles by various Russian scholars devoted to promoting an ‘authorised’ interpretation of history. In 2014, an article of the criminal code penalising the rehabilitation of Nazism was adopted, which also banned the dissemination of ‘information known to be false’ about the activities of the USSR in World War II. What are the goals of these initiatives from the point of view of the authorities? Was Memorial’s work directly affected by these new laws? Were you personally affected by them in your own work?
• Why is the Great Patriotic War of such importance for Putin’s goals regarding the country’s history? When did it become such a significant part of the regime’s policies?
• The Immortal Regiment was a very interesting civil society initiative to preserve the memory of those who died in the Great Patriotic War. How have the authorities used this in their favour? And why?
• In 2021, Memorial was forced to suspend its activities. The following October, Memorial received the Nobel Peace Prize. Tell us about your emotions and memories of that time.
• How do you explain why it was that Putin needed to close down Memorial? After all, a couple of months later his full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
• Do you remember how you learnt about the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army? Did it take you by surprise?
• How did you make your decision about whether to stay in Russia or to leave?
• There are new history textbooks for schoolchildren now in Russia, access to archives is limited, and the state closely monitors how the country’s history is interpreted, especially in the public arena. What independent sources of historical information remain accessible in Putin’s Russia?
• What happened to Memorial’s invaluable archives after the organisation was shut down?
• How do you see the future for Russia? Under what circumstances would you consider returning to your homeland?

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Welcome to the twenty-fifth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. My guest today is human rights activist and founder of the European LGBT human rights organization Equal – PostOST, Evelina Chaika. A year ago, the non-existent “international LGBT movement” was designated an extremist organization and banned in Russia. This was the culmination of long-drawn-out struggle against anything not considered ‘traditional family life’ in Putin’s Russia. The history of homosexuality in Russia – as in other countries – is not straightforward. But while in other countries it was decriminalized long ago, in post-Soviet Russia this happened only in 1993 by decree of the first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin. This was a preamble to joining the Council of Europe, an organisation for which the right to choose one’s sexuality is an integral part of human rights. However, it took a few more years for homosexuality to be removed from the list of illnesses in Russia. This only happened on 1 January 1999. At that point in time, homosexuals received the right to serve in the army. But today, in Putin’s Russia, the situation for the LGBT community is becoming more serious and dangerous. With the passage of the law banning transgender transition on 14 July 2023, trans and non-binary people have lost a legal avenue for recognition of their identity. The law has also jeopardized the safety of trans people who have already transitioned. Over the past ten years, Russian authorities have consistently restricted the rights of the LGBT community and shaped negative public attitudes through official statements and the media. The most important signal of a change of course was the adoption of a law on the banning of LGBT propaganda in relation to children in 2013. According to the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center, 90% of Russians were in favour of this law. After its adoption, many members of the LGBT community decided to leave Russia, and the number of those who have left continues to grow.

This podcast was recorded on 28 November 2024.

Questions:* Evelina, tell us a little bit about yourself. What kind of family were you born into, and what do you remember about your own journey to the realization that you have a different orientation? * You have been living in Germany for many years now. Was there a moment when you realized you could no longer live in Russia? * Why did you decide to found Equal-PostOST? Please explain its goals. Who do you help and with what? How much demand is there for Equal-PostOST’s services? * In your opinion, why is the LGBT community so persecuted in Putin’s Russia? What role does this struggle play in the ideology of Putinism? * What have been the key stages in the persecution of the LGBT community under Putin? * Gays in Chechnya have long been subjected to severe discrimination and persecution by the local authorities. What is the situation there now? And what can LGBT people do in Chechnya to protect themselves? * Do you have any information about how LGBT people live in Russia now? Could you give us a few examples of things that can happen to members of the community? * Is there any data on how many LGBT people have decided to leave Russia since 2013? Do any stories of individuals come to mind? * Can you explain why Russia’s anti-LGBT laws are in violation of human rights? * Do you believe that 90 percent of Russians supported the law banning LGBT propaganda to children in 2013? Why are most Russian people so intolerant of different orientations? * What is the main factor in today’s Russia determining attitudes towards gay people – is it public opinion or state repression? * Is there hope for change for the better?

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Welcome to the twenty-fourth edition n of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. There is a well-known saying from the late Soviet period: “Russia is a country with an unpredictable past”. It resonates anew, this time in Putin’s Russia. My guest today is Irina Shcherbakova, a historian, who has been associated with the Russian grass-roots organisation “Memorial” since its foundation in 1988. After graduating from the Faculty of Philology at Moscow State University in the 1970s, she worked in the field of oral history, collecting the testimonies of victims of Stalinism. Through her work, Irina Shcherbakova has gained a deep understanding of how first the Soviet and later the Federation of Russia’s regimes’ interpretation of Russian history has changed over the years. From glasnost in the Gorbachev era, when Memorial was founded, to the present day, the past in Russia has indeed been “unpredictable”. It is about this and other more personal matters that I hope to talk to our guest today.

This podcast was recorded on 10 October 2024.

My questions:

• Tell us a little about yourself. Who were your parents? What moral guidelines or role models did you take with you from your childhood?
• Back in the 1970s, you began collecting the testimonies of victims of Stalinism. How did you find people who were willing to talk back then? What was the most important thing for you personally that you learned in the course of your research? How easy was it to do this work in Soviet times before glasnost and when the memory of the Stalinist era was still very fresh?
• How did it happen that you became one of the founders of “Memorial”? What were the goals that you and your co-founders hoped to achieve in setting up the organisation?
• At what point, in addition to researching Stalinist repressions, did “Memorial” become actively engaged in contemporary events? Was this during the Yeltsin era?
• What is your attitude to lustration? Should it have been carried out in the early 1990s in your opinion?
• On the theme of what more could have been done after the collapse of the Soviet Union, people often talk about the need to give a ‘legal assessment’ of historical events or to hold a tribunal to judge Stalin’s crimes. What do you think about this, and is such a process possible in the future?

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Welcome to the twenty-third edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. My guest today is the Russian artist Slava Ptrk.

The Crypt Gallery in central London recently hosted a multimedia exhibition called The Brainwashing Machine, about the uses of propaganda. The exhibition, which first opened in Madrid, showed works by artists from a range of different countries, but the great majority was from Russia. The venue in the basement of the Crypt at St. Pancras Church provided a dark and atmospheric labyrinth, with dark cells where little light penetrated. In these alcoves and on their rough walls, were displayed intriguing interpretations of the role of propaganda in contemporary life. Among them, were works by Sasha Skochilenko, made while she was still in prison in Russia, Pavel Otdelnov and Nadia Tolokonnikova. One could also read and hear the words of dramatist Zhenya Berkovich and director Svetlana Petriichuk, both still in a Russian prison today. But personally, I was most taken by the works of our guest today: Slava Ptrk

This podcast was recorded on 19 September 2024.

My questions include:

• Tell us about your name, if you would. It’s a pseudonym, but why did you choose to glorify PTRK?
• Tell us about how you came to be a part of The Brainwashing Machine exhibition about propaganda?
• Your works exhibited in the exhibition – did you make them especially for the exhibition ?
• Perhaps your most memorable work in the exhibition is called ‘I am not interested in politics.’ Tell us about it and how it came about.
• You started your professional career as a journalist. Is that why propaganda and its impact are important subjects for you? What were your experiences as a journalist in this regard?
• What served as the impetus for you to become an artist? What were your first steps in this direction.
• What is most for you in expressing yourselMy questions include:
• Tell us about your name, if you would. It’s a pseudonym, I guess, but why did you choose to glorify PTRK?
• Tell us about how you came to be a part of The Brainwashing Machine exhibition?
• Your works for the exhibition – did you make them especially?
• Perhaps your most memorable work in the exhibition is called ‘I am not interested in politics.’ Tell us about it and how it came about.
• You started your professional career as a journalist. Is that why propaganda and its impact are important subjects for you? What were your experiences as a journalist in this regard?
• What served as the impetus for you to become an artist? What were your first steps as an artist?
• What is most important to you in giving expression to yourself and the surrounding reality in your art? You have said that your chief instrument is irony.
• Another work in The Brainwashing Machine exhibition in London is called ‘Steps’ and next to it is a work titled ‘Ways.’ What do these works represent? How do they relate to propaganda?
• Looking at your street art, one could guess that Banksy was a strong influence on your work. Is that so, or did you take inspiration elsewhere?
• Your final work in the London exhibition is called ‘The Sinnerman.’ It is uses a mobile phone screen. How should one understand this work and what, or who, is depicted in it?
• When and why did you decide to leave Russia?
• How does being outside Russia affect your choice of subjects for your current and future work?
• Do you have hopes of returning to Russia?

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Our guest today on the podcast is documentary filmmaker Askold Kurov, whose latest film, “Of Caravans and Dogs,” was screened this past June in England as part of the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival, the largest festival of its kind in the UK.
According to the festival programme, this “Bold and compelling documentary looks at the curtailment of press freedom in Russia on the eve of and during the invasion of Ukraine.”. The credits list two directors. One is “Anonymous Number 1” and the other is our guest today, Askold Kurov.My questions are: 1. Askold, I watched your movie with great interest. Please explain the title of the movie and where it came from.2. In the Sheffield Docfest programme, your unique access to people and events is very much praised. Tell us about the birth of the project. How did it come about? In the credits it is stated that the film was made with the support of Novaya gazeta. Was it their initiative or did you approach them with the idea?
3. Tell us about the relationship between you and your team. After all, your co-director remained anonymous, as well as two others in key roles - sound operator and editor. Why did they remain nameless, while you boldly decided to give your name in the credits? 4. You started shooting before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. What made you choose this topic and how did you decide how the film would end?5. The movie talks about Novaya gazeta, Memorial, Dozhd, and Ekho Moskvy. But above all, about Novaya gazeta. Why was this?6. I heard one journalist who works for TV Dozhd say that the Russian authorities were doing everything they could to make the entire opposition press leave the country, so there would be no one to push back against pressure and censorship in Russia itself. What do you think of that?7. You yourself stayed to live and work in Russia right after the beginning of the war. And now you are outside Russia. What brought you to leave? 8. Do you keep in touch with your former “anonymous” colleagues from the film? How are they doing?9. Many people talk about self-censorship among the journalists who stayed in Russia. Do you think this promotes or destroys quality journalism?10. Access to all independent sources of information in Russia is increasingly narrowing. What sources of information are left for Russians and is there a demand for such information? Has what is happening now in Kursk region changed things?11. Tell us a little about yourself. Where did you grow up and how did you become involved in the film business? 12. I remember very well the strongest impression from your movie of 2017 about the fate of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, arrested during the annexation of Crimea and taken to Russia. As you have closely interacted with and observed Ukrainians, what can you say about the differences between Russians and Ukrainians?13. Could you have predicted at that time that a real war between Russia and Ukraine would start?14. How do you see the war ending?15. Are you currently working on a new project? 16. How do you find living in a foreign country?17. How do you see your future - in Russia? Under what circumstances?

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Hello and welcome to the Then and Now podcast with me, Teresa Cherfas. Our guest today is Nadezhda Skochilenko. On November 16, 2023, the Vasileostrovsky court sentenced her daughter, Aleksandra Skochilenko, to seven years in a general regime penal colony. Sasha Skochilenko’s ‘crime’ was committed about a month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and consisted in the substitution by Sasha of price labels in a Perekrestok supermarket with short anti-war texts. It was a small subversive act by a witty and talented artist. But the aftermath changed both her own and her mother’s lives.My questions include:

1. Were you aware that Sasha was going to replace the price labels in the supermarket? Or did you find out about it later?

2. Did it surprise you? How did you react?

3 I remember seeing pictures of these new price labels by Sasha on Facebook, and being amazed by the subtlety of the idea and its execution – you had to look pretty closely to realize that the labels had completely different texts from the usual ones. The font, the format, the size – everything had been carefully copied but with added facts about the victims of the Special Military Operation. Did she imagine then what consequences it could lead to? And did you realize the danger of what she was doing?

1. Tell us about Sasha – what kind of person is she and what was she like as a child? I understand that she’s a talented musician and artist. How did you bring her up?

2. You now live in France. Had you previously thought of leaving Russia, or was it because of Sasha’s arrest?

3. Sasha was kept in prison for more than 19 months before her trial. What were conditions like for her and how did she cope? Did it affect her health?

4. Seven years in prison for such a ‘crime’ – at the time this seemed unimaginably severe.. Was it a surprise to Sasha? And to you?

5. What can you do to help her from outside Russia?

6. Various organizations, including Rights in Russia, encourage people to write letters to political prisoners in Russia. Does Sasha receive such letters? What do they mean to her?

7. Where possible, do you try to disseminate information in the West about other political prisoners in Russia? Do you think the West does enough to support them and intercede on their behalf?

8. Does the fact that both Amnesty International and Memorial have recognized Sasha as a prisoner of conscience and a political prisoner, and demand her immediate and unconditional release, have any impact on her fate?

9. How do you see the future for Sasha? And for yourself?

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Welcome to the twentieth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. My guest today is Olga Sadovskaya, a lawyer from the civil society group, Team Against Torture. The project’s members have been investigating complaints by Russians about torture for over two decades. Thanks to their work, hundreds of cases of torture by law enforcement officers have reached the courts and compensation from the state has been awarded to their victims. Olga Sadovskaya lives and works in her native city of Nizhny Novgorod. She graduated from Lobachevsky State University with a degree in Public International Law, defending the first thesis in Russia on the prohibition of torture and the practice of the European Court of Human Rights on this issue. She has been taking cases to the European Court of Human Rights for over 20 years. This podcast was recorded on 20 June 2024.

My questions include:

1. You chose a rather unusual topic for your diploma. In 2003, when you defended it, what did you think the future held for you in terms of a profesion?
2. What do you think it was that brought you to this choice?
3. How did it happen that you specialised in the issue of torture?
4. In Russia, it seems to me, few people worry about torture – people think ‘that’s just the way it is’, or ‘they deserve it, that’s all.’ How do you explain the rather high tolerance for violence in Russia?
5. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has the Russian public’s attitude to torture changed? Has it become better, worse, or have moral and ethical guidelines shifted in general?
6. Previously, in such situations it was common to appeal to the ECtHR, but in 2022 the Russian Federation withdrew from the jurisdiction of the European Court. What tools are now left for Russian human rights defenders to seek justice?
7. What levers of pressure or influence do international courts have on Russian authorities in cases of torture on the territory of Russia – or in Ukraine?
8. I read somewhere that you said that “all wars end peacefully.” In your opinion, will Russia’s war against Ukraine also end peacefully? With the intervention of international forums, or do the warring parties perceive them as longer trustworthy?
9. What is it like for you and other human rights defenders working under current conditions?
10. Since the spring of 2022, since when the register of foreign agents has been updated every Friday, have many of your colleagues left the country or given up human rights work?
11. How does the ‘foreign agent’ label affect your professional work. And can you explain what is an “undesirable organisation”?
12. Have you ever received any threats yourself? Or have there been administrative cases initiated against you?
13. What is meant by the word “torture” and what should a person do if they find themselves in a situation where, in their opinion, they are being subjected to torture?
14. And what if they are in detention when that happens?
15. Is there such a thing as psychological torture? Have you experienced it yourself in your work as a human rights defender?
16. Can such a term be applied to what happened to your fellow resident of Nizhny Novgorod, Irina Slavina, who committed suicide in the most horrible way in front of the Interior Ministry building in the city centre in 2020?
17. You said somewhere that ‘even if a person is not themselves directly involved in torture, they may be a full participant in the system of violence.’ Can you explain what you meant by that?
18. What does the police treatment of the suspects in the terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall in March this year tell us about today’s Russia?
19. Today in Russia everyone is living in conditions of uncertainty. What options for the future of your work do you see?
20. Can you imagine ever being forced to give up your work – that the screws will be tightened to such an extent that it will be impossible to do this work?

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Our guest today is Iryna Khalip, a Belarusian journalist and participant in the 2010 protests against election fraud in the presidential elections in Belarus. Her husband is the politician Andrei Sannikov who ran as an opposition presidential candidate in those very elections. Since 2006, Iryna has been working as Belarus correspondent for Novaya gazeta, now Novaya gazeta – Evropа. Before that, Iryna worked in local opposition media, was an activist, was sent to prison, subjected to threats from the Belarusian special services and was a victim of psychological threats from the authorities. Today we will talk to Iryna about herself, the war in Ukraine, and the relationship between Lukashenka and Putin, between Russia and Belarus.

This podcast was recorded on 30 May 2024.

Our questions include:

• Iryna, I was honestly amazed when I read about you in Wikipedia. Tell us about your activism against President Lukashenka of Belarus and his unlimited power in the country? When did you start your activism and what have been the consequences for you personally?
• You took part in the protests against election fraud in 2010. How did the 2020 protests differ from the 2010 protests?
• What are the reasons for the failure of the latest protests, perhaps the most massive protests in the history of Belarus?
• It is said that the prison system and the situation of political prisoners in Belarus is much worse than in Russia. Can you comment on this? Have they tightened the screws in prisons since you were there?
• What made you decide to leave Belarus?
• Today there is a lot of talk that Russia is following the path that Belarus has already travelled. Is this true?
• What has changed in Belarus since Russia announced the Special Military Operation on February 24, 2022? How has Russia’s war against Ukraine affected the relationship between Belarus and Russia?
• What does Lukashenka see as Belarus’ role in this war?
• How can one explain the location of the Wagner base, and previously Prigozhin himself, on the territory of Belarus?
• How would you describe the state of democratic forces in Belarus today? Do they have a chance to influence the situation in the country?
• How would you characterize relations between those who left the country and those who stayed? In Russia, the gap between the two seems to be getting wider and deeper.
• We know about the changes in school textbooks in Russia, especially in Russian history, about the militarization of education even in elementary schools. What is the situation in Belarus? Is it true that many children study abroad?
• What can be said about the shortage of labour in Belarus?
• Can we assume that Belarus has its own path for the future? What will it look like?
• Can the West somehow influence the political future of Belarus, or is it doomed to remain a satellite of Russia?
• Do you think you will ever return home? And what needs to take place in the country for that to happen?

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My guest today is Leyla Latypova, a journalist who works as a special correspondent for the English-language newspaper The Moscow Times. An ethnic Tatar from the republic of Bashkortostan, Leyla writes about politics and civil society in Russia’s regions and national republics. In her work, she promotes and defends the rights of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities in the Russian Federation. She now lives in Amsterdam. In this edition of “Then & Now,” we talk to Leyla about the war, about national movements and about the future of ethnic minorities in Russia – and of Russia in general.My questions include:

1. Where were you when you heard President Putin’s announcement about the Special Military Operation in February 2022? What was your first reaction?
2. What were your thoughts as to the future impact of the war on ethnic minorities in Russia?
3. Why is it that a disproportionate number of conscripts from ethnic minorities in Russia’s regions serve in the Russian army – Buryats, for example, or Tatars?
4. Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you born, what did your parents do, and do you have any key memories that have particularly shaped your life?
5. Have there been times when you personally encountered Russian chauvinism or observed its impact on others in Bashkortostan?
6. Do you sense an imperial mindset in Russian people? What do you attribute this to?
7. What was your motivation when you decided to change your place of residence and move to another country? Was it related to Putin’s policies?
8. How do you work as a journalist when you are located far from your sources?
9. Tell me about the recent protests in Bashkortostan? After all, they were quite large-scale and yet little is known about them in the West.
10. Do you think the war against Ukraine could be a catalyst for major changes in Russia?
11. When people talk about the de-colonization of Russia, what does it mean?
12. At the beginning of the war, many analysts believed that the logical outcome of the war would be the collapse of the Russian Empire. They see this as a process which began in 1917, continued in 1991, and has not yet been completed. They see the war against Ukraine as striking a kind of a death blow to the empire. In your view, is the further disintegration of the Russian Empire inevitable? How might the country look in the future?

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Our guest today is Zoia Svetova, renowned journalist and human rights activist. She continues to live and work in Moscow. She is the author of several books, including Priznat’ nevinovnogo vinovnym [To Find the Innocent Guilty]. Her voice is perhaps one of the few authoritative oppositionist voices still heard in Russia today.

This podcast was recorded on 26 March 2024.

My questions include:

• When it became known that Russian troops had invaded Ukraine in 2022, could you ever have imagined such a thing happening?
• You decided to stay in Russia. Did you discuss with your family, your four adult children, whether to leave or stay in Russia?
• Can I ask you to tell us a little about your family? After all, you are part of Russia’s hereditary dissident aristocracy, if I may put it like that. Tell us about your parents, what you most remember about them, about their lives?
• Your husband was also involved in the dissident movement. How did you meet? And how did you bring up your children, what were the main moral values you tried to pass on to them?
• When Putin became president in 2000, did you have any hopes?
• Was there a key episode when it became clear for you which direction his regime was heading?
• The title of this podcast, “Then and Now,” is associated with the fateful date of 24 February 2022. But there has since been another terrible date that will be a significant event in the perception of the world and of Russian public opinion – 16 February this year. What was your first reaction when you learned of Aleksei Navalny’s death in the Polar Wolf penal colony.
• What did Navalny mean for Russia, what did he symbolise? And what did his death in prison mean for the future of Russia?
• You were at Aleksei’s funeral in Moscow. Could you share the mood that prevailed there, what you observed – tell us about your impressions.
• Should other political prisoners in Russia now fear for their lives?
• Just recently, a presidential election was conducted in Russia. If I’m not mistaken, you were abroad at that time. Did you take part in the “Noon against Putin” protest? Did the protests bring any benefits? And is there any difference between such protests in Russia and abroad?
• Your sons Tikhon and Filip are engaged in interesting work abroad. Does the fact that Tikhon is on the register of foreign agents and is editor-in-chief of the Dozhd TV company, which has been declared an undesirable organization in Russia, affect your life in Moscow in any way?
• After the attack on Leonid Volkov, a leading member of Navalny’s team, in Vilnius, do you fear for your own children and other Russian oppositionists living outside Russia?
• What would have to happen in Russia for you to change your mind and leave the country?
• What needs to happen in Russia for your children and grandchildren to return home?
• What are your thoughts about the recent terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall in Moscow? Do you think 22 March 2024 will be another milestone in the history of the Putin regime?

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My guest today is Anastasia Burakova, a human rights lawyer and democratic activist from Russia.

We are still in shock at the news of the murder of Aleksei Navalny in a high-security penal colony in the settlement of Kharp.

Aleksei Navalny’s political star rose as a leader of the opposition to the Putin regime in 2011. That year, 2011, played a significant part in the political coming of age of today’s guest - Anastasia Burakova, a Russian human rights lawyer and activist for democratic change in Russia - and influenced the trajectory of her professional life.

However, ten years later, in November 2021, Anastasia was forced to leave Russia. She moved to Georgia after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, where she founded the Ark Project (‘Kovcheg’). Initially, set up to offer help to exiled Russians because of their opposition to the war, over time, Ark’s activities have broadened.

This podcast was recorded on 22 February 2024.

My questions include:

1. I am haunted by two thoughts that never leave me now – the death in prison of Aleksei Navalny and the second year of war inUkraine. What thoughts have occupied you most this past week?
2. In an interview almost one year ago, you talked about a ‘white rose’ of resistance in Russia. Are there grounds for optimism in Russia today?
3. The journalist Elena Kostyuchenko wrote in her book about Russia: “Why did I ever think my life would be different?” Do you have an answer for her?
4. Tell us a little about your childhood. Were there any key moments in your biography that led you to your choice of profession and the path you followed?
5. You have said that the year 2011 played a big role in your own development. What does 2011 in Russia mean to you? What are your most vivid impressions of that year?
6. You left Russia at the end of 2021, just 10 years later. What happened in the intervening years in the field of civic activism?
7. To what extent did human rights and civic activism face new and more difficult challenges in the period leading up to the invasion of Ukraine? What defined the relationship of the authorities to civil society?
8. Soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you founded the Ark Project. What was the idea behind the project and who are the beneficiaries?
9. Is there any real hope for the Russian opposition in exile? What can it really do?
10. What do the countries that have welcomed Russian exiles have to gain from their presence?
11. Aleksei Navalny from prison urged the Russian people to act. He proposed that people should go to the polling stations on the last day of the election, 17 March, at 12.00 noon local time, and stand in line outside the polling station in protest. Do you think there’s a chance that many will do this following his assassination in prison by the Russian authorities?
12. What do you think the future holds for you? And what are your thoughts about the future of Russia?

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Welcome to the fifteenth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.

My guest today is Anna Karetnikova. Until recently, Anna Karetnikova lived and worked in Moscow. In 2016, she was appointed lead analyst to the Federal Penitentiary Service – FSIN. Prior to that, she served for eight years as a member of the Public Oversight Commission (POC) in Moscow and worked closely with the human rights organisation “Memorial”.

Anna Karetnikova exemplified that rare combination in Russia of someone who was both a human rights activist and a government-appointed official working for the FSIN. For several years she pulled this off brilliantly. But just over a year ago, she was forced to leave Russia. The events that led to this decision and how she feels about life in exile are among the topics we will be talking about.

This podcast was recorded on 8 February 2024.

ou can also listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and YouTube.

My questions include:

1. Before your appointment to the Federal Penitentiary Service, you worked in the Public Oversight Commission in Moscow. What were the functions of this commission and how did your work there lead to your appointment to the Federal Penitentiary Service?
2. Did you have any interests or occupations from a young age which helped you decide to take up this kind of work?
3. How did it happen that you were invited to join the FSIN? What did your work there involve? Is it true there is no such position as lead analyst in any other regional branch of the FSIN?
4. How does the system of corresponding with political prisoners work? Do they really receive letters of support from people they don’t know? Do the authorities still allow this?
5. Unlike many of your colleagues, acquaintances and friends in human rights organizations, you stayed in Russia after the Special Military Operation was launched on February 24th 2022? Was leaving Russia not an issue for you at that time?
6. What changed in the FSIN system that prompted you to decide to leave Russia almost a year later?
7. What was your reaction when you learned about the recruitment of lifers in the penal system to the Wagner private military company? What did it say about the attitude of the authorities both to the war and to society as a whole?
8. What changes did you observe in the FSIN and in the regime to prisons and penal colonies after the start of the war?
9. And in the treatment of prisoners? Were there problems, for example, with supplies? Or other issues? xould they still correspond with relatives and have visits from them?
10. Would you say the numbers of political prisoners has increased since the start of the war?
11. With your experience and knowledge of the penal system in Russia, what can you comment about the treatment of Aleksei Navalny in the penal colony? To what extent does his treatment differ from the treatment of other prisoners? And how?
12. And Vladimir Kara-Murza? Could you comment on his recent transfer to the correctional colony No. 7 Omsk.
13. You currently live in France. Why France?
14. How do you see your future? And the future of Russia?

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My guests today are Mamuka Kuparadze, the founder of Studio Re in Tbilisi, which works to advance ‘people’s diplomacy’ through documentary film, and Aleksandr Pichugin, a Russian journalist, originally from Nizhny Novgorod, who left Russia with his family immediately after the announcement of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and started a new life in Tbilisi.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the flow of Russian citizens fleeing the war to Georgia has reached an unprecedented 100,000. That’s the size of two small Georgian cities such as Gori, for example.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, relations between Georgia and Russia have not been easy. There have been wars of secession, first in South Ossetia, then in Abkhazia, and their de facto removal from Georgian government control. And the culmination of these wars, we can say, took place 15 years later, in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia and won a five-day war after which Russia “officially” recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (both are still considered by the international community as legitimate parts of Georgia. Georgia itself calls them Russian-occupied territories).

In this edition of ‘Then and Now’, we take a look at how Georgian society and government perceives these immigrants from Russia and how Russian immigrants live there.

The recording was made on 4 January 2024.

My questions include:

• Aleksandr, what pushed you to such an important decision for yourself and your family? After all, it is not easy to start from scratch in a foreign country?
• Why Georgia? Did the visa system play a role in your decision?
• Did you find a place to live? A job? Tell us a little about how you solved such domestic problems and how you were received by Georgian society. Is there a sense of a separate ‘Russian world’ in Tbilisi?
• Mamuka, Studio Re recently released a short movie about how the local population feels about the flow of Russian immigrants into their country. What were the main findings of your research?
• How does the flow of Russians into Georgia affect the country’s economy?
• Against the background of extremely uneasy and tense relations with Putin’s Russia, how do the Georgian government and civil society feel about the presence of so many Russians on Georgian territory, Mamuka?
• Refugees from Ukraine have also come to Georgia. Aleksandr, is the presence of Ukrainians felt in your circles?
• The Georgian border service has denied entry to the country to several Russian citizens who are critical of Putin’s regime, such as Mikhail Fishman, journalist, presenter and analyst of TV Dozhd, and others. What is the explanation for this, Mamuka? What is the position of the country’s ruling party, the ‘Georgian Dream’, towards today’s Russia?
• How does it differ from the position of activists in civil society?
• Aleksandr, how did you in Georgia perceive the new flow of Russian immigrants, which began immediately after the announcement of mobilization on 22 October? Do you feel a difference in the motivation and goals of the first wave compared to the second?
• Has the war with Ukraine given rise to new anxieties on the part of Russia in Georgia, Mamuka?
• How do Russians in Georgia see their future? Have some already returned to Russia? How do you personally see your future, Aleksandr?

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Welcome to the thirteenth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.

My guest today is Lev Aleksandrovich Ponomarev. Lev Ponomarev trained and worked as a physicist in the USSR before devoting more time and energy to issues of human rights in the Soviet Union and subsequently in the Russian Federation. He was one of the founders of « Memorial » in 1988, and soon became one of the foremost figures in human rights in Russia. In the dying days of perestroika, Lev Ponomarev went into politics and in 1990 co-founded the opposition movement « Democratic Russia ». He was a People’s Deputy at the end of the Soviet era and a deputy of the first convocation of the State Duma in the new Russia after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. In 1997 he founded the not-for-profit « For Human Rights » and in 2007 he set up the « Foundation in Defence of Prisoners’ Rights ». He was a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group from 1996 until its closure last year. In 2019 his organisation « For Human Rights » was shut down by the authorities. On December 28, 2020, Lev Ponomarev’s name was in the first list of individuals designated as ‘media foreign agents’ by the Russian Justice Ministry.

The recording was made on 22 December 2023.

You can also listen to the podcast on our website, or on SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

My questions include:

• Lev Aleksandrovich, where were you when you learned that Russia had launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine? Do you remember how you felt at that moment?
• If I’m not mistaken, you now live in Paris. Could you tell me how this came about?
• Your NGO « For Human Rights » was closed down in 2019 and a year later you yourself became a “Media – Foreign Agent”. How did you feel when all this was happening and why did the authorities do this?
• You have always been someone who warned about the dangerous developments of the Putin regime. Do you think you had insights that others did not? Does everyone agree with you now?
• What do you think was Boris Yeltsin’s biggest mistake?
• Presidential elections are scheduled for next March – although we already know that they will not be “free and fair”. What do you think civil society should do in the run-up to the election – and during the election itself?
• To what extent do people in emigration perceive things differently from those who stayed in Russia? Is this difference noticeable to you? How do you think it affects relations between those who have left Russia and those who remained?
• It is hard not to be pessimistic about human rights in the near future, not least because Russia’s war against Ukraine is still ongoing. But in the longer term, are there grounds for optimism?

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My guest today is Natalya Zyagina, head of the Moscow branch of Amnesty International shut down by the Russian authorities in 2022. Natalya Zvyagina has a long record as a Russian human rights activist. She is originally from the city of Voronezh, where she worked for many years in the Interregional Human Rights Group. Natalya has also worked at the Institute for Law and Public Policy, a non-profit organization based in Moscow, and at the Russian branch of Transparency International.

This recording was made on 30 November 2023.

In addition to our website, you can also listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

My questions include:

• First of all, please tell us about your work in Voronezh. What prompted you to become involved in human rights work?
• In the 1990s Voronezh became one of the main centres of human rights activity in Russia, and many of Russia’s leading human rights defenders come from there. What do you attribute this to?
• In 2018, you took up the post of head of Amnesty International’s Moscow office. What were your expectations at that time? What was Amnesty’s role in Russia at that time? How did the Russian human rights community feel about the organisation?
• Looking back, how do you assess the change in the status of Aleksei Navalny, whose recognition as a prisoner of conscience was removed for a while, although now he is again recognised as such? And how important is Amnesty’s classification of people as “prisoners of conscience” for the Russian public and human rights community in general?
• In March 2022, the Russian media regulator blocked access to Amnesty International’s Russian-language website. What impact did this decision have on your work?
• In April of the same year Russian authorities removed the Amnesty’s registration as a representative office in Moscow. In addition to Amnesty’s office, the Russian Ministry of Justice closed the offices of 15 representative offices of foreign NGOs and foundations, including Human Rights Watch, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Heinrich Böll, Friedrich Naumann, Friedrich Ebert, and other organizations. The Justice Ministry said at the time that this was done “in connection with revealed violations of Russian law.” What was all this in fact about?
• At the time, Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said that Amnesty would continue its work to document and expose human rights abuses in Russia despite the office closure. How easy was it for Amnesty to continue its work without a Moscow office? What has been your personal situation and that of other staff members since then?
• Where were you when Russia invaded Ukraine? Did the invasion of Ukraine come as a shock to you?
• Are the current extreme measures against human rights in Russia a result of the war? Or have the policies of the Putin regime been moving in this repressive direction anyway?
• After all these events, a new conflict has erupted in the Middle East. Has this had any impact on your work at Amnesty?
• How do you assess the events in Dagestan in relation to the war in the Middle East?
• Many human rights defenders have left Russia. What is life like for those who have remained in the country? Can they do any meaningful work at all?
• Recently, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs drafted a bill that would require foreigners visiting Russia to declare their “loyalty” to the Russian authorities. What does this mean?
• How do you see the future of human rights work in Russia?

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My guests today are two Parisians, Aleksandra Ilkhovskaya and Svetlana Dokudovskaya: Aleksandra [known to everyone as “Sanya]” has lived in Paris since she was six years old – her mother emigrated from Russia in 1991. She is married with two daughters. She is a primary school teacher with 10 years’ experience. Svetlana has lived with her French husband and their 13-year-old daughter in Paris for the past 17 years. She works as a cell biologist at the Gustave Roussy Institute, Europe’s largest cancer research centre. Both their lives changed after February 24th 2022.

This recording was made on 22 September 2023.

My questions include:

1. What were your thoughts and feelings when you woke up last February 24th?
2. Why did you decide you needed to take action? And how?
3. When did you first arrive at the train station and what did you find there?
4. You obviously helped the people there a great deal, but what did you get out of the experience, what did you learn or discover about yourselves?
5. Sveta, with Sanya’s help, you published a book called “Operation Montparnasse”. It contains the stories of refugees and also the stories of your fellow Russian volunteers/translators. What would you say is the particular importance of the book for you? And for your readers?

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My guest today is the author Maxim Osipov. Following in the great Russian tradition of Chekhov and Bulgakov, he has pursued a career in medicine in parallel with that of a writer. For his works of fiction – for the most part short stories that are sharp and witty commentaries on modern-day life in the Russian provinces – Maxim Osipov has won a number of literary prizes, and his plays have been staged as well as broadcast on the radio in Russia. Osipov’s works have been translated into 18 languages. His books published in English include the collections of short stories Rock, Paper, Scissors and Other Stories and Kilometer 101 (see my review in Rights in Russia from earlier this year).

Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Maxim Osipov signed several letters condemning Putin’s military operation.. He left Russia on 4 March 2023 and now lives in the Netherlands where he has launched a new quarterly literary journal, The Fifth Wave.

This recording was made on 11 August 2023.

My questions:

• You left Russia almost immediately after the Russian army invaded Ukraine. How did you come to take such a decision? How difficult was it for you?
• Before you left Russia you successfully combined the professions of cardiologist in Tarusa with that of a writer of short stories and other works of literature. How did these two roles complement one another?
• Do the current policies of Putin’s Russia allow you to be a writer? What is the duty or role of a Russian writer in today’s situation?
• What’s your reaction when accusations of imperialism and ‘colonial thinking’ are made against some of the classics of Russian literature? To what extent are they justified? Do you see attempts outside Russia to cancel Russian culture, as is claimed by Russian propaganda?
• In justifying the invasion of Ukraine, Putin set out his interpretation of history, claiming that Ukraine belongs to the ‘Russian world.’ To what extent does such use of history as justification have a place in the contemporary world?
• You have recently begun publication of a new journal. Tell us about it and your aims and aspirations for it.
• You have named your magazine The Fifth Wave. You wrote earlier that this wave of emigration is most similar to the first wave after 1917. What did you have in mind?
• Do you continue to write fiction in emigration? You no longer practice as a doctor, so where do you get your material from?
• How do you find life in emigration?
• Are there circumstances under which you would return to Russia?

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Welcometo the ninth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, TeresaCherfas.

My guest today is Tetyana Sokolova, a professional midwife of 40 years at Mariupol Maternity Hospital No. 2, on the left bank of Mariupol near Azovstal, the industrial plant that became a centre of resistance against the Russian invaders.

On 9 March, the city’s Maternity Hospital No. 3 was bombed by Russian aircraft and the whole world watched with horror pictures of the destroyed building and Ukrainian soldiers’ desperate attempts to save the life of a pregnant woman, as she lay on a stretcher among the ruins.

Three pregnant women from the rubble of Maternity Hospital No. 3 were brought to Tetyana and her team of midwives,

For her work, her resilience and her bravery under the most difficult of conditions, Tetyana was awarded the international Anna Politkovskaya prize, named in honour of the murdered journalist.

My questions

1. Where were you when you realised that Russia had invaded Ukraine? What was your reaction and what were your first thoughts?

2. You went to work on 2 March. Did you waver at all in your decision? After all, it was less than a week since the war had started. What made you to go to work that day?

3. Tell us about the events of 9 March and how they impacted you personally.

4. You have worked in Mariupol all your professional life - what made you become a midwife?

5. Could you ever have imagined that you would be an eyewitness to alleged war crimes?

6. How did you escape from Mariupol?

7. Where do you live now?

8. Do you cherish hopes of returning to Mariupol one day?

9. Were you surprised to be awarded the Anna Politkovskaya prize? Did you know about her before?

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Welcome to the eighth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. As a rule, guests on our podcast are individuals for whom 24th February 2022 was a turning-point in their life; today we are talking about an organisation that came into being as a result of that fateful date. The Reckoning Project was created in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with the aim of gathering evidence of war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine.

To this end, The Reckoning Project has brought together a team of international advisers – human rights experts, historians, lawyers and politicians. And on the front line, so to speak, is a team of journalists led by our guest today, Nataliya Gumenyuk. They are the foot soldiers on the ground who gather testimony about Russia’s war crimes from Ukrainian eyewitnesses.

This recording was made on 22 June 2023

My questions include:

• Could you ever have imagined doing what you do today? What was the journey that led to your present occupation?
• What exactly was the impetus behind the creation of The Reckoning Project?
• What role do the lawyers play in your work? Have they had an impact on your team’s journalistic practice?
• What kind of interaction is there between lawyers and journalists on the team?
• Tell us about your work with Ukrainian children – after all, their deportation to Russia is classified as a war crime under international law.
• How did your team gather testimonials from people who were victims of the recent catastrophe at the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric dam?
• Are you confident that your work will be of use to in the future? In what way?

See also this story on the deportation of children from Mariuopol:

Iryna Lopatina [via thereckoningproject.com], ‘“Dad, You Have to Come—Or We Will Be Adopted!”: One Ukrainian Family’s Harrowing Wartime Saga,’ Vanity Fair, 6 October 2022

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Welcome to the seventh episode of our new Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. In recent weeks, politically motivated trials and lengthy prison terms in Putin’s Russia reached a new peak. Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment for treason and Evgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriichuk have been remanded in custody awaiting trial for “justifying terrorism” in connection with the staging of a play. Some say these developments signify a return to the USSR of the 1970s, others that it is reminiscent of Stalinist purges. Our guest today, Boris Kuznetsov, is a lawyer who played a key role in the first high profile trial of Putin’s presidency – he defended the interests of relatives of the sailors who died on the Kursk nuclear submarine, which sank in 2000. We invited him to share with us his experiences of the Kursk case in particular, and more widely his observations and reflections on the legal system and practice of jurisprudence in Putin’s Russia. The recording was made on 1 June 2023.

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Welcome to the sixth episode of our new Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. Whilst our podcast is mostly about people for whom February 24th 2022 was a turning-point in their lives, the subject of today’s conversation is the country, whose leadership caused that date to be so significant in all our lives. We are talking, of course, about Russia. To lead us to an understanding of just how fateful a date 24th February 2022 may be for Russia itself, we talked to Dmitry Oreshkin, someone who has devoted many years to detailed observation of the political, economic, and social life of the country. Let him be our guide as we discuss present-day Russia and the likely future of the Russian Federation.
This recording took place on May 11th 2023

You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

My questions include:

1. How long have you known that Putin had imperial ambitions in relation to Ukraine? Where did these ambitions come from?
2. After Russia invaded Ukraine, you decided to leave the country. What was your main argument for your decision?
3. How do you assess the current wave of Russian emigration? How does it compare to previous Russian emigrations? How might this influence the country’s future development?
4. What do you think prompted the general mobilization that took place last autumn? What consequences has it had?
5. Immediately after its was announced, a large number of men of conscription age left Russia. Do you see this as a demographic crisis?
6. Can you comment on the annual Victory Day celebrations in Moscow and other Russian cities? What can does it tell us about the state of the Russian army – about its losses, about the criticism we hear about the Defence Ministry from numerous private military groups and so on?
7. Under what circumstances could the war against Ukraine be brought to an end?
8. What will happen after Putin? Do you think he will be overthrown? Will he die peacefully in his bed?

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Welcome to the fifth episode of our new Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. With me today is Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian journalist who shocked the world with her anti-war protest on 14 March 2022, which went live on Russian State TV’s prime time news programme “Vremya”. Since that moment, she has been through such a rollercoaster of adventures – fleeing Russia with her daughter, work as a journalist in Germany, and now her recent relocation to Paris. Her book Between Good and Evil recently came out in three languages and will soon be published in four more. No doubt other languages will follow. This recording took place on 19 April 2023.

Marina Ovsyannikova’s autobiographical Between Good and Evil describing her life in Moscow as a journalist and the media ‘propaganda factory’ that works on behalf of the Kremlin is published by Post Hill Press, March 2023, pp190, ISBN: 979-8888450505.

You can also listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

My questions include:

• Marina, how do you remember 24 February 2022? Could you have imagined that such a thing could happen? Or did the invasion by Russian troops of Ukraine come as a complete surprise to you?
• What was your job at Channel One then?
• When did you start working for the state TV channel? What does it mean to you to be a conscientious and professional journalist?
• Were there instances in the past when you and your colleagues might have acted differently?
• What thoughts were going through your head that prompted you to act on 14 March? Tell us how it happened. I’ve heard that an English journalist unwittingly played a key role in your decision to act.
• Weren’t you afraid of the consequences? You are a mother, you have children …
• Did Channel One introduce new procedures after your protest to make sure it couldn’t happen again?
• What happened to you immediately afterwards?
• You were placed under house arrest. Did you have an electronic bracelet? How long did that period last and were there people watching you?
• When did the offer of help to flee Russia come? What did you decide to do?
• In the end, it was a very big adventure! Tell us in as much detail as you can about your escape. How did you manage to get the bracelet off?
• Are you in touch with your husband? And with your mother?
• What about your son?
• A new law on digital conscription was recently introduced. What does this tell you about the path Putin is taking Russia down in the years to come? Are you afraid for your son?
• Vladimir Kara-Murza was recently convicted of treason and given a sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment. What are your thoughts about this?
• Are you afraid for yourself?
• How has your daughter coped through all these dramatic events and changes to her life?
• Do you think your former colleagues at Channel One are still genuinely and sincerely committed to their jobs?
• What is life like for you in Paris?
• How do you see your future?

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Our latest guest is theUkrainian writer Andrei Kurkov. Andrei Kurkov became widely known to readersaround the world in 2001 when his novel Smert’ postoronnego [Смерть Постороннего] was published in Englishtranslation as Death and the Penguin. Other novelsfollowed and, in their wake, worldwide recognition and success at prominentinternational literary awards. His latest novel, Grey Bees, tells the story of an elderly beekeeperin the occupied territory of Donbas. The novel touches on the war in Donbas andon the violation of Crimean Tatar rights in Russian annexed Crimea. In 2015his Ukraine Diaries was published inEnglish and, recently, his Diary of anInvasion.

This recording took place on 14April 2023.

Diary of an Invasion is published by Mountain Leopard Press,ISBN: 9781914495847, pp 304, London, 2022. It is a collection of AndreiKurkov’s writings and broadcasts from Ukraine in the lead up to and during thewar.

You can also listen to the podcast on ourwebsite, SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

My questions include:

1. You started your Diary of an Invasion justbefore New Year at the very end of 2021. Do you always keep a diary?

2. What emotions did you feel when you learnt what hadhappened on February 24th?

3. How do you see the role of the writer during thewar?

4. Before the invasion, your remarks in the Diary about Ukraine and your Ukrainian compatriotsare quite multifaceted. But after you tend to write about them as if they werefigures from Ukrainian historical myths (‘bylinas’) – how brave, freedom-lovingthey are, and how different they are from the Russians. It is as if those humantraits that make your novels so memorable and touching aren’t relevant here.What explains that change?

5. You write about the traditions of the Ukrainianpeople and the creation of myths in times of crisis. What is the role oftraditions and myths in the identity of a people?

6. Your native language, in which you became a famouswriter, is Russian. Have you ever had any problems in your relations withUkrainian writers or the public because of it?

7. What is your attitude to the Russian language inUkraine now?

8. How do Russians around the world react to your advocacyfor Ukraine – do you get hate mail from Russians?

9. Do you see the possibility for Russian-speakingUkrainians to write in Russian again in the future?

10. You write in your Diary that youhave an unfinished novel… will you be able to finish it or is it doomed toremain in the unfinished after the Russian invasion?

11. Do you believe in the concept of ‘good Russians’?Who is a ‘good Russian’ for you?

12. Has Russian culture played a major role in your owndevelopment as a writer?

13. Are there any commonalities between Russian andUkrainian culture and traditions? (You write in the Diary about the feat of Russian PR in promotingRussian culture around the world, as if Russian culture would not be so highlyregarded without it.)

14. How do you see the future of Ukraine? And ofRussia?

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Welcome to the third episode of our new Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 everything, everywhere, suddenly looked different. That day was a watershed. Guests on the Then & Now podcast are people for whom February 24 became a defining moment, dividing their lives into before and after the war.

Today’s guest is Lev Gudkov, a sociologist and director of the analytical Levada Centre, Russia’s leading independent polling organisation. He is also editor-in-chief of the journal The Russian Public Opinion Herald. Lev Dmitrievich has worked at the Levada Centre since its founding, initiated by Yury Levada in 2003. After the death of Yury Levada in 2006, Lev Dmitrievich becamse the director of the Centre. In September 2016 the Levada Centre was designated as a ‘foreign agent’ organisation, a move which at the time Lev Gudkov said amounted to ‘political censorship.’

This recording took place on 16 March 2023

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Welcome to the second episode of our new Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 everything, everywhere, suddenly looked different. That day was a watershed. Guests on the Then & Now podcast are people for whom February 24 became a defining moment, dividing their lives into before and after the war.

Today’s guest is Svetlana Alekseevna Gannushkina: human rights activist, social activist and chair of the Committee for Civic Assistance – the first human rights organisation in Russia helping refugees and displaced persons. In 1991, she was one of the founding members of the Memorial Centre for Human Rights and in 2010 – together with Memorial – she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. On December 23, 2022, her name was added to the register of ‘foreign agents.’ Her organisation, the Committee for Civic Assistance, was registered as a 'foreign agent' in April 2015.

The recording took place on 16 February 2023

My questions include:

• What did you recall of your feelings and thoughts on 24 February 2022?
• What were the key events that led you to become a human rights activist?
• Why did you decide to focus your work on refugees?
• How does being on the register of 'foreign agents' affect you? And the work of your organisation?
• You often talk about feelings of shame and responsibility for your country. How do you understand Russia’s lack of sympathy for Ukrainians?
• What is left of civil society in Russia today after the closures of Memorial, the Moscow Helsinki Group and the Sakharov Centre?
• How do you see the future of Russia?

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Welcome to our new Russian-language podcast, Then & Now, with me, Teresa Cherfas. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 everything, everywhere, suddenly looked different. That day was a watershed. Guests on the Then & Now podcast are people for whom February 24 became a defining moment, dividing their lives into before and after the war.
My first guest is Marina Litvinenko, widow of Aleksandr Litvinenko, who perished in London in November 2006. Aleksandr Litvinenko was poisoned with a lethal dose of Polonium-210. This was to all intents and purposes a nuclear crime perpetrated by Putin’s Russia on British soil. But immediately after Litvinenko's murder, the British government kept its silence. Not wanting to spoil relations with Russia, it went no further than accusing two ‘suspects’ back in Moscow of the crime. When the British authorities asked for their extradition, they got the usual response – ‘nyet.’ After her husband’s tragic death, Marina Litvinenko fought long and hard to have her husband’s case treated as an act of State terror. In January 2016, the High Court in London judged that the two 'suspects' in Litvinenko’s murder had ‘probably’ acted under the direction of the FSB and with the approval of President Vladimir Putin and Nikolai Patrushev, Director of the FSB. It was only in 2021 that the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible for the death of Aleksandr Litvinenko. This is largely down to the efforts of today's guest. The recording took place on 12 January 2023.
Questions include:

• You performed a fantastic feat in defence of Sasha. Where did you draw your strength from?
• How would you describe the behaviour and attitude of the British authorities toward Sasha’s murder?
• Was it a surprise to Sasha (and to you) that Putin sent assassins to attack him in London?
• Especially after the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, which explicitly accused Putin of killing Sasha, were you afraid that they could come after you, too? Were you worried for your son?
• Tell us about some of the projects that have been developed relating to your husband’s case?
• Where were you and what do you remember of the moment you found out that Russia had attacked Ukraine?
• Did your perception of Putin change as a result? Did it change your feelings about Russia?
• How would you have described the Putin regime before February 24? Did that change afterwards?
• How do you see the future of Russia? And of Putin?
• What would it take for Russia to become a ‘normal’ country?
• Does the West’s attitude towards what is happening in Ukraine give you hope? What else do you think the West needs to do?
• Will Putin and his associates be put on trial and punished for war crimes in The Hague?
• How do you see the future of Ukraine?

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Our guest on the podcast this week is Varvara Pakhomenko. Varvara Pakhomenko has been a human rights activist for a very long time. Back in her native Tomsk she was actively involved in human rights activities. Having moved to Moscow, Varvara began working with many human rights activists in the capital, but the geography of her travels remained very wide. Since 2006, Varvara Pakhomenko has worked in conflict zones in the North and South Caucasus: in 2006-2009 at the human rights organization Demos, in 2009-2011 at the Dutch organization Russian Justice Initiative, and since 2011 she has worked as a programme analyst for Europe and Central Asia at the International Crisis Group. When the Russian authorities effectively closed the ICG’s Moscow office, Varvara left to work in Ukraine. There she worked first for the UN Development Programme and after that for Geneva Call. A move to Canada seemed to put some distance between her and Europe, but now Varvara Pakhomenko is back again on the old continent.

The recording took place on 24 June 2022.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

You can also listen to the podcast in full here (see also below):

The questions we ask Varvara Pakhomenko include:

· How did human rights activism come into your life?

· One of Tomsk’s leading human rights activists was Boris Maksovich Kreindel. He was involved in many projects, including defending the rights of Roma in Tomsk region. How did it happen that he had to leave his native land?

· Tell us about your work in the conflict zones in the Caucasus – where did you work? To what extent was it dangerous?

· Which Moscow human rights activists and which organizations have you worked with in Russia?

· When and why did you decide to move to Ukraine?

· How does the human rights movement in Ukraine differ from that in Russia?

· At least since 2012 the Russian authorities have pursued policies of increasing restrictions on human rights work in the country, attacks on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and a general moved towards isolationism. Do you think they have been preparing for the war against Ukraine for a long time?

· What has been your role at the UNDP and Geneva Call?

· How has the Ukrainian army changed since 2014. How do you assess the Ukrainian military’s compliance with international humanitarian law and with the rules and customs of warfare?

· How do you see the future of human rights in Russia and the future of human rights organizations?

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “I remember when I was working on South Ossetia in 2010,” Varya Pakhomenko told Simon Cosgrove and I. “I had to make a difficult decision at the time: I did not know what to do. I called Sasha Cherkasov and asked him what to do in this situation. Sasha replied: ‘You know, no one can make this decision better than you right now. Because you know all that’s going on there better than anyone.’ And at that moment I realized that these fine people had begun to see me as an equal colleague.” In this podcast, Varya Pakhomenko talks about her native Tomsk, about Tomsk human rights activist Boris Kreindel, and about how a student from Siberia became a human rights activist. Varya and I were in South Ossetia together two weeks after the end of the war in 2008, so I had a chance to work with her myself then. After Russia, Varvara Pakhomenko has worked in Ukraine: in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and, after that, with the Geneva Call organization. It was then that she participated in training the Ukrainian Armed Forces, teaching the Ukrainian military how to comply with international humanitarian norms and protect civilians in armed conflict.

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Our guest on the podcast this week is Nikolai Kavkazsky. Nikolai Yurievich Kavkazsy is a Russian civil society activist, human rights defender and opposition politician. He is one of the leading Yabloko activists in Moscow. Nikolai Kavkazsky was a defendant in the Bolotnoe case. Politically, he defines himself as a left-wing social democrat, an internationalist, a supporter of LGBT rights and of feminism. He is an advocate of juvenile justice and a humane drug policy.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

The recording was made on 18 June 2022.

The questions we ask Nikolai Kavkazsky include:

· Which word best describes you – civil society activist, human rights activist or politician?

· You studied law at the Institute of World Economy and Informatization. At what point did you realize you wanted to be a civil society activist and a politician?

· You became a member of the Yabloko party in 2007 and are one of the party’s leading activists in Moscow. Why did you choose Yabloko as your party?

· Why are political parties weak in Russia?

· You took part in the Bolotnaya Square protest in 2012, after which you were charged with ‘participation in mass riots’ (under Article 212(2) of the Russian Criminal Code) and held on remand for almost a year and a half. Amnesty International recognized you as a prisoner of conscience, along with several other individuals involved in the Bolotnaya case. In December 2013, you were amnestied and the criminal case was dropped. How did all this happen?

· What were the conditions in pre-trial detention centre?

· You were an associate of the late Andrei Babushkin, who headed the Committee for Civil Rights. What is the work of this organization? And what kind of person was Andrei Babushkin?

· You support LGBT rights in Russia. Why is the country so intolerant of LGBT people?

· On 24 February 2022 you were detained for taking part in an anti-war protest. The next day you were jaled for six days. What is the situation regarding anti-war protests in Russia?

· How do you see the future of the country and, in particular, the future of human rights?

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “Everything, absolutely everything, must be politicized. Including the question of installing benches at the entrance to an apartment building and protesting against plans to build in housing courtyards.” That’s what Simon Cosgrove and I were told by Nikolai Kavkazsky in a conversation we had with him last week. I’ve known Nikolai since the infamous Bolotnaya trial in Moscow. He is first and foremost a politician, a political activist. We also remember his active participation in human rights organizations, including Andrei Babushkin’s Committee for Civil Rights. It was an interesting conversation in which Nikolay Kavkazsky bravely states that he wants to change politics as they now are in Russia; he wants to change society so that it is more just, more free, and integrates all oppressed social groups.

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Our guest on the podcast this week is the historian Nikita Vasilievich Petrov. Nikita Petrov is deputy chair of the board of the Memorial Research and Information Centre (which is based in St. Petersburg). Born in Kiev, Nikita Petrov graduated from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering and went on to study at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. His association with the Memorial Society began in 1988. As a historian Nikita Petrov has specialized in the history of the Soviet security services. He is known as the author and compiler of many works describing the structure and functions of the Soviet security services from 1917 to 1991.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

The recording took place on 30 May 2022.

· When and why did you first become interested in history, particularly the history of Soviet repression and the security services?

· When did your collaboration with Memorial begin?

· You wrote a number of works with Arseny Roginsky, who headed Memorial and died in 2017. Can you tell us about how you first met, what it was like to work with Roginsky, and what he was like as a person?

· As a historian who worked in Russia’s archives for many years, can you tell us how historians’ access to these archives has changed over the years?

· You have written about the history of the NKVD under Stalin, in particular about Nikolai Yezhov. To what extent can we talk about the personal influence of people like Yagoda or Yezhov on the NKVD, or were they just doing Stalin’s bidding?

· You also wrote about the role of the NKVD and MGB in Central and Eastern Europe from 1939. To what extent were the repressions against people of Polish nationality similar to the Nazi repressions on the basis of race – an example against people of Jewish origin?

· Another topic you wrote about is that of Ivan Serov and the post-Stalinist KGB. To what extent did the security services change in the post-Stalin period, first as the KGB and then as the FSB?

· Is there an explanation for why the security services played such an important role in Soviet and Russian history? For example: in the book From the Red Terror to the Mafia State: Russia’s Secret Services in the Struggle for World Domination the authors [historian Felshtinsky, who is not considered a historian by many, and former KGB Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Popov (Canada)] write about the history of the state security takeover in Russia, presenting developments in terms of a confrontation between the Cheka-KGB and the Communist Party. In fact, did the Chekists confront the Communists or were they basically all the same kind of people?

· Why are today’s authorities in Russia so interested in the study of history?

· Are there any lessons in history? Including for the citizens of Russia?

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Read old newspapers and magazines! That was exactly the advice Nikita Petrov got from his father. He taught him that reading the Soviet press would be interesting later, after many years had passed. So Nikita Petrov, who had studied to be a chemist, became a historian. In our latest podcast Nikit Petrov told Simon Cosgrove and me about his love for collecting old newspapers and magazines, how he stacked them in folders and read and re-read them. That's how chemistry came to lose one scientist from its ranks but history gained a remarkable specialist in the study of the Soviet security agencies. We all know Nikita Vasilievich as the author and compiler of many works describing the structure and functions of Soviet security services from 1917 to 1991. This knowledge is very important to all of us today as people from these very special services continue to occupy seats of power. And these people, having gained access to the levers of power, act even more subtly than the preceding genergation of Chekists. "Logic is turned inside out, black is repainted white, and the crimes of the Soviet regimeare not condemned but justified," Nikita Petrov told us. "Today's attempt to recycle history and use it to educate people in the spirit of patriotism is untenable. Such a policy will only bring up a generation of cynics. However, people who can think for themselves will figure things out, they will see for themselves it is all one big lie."

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Our guest on the podcast this week is Lev Aleksandrovich Ponomarev (pictured, left, with the late Andrei Babushkin). Lev Ponomarev is a human rights activist and head of the For Human Rights movement and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. He also participated in the creation of the Memorial Human Rights Center. As a legal entity, the For Human Rights Movement was liquidated by a November 2019 decision of the Russian Supreme Court. Lev Ponomarev became one of the first private individuals to be included in the registry of "media foreign agents" when the Russian Ministry of Justice included him in the corresponding list on December 28, 2020.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

The questions we ask Lev Ponomarev include:

1 Andrei Babushkin, the well-known human rights defender, died recently - on the night of May 14. You knew him well for many years. What kind of person was he?

2 When did you leave Russia and what made you take this difficult decision?

3 What is the situation like for human rights defenders who still live and work in Russia today?

4 You were one of the organizers of the peace movement in Russia. How strong is this movement?

5 How difficult is it to continue your work outside of Russia?

6 How long can Russian propaganda be effective in the face of Russia's enormous human and material losses during the war?

7 What effect do sanctions have inside Russia?

8 Many people now use the word "fascism" to describe Putin's regime in Russia. Would you use this term?

9 You have advocated democratic reforms in Russia since at least the late 1980s. Why have these reforms - at least to date - failed so badly?

10 How do you see future developments?

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: " Lev Ponomarev said, 'The atmosphere in the country now is like, well, they’re not shooting us yet, but... What is there to say? I’ve been squeezed out, I have been forced to go abroad. The attacks were almost daily. But I wasn't beaten up once, thank God. I have to thank those guys who attacked me. They showed humanism, so to speak. Well, they poured something smelly over me, and I had to throw away my jacket and trousers. The cops stopped me in the metro, told me I was on the federal wanted list, and then they drove me around town and let me go. In general, I realized I had to leave.' In our latest podcast on Rights in Russia, Simon and I talked with Lev Ponomarev. We remembered Andrei Babushkin, who has died recently, discussed the human rights situation in Russia and considered possible scenarios for the future.

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Our guest on the podcast this week is Andrei Kalikh, a human rights researcher, journalist, and activist with a special interest in the issue of corruption. In the past, Andrei worked as programme director at the Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights and he has been a board member of Perm Memorial Society. Until recently, Andrei lived in St. Petersburg. He recently left Russia and is currently in Israel.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

The questions we ask Andrei are:

1) When the war began on February 24, 2022, did it come as a surprise to civil society in Russia?

2) Why did the war begin on February 24, 2022?

3) There were many protests in Russia at the start of the war. You were involved in some of these protests. What was the atmosphere at the protests? How did the authorities respond?

4) Nowadays there are fewer protests. Why?

5) At the beginning of the conflict there were estimates that about 250,000 people had left Russia because of the war. Who were these people and why did they leave?

6) What help is available to those who have left Russia?

8) To what extent is there now an "anti-Russian" atmosphere in public opinion outside Russia because of the war?

9) Many people say one of the reasons the Russian military has not been successful in Ukraine is because of corruption. You worked on anti-corruption projects in Russia for many years. How strong is the corruption in Russia?

10) What do you think will happen in the next few weeks and months?

Sergey Nikitin writes on Facebook:

Russian human rights activist Andrei Kalikh took part in protests against the war unleashed by the Kremlin. It was not long after the first bombings and shelling of Ukraine: Andrei could not remain indifferent and on February 27 he stood in the centre of St. Petersburg holding a placard to express his opinion in the most peaceful way possible.

The police were brutal; no one was spared. They grabbed him, twisted his arm, threw him in a van and took him away.

“One of the reasons for the outbreak of this war was the lack of resistance from civil society, the opposition movement and the protest movement. We have all lost; we were weak. I feel personally responsible for this,” says Andrei Kalikh. A former programme director at the Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, a board member of the Perm Memorial Society, a human rights and civil society activist and journalist, Andrei Kalikh was our guest on our latest podcast as part of the Rights in Russia project. We talked about many things, including protest and civic activism, not only in big cities, but also far from them. Andrei told us about the protest in the village of Siversky in Leningrad region, not far from where he lived until recently. And in this quiet dacha settlement, known to us from Nabokov's memoirs, as it turns out, there are people who care too. People who are ready to express their position publicly and find a variety of ways to do so. Andrei Kalikh, like many other human rights activists, was forced to leave Russia. He told us that for him living in Russia had become impossible and shameful. "Everything that had been achieved has been wiped out by this war,” he told us.

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Our guest on the podcast this week is the lawyer Kirill Koroteev, head of international legal practice of Agora International Human Rights Group. Previously, Kirill worked as legal director at Memorial Human Rights Centre, where he specialized in handling cases before the European Court of Human Rights. Kirill graduated from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and received his master's degree from the University of Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he also taught public law.

The themes we discuss in the podcast include: the work of a Russian lawyer in international courts; Russia's exclusion from the Council of Europe and its consequences; Russia's war against Ukraine; the current brain drain from Russia; and the future of human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

The questions we ask Kirill Koroteev include:

1) As head of international legal practice at the Agora Human Rights Group you extensive experience in international courts and jurisdictions in various countries. How would you compare Russian lawyers today - especially human rights lawyers - with lawyers from other European countries?

2) Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe on March 16, 2022. This is only the second case of the exclusion of a state from the Council of Europe. Was there an alternative to this turn of events?

3) What will be the consequences of Russia's withdrawal for participants in Court proceedings – including those whose cases have already been decided, but not yet executed; those who have applied to the Court but whose cases are still in progress; and those who may still want to bring a case to the Court?

4) Russian lawyer and human rights activist Karinna Moskalenko has said that the inability of Russians to apply to the European Court would be ‘a punishment for ordinary people, not for the government.’ Do you agree with this point of view?

5) What is the future of the interstate case filed by the Ukrainian government on 28 February, as a result of which on 1 March the Court issued interim measures (under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court) requiring Russia to ‘refrain from military attacks on civilians and civilian objects, including homes, ambulances and other specially protected civilian objects such as schools and hospitals, and immediately ensure the safety of medical facilities, personnel and ambulances on the territory attacked or besieged by Russian forces.’

6) What is the legality of showing public videos of conversations and press conferences with prisoners of war. Is this a violation of the Geneva Conventions? Valentina Melnikova, for examples, has argued that such videos can save the lives of Russian POWs (see Valentina Melnikova’s interview with Gordeeva in the program "Tell Gordeeva").

7) Do you see any scenario in which Russia could rejoin the Council of Europe?

8) Could the exclusion of Russia could have a positive impact on the Court, given that Russia has one of the worst records so far as implementing the Court’s decisions is concerned?

9) According to existing estimates, as many as 250,000 people have left Russia because of the invasion of Ukraine. A great many of them are young professionals, including lawyers. Do you think this is a temporary phenomenon? Will people return to Russia in the near future? Or is this a development that will last for many years?

10) How do you see the future of human rights in the Russian Federation?

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “For this reason, a lot of class specialists in the legal practice of the ECtHR appeared in Rusia,” Kirill Koroteev told us, referring to the fact that the flawed judicial system in Russia led to a large increase in applications to Strasbourg. However, on 16 March 2022 Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe. This is the first case of exclusion of a State from the Council of Europe: only Greece left the Council in 1969, and then on its own initiative.

Simon Cosgrove and I asked Kirill if there had been any alternative to this course of events. His opinion is that there was an alternative: an even earlier exclusion of Russia from the Council of Europe. After all, the main purpose of this oldest European organization is cooperation among member states, not armed conflicts among them.

According to Kirill in 2019, the Council of Europe for the sake of 60 million euros actually did everything to permit the Russian authorities to remain members. If the Council had suspended Russia’s membership in 2019, as the organization’s own documents demanded, perhaps membership would have ended sooner.

Kirill, like many Russians, has left a country where the rule of law has long been dormant.

“All we’ve seen in the last 10-12 years,” he says, “is deterioration. What hope for the future is there?”

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Our guest on the podcast this week is the Russian cartoonist Vyacheslav Shilov. He was born in 1970 in Potsdam, Germany. Until recently Vyacheslav Shilov, a member of the Union of Artists and Graphic Artists of the International Federation of UNESCO, lived in St. Petersburg. Today Vyacheslav with his family is outside Russia - in Europe. Vyacheslav Shilov in addition to his talent is known for his civic position. He has worked with the St. Petersburg Ombudsman Aleksander Shishlov (everyone remembers his wonderful human rights calendar). Vyacheslav also drew for Amnesty International: the cover of Amnesty’s report on "Agents of the People" was created by Vyacheslav Shilov.

The topics we discuss on the podcast include: his education and early career as an artist;

The questions we ask Vyacheslav Shilov include:

1) You have lived in Potsdam, Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg and now Europe. What has inspired you to move from place to place?

2) You graduated in journalism from St. Petersburg State University and yet we know you as an artist. Did they teach you to draw at the University?

3) How did you became involved with human rights activists?

4) You have drawn for many newspapers (Nevskoe Vremya, Vecherniy Peterburg, Smena). Have you experienced censorship in your work?

5) Are there differences of opinion among St. Petersburg artists (and not just cartoonists)? Is there a division between "patriots" and "regime critics"?

6) You have recently left Russia with your family after receiving threats. When did these attacks increase in intensity?

7) How do you assess the situation in Russia? Are all people engaged in the arts leaving or planning to leave? A lot of people compare the current situation with the emigration to Constantinople in the 1920s or to the ‘Philosophers’ Steamship’ when intellectuals left Russia after the revolution. Do you agree with these analogies?

8) How do you see the future of human rights activism in Russia? What awaits the country and the world?

9) What plans do you have while you are in Europe?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “There were several reasons for our departure,” Vyacheslav Shilov said. “The final straw, after which I no longer wished to remain in Russia, was the fact that in the school where we had enrolled our son (it’s a good school, of high quality, with good facilities) they began to give political education to the children, talking about the glorious victories of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.”

Slava Shilov, our guest on our latest podcast, is a St. Petersburg artist, a great caricaturist and a brilliant graphic artist, told us that when he and his family flew from St. Petersburg to Istanbul, several associations with the past of our motherland surfaced in his mind. These were the ‘Philosophers’ Steamship’ and the exodus to Constantinople. The passengers on the only voyage that day, the voyage to that very Constantinople, were quiet, intelligent people.

Involuntarily comes to mind the history of a hundred years ago, when more than 150 000 people left Russia on 126 ships. And the ‘Philosophers’ Steamship’ on which in 1922 almost three hundred people left Russia, deported by the Kremlin authorities. ‘The future has been stolen,’ says Vyacheslav Shilov, one of the thousands of Russians who left a country that has become an aggressor, a country that has become a disgrace.

For how long?

You can help Vyacheslav Shilov by buying his work at https://cartoonagency2.blogspot.com/2020/06/artoon.html

(c) Viacheslav Shilov - illustration for Amnesty International report "Russia: Agents of the people: Four years of "foreign agents" law in Russia: Consequences for the society

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Our guest on the podcast this week is the Russian civil society activist, now living in Talinn, Estonia, Evgenia Chirikova. Evgenia Chirikova is especially well known for her campaign to save the Khimki Forest and she was leader of Ecological Defence (Ecoborona) in Moscow region. She was also a member of the organizing committee for Strategy 31 and a member of the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition. You can learn more about her work today at: activatica.org.

The topics we discuss on the podcast include: the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, public opinion in Estonia, what the West is doing, what needs to be done to help, why things have come to this, the role of Vladimir Putin, prospects for the future.

Our questions to Evgenia:

1) What does the public in Estonia think about the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

2) Boris Nemtsov was a great friend of Ukraine and was killed shortly after the annexation of Crimea. Do you think he imagined that would be such a full-scale invasion could occur?

3) How do you think Russian civic activists are doing? Many activists are leaving, laws are becoming more repressive. People are being detained and jailed. How do you assess the situation for Russian civil society?

4) Why do you think Putin decided to take this extraordinary step of invading a neighbouring country?

5) How is the West reacting? Are the EU and the U.S. doing enough? What is the impact of economic sanctions?

6) What should the general public in the West do?

7) How will Putin's regime change as a result of this war? Is there a possibility that the regime will not survive?

8) What do you think will happen in the coming days and weeks in Ukraine and Russia?

9) How do you see the future of human rights activism in Russia, what awaits the country and the world?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “It pains me very much that right now some kind of universal evil is coming from Russia, from my homeland.” Russian civil society activist Evgenia Chirikova, who moved to Estonia several years ago, found an hour to talk with Simon Cosgrove and me. Zhenya says from Tallinn, where she now lives: “We need to help refugees, we need to do a lot of organisational work.” Zhenya told us that when asked "Who is to blame for this" her answer is that we tried to stop Putin with all our might. But we had a very weak civil society that had been decimated during the preceding decades of totalitarianism. "People of my generation - we were actually the first to try to organize movements, to resist unfair elections. But we also saw the cooperation of Western politicians with Putin, a kind of Schröderization of the West. They were feeding Putin." In our conversation Zhenya Chirikova recalled speeches she made in the European Parliament and in the British Parliament where she asked the Western countries not to buy oil and gas from Putin, not to support this corrupted regime. "People laughed at me, said it was real politik. It turns out that we raised this monster together with the West, and now we all have to clean it up together.

We live in a new world, where Russia bans slogans like "No to War" and Germany rescues Ukrainians who have fled from Russian bombs. And people like Zhenya Chirikova in this new world continue to do what they have dedicated their lives to: fighting for justice and helping people.

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THIS PODCAST IS NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE

FOR THE PRESENT TIME WE HAVE REPLACED THE PODCAST WITH MIKHAIL SAVVA WITH A PODCAST WE RECORDED IN NOVEMBER 2020.

Our guest on the podcast this week is Mikhail Valentinovich Savva. Mikhail Savva is a human rights activist, political scientist, and former professor at Kuban State University. In 1993 Mikhail Savva began working in the administration of the Krasnodar region and then later in the Federal Ministry of Nationalities Affairs and Regional Policy - a position from which he resigned in connection with the first Chechen war. From January 2001, Mikhail Savva served as director of grant programmes at the Southern Regional Resource Centre, an NGO, and he was also a member of the Krasnodar Region Public Oversight Commission to monitor human rights in places of detention. In April 2013 a politically motivated criminal case was initiated against Savva under Article 159(3) of the Criminal Code ("Fraud on an especially large scale"). In April 2014, a Krasnodar district court gave him a three-year suspended sentence. Since 2015 Mikhail Savva has lived in Kiev where he is chair of the board of the Sova Expert Group, an NGO registered in Ukraine.

The recording is from 4 March 2022

The topics we discuss in the podcast include: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the current situation in the conflict, what the West is doing, why things have come to this, Putin as a leader, public opinion in Ukraine and Russia, and what will happen in the short and long term.

The questions we asked Mikhail are:

• · What is the current situation in the conflict? Where is the front line - if there is one?
• · The Ukrainian troops have put up very strong resistance. How is Ukrainian public opinion reacting?
• · How do people in Ukraine assess the quality of Russian military forces - human and technical?
• · Where do people get their information about the course of the war in Ukraine? Are there reliable sources?
• · What do we know about Russia's plans in the coming days - and months?
• · What is the West doing? And should it be doing more?
• · There are many reports of Russian troops bombing civilian areas. Some talk about the need for a no-fly zone by NATO to protect civilians. Is this realistic?
• · How do you feel about Putin's reference to nuclear weapons?
• · In retrospect, why has Putin invested so much – great economic and human resources and even his political future - in this destructive military adventure?
• · Watching videos of Putin talking to his ministers in Moscow in an empty hall or at the end of a long table, one gets the impression that he is a very isolated leader. Especially when compared to Volodymyr Zelensky. What do you think?
• · What do you think will happen in the short and long term?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

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The guest on our latest podcast is Dmitry Piskunov, a lawyer and human rights activist from Russia who works for the Moscow-based human rights organization OVD-Info. OVD-Info monitors politically motivated prosecutions, with a particular focus on the right to freedom of assembly. Previously, Dmitry worked for the Committee against Torture, a human rights organisation based in Nizhny Novgorod. He was also a member of the Moscow Public Oversight Commission.

This podcast was recorded on 22 February 2022

The topics we discuss include: the work of a human rights lawyer, the work of OVD-Info, the most important human rights issues in Russia today, and what’s coming in the near future and in the long term.

The questions we ask Dmitry are:

• Where does your interest in jurisprudence and human rights in particular come from?
• What types of cases are you currently working on?
• How has the human rights situation in Russia changed in recent years? What examples can you give?
• To what extent does the legislation on foreign agents negatively affect the work of civil society organizations?
• To what extent has anti-extremist legislation become an instrument of political repression?
• What role does the European Court of Human Rights play? And how do you see the relationship between this court and Russia? And with the Council of Europe?
• What do Russian citizens know about the Russian leadership’s intentions toward Ukraine?
• What will happen if there is a war? Will the population support such a policy?
• What is your prognosis for the future of human rights in Russia?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “No one wants war. And if there is anyone who wants it, it’s radicalized people who hold nationalist views. I don’t think this is the dominant view in Russian society,” said Dmitry Piskunov in an interview shortly before the aggressive attack by the Russian armed forces and the start of the invasion of Ukraine. “The actions of the Russian authorities do not deserve support. Nevertheless, I think only a small part of the Russian public will express their dissatisfation. Most will be afraid. Most of those who can organize protests will keep in mind that now there is a possibility to be prosecuted for treason or for extremism. At any moment, they can start branding individuals as foreign agents, especially in relation to dissemination of information about the army.”

Now all the social networks and news feeds are full of information about the army. Law enforcement authorities in Russia are merciless, threatening and intimidating. Peaceful anti-war protests are brutally suppressed by police. The Kremlin is at war with the Ukrainian people. It is also at war with the Russian people, on whom, however, it has not yet dropped bombs and which it has not yet crushed with the caterpillars of tanks. Dmitry sees the future of the human rights movement in Russia in a grim light. He speaks about the possibility of Russia`s isolation from the rest of the world and the likelihood that Russia may withdraw from the Council of Europe and the European Convention of Human Rights. “How close that prospect is, I can’t say,” Dmitry said when we spoke last Tuesday. A few hours later, war broke out.

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Our guest this week on the podcast is Andreas Umland, a political scientist and an expert in modern Russian and Ukrainian history and politics. He lives in Kiev and teaches at the National University of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Andreas is a senior expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv and a research fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Relations in Stockholm. He has written extensively on the development of post-Soviet countries, including on the extreme right and on nationalism.

The topics we discuss include: the relationship between Russia and Ukraine, the situation on the borders, the threat of a Russian invasion, how decisions are made in Russia, reactions in Ukraine and the West, and what is to come.

The questions we put to Andreas Umland include:

1) What is the current situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border and on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border?

2) What is the motivation for the concentration of Russian troops?

3) What is the purpose of the "negotiations"?

4) What is the decision-making process inside Russia?

5) Are there divisions within the Russian elite?

6) What is Russian public opinion and does it play a role?

7) What reactions are there in Ukraine to what is happening?

8) How is the West reacting?

9) What do you think will happen next in the short term? And what will happen in the long term?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Simon Cosgrove and I spent an hour in an interesting conversation with Andreas Umland, a political scientist who studies modern Russian and Ukrainian history and lives in Kyiv and who has a very interesting perspective on today’s situation. “I think February will be a tense month,” Andreas says. “The Olympics are coming to an end, and these exercises that Russia is holding in Belarus – by the end of February it will be clear whether there will be a military escalation or not. I hope not.” Speaking about the future, Andreas says: “Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policy will remain the same in the future regardless of whether Zelensky is re-elected or not, whether Poroshenko returns, or maybe Klitschko becomes president. Personalities may change, but the direction of policy will not change. In Russia it is rather the opposite. If personalities change there, the whole regime could change. It may, by the way, change for the worse. Anything is possible there, from fascism to liberalism.” Andreas Umland lives in Kiev and teaches at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Andreas has written extensively on the development of post-Soviet countries, including articles on the extreme right and nationalism.

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Our guest this week on the podcast is Vitaly Ponomarev, head of the Central Asia programme of the Memorial Human Rights Centre. Since 2005 Vitaly Ponomarev has also been head of the Centre’s monitoring programme, ‘Combating fabrication of criminal cases of Islamic extremism in Russia.’

In the podcast we discuss the human rights situation in the countries of Central Asia, the relationship between Russian policy in the area of human rights and that of the Central Asian countries, the situation of refugees and the fabrication of criminal cases of Islamic extremism in Russia.

The questions discussed are:

1) Where does your interest in eastern countries come from?

2) How do human rights in the Russian Federation compare with those in Central Asia?

3) To what extent do Russia and the countries of Central Asia copy each other’s policies in the area of human rights - for example Russia and Tajikistan or Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan?

4) There are reports that there are a large number of religious and political prisoners in Uzbekistan. Could you shed some light on this situation?

5) What is the situation of refugees persecuted in Central Asia and Russia? How realistic is the threat of forced return in the post-Soviet space?

6) You have been banned from entering Kyrgyzstan since 2017. How did this come about and how common is this phenomenon in relation to researchers such as yourself?

7) To what extent are anti-extremist laws and practices based on the Russian model being used as a tool of suppression?

8) Please tell us about the monitoring programme "Countering fabrication of criminal cases of Islamic extremism in Russia. How does it work and what are the main trends in this area?

9) Does this mean Russia is drifting towards the East? How do you see the perspectives for human rights in Russia?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Central Asia is a region that includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. In Soviet times, it was called ‘Central Asia and Kazakhstan.’ Simon Cosgrove and I recently spoke with an expert on the region, Vitaly Ponomarev, head of the Central Asia programme at Memorial Human Rights Centre. At the same time, he has headed the Centre’s monitoring programme ‘Countering fabrication of criminal cases of Islamic extremism in Russia’ since 2005. The five countries have chosen different models of development, and the range - Vitaly Ponomarev explained to us - is large: from Turkmenistan with its totalitarian regime to Kyrgyzstan. "These are different countries, different cultures, and the more time passes since the collapse of the USSR, the more these differences become apparent. When mass repression began in Uzbekistan in the late 1990s, Russia was a relatively democratic country. Now there is this metamorphosis: Russia is becoming more and more repressive. In some aspects of criminal law, Russia has already surpassed in terms of certain restrictions some of the countries of Central Asia that we once cited as examples of serious human rights violations." Vitaly believes that Central Asian countries these days are often borrowing from Russian experience, in terms of the the toolkit for suppressing dissent, including both legislation and law enforcement practices related to so-called anti-extremism legislation.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Konstantin Aleksandrovich Kotov, a Russian computer programmer and civil society activist. In 2019 Konstantin Kotov was the second person to be convicted under the so-called ‘Dadin’ Article 212.1 that was added to the Russian Criminal Code in July 2014 – ‘Repeated violation of the established procedure for organizing or holding a meeting, rally, demonstration, march, or picket.’

The topics of our conversation include: the Russian judicial and penitentiary systems, and the current state of human rights in Russia.

The questions we are discuss are:

Why did you become a civic activist?

How unexpected was your arrest, prosecution and imprisonment in 2019? How did you feel at the time?

Your arrest and sentence caused a great public outcry. What did this support mean to you?

You and the defendant in the New Greatness case, Anna Pavlikova, were married in the building of the Matrosskaya Tishina detention centre where you were held. How did this happen?

On 20 April 2020, Moscow City Court reduced your sentence from four years in prison to one year and six months. Through all this time how did you see the work of the Russian legal system, including the President’s intervention?

What has been your experience of the Russian penitentiary system?

How do you assess the current situation in Russia in terms of human rights?

What needs to be done to improve the human rights situation in the country? What is the role of civil society and civic activists?

What are the prospects for the development of human rights protection in Russia?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook:

“It probably started with the protest on Bolotnaya Square. I was at Bolotnaya, I was at Sakharov Prospekt, I participated in all the peaceful protests that took place in 2011-2012 in Moscow. I had a job, I was a programmer. The turning point was 2018: Oleg Sentsov and his hunger strike. His act touched me deeply: a man risking his life to save others.”

Simon Cosgrove and I continue to record our podcasts – conversations with human rights activists, civic activists, lawyers and journalists. Yesterday our interviewee was Konstantin Kotov, the second person convicted under the so-called ‘Dadin’ Article 212.1, added to the Russian Criminal Code in July 2014. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison, but was released a year and a half later, in December 2020. The colony was the same Penal Colony in Pokrov where Aleksei Navalny is now imprisoned.

“Your day in the colony is strictly regulated: from 6 a.m., when you get up, until 10 p.m., when you go to bed, you don’t belong to yourself. “

Among other things, Konstantin talked about his experience in prison: “Apart from inspections, sweeping pathways, and other things, you are also obliged to watch TV. Moral support came from letters that I still keep. Many of them came from Amnesty International activists from abroad.”

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This week our guest on the podcast is Ivan Pavlov, a human rights lawyer specializing in freedom of information and treason cases. For many years, Ivan Pavlov headed the civil society group Team 29, which also worked to promote freedom of information in Russia.

The topics of our conversation today are the persecution of lawyers in Russia, the rule of law, what reforms are needed, the history of Team 29, the right of association and the future of human rights in Russia.

The questions we discuss include:

1. You are one of Ivan Safronov's lawyers. Both you and Evgeny Smirnov, another of Safronov’s lawyers, are forced to live outside Russia. Question: why exactly are these measures being taken against lawyers now?

2. Is the legal professional community able to stand up for itself?

3. Has Russia ever been a country where the rule of law existed?

4. What needs to be done to bring the country closer to the rule of law? What are the main steps that need to be taken to achieve this?

5. Can you tell us something about the history of Team 29? When was it created? What did it accomplish? Why was it shut down?

6. We are all following the Memorial case. One gets the impression the Russian authorities today do not want any independent civil society organizations to exist. What are the consequences of this policy for Russia? What is a country without civil society?

7. Realistically speaking, what are the prospects for fair trial in the Russian Federation?

8. What prospects are there for human rights in general? Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes and Anchor. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "I remember well the 1990s when we crossed a certain threshold, everyone more or less attained a degree of material well-being and began to think about having some rights, about restoring democratic values in the country. I saw that the judicial system was developing, there were some hopes. This trend lasted until about 2004 or 2005, but then developments took a rather different direction. Every person looks for some stability in their life, something on which to base their decisions. In a society governed by the rule of law, that stable basis is the law. A state where there is the rule of law is considered the most stable. But if the law is not stable, and the only ‘stability’ is that a single person has been in power for a long time, it becomes easier for people to look for the signals that come from that one person rather than to the law, which is one thing today and another tomorrow. Officials today are not guided by the law, but by signals that come from that one person. The ability to change by democratic means those in power ensures the quality of life in a democracy." This is what the human rights lawyer Ivan Pavlov, who specializes in freedom of information and treason cases, told us. For several years, Ivan was the head of Team 29, an informal association of lawyers and journalists that fought the growing lack of transparency of the state in Russia. I vividly remember that in Soviet times, wherever I went to apply for a job, the hiring process necessarily included a visit to the First Department, a room with an iron door, where - as a rule - some retired man with a crazy look was sitting. These First Departments actually embodied the closed nature of the state, the total control over everything: why the hell do you need the First Department in the offices of a building restoration organisation where I worked in my youth? Ivan Pavlov in our conversation mentioned his team's new project, which he called the First Department. On Monday, he told a wider audience: "The First Department of the state bodies was engaged in the classification of documents and protection of state secrets. Often what was going on behind closed doors in the First Departments had little to do with the law and was simply arbitrary. Our First Department will fight to ensure that employees of all first departments throughout the country comply with the law, so that they do not violate your rights." Listen to our conversation with Ivan Pavlov, who temporarily left Russia but continues to do his fantastic work.

Simon Cosgrove adds: ‘For further information about the past week in Russia, visit our website here.’

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Today is a special day: 10 December - Human Rights Day, and our best wishes to all who are listening! This week our guest on the podcast is Sergei Anatolievich Pashin, a retired Russian federal judge, Honoured Lawyer of the Russian Federation and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group.

The topics discussed on the podcast include the reform of the justice system in Russia, trial by jury, and whether there is a fair judicial system in the country.

The questions we ask include:

1) Is the judiciary an independent and autonomous branch of state power in Russia? To what extent did the judicial reforms of the nineties achieve their goals?

2) Is it likely that with a critical mass of unjust verdicts, society will explode? Or will irregularities and violations always be tolerated?

3) You were one of those who initiated and supported the introduction of jury trials. What has been the fate of its enforcement?

4) Recently the head of the Investigative Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin, speaking at Moscow Legal Week said: "From the idea of 'the individual as the highest value, which has above all rights', we should return to the classical understanding of the individual as the subject of a set of rights and duties. Why is there such a stress on duties all the time?

5) What are the prospects for fair justice in the Russian Federation?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes and Anchor. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “In many respects, the fairness of the justice system is a private matter, a matter of individual decent judges, decent investigators (there are such investigators, I knew them), and decent policemen (there are such people, too). That is, in any system there are decent people. But it is another thing that they can be discouraged from practicing justice,” said Sergei Anatolievich Pashin. About this, and much more, Simon Cosgrove and I talked with Sergei Pashin in our podcast. We were very lucky that Sergei Pashin was able to give an hour of his time to talk to us. Everyone knows that Pashin is a retired federal judge, one of the initiators of jury trials in Russia, an Honoured Lawyer of the Russian Federation, a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), author of the 1991 Constitutional Court Act, and a very busy man. Since 2008, Pashin has been teaching at the Law Department of the Higher School of Economics. Or rather, alas, it’s now necessary to say – was teaching. At the end of November 2021 Pashin suddenly received notice of dismissal and from 24 December he will cease to be an employee of this educational institution: the university terminated contracts with two professors of the Faculty of Law - Sergei Pashin and Gennady Esakov. From 2011 to 2021 the students of the HSE recognized Sergei Pashin every year as the best lecturer - and deservedly so. It was extremely interesting talking with Sergei Anatolievich, as you can judge for yourself.

Simon Cosgrove adds: ‘For further information about the past week in Russia, visit our website here.’

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This week we our guest on the podcast is Svetlana Astrakhantseva, executive director of the Moscow Helsinki Group. Svetlana Astrakhantseva is an economist, lawyer and law professor, and human rights activist. She has been working with the Moscow Helsinki Group since 2008 and has been executive director of MHG since 2016. She is co-coordinator of the Group for Assistance to the Russian-Ukrainian Human Rights Dialogue and a member of the Coordination Council of the Civic Solidarity International Platform.

The topics discussed on our podcast are: why be a human rights defender in today's Russia; what MHG does; whether there is a dialogue today between the human rights community and the authorities; is civic oversight relevant today in Russia; and the prospects for human rights in Russia.

The questions we ask Svetlana Astrakhantseva are:

1) What brought you to the Moscow Helsinki Group? Why did you become a human rights activist?

2) The mission of the MHG is to promote human rights and democracy in Russia, expose human rights violations and ensure that Russia complies with its international human rights obligations. To what extent is monitoring and pressure on the authorities possible nowadays, when the Kremlin is putting so much pressure on human rights NGOs?

3) Liudmila Alekseeva, one of the founders of the MHG, was known for her ability to conduct dialogue with representatives of the authorities (Kolokoltsev, Putin). How far is it possible now to continue dialogue in the way that Liudmila Alekseeva did?

4) A workshop on civic oversight of the police is planned for December this year in the Krasnodar region, with a face-to-face meeting planned to be held in Sochi. Do the authorities put obstacles in your way?

5) What are the prospects for human rights in Russia?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes and Anchor. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with Svetlana Astrahantseva, Executive Director of the Moscow Helsinki Group – MHG:

“It’s always been important to me to help people, ever since I first became a Young Pioneer. You always turn around and help someone who’s in trouble.”

“You don’t become a human rights activist. It’s a kind of state of mind.”

“While working in business, I kept asking myself the question: why aren’t our laws working?”

“I came to MHG as an ordinary employee, a specialist in finance. And when I came here, after getting to know people and reading books, I realized that I was finally in the place that was right for me. It was easy to get better every day around these people. It was fate that brought me to MHG.”

Simon Cosgrove adds: ‘For further information about the past week in Russia, visit our website here.’

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This week our guests are Victoria Ivleva, photographer, journalist and writer, and Yury Samodurov, civic activist, publicist and co-founder of Memorial. Both Victoria and Yury were detained on 20 November on Pushkin Square in Moscow for participating in single-person protests against the closure of Memorial. Both were held in a police station for two days and then fined by a court.

This week’s podcast concerns the future of Memorial and the law on foreign agents, the freedoms of association, assembly and expression, the procedures for detaining protesters, the behaviour of police, the conditions in detention and the practices of courts in such cases.

The specific topics discussed in the podcast include: the authorities’ moves to close the International Memorial Society and the Memorial Human Rights Centre; protests; arrests; trials; conditions of detention; what will happen to Memorial; other impressions of events.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes and Anchor. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “One of the best things we managed to achieve during perestroika that has survived to this day is Memorial.” These words by Yury Samodurov were supported by Victoria Ivleva and marked the start of our latest podcast with two guests who had very recently left their place of detention. The Moscow police had charged the two human rights activists with organizing “a public mass event with more than 10 participants” and locked them in cells for two days as dangerous criminals. Their “crime” consisted of participating in single-person protest pickets in defence of Memorial. The fines the two were given differed in size: Victoria Ivleva (150,000 roubles) was fined an order of magnitude higher than Yury Samodurov (20,000 roubles). The conditions of detention at the police station were humiliating: no toilets in the cell, a ban on toothbrushes, disgusting food, and the rudeness of some uniformed officers who demanded that glasses, watches and boots (or at least the laces) all be removed, A sum covering both fines was collected very quickly after Ivleva and Samodurov were released. Public support, support from civil society, is as important in individual cases as in the defence of civil society organizations. Including Memorial.

Simon Cosgrove adds: ‘For further information about the past week in Russia, visit our website here.

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Our guest this week on the podcast is Grigory Melkonyants. Grigory Melkonyants is a Russian human rights activist, lawyer and co-chair of Golos, the movement to protect voters' rights. This week’s topics are freedom of association in Russia, the law on foreign agents, the significance of the attack on the Memorial Society and whether free and fair elections are possible in the country.

The questions discussed in the podcast include the following: designation of Golos as a ‘foreign agent’; the imposition of ‘individual media foreign agent status’ on Golos associates; the quality of electoral law and practice in Russia; the attacks on Memorial; why these attacks have happened now; plans for a civil society conference; the future of human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes and Anchor. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “Democrat Steve Cohen, co-chairman of the Helsinki Commission, and Republican Joe Wilson, member of the Helsinki Commission, submitted a draft resolution to the U.S. Congress on November 18 this year, one paragraph of which reads: “According to the Russian non-governmental organization Golos and independent electoral analysts, approximately 27,000,000 votes, accounting for 37 percent of the official total, were fraudulent, making the plebiscite the most manipulated vote in the modern history of the Russian Federation.” Golos for Fair Elections, a meticulous and professional organization, has long annoyed lovers of fraud: it is not without reason that many believed that Sidankin’s ‘law’ on ‘foreign agents’ was concocted in the first place to kill off Golos. In April 2013 the Russian authorities labeled the organization a ‘foreign agent’, and in 2016 they ‘liquidated’ it. But Golos’s voice cannot be killled off or ‘liquidated.’ Golos still found a way to continue its work, after which officials designated them twice more as agents, creating another registry of ‘foreign spies’ in which the Golos movement was the first to be entered. The recent stunt with the branding of the organisation Fair Elections also tells much about the implacable Russian authorities, who are trying to undermine all those who work to protect the rights of voters, who help Russian citizens participate in independent election monitoring. After all, the bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power in Russia is its people. I am a huge admirer of these brave people, and Simon Cosgrove and I were lucky to have the opportunity to speak with Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of Golos.”

Simon Cosgrove adds: ‘For further information about the past week in Russia, visit our website here.

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This week on the podcast we discuss the current situation around Memorial and the moves by prosecutors to close down two organisations: the International Memorial Society and Memorial Human Rights Centre. Our guests on the podcast are Sergei Davidis and Jens Siegert. Sergei Davidis is head of the programme in support of political prisoners at the Memorial Human Rights Centre, an organisation of which he is also a board member. Jens Siegert is a German journalist, writer, and political scientist who has lived in Moscow for many years, was formerly head of the Böll Foundation office in Russia, and is a great friend and supporter of International Memorial.

The questions discussed in the podcast include:

What has happened? The International Memorial Society received two notices. The General Prosecutor's Office has filed a lawsuit to liquidate International Memorial, and the Moscow prosecutor's office is demanding that the Memorial Human Rights Centre also be closed down. Why such a ‘division of labour’ among prosecutors and why now? And what will happen to the regional branches of Memorial?

Just recently a group of people broke into the Memorial during a showing of a film about the Holodomor, then the police came, and the police searched Memorial’s premises and confiscated some of its equipment! Is there a connection between the events of October 14 (invasion + police) and November 11 (Supreme Court notice)?

How has the public in Russia and the international community reacted? Germany is said to have a special relationship with Memorial - what is the reaction there?

What is the significance of this attack on Russia's most prominent human rights organization?

What is the prognosis? What will happen to Memorial? What will happen to the human rights movement in Russia?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes and Anchor. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "The scale and intensity of recent repression is so great that each new episode of repression competes for public attention," Sergei Davidis told us during the podcast. "Each of these events individually should be enough to outrage society. But when several such events happen on the same day, society simply does not have the strength and resources to react. It should be remembered that the possibility of street protests due to coronavirus bans is also ruled out. Nevertheless, many people have spoken out. On the level of public statements, support is strong." As well as Sergei, Jens Siegert also took part in the podcast. He told us that at first in Germany the news about the prosecutors' moves against Memorial were a big shock. "Few people thought the wave of repression that has been going on in Russia for a year now could reach organizations like International Memorial. It's too big an organization, too important. Many people thought they would probably not touch it. We see a lot of solidarity with Memorial, and I think it will continue to grow. There were protests in front of the Russian embassy in Germany and there will be more. People who are not indifferent see this attack on Memorial as the return of the Chekist state." Sergei Davidis said: "We will fight to the last." I'm sure that many, many people will sign up to these words.

Simon Cosgrove adds: ‘For further information about the past week in Russia, visit our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Sergei Babinets. Sergei Babinets is a lawyer and head of the Orenburg branch of the Committee against Torture, whose head office is in Nizhny Novgorod.

The issues discussed in the podcast include: How did someone who had intended to work in the prosecutor’s office went to work for a human rights organisation? How does the work of the Committee Against Torture vary in terms of city and region (Moscow, Grozny, Orenburg)? How did you become a journalist (with Ekho Moskvy in Orenburg)? What are the risks that face a human rights defender in Russia today? Is the work of a human rights defender at the Committee Against Torture equally risky across the country? What do you think of the recent revelations of torture in Saratov region penal colonies? To what extent is the state a positive and reliable partner in the work against torture? What is the future of the human rights movement in Russia in the light of what is happening in the country now?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes and Anchor. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: He dreamed since childhood of protecting people from criminals, following in the footsteps of his soldier-grandfather and his father, who worked in the police force for 25 years. After receiving a law degree, he decided to work in the prosecutor's office, which oversees all law enforcement bodies. Four years as an assistant prosecutor and attempts to join the prosecutor's office as a full-time employee led him to realise that the prosecutor's office didn't really seem to want him. The search for a job where Sergei Babinets could realize his dream led him to the Committee against Torture. Many years ago, I met Sergei in Moscow. He had just started working in the Moscow office of the famous Committee against Torture and he called on us at Amnesty International. Since then, I have kept in touch with Sergei, who after Moscow worked in many cities: Nizhny Novgorod, Grozny and Orenburg. The possibilities to combat torture and protect victims of torture varies from region to region. While in the North Caucasus the office where Sergei worked was set on fire, if in Nizhny Novgorod the group’s exhibition was banned, if in Moscow ‘Basmanny Justice’ simply does not want to pay any attention to human rights activists, in Orenburg the Committee Against Torture can hold events on any topic - here there is no interest in opposing human rights defenders. Sergei Babinets successfully combines his human rights activities with his work at Ekho Moskvy radio in Orenburg: he is good at this work too, and therefore it’s very interesting to listen to him in our latest podcast.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Marina Pisklakova-Parker. Marina Pisklakova-Parker is a Russian women's rights activist and writer. She was the founder of ANNA (Regional Organization for Assistance to Women and Children Victims of Domestic Violence), one of the first women's crisis centres in Russia to help victims of domestic violence. Marina has also addressed the problem of trafficking in women and children.

The issues discussed in the podcast include: the founding of ANNA, the first such centre in Russia; ANNA’s activities in the early years; the main activities of ANNA today; changes in perceptions of domestic violence in Russia since the early 1990s; the extent to which the state is a positive and reliable partner in working against domestic violence; religious attitudes to domestic violence; the future of human rights in general in Russia and domestic violence in particular.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Marina Pisklakova-Parker: "This was not the first crisis centre. The ANNA centre appeared in parallel with one in St. Petersburg, and near the time the Sisters centre began working in Moscow. I created my first telephone hotline in 1992. The impetus for this work came from gender research, which became available to us only in post-Soviet Russia. I started to receive letters from victims. It was from these letters that my interest in the issue began, because no one talks about domestic violence. This is what drove me to do it.” In our conversation, Marina talked about the prospects for passing a law on domestic violence in Russia and about the connection between so-called ‘traditional values’ and violence against women. About the fact that citizens, alas, do not understand what rights they have and do not know how to use them. And about how ANNA helps. ANNA has accumulated huge experience in the fight against the scourge of domestic violence over three decades. The organisation has united specialists from the regions and countries of the former Soviet Union into an informal network which continues to grow and develop. They provide assistance, conduct monitoring, interact, educate themselves and others, and share their experiences. Only by joining together can gender-based violence be defeated.

Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Valentina Dmitrievna Melnikova. Valentina Melnikova is a Russian human rights activist and politician, a graduate of the geology department of Moscow State University and a specialist in geochemistry, but better known to us all as the executive secretary of the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia. Valentina Melnikova was one of the initiators of the Russian Research Centre for Human Rights established in 1990.

The issues discussed in the podcast include: how did a graduate of the geology department of Moscow State University became a human rights activist; the difference between the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers and the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers; cooperation between the Russian military and the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers; the notion that Committees of Soldiers' Mothers are intended to help people avoid military service; the role of Viktor Alksnis; the FSB’s recent decree on unclassified information dissemination of which can serve to designate organisations or persons as ‘foreign agents’; the human rights situation and the future of human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "I became a human rights activist overnight in December 1979, when I learned from a radio broadcast that Soviet troops had entered Afghanistan. My two sons were still little but I knew a bit about history and I decided that I will never send my children to the Soviet army led by crazy old folk. Valentina Dmitrievna Melnikova told Simon Cosgrove and me how her search for like-minded people, those who cared about their sons, led her to join the Soldiers' Mothers Committee in 1989. "They were energetic women from all over the Soviet Union, they knew what they wanted, and they achieved a lot through the then deputies of the Interregional Deputies Group of the USSR Supreme Soviet. In 1998 we set up an association called the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia. Valentina Melnikova describes herself as an ‘informed optimist’ and believes that the prospects for human rights activities are not great: "Things will get tougher and tougher, more and more lawless. What is to be done about it? I don't know. I don't expect anything good. But on the other hand, all of us - Memorial Human Rights Centre, the Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia, the Union of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia – what can we do if people keep coming for help? So we have to work, we have to fight.”

Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Ernest Mezak, a well-known journalist and human rights activist from the Republic of Komi in Russia. He represents victims of law enforcement violations in courts at the national level and has also acted as a legal representative before the European Court of Human Rights in some 200 cases. In 2012 he won the Moscow Helsinki Group's Human Rights Award in the category "For defending human rights in courts." Previously, Ernest Mezak has worked for the Public Verdict Foundation.

The issues discussed in the podcast include: becoming a human rights defender; human rights in the Komi Republic; the role of the European Court of Human Rights in Russia; prosecutions for exercising right of assembly; Mezak’s prosecution for ‘insulting a judge’; the future of human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: At Christmas 2007 Ernest Mezak was detained by two police officers. It was in Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi Republic: Ernest was shoved into the so-called ‘dog-cage’, that is, into the back compartment of a police patrol car. Mezak later recalled: "It was very cold and dark in there. I spent 20 minutes in those conditions. Subsequently, I appealed my treatment conditions at Syktyvkar city court. And the most amazing thing happened: the court was sympathetic to my claim and found the detention conditions to be in violation of Article 3 of the European Convention prohibiting torture.” Our interlocutor this week, Ernest Mezak, is a human rights activist from the Komi Republic. He often represents victims of law enforcement violations in courts at the national level, and he has also acted as legal representative before the European Court of Human Rights in some 200 cases. In 2012, he won the Moscow Helsinki Group's Human Rights Award in the category "For Defending Human Rights in Courts. It is understandable that such stubbornness, sometimes bordering on obstinacy, cannot help but irritate people in law enforcement. I think in Syktyvkar he is well known and disliked by all officials. A few months ago in the Komi capital a criminal case was opened against Ernest for insulting a judge. His apartment was searched, and, as usual, all his computers, smartphones, flash drives and hard drives were confiscated. Mezak was summoned for interrogation. Ernest told us what has been happening to him – and about the prospects for the human rights movement in Russia.

Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Liudmilla Ilyinichna Alpern. Liudmila Alpern is a prison researcher and observer. She used to work as deputy director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Reform and was head of the prison visiting programme. She has been a member of the Moscow Public Oversight Commission and is the author and developer of many prison projects, including a multi-year joint project by the Public Monitoring Commission, the Human Rights Ombudsman and the Council of Europe and the multi-year "Women in the Criminal Justice System" project that won the French Human Rights Award in 2003. Her publications include the book "Dream and reality of women's prisons" - a comparative analysis and history of women's prisons in Russia, Poland, Norway, USA and Spain.Questions discussed in the podcast include: Becoming a human rights defender; The peculiarities of the Russian penitentiary system; The practice of torture; Comparing the penitentiary systems (prison conditions) in Russia and the USA; Special problems for prisoners in women's colonies; Governing penal colonies; Trends towards reform and improvements; The future of the Russian penitentiary system and human rights in general.This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: About 15 years ago in a secondhand bookstore in the city of Tomsk I bought the book ‘Dream and Reality of a Woman's Prison’. The author was Liudmila Alpern. I had been looking for this book for a long time, and it was only in Tomsk that I got lucky. It was a tough read, but I read the book. And then I responded to Valentina Cherevatenko's call whether anyone had Alpern's book about the women's penal colonies and gave this tome to Valentina. Some time later, I went to see Liudmila Alpern at the Centre for Criminal Justice Reform in Luchnikov Pereulok in Moscow. She told me very interestingly about her constructive cooperation with the head of the penal colony in Shakhovo, Afanasyev and the ‘chief gaoler of Orel’, Surovtsev, and about American prisons. Last week Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with Liudmila Alpern, an expert in her field. We discussed torture in Russian prisons today and prisons in the U.S., which Liudmila visited years ago. The podcast is available for listening and downloading on various platforms.

Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is the journalist and human rights activist Viktor Davydov. Victor Davydov studied at Kuibyshev Technical University and then at the History Department of Kuibyshev University. In 1974, he began publishing and distributing samizdat, for which he was interrogated by the KGB in September 1975. In 1975 he became a member of the dissident groups in Kuibyshev, and on 1 April 1976 was among the organizers of a protest march, for which he was jailed for 10 days and expelled from the university. In 1976-1979 he studied at the Orenburg department of the All-Union Correspondence Law Institute. He was forcibly hospitalized in Kuibyshev Medical Institute clinic in the spring of 1979. He worked on the Chronicle of Current Events and authored two samizdat works, for which he was arrested on 28 November 1979 under Article 190-1 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. He was declared insane by experts from the Serbsky Institute, with a diagnosis of "flaccid schizophrenia". On 19 September 1980, by decision of the Kuibyshev Regional Court, he was sent for compulsory treatment to Kazan Special Psychiatric Hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, from where he was transferred to the Blagoveshchensky Hospital in Amur Region. In the hospital he was 'treated' with strong doses of neuroleptic drugs. He was released in July 1983. After release, he took part in the work of the Russian Social Fund for Persecuted Persons and Their Families (the Solzhenitsyn Fund). On 28 October 1984 he emigrated from the Soviet Union. Thereafter he worked for Radio Liberty and Voice of America and published in Russkaya mysl' and Novoe Russkoe Slovo. In 1986-1988 he worked at the Centre for Democracy in the USSR headed by Vladimir Bukovsky and Yury Yarym-Agaev. In 1988-1991 he worked as a programmer in American companies. In October 1991 he returned to the USSR. In 1991-1993 he was a member of the political council of the Free Democratic Party of Russia, headed by Marina Salie. In 1993 he founded the Globus Press Syndicate, an independent news agency which operated until 2005. At present, he is the editor-in-chief of the online publication New Chronicle of Current Events. Since 2015, he has lived in Tbilisi. [Source: www.colta.ru/articles/dissident...ntsimskim-vokzalom]Questions discussed on the podcast: 1) When you were young, in Soviet times, you were a dissident. Why did you become a dissident? 2) You became a victim of punitive psychiatry. Why did the Soviet regime use this method of dealing with dissidents? 3) The use of psychiatry in post-Soviet Russia. 4) After your return to Russia in 1991, you participated in the democratic movement and then founded a news agency. How do you view the contrast between the 1990s and post-2000s in terms of opportunities for independent political activity and freedom of speech? 5) You left Russia in 2015. Does this mean you are pessimistic about the future of human rights in the country?This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Viktor Davydov's biography could form the basis of an adventure novel. A student at Kuibyshev Polytechnic Institute who tape-recorded Deutsche Welle broadcasts of a reading of the Gulag Archipelago, and then retyped the text on paper with a typewriter; a student expelled from university for participating in a "Happening"; arrested under Article 190-1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for publishing samizdat; diagnosed as having "sluggish schizophrenia" by the notorious Serbsky Institute and sent to a Special Psychiatric Hospital. After an August break we have resumed our meetings with Russian human rights activists and our conversation with Viktor Davydov was fascinating. In September 2021, Viktor Davydov's book "The Ninth Circle" is to be published by the NLO Publishing House, in which he describes in great detail his "odyssey in the psychiatric Gulag". Simon Cosgrove and I listened as if spellbound to Viktor's interesting story, shaken by his fate. And we rejoiced that this brave man was not broken, that he got free, that he is writing, and that we could talk to him. I highly recommend listening to our conversation. Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Grigory Vaypan. Until recently, Grigory was head of the Litigation Department at the Institute for Law and Public Policy where he led strategic human rights litigation before the Constitutional Court of Russia and the European Court of Human Rights. Since 2013, Grigory has been developing the practice of amicus curiae at the Constitutional Court of Russia. Grigory teaches seminars on constitutional litigation and writes articles on constitutional law and international law.

The topics discussed in the podcast include: Legal education in Russia and the U.S. (at Moscow State University and Harvard Law School); The Galina Starovoitova Fellowship at the Kennan Institute; Why become a lawyer/advocate specialising in human rights issues; Court cases; Institute for Law and Public Policy; The International Federation for Human Rights report: ‘Russia: Crimes Against History’; Last year's Constitutional Amendments; the European Court of Human Rights; The laws on ‘foreign agents’ and ‘undesirable foreign organisations’; Young lawyers in Russia today; The future of the justice system and human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Moscow University, Harvard Law School, and St. Petersburg University are stages in Grigory Vaypan’s education in law. In addition to these institutions, Gregory spent three months at the Kennan Institute as a Galina Starovoitova Fellow. "The task of the American educational system at Harvard is to intellectually inspire a person to accomplish things in their profession,” says Grigory Vaipan. “The Russian system of higher education is designed in a different way." Grigory has also worked at the Institute for Law and Public Policy, where he was involved in developing nonprofit jurisprudence related to human rights cases in the constitutional court. In addition, a recent report written by Grigory Vaypan for the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), entitled ‘Russia: Crimes Against History,’ has attracted the attention of the reading public. This document discusses ‘how the Russian state monopolizes history.’ The author with justice states that ‘Russia is one of the countries that has passed the largest number of laws suppressing freedom of expression on historical issues.’ These include a law against the ‘rehabilitation of Nazism.’ laws banning the use of Nazi symbols and attributes, laws against extremism and terrorism, and more. The latest news from the Kremlin ideological front, with its newly-formed Historical Enlightenment Commission - with the help of state law enforcement agencies fighting off all attempts to ‘falsify’ the facts - only confirms the importance and timeliness of Grigory Vaypan's report.

Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Alena Vershinina, a journalist and former host of Ekho Moskvy radio who has also previously worked on Nastoyashchee vremya and now is with Radio Svoboda.

The topics discussed in the podcast include: Career - from Lipetsk to Moscow; The difficulties of working as a journalist in Russia; Harassment by the authorities; Trends in modern journalism in Russia; Journalism in the capital and in the provinces; The quality of journalism in modern Russia; Journalism and human rights; Journalists who have left the country; The prosecution of journalists; The ‘foreign agent’ label; Arrests, searches, and seizures of equipment; Comparing Soviet and Russian external broadcasting; The future of Russian journalism.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “What is happening in Russia now seemed impossible to us just a year ago,” says Alena Vershinina. “And now everyone is weighing the risks regarding their family members. After all, they seize all the technical equipment they can find during a search, not just what belongs to the journalist. And everyone is now wondering what can happen to your parents or grandparents.” Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with the journalist Alena Vershinina, who we know from Ekho Moskvy, Nastoyashchee vremya, and who now works for Radio Liberty. When I asked her what her prediction for the future would be, Alena said, "We don't even know how we're going to survive the next eight weeks with the Russian elections coming up. Every Friday we wait to see who else will be declared a foreign agent. We don't understand what will happen in three years: we don't even understand what will happen by the end of the year!" "Every move by the state authorities against the journalistic community gets its own answer,” Alena said, during a fascinating conversation. I recommend you listen to the recording to find out what answers intrepid Russian journalists give.

Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is the well-known human rights activist, Lev Aleksandrovich Ponomarev. Lev Ponomarev is the head of the civil society project ‘For Human Rights’, chair of the Defence of Prisoners' Rights Foundation and also of the Hotline organisation, and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. In May this year Lev Ponomarev spoke at the International Conference ‘Anxiety and Hope. The 21st Century’ held in honour of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Andrei Sakharov. His speech, ‘We are not observers, we are participants’ can be heard on the website of the Sakharov Museum. In this podcast we discuss some of the main points made by Lev Ponomarev in that speech.

The questions we discuss in the podcast include: Contemporary Russia and the Soviet past - where is the country heading? - What does it mean for the country if people from the security services are in power? - Dissidents and the political opposition face severe repressive measures: who are in the main the victims of the security services? – Recent legislation – The law on ‘foreign agents’ - Are ‘universal values’ alien to Russia? - Putin and Patrushev – ‘We are not observers, we are participants’ - What possibilities are there to work for human rights, free elections and the release of political prisoners in Russia today? – ‘We are many’: how many in fact? - How to participate in elections when candidates are banned? – The idea of a Civic Congress - Russia's future and the future of human rights.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “It is not politicians who are in power, it is the siloviki. In line with their worldview, they see only one solution to a problem. The use of force. Putting people in jail. Possibly even killing them. Generally speaking, any opponent of the authorities might be killed.” Our interlocutor, Lev Ponomarev, is so disliked by the Lubyanka and the Kremlin that the authorities and his organisations have labelled him a foreign agent, and even he himself was one of the first to receive the newly invented title of ‘an individual foreign agent,’ which is, without a doubt, complete nonsense. Lev Ponomarev is a kind and fair man, and even Viktor Shenderovich once said that, say, when Putin goes to jail, ‘Lev Aleksandrovich Ponomarev, the human rights defender, he will defend Putin’. Our interlocutor, recalling this remark, said: "I don't know whether I would defend him or not, but the situation is a very serious one.”

Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Elena Belokurova. Elena is a political scientist specializing in the study of civil society and a civic activist from St. Petersburg. She is the director of the organization Mosty [‘Bridges’].

The questions discussed in this podcast include: early career; the NGO Bridges; Russian civil society in the 1990s; Russian civil society under Putin; comparison of Germany and EU with Russia in terms of civil society; the EU-Russia Forum; St Petersburg; examples of successful NGOs in the city; the law on ‘foreign agents’; the law on ‘undesirable’ organisations; the future of civil society and human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "They say it is necessary to build bridges, not walls. It is something that is relevant for both politicians and civil society activists. And while domestic politicians have recently been getting away with building walls, fortunately there are people building bridges, and there are many such people. Simon Cosgrove and I spoke last week with Elena Belokurova, director of Bridges. This is a long-standing organisation, in fact, for many years based in Ligovka Street, St. Petersburg, and still there now. They used to be known under a different name, but the wall builders forced a change of name. But what these people do does not change: they build bridges of peaceful international cooperation, and these bridges will serve to develop civil societies through international exchanges. These bridges will help broaden perspectives and unleash the creativity of many people, including through international experiences. Elena Belokurova told us about the many projects, achievements of Bridges, along with some ideas and plans for the future. Bridges: International Exchanges, Cooperation, Creativity has brilliant partners in many different countries and cities. The work continues."

Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Gleb Bogush. Gleb Bogush is a lawyer, with a PhD in law, and an associate professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and an expert in international law.

The issues discussed in the podcast include: what it means to be an expert in international law; human rights in the practice of an international lawyer; the European Court of Human Rights and its place in the Russian legal system; Russia and the International Criminal Court; repressive legislation in Russia - laws on foreign agents, undesirable foreign organizations, and so on; legislation on ‘historical memory’, prosecution for ‘distortion of historical truth’; freedom of speech in Russia, including in academia; the meaning of constitutional amendments; the future of human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "Would Pinochet be arrested today in London? There are signs of a regression in international law: the ICC was created in the early 2000s, there was the Pinochet case, but the old sense of optimism has been replaced - unfortunately in life things go down as well as up." Last week, Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with Gleb Bogush, lawyer, PhD and associate professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and a specialist in international law. "I started with criminal law in Russia and other countries. I began to study international law later. Working in this field, I do not hide my respect and sympathy for human rights," Gleb told us. Our conversation touched on a great many topics, including the role of the European Court of Human Rights in Russia. Gleb Bogush pointed out: "The government wants to sit on two chairs at once, i.e. to participate in PACE on the one hand, and selectively refuse to execute the judgments of the ECtHR on the other. But the significance of the European Court is tremendous: for Russian citizens, it is an opportunity, albeit a slow and distant one, to find justice.” Talking about the latest legislative products of the State Duma, Gleb said, in particular: "What is happening, in my opinion, is following a strategy, it is a process that cannot stop. In fact, the authorities can no longer do anything else but produce these prohibitions. Everything is done to create a chilling effect, which creates a perception in society that certain topics are taboo, undesirable, that certain things shouldn't be discussed." In our podcasts at Rights in Russia Simon and I discuss whatever issues come to mind. And Gleb Bogush, our recent interlocutor, has certainly broadened our intellectual horizons. Take a listen, too.”

Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Yury Vadimovich Samodurov. Yury Vadimovich is a Russian civic activist, writer, museum worker and public figure. He also has a PhD in geological and mineralogical sciences. Yury Vadimovich was one of the initiators of the Memorial Society and the Sakharov Museum and Public Centre. He himself was director of the Sakharov Museum from 1996 to 2008.

The issues discussed in the podcast include: writer and museum worker, initiator of various projects -and human rights activist? - why the topic of human rights is so relevant to Russia - a comparison between the Soviet period and contemporary Russia - Andrei Sakharov and today's Russia - Elena Bonner - reforms - Yegor Gaidar - a generation and its destiny - the future of human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "Yury Samodurov does not consider himself a human rights activist. Frankly, I have a different opinion. After all, the UN definition says that: "A human rights defender is a term used to describe people who, individually or together with others, act to promote or protect human rights peacefully. Human rights defenders are identified primarily by what they do." Last week Yury Vadimovich told Simon Cosgrove and me a great many interesting things from his life: about his personal impressions from his meetings with A. D. Sakharov, with Elena Bonner, with Lev Ponomarev, with Konstantin Kotov, with many others: the list is long. I personally found it interesting to hear Yury Samodurov's opinion about Sakharov's death: "I had the thought that Sakharov was killed. I must say that this was my first thought back in December 1989. Sergei Grigoryants held the same opinion. And A. Sobchak, who himself died a strange death, wrote in 1989: 'I don't believe in the naturalness of Sakharov's death - it was too unexpected and very opportune for his political opponents.' We have learned a great deal in the past years that makes us think seriously about what happened then. Yury Vadimovich Samodurov is a very interesting interlocutor. The hour flew by unnoticed, we had time to touch on many subjects, and, probably, we should meet again. For now - here is our conversation".

Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Vanessa Kogan, director of the Legal Initiative Project. Over the years, the project's lawyers have provided legal assistance to thousands of people. The Legal Initiative Project is one of the leading organisations in Russia in terms of the number of applications it has brought to the European Court of Human Rights; the organisation has won more than 250 cases at the ECtHR. On 2 December 2020, Russian migration authorities annulled Vanessa Kogan's residence permit.The Issues discussed in the podcast include: choice of a career - why human rights, why in Russia; what is the Legal Initiative; working in the organization; Legall Initiative's main priorities; successes; problems with the authorities; departure from the country; recent developments in human rights and civic activism; the future of human rights in Russia.This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Our interviewee Vanessa Kogan speaks Russian so well it is hard to believe you are talking to an American born and raised in the United States. Indeed, Vanessa and her family have lived and worked in Russia for the past 11 years. She worked well. She and her colleagues worked to defend human rights in Russia, including in the Caucasus, and there is no doubt that such work, as often happens now, has become problematic for the Russian authorities. In December 2020, Vanessa Kogan was told to leave Russia within two weeks. As is now customary, the authorities kept the reason for this decision a closely guarded secret: Pack your suitcase. Then the secret was uncovered, saying that the human rights activist "poses a threat to the security of the Russian Federation.' But Vanessa, who has done so much to protect the rights of our compatriots, sought to protect her own rights as well: the right to family life and the right to freedom of association and expression. The ECtHR set a deadline of 25 March 2021 for a peaceful resolution of the situation. We know that the system does not know how to backtrack, but nevertheless we note that in this case the Lubyanka was forced to give Vanessa and her family time to get ready to leave. Vanessa Kogan and her family left the Russian Federation, the largest in the world and one where human rights defenders are a threat to its security. Vanessa's grandfather, after whom she received her middle name, Stessel, was a U.S. ambassador to the USSR. Walter Stessel helped reduce tensions between our two countries, he participated in a meeting between Leonid Brezhnev and Henry Kissinger. During his years in the Soviet Union, the U.S. Consulate in Leningrad was opened, and large-scale grain exports to the USSR began at the same time. And Vanessa's contribution to a noble cause has also been significant: over the years she and her colleagues have provided legal assistance to thousands of people in Russia seeking justice and an end to human rights abuses such as abductions and enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture and gender-based violence. With the help of Vanessa and her colleagues, our fellow citizens have won more than 250 cases at the ECtHR. In the podcast, Vanessa Kogan tells Simon and me what it has all been like, and what will come next.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Veronika Lapina, a human rights activist and friend of Team 29.The issues discussed on the podcast include: Team 29 - what it is and what it does; the extent to which NGOs or other associations can operate under current conditions in Russia; the main areas in which Team 29 works; the case of Ivan Pavlov; new laws in Russia on education, on extremist organizations, etc.; the significance of Aleksei Navalny for Russian society; the significance of the European Court of Human Rights for Russia; the role of human rights activists and lawyers in Russia; the rule of law; the future of human rights.This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "Many years ago I stopped by at the offices of the Freedom of Information Foundation to see Ivan Pavlov. While I was waiting, I became absorbed in looking at the paintings in his office. There were two of them. They were actually portraits: one of the cosmonaut Leonov and the other of the poet Pushkin. Ivan soon came in and explained to me the origin of these particular portraits. I do not remember why Leonov was there, but Pushkin was there - among other things - for these words:«Под гнетом власти роковой
Нетерпеливою душой
Отчизны внемлем призыванье».
Ну, и, конечно «Пока свободою горим»"Under the oppression of the fatal power.With impatient soulWe answer the call of our fatherland."And, of course, "As long as we are inspired by the urge for freedom."The wonderfully inspired Ivan Pavlov and his comrades from the Foundation were assessed by the fateful authorities with their usual cynicism and fear, labeling the human rights advocates as 'foreign agents.' But they were attacking the wrong people. Ivan and his colleagues suspended the activities of the Foundation and in 2015 launched the informal association of lawyers and journalists known as 'Team 29'. The tasks of this well-organised team are unchanged: fighting for justice in cases that concern freedom of information (Article 29 of the Russian Constitution) and/or state security (Chapter 29 of the Russian Criminal Code). They are so good at what they do that they have become an obstacle to those who love secrecy and prohibitions. The authorities decided to prosecute Ivan for disclosure of information relating to a preliminary investigation, and as a result Ivan has been prohibited from using the Internet and communicating with anyone except investigators and his relatives. Nonetheless, Simon and I had the pleasure of talking to Veronika Lapina, a friend of Team 29 and as interesting a conversationalist as any of the people who work on this brilliant team. I recommend you listen to our conversation."Simon Cosgrove adds: "If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website https://rightsinrussia.org/week-ending-11-june-2021."

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This week our guest on the podcast is Yulia Fedotova, a lawyer with a PhD in law from the city of Ekaterinburg.

The issues discussed in the podcast include: the legal profession; legal specialization; the Russian judicial system; successful legal cases; major human rights problems in Russia today; the role of the European Court of Human Rights; the recent constitutional amendments; Russia and the Council of Europe; and the future of human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "Since childhood I was attracted to the criminal law, and I actually wanted to become a police investigator. But I couldn't accept a compromise with my conscience, work from 9 am for as long as they wanted and obey orders. So after an internship I changed my plans: I became a lawyer. A human rights lawyer." - these are the words of our interviewee this week, Yulia Fedotova, a lawyer with a PhD in law from the city of Ekaterinburg. In addition to her work in the capital of the Urals federal district, Yulia manages to work in Krasnodar region. In our conversation she interestingly compares the state of justice in these two regions, figuratively describing the law enforcement system of the sunny southern region as "like a big ball of snakes kissing." Her words are confirmed by two incidents when courts in Krasnodar tried to frame Yulia herself as a member of an organization the Russian authorities have been coquettishly calling "undesirable.' Yulia has filed fifty-three applications to the European Court of Human Rights (of which the court deemed 17 inadmissible, but accepted the rest) and has won many cases in the domestic courts. Fedotova is sharp-tongued, saying that a lawyer in today's Russia could be compared to someone diving to the depths of the Marianna Trench with a broken aqua-lung in bloody faeces. Simon Cosgrove and I listened with great interest to Yulia, and you can hear her stories, including how a nine-day sentence for Evgeny Roizman turned into one day thanks to the efforts of our interviewee."

Simon Cosgrove adds: "If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website https://rightsinrussia.org/week-ending-18-june-2021."

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This week our guest on the Russian-language podcast is Stefan Melle, director of the German NGO Deutsch-Russischer Austausch (German-Russian Exchange), which is based in Berlin. Stefan is a journalist, an expert on Russia and Eastern Europe, and a leader of Russian-German and European projects to strengthen civil society, media, education, social and environmental issues. He is one of the initiators and founders of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum and the CivilM+ platform.The issues discussed in the podcast include: how Stefan first became interested in Russia; when he became director of the German-Russian Exchange (Deutsch-Russischer Austausch – DRA); the creation of DRA in 1992 and the initial goals of the organisation; the organisation’s name; the organisation [“Nemtsko-Russky Obmen”] in St. Petersburg; whether the goals of the DRA changed over the years; countries where the DRA operates in addition to Russia; successful DRA projects; creation of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum; inclusion of the DRA into the list of ‘undesirable’ foreign organisations in May 2021; the future of civil society and human rights in Russia.This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "A Musician from Pushkin Street, a journalist, an expert on Russia and Eastern Europe, a manager of Russian-German and European projects to strengthen civil society, media, education, social and environmental issues and one of the initiators and founders of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum. All of this is about Stefan Melle, our latest guest on the podcast. Having moved from Pushkin Street to Moscow Street at an early age, Stefan could hardly have imagined that he would be destined to work for the Russian-German exchange. After all, in his youth, Stefan, who lived in East Berlin, saw West Berlin only through the window and believed that he would sooner get to Vladivostok than to the streets of West Berlin. And it turns out that he has yet to visit Vladivostok, but the office of Deutsch-Russischer Austausch is located on one of those streets visible from the window of the flat where Stefan then lived. Stefan sees the future of human rights in terms of a model where people of different countries unite around common interests, adhere to standards which they have agreed to and affixed with signatures and abide by those standards and values even when people may have other interests, when they may be stronger than others and when one can ‘overstep’ the boundaries of what has been agreed. The word ‘overstep’ in Russian has the same root as the word for ‘crime’, and it can be said that neither ‘overstepping’ in this way nor crime should be tolerated. The future lies with a world in which people in all our countries will stand up for their rights. And then, as we can but hope, no one will be able to ‘overstep‘." Simon Cosgrove adds: "If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here."

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This week our guest on the podcast is Kirill Koroteev. Kirill is head of international legal practice at the Agora International Human Rights Group. Kirill used to work as legal director of the Memorial Human Rights Center, where he specialised in handling cases before the European Court of Human Rights. Kirill graduated from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and has a Masters degree from the University of Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne.Among the issues discussed in the podcast are: important differences between the legal systems of France, England and Russia; whether lawyers require different skills to work in the legal systems of Russia, France and the UK; the European Court of Human Rights - what is good and what is bad; the law on 'foreign agents'; the ECtHR and the law on 'foreign agents'; the work of the Agora Human Rights Group; major human rights issues in Russia today; last year's Constitutional changes and the ECtHR; Russia and the Council of Europe; the future of human rights in Russia.This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "-You see, if we consider the Russian judicial system with regard to its formal norms, we find everything that we can find in other countries: the system of legislation, constitutional oversight, judicial review of the executive. Reading the jurisprudene of the Supreme Court, we can find both the concept of legal certainty and the concept of judicial review over the abuse of power, and so on and so forth. All of this exists as general principles of jurisprudence, but when you go to court, the answer you get in the courts-at least in the courts where the state is involved-is that the minister's decision is correct because it was made by the minister. A bureaucratized judicial system is combined with a complete lack of judicial independence. The judge knows that a judgment not in favour of the state will be overturned, and by the number of judgments that are overturned, their work will be judged. Our interlocutor, Kirill Koroteev, is head of international legal practice at the Agora International Human Rights Ggroup and was formerly legal director at Memorial Human Rights Centre. Kirill told Simon Cosgrove and me about his rich legal experience, about the Romano-Germanic and Anglo-Saxon legal families, about his work and much more. I regret that the subject matter of our podcast this time did not give Kirill an opportunity to reveal his knowledge of the musical collective The Beatles, where he is also a first-class specialist." Simon Cosgrove adds: "If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here"

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This week our guest on the podcast is Sergei Davidis, a member of the board of the Memorial Human Rights Centre and director of the Centre's programme in support of political prisoners.

The questions discussed in the podcast include: Sergei Davidis' recent prosecution and jailing ['administrative arrest']; conditions of detention; application to the European Court of Human Rights; numbers of detentions and administrative and criminal cases following this year's protests; Evgeny Roizman, former mayor of Ekaterinburg; Aleksei Navalny; Amnesty International; politics and human rights; ECtHR; right of assembly; freedom of association; Anti-Corruption Foundation; application of extremism law; new legislation and human rights; future of human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website [https://www.rightsinrussia.org/category/podcasts/] or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes: "Sergei Davidis, a member of the board of Memorial Human Rights Centre, was seized in the entryway of his home. The explanation for such an act of gallantry by the police is simple: according to the Russian authorities, notification of an event is now considered to be organization of an event. If we are talking about the kind of event that the authorities in their own jargon call 'unsanctioned', then a person who reposts information about the protest will receive a visit early in the morning. Sergei spent eight days in a special detention centre where those sentenced to administrative detention are held. He was given a total of 10 days, but two of those 10 days were spent in police custody. Simon Cosgrove and I are people with little prison experience (mine is richer than Simon's, but I won't go into that now), so we were interested in what Sergei had to say. Sergei Davidis was good at building relations with cellmates who had nothing to do with Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences. "None of them like the authorities, they don't approve of them, but they don't want to get involved in the fight." He successfully conducted - according to him - explanatory work to show what political institutions are and what political tools exist. "I did not see any aggression from the staff of the detention centre. Except for one moment, though it was not really aggression but overzealous performance of duty: one of the officers told me that wearing a T-shirt with the slogan 'No to political repression' in their honorable institution was unacceptable. Our podcast proved an interesting conversation with an interesting interlocutor on many topics, including Amnesty International's infamous decision to strip Navalny of his title of prisoner of conscience."

Simon Cosgrove adds: "If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here: https://www.rightsinrussia.org/week-ending-21-may-2021/ "

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This week our guest on the podcast is Elena Pershakova. Elena is head of the Legal Practice for Fundamental Freedoms department at the Public Verdict Foundation. She has been involved in human rights activities since 1999 and began her career in Perm.

The questions discussed in the podcast include: freedom of conscience in Perm and in Russia (about Jehovah's Witnesses); how Russia's regions differ from one another in terms of the judicial system; the work of a human rights lawyer; Public Verdict Foundation; freedom of association in Russia; the law on 'foreign agents'; the Public Oversight Commissions; regional human rights ombudsmen; freedom of assembly in Russia; the role of the ECtHR in Russia; last year's amendments to the Constitution; Russia and the Council of Europe; the future of human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website [https://www.rightsinrussia.org/category/podcasts/] or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes: "Many years ago I questioned Sergei Borisovich Parkhomenko about his arrest outside the Moskvoretsky Court. At that time two different police officers wrote different reports on him and each said that he had detained Parkhomenko - but for different acts. Sergei Parkhomenko said he would challenge the decision in the Eurpean Court of Human Rights and that his case was being handled by Elena Pershakova, an excellent lawyer from Public Verdict Foundation, as he particularly emphasized. Six months ago, I learned that the ECtHR had found that Russia in this case had violated the rights to peaceful assembly and fair trial and ordered the Russian Federation to pay each of the detainees, including Sergei Parkhomenko, 5,000 euros in compensation. Sergei Borisovich said on this occasion: 'I would particularly like to express my gratitude and admiration for the tenacity and resolve of the lawyers Kirill Koroteev, Elena Pershakova and their colleagues who brought the case to a victorious end after all these years.' Last week Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with Lena about her work at Public Verdict, the human rights situation in Russia and in Perm, the role of the ECtHR, whether Russia will withdraw from the Council of Europe and much more. I took the opportunity to tell Lena how much I love her pictures of the Kama River from the 18th floor. Truly, Lena has many talents! "

Simon Cosgrove adds: "If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here: https//rightsinrussia.org/week-ending-14-may-2021 ."

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This week our guest on the podcast is Tatiana Glushkova. Tatiana is a lawyer with Memorial Human Rights Centre, a member of the programme, Human Rights Protection Using International Mechanisms, a member of the coordinating council of the Project to Provide Legal Aid to Transgender People and of the board of the ‘Stumul’ LGBT group.

The questions discussed in the podcast include: what it means to be a human rights lawyer in Russia today; what led Tatyana Glushkova to take up this work; the workload and pace of work; the main human rights issues in Russia today; the right to freedom of association in Russia; the law on foreign agents; the application to the European Court of Human Rights regarding the law on foreign agents; the role of the ECtHR in Russia; the significance of last year’s constitutional amendments; Russia and the Council of Europe; the future of human rights in Russia.

You can also listen to the podcast on our website [https://www.rightsinrussia.org/category/podcasts/] or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “My entry into human rights work was, by and large, an accident. Having experience in a commercial legal structure, after graduating from Moscow State University I decided to find something different from what I had encountered during my years of study. The story of a friend about the non-profit organisation JURIX caught my attention. I was lucky – there was a vacancy and I went to join Anita Karlovna Soboleva and her team. I found the job much more interesting than working in a commercial firm.” Last week Simon and I spoke with Tatiana Glushkova, a lawyer in the programme ‘Human Rights Protection Using International Mechanisms’ at Memorial Human Rights Centre, where she is also a board member. Cases she has worked with range from summary executions in Chechnya to LGBT rights. “In Russia today there is so much work for human rights lawyers that the situation can be figuratively compared to patching up one hole while two new ones appear. And so on,” Tatiana told us. “You can do a tremendous amount of work, collect all the evidence, and the result will not be different from if you had done nothing at all.” But Tatyana Glushkova finds the strength to carry on her work: she is well known in the human rights world as a successful lawyer who works 25 or even 48 hours a day. It was very interesting for us to talk to Tatiana, and it’s great that she was able to find time to talk to us as well.“

Simon Cosgrove adds: "If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here."

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This week our guest on the podcast is Aleksandr Peredruk, a lawyer from St Petersburg and member of the St Petersburg Bar Association. Aleksandr Peredruk is currently working with 'Apologia Protesta', Agora's project to provide legal assistance to people participating in peaceful assemblies.The questions discussed in the podcast include: the recent arrest of the lawyer Ivan Pavlov; how Aleksandr Peredruk became a lawyer and why he chose the field of human rights; the factors most important in determining the successful outcome of a court case; the independence of the courts in Russia; legal reforms of the 1990s; "Apologia Protesta' - what it is; public support for human rights work; the legal profession and young people; differences among Russian regions; risks of the work of a human rights lawyer; forecast for the future of human rights in Russia.The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.
Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "On Friday, our conversation with Aleksandr ended rather abruptly: journalists were calling the St Petersburg lawyer non-stop. On that day, as we recall, another St Petersburg lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, was arrested in Moscow. Aleksandr Peredruk, a St Petersburg lawyer, is known to us for his brilliant work with the organisations Soldiers' Mothers of St Petersburg and 'Apologia Protesta'. Recalling the early years after the introduction of the law on 'foreign agents', Aleksandr said that when the initial impact of the new law was at its height and much discussed in 2014, Soldiers' Mothers was put on the foreign agent register and staff of the organisation received threats. Various strange people, obviously with a limited vocabulary, called them using obscene language to announce their dislike of the work of the human rights defenders. Meanwhile, Aleksandr admits quite reasonably that "There are people who do not accept our views, who do not understand our ideas, for whom the concept of human rights is an alien idea. We, unlike them, accept that possibility and leave it up to them not to share our world view. Incidentally, as I remember I have participated in several focus groups where, when asked to name a human rights organisation that the participants in the groups remembered, the answers began with Soldiers' Mothers of St. Petersburg - they are very recognisable and well known. And 'Apologia Protesta' may not be as well known yet, but they do a wonderful job upholding the idea that peaceful protest is an integral part of any democratic society. Apologia's team consists of several dozen lawyers across the country, and their aim is to make the right to freedom of assembly a real right, not an illusory one. And Sasha Peredruk contributes to this very successfully with his excellent work. It's a pleasure to listen to him."Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here: https://rightsinrussia.org/week-ending-30-april-2021 .

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This week our guest on the podcast is Olga Sadovskaya from the Nizhny Novgorod-based human rights organisation Committee against Torture. Olga Sadovskaya is the head of the organisation's international protection department. Established in 2000, the Committee against Torture has undergone many changes but continues to be one of the leading human rights organisations in Russia working to prevent torture in police custody.The questions discussed in the podcast include: latest developments at the Committee against Torture; court cases before the Russian courts and the ECtHR; legislative changes affecting its work; cities where the Committee against Torture operates; Chechnya; risks doing human rights work in Russia; public support; ombudsmen and public oversight commissions; the future of human rights.The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.
Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: 'Inquisitor 286 is a new computer game from the Committee against Torture, and the number 286 is clearly not random. Everyone knows Article 286 of the Russian Criminal Code does not contain the word torture, and Russia does not adhere to the definition set forth in the UN Convention. It should.The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment defines torture as any act by which severe pain or suffering is intentionally inflicted on a person when such pain or suffering is inflicted by a public official. We are well aware how the authorities twist and turn and - as a rule - cover up for these very officials. Olga Sadovskaya in our recent conversation reminded Simon Cosgrove and me of the many tragic stories in which the "heroes" - the so-called siloviki - have gone into hiding or disappeared. But it is encouraging to know that organisations like the Committee against Torture and many other Russian human rights defenders are tirelessly fighting torture and ensuring that the villains are brought to justice. And that this is not a game at all.'Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here: https//:rightsinrussia.org/week-ending-23-april-2021.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Damir Gainutdinov, PhD in law, head of the 'Online Freedoms' Project at Agora international human rights group and an expert on freedom of expression and the Internet.The questions the podcast discusses are: the internet and traditional media; how free is the Runet today; the vulnerability of social media users to administrative or criminal prosecution; why the authorities are increasingly complaining about Twitter and FB; politics and the internet; how "oppositional" is Runet; Russia and the 'Chinese version'; the authorities and the internet; international regulation - the European Court of Human Rights and the UN; the future of the internet in Russia.The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.
Sergei Nikitin writes on FB: '"I don't think they didn't wanted to block Twitter, it was just a bluff on the part of the authorities," Damir Gainutdinov, PhD in law, head of the Online Freedoms project at Agora International human rights group and an expert on freedom of expression and the Internet, told us: "The Telegram story showed that it's not that simple." Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with Damir about the war going on on the World Wide Web. The Russian authorities, threatening, maneuvering, bluffing, knowing full well that everyone has been laughing at their attempts to block Telegram. The Kremlin would obviously like to block Google and YouTube, but they understand that such weapons can only be used once, and they cannot afford a false start. So they are using those networks that are less popular in Russia to train on. Damir is the co-author of many of Agora's reports on freedom of expression, including the most recent ones on 'fake news,' and the application of the so-called 'law on contempt of the authorities'. He shared his opinion that the ECtHR is clearly behind the curve when it comes to the Internet, losing out to UN institutions. We talked about how 'oppositional' the Runet is, whether the 'Chinese version' is possible in Russia, and whether Kremlin officials understand the Internet without using a magnifying glass. Listen to Damir's answers."Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Anita Soboleva, lawyer, lecturer and researcher and associate professor. Anita formerly worked as chief lawyer at the NGO JURIX (Lawyers for Constitutional Rights and Freedoms). She has been a member of the Moscow region bar association since 2002. Until November 2019 Anita served two tersms as a member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights.
The podcast discusses the state of the third sector in Russia; the impact of the laws on "foreign agents" and "undesirable foreign organisations"; the current judicial system in Russia; the independence of the courts; judicial reforms; the impact of the Soviet traditions on the justice sytem; the significance of last year's constitutional changes and of the changes introduced to the Constitutional Court; and the future of human rights in Russia.The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "Last weekend, Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with Anita Karlovna Soboleva, a lawyer, teacher and researcher working in the field of law. We talked, of course, about human rights work. Anita Soboleva compared human rights defenders of the end of the last century with those of today: "Nowadays, human rights work is done by people with a legal education, by specialists. These people are the best, they are highly motivated: There has been a professionalization of the nonprofit sector. This is what we dreamed of 20 years ago." Understandably, when discussing human rights work, we also touched on the topic of today's civil society in Russia and the prospects for some kind of reform in the country. "Civil society is not just about organisations we like very much. After all, civil society also includes nationalists and organisations set up by former members of the security forces. They are also part of society. Society is fragmented. Therefore, some part of society may be ready for some reforms, while another part may be ready for quite different reforms," Anita Karlovna rightly pointed out. In her personal experience the critical thinking of today's students is very developed and very different from what we would have seen in universities 15 years ago. But it's not all that simple: "The well-known fragmentation of education can't help but be alarming, when suddenly universities appear under specific ministries and start to train specialists for individual state bodies". It was important for us to talk to a highly professional lawyer, and it was sad to hear again about what is now happening to the legal system in the country, where 'the courts can now say that black is white and white is black'. Listen to Anita Soboleva, it's interesting."

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guests on the podcast are Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov, well-known Russian journalists, creators of the website Agentura.ru and authors of the books The New Nobility, The Red Web and The Compatriots.

The topics we discuss on the podcast include: journalism in contemporary Russia; journalists’s safety; the role of Russia’s secret services domestically and on the world stage; disinformation; the history of post-Soviet Russia; the influence of Soviet political culture; Navalny’s poisoning; Amnesty International and Navalny; whether there is an on-going political crisis in Russia; and the future of human rights in Russia.

The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “I like the way Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan write. I have read almost all their books: The New Nobility, The Red Web, and The Compatriots. They write in such a way that – frankly – I can’t tear myself away. Sometimes I didn’t want to wait for the Russian translation to come out, so I read the book in English. This was the case with their newest book. I first read The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia’s Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad and then got a copy of the Russian translation. At the very end of the book, along with the acknowledgements, I liked the authors’ heartfelt confession: “When we wrote this book we argued passionately, and sometimes very loudly, about every chapter.” In our new podcast Andrei and Irina didn’t argue at all, and expressed their stories and views quite mildly. And what they had to say, it must be said, was just as interesting, of course, as their books. Starting with the story of how they became journalists and ending with their assessment of investigative journalism in Russia today.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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Simon & Sergei - with Sergei Golubok. Part One: Becoming a lawyer (barrister/advokat); human rights; the rule of law.

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This week our guest on the podcast is the well-known journalist Vera Sergeevna Vasilieva. The topics we discuss on the podcast include: human rights journalism in Russia, political prisoners, the ‘foreign agent’ law, Radio Liberty, Aleksei Pichugin, Aleksei Navalny, other landmark court cases, recent amendments to the Russian constitution, crisis in Russia, atmosphere of hate, historical trends regarding human rights, the Russian judicial system, what the future may hold, and books by Vera Vasilieva.
The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes: “The situation for journalists writing on human rights issues has become very complicated,” Vera Vasilieva told us. “Many of those websites and portals I used to collaborate with have been closed down and blocked. The field of activity is narrowing, there is no doubt about it.” She also told us how her career in human rights journalism began: “Many years ago I used to work for a popular science computer magazine and back in 2003, when the Yukos affair was just beginning, I wanted to form my own opinion about Alexei Pichugin. The first trial in his case was held behind closed doors, and the second trial on 4 April 2006 left me dumbfounded: the charges proved to be unsubstantiated.” It was then that Vera decided she would go regularly to observe such trials. And she also started to write for online human rights websites. Last Sunday, Simon Cosgrove and I talked to Vera about what she is working on now, what she is interested in, and what concerns her.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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Simon & Sergei - with Sergei Golubok. Part Four: Lawyers, Precedents, The Future, Political Reform, Young People, Graffiti, Books

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Simon & Sergei - with Sergei Golubok. Part Three: Judicial reforms in Russia in the 1990s; Constitutional amendments of 2020; Public opinion in Russia; Relations with the Council of Europe

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Simon & Sergei - with Sergei Golubok. Part Two: European Court of Human Rights, Council of Europe, International Law

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This week our guest on the podcast is Sergei Golubok, a lawyer [advokat] from St. Petersburg. The topics we discuss on the podcast include: how to become a lawyer; lawyers and human rights; the rule of law; the European Court of Human Rights; conflicts between national and international law; impact of the reforms of the 1990s on the Russian legal system; the significance of the constitutional amendments introduced last year; reform of the Constitutional Court; the future of the Russian legal system and human rights in the Russian Federation.

The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: A lawyer [advokat] should be a human rights defender by virtue of his work. And the hallmark of a lawyer [advokat] is that they don’t have a boss, they have clients. Our guest on the podcast this week, the lawyer Sergei Golubok, has a wealth of experience, including with bosses. Today Sergei is a member of the St Petersburg Bar Association and someone well known in the human rights world. Simon Cosgrove and I had time to discuss a great deal with our Sunday guest and are happy to share what Sergei told us. We discussed – and not without reference to events today – why there are regimes that do not live up to the obligations they took upon themselves. “Human rights treaties – unlike ordinary treaties – create a web of obligations rather than bilateral relations. And so regimes like Erdogan’s or Putin’s don’t really understand such obligations – why they should be implemented,” says Sergei Golubok, and adds: “This is a short-sighted point of view, because there are some things more important than momentary gain.” One of the biggest questions facing the Council of Europe today is what to do when Russia, along with a number of other countries, ignores ECtHR judgments. After all, there are no international riot police and no ECtHR bailiffs either. “I believe that the right thing to do in this situation would be to expel Russia from the Council of Europe. This would, in the first place, protect the Council of Europe itself. However, the Council of Europe has taken a different path, that of endless negotiations. It is the wrong approach, and the policy of appeasement of the 1930s is proof of that. It is not a solution to the problem, but an aggravation. Exclusion is the only legal remedy that can be applied”. We recommend listening to what Sergei Golubok has to say.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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The start of a career; Yaroslavl investigations; torture in penal colonies.

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Part Two: Threats, Moscow and the regions, human rights lawyers, Public Oversight Commissions and Human Rights Ombudsmen, the European Court of Human Rights, Aleksei Navalny.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Irina Biriukova, a lawyer at the Public Verdict Foundation. The issues we discuss with Irina include: getting started as a lawyer in Russia; work at the Civic Assistance Committee and Public Verdict Foundation; her most important court cases; combating torture in Yaroslavl penal colonies; the difference between human rights work in Moscow and the regions; other lawyers whose work Irina admires; the role of the European Court of Human Rights; Aleksei Navalny; last year’s changes to the Constitution; and the future of Russia. The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera. Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Irina Biriukova became a lawyer in 2005 and began working with the Civic Assistance Committee. At a certain point she became disillusioned with the effectiveness of human rights work – it was a cumulative effect, I guess. The arrests during the Bolotnaya protests changed her perspective and she decided that she could work with human rights defenders, at least on administrative cases. This is how Irina met Natalia Taubina. In our podcst Irina recalls: “I decided I could help people, I took part in cases on which the Public Verdict Foundation was working, I liked the team”. We all remember Irina’s successful work in exposing torture in the Yaroslavl penal colony. Prison staff laughed in her face and told prisoners: “What can your Biriukova do to us? We won’t be affected at all.” Yet Ira has achieved a great deal. Most importantly, she says, “We earned trust – we didn’t just come and go. And we worked hard to gain that trust.” However, no one is going to change the penal system from within, Irina says. It has to be changed root and branch, she believes. And it is encouraging to hear that the circle of people like Irina and her colleagues is widening. The number of human rights lawyers is growing. “It’s hasn’t been a bad start to a career,” according to our interviewee. However, she is less optimistic about the current state of Russian legislation. “All this nonsense, all the changes in the legislation, all this should be abolished. It’s just a question of what to take as the date where the watershed is. Probably – very roughly – we should reset from that moment – probably starting with the laws passed from, say, 2012.” What happens next? “It’s going to get worse by the autumn, by then it will just be unbearable”. And what happens next? Listen to what happens next.Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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Part Three: The Future of Russia, the Constitution, Legislation, Law Enforcement

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Jens Siegert on EU-Russia relations, economic and political.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Jens Siegert. Jens is a German citizen who has lived in Russia for many years. From 1999 to 2015 he headed the office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Moscow. More recently he was head of the European Union project ‘Public Diplomacy. The EU and Russia.’ He is the author of the book 111 Reasons to Love Russia (the book is in German). It has to be said that Jens is the first person who appears twice in our podcast!

The questions we discuss on the podcast include: the coronavirus in Moscow; the poisoning and return of Aleksei Navalny; Amnesty International’s view of Navalny; is there a crisis in Russia; EU-Russia relations; what can the EU do in response to Russia’s human rights violations; policing public assemblies in the EU; German politics after Angela Merkel; the future of Russia; a new book; the meaning of some intriguing Russian words.

The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “There is a knock at the door. ‘Who’s there?’ And the answer is ‘Svoyi.’ How do you translate ‘svoyi’ [roughly ‘your own’] and ‘chuzhoi’ [roughly ‘alien’] into German? There is no such thing in Germany, it cannot be translated. So said Jens Siegert who is finishing a new book about Russia to be called, In Principle Russia. An Encounter in 22 Concepts. What is meant by the Russian words vlast, gopnik, propiska, geroi, Evropa, siloviki, SMI? The aim of the book, Jens said, is to try to convey to the German reader what is going on in the heads and hearts of people living in Russia. In our latest podcast, Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with Jens, the longtime director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Moscow office and more recently head of the European Union project ‘Public Diplomacy. The EU and Russia.’ The conversation lasted more than an hour and among the many issues discussed were: Navalny and Amnesty International; what leverage the West has; what sanctions can do; the head of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany after Angela Merkel; Armin Lachet, and his chances of becoming Chancellor. An excellent Russian speaker, Jens, will give you all 111 reasons why you should love Russia. He is a great storyteller, let’s listen to him…

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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Jens Siegert on: Is there a crisis in Russia?

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Jens Siegert on the future of Russia; a new book; some key Russian words.

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Jens Siegert on Coronavirus; Aleksei Navalny; and Amnesty International:

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This week our guest on the podcast is Danil Beglets. Danil Beglets is the first defendant in the ‘Moscow case’ convicted to a real sentence to have been released on parole.

Given the length of the podcast, we have also divided it into three sections that you can listen to separately.

Part One: arrest on 27 July 2019; remanding in custody; conditions in pre-trial detention; trial; conviction; transfer to prison:

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This week our guest on the podcast is Danil Beglets. Danil Beglets is the first defendant in the ‘Moscow case’ convicted to a real sentence to have been released on parole.

Given the length of the podcast, we have also divided it into three sections that you can listen to separately.

Part Two: the penitentiary system; impact of imprisonment on life after release; opinion of human rights defenders; plans for the future.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Danil Beglets. Danil Beglets is the first defendant in the ‘Moscow case’ convicted to a real sentence to have been released on parole.

Given the length of the podcast, we have also divided it into three sections that you can listen to separately.

Part Three: conditions in the penal colony; discrimination on the basis of religion.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Danil Beglets. Danil Beglets is the first defendant in the ‘Moscow case’ convicted to a real sentence to have been released on parole.
The issues we discuss in the podcast include: What happened on 27 July 2019 during the protest over the barring of independent candidates from the Moscow City Duma elections? Why were you detained? What were the conditions in pre-trial detention? What was the trial like? What was the process of transfer to prison like? How has your experience changed you? Did human rights defenders help you? What were the conditions in the penal colony? Is religion respected in the penal colony? How do you evaluate the law enforcement and judicial systems in Russia? What are your plans for the future?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://www.rightsinrussia.org/podcast-9/], SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “I went and found a box, tore off a piece of cardboard and wrote on it – I am NOT a slave. I went to my baracks, got dressed, took a mattress, took a bag of books and sat down in front of the ‘White House’ [the administration building of Mtsensk Colony No. 7]. I put the mattress on the ground, set up the cardboard sign in protest that I am not a slave, sat down, and started reading a book.” Simon Cosgrove and I spent an evening with an unusual guest: Danil Beglets, a self-employed busnessman from Moscow’s Mytishchi district, happened to be on Bolshaya Dmitrovka street on 27 July 2019 where he was caught up in the general confusion during a protest against the barring of independent candidates from the Moscow city Duma elections. He was released on parole on 2 November 2020, a man who has learned what life in a Russian prison is like. He cannot understand why the authorities perpetrate injustice. Danil, whom his former business partner described as ‘kind, open, sometimes too generous, because he helps people who don’t always need to be helped,’ joined the number of human rights defenders who became such by chance. Police cells, remand centres, prison trains, Penal Colony No. 2 in Kostroma region, Penal Colony No. 7 in Mtsensk, Oryol region… It’s all behind him now. Danil lost his business, but he is full of energy: he plans to open a cafe, and now he wants to help people who suffer from the lawlessness behind barbed wire that is the Russian penitentiary system.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Lev Markovich Shlosberg. Lev Markovich is a Russian politician, a civil society and human rights activist, and a journalist. He is chair of Yabloko’s Pskov regional branch, a member of Yabloko’s federal political committee and a deputy of Pskov regional legislative assembly from the Yabloko party.

Given the length of the podcast, we have also divided it into three sections that you can listen to separately.

Part One: Gorbachev’s Perestroika. Lev Shlosberg’s early years and the beginnings of public politics under Gorbachev.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Lev Markovich Shlosberg. Lev Markovich is a Russian politician, a civil society and human rights activist, and a journalist. He is chair of Yabloko’s Pskov regional branch, a member of Yabloko’s federal political committee and a deputy of Pskov regional legislative assembly from the Yabloko party. The issues we discuss in the podcast include: Shlosberg’s first job as a teacher in a school for young offenders; the creation of the Revival [Vozrozhdenie] Centre for Social Design; the development of civic organizations in the 1990s; the foundation of the newspaper Pskov Gubernia; freedom of speech and the state of civil society in Russia; the case of Pskov journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva and the use of the law on ‘foreign agents’ against Radio Liberty journalist Liudmila Savitskaya and Denis Kamalyagin, editor-in-chief of Pskov Gubernia; politics in today’s Russia; the Navalny phenomenon; the history of human rights and civil society; and the future of democracy in Russia. The podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia (https://www.rightsinrussia.org/podcast-7/), SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Two anti-Soviet wall newspapers at the Pskov Pedagogical Institute made by history student Lev Shlosberg and his comrade in 1981, taken down on the orders of the dean of the history department; work at the Sebezh special vocational school for young offenders, service in the Soviet army; creation of the Revival Centre for Social Design; establishment of Pskov Free University and a psychological assistance telephone hotline; creation of the Pskovskaya Gubernia newspaper. Lev Markovich has achieved a great deal, and there was a lot to talk about on our podcast. Today, Lev Shlosberg is a well-known politician and he rightly told us that ‘when state policy is so repressive, the very act of entering politics as a member of the opposition – rather than supporting the government – entails enormous risks. As the saying goes, you’re lucky if they don’t kill you.’ We talked about Svetlana Prokopyeva, Anastasia Shevchenko, Liudmila Savitskaya, and Denis Kamalyagin, editor-in-chief of Pskov Gubernia. It is surprising that 40% of the foreign agents, according to the Ministry of Justice, are from Pskov Gubernia! We also talked about Aleksei Navalny, whom Lev Markovich described as ‘simultaneously the personal prisoner and hostage of Vladimir Putin.’ However, Lev Markovich refuses to abandon all hope: ‘History never gives final answers – and therein lies our chance,’ he said.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Lev Markovich Shlosberg. Lev Markovich is a Russian politician, a civil society and human rights activist, and a journalist. He is chair of Yabloko’s Pskov regional branch, a member of Yabloko’s federal political committee and a deputy of Pskov regional legislative assembly from the Yabloko party.

Given the length of the podcast, we have also divided it into three sections that you can listen to separately.
Part Three: The Political History of Post-Soviet Russia - politics and politicians in today’s Russia: the role of Vladimir Putin; the Navalny phenomenon; the state of human rights and civil society; the future of democracy in Russia.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Lev Markovich Shlosberg. Lev Markovich is a Russian politician, a civil society and human rights activist, and a journalist. He is chair of Yabloko’s Pskov regional branch, a member of Yabloko’s federal political committee and a deputy of Pskov regional legislative assembly from the Yabloko party.

Given the length of the podcast, we have also divided it into three sections that you can listen to separately.

Part Two: Civil Society after the Soviet Union. Foundation of the Revival [Vozrozhdenie] Centre for Social Design; the development of civic organizations in the 1990s; the foundation of the newspaper Pskov Gubernia; freedom of speech and the state of civil society in Russia; the case of Pskov journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva and the use of the law on “foreign agents” against Radio Liberty journalist Liudmila Savitskaya and Denis Kamalyagin, editor-in-chief of Pskov Gubernia.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Andrei Borisovich Suslov, a professor at Perm State Humanitarian and Pedagogical University who has been involved in human rights education for more than 20 years. The topic of today’s podcast is ‘Human Rights Education in Russia: The Past, Present and Future’. The issues we discuss in the podcast include: the history of human rights education in post-Soviet Russia; what prompted Andrei Suslov to get involved in human rights education; Andrei Suslov’s work in this field; how things have changed over the last 20 years; the importance of human rights education; the role of human rights education in the development of democracy; how lawyers are trained in human rights law; young people and human rights; what should people know about human rights; what story or stories from the lives of real people are instructive in thinking about human rights; what should human rights education be like, ideally. The podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia (https://www.rightsinrussia.org/podcast-7/), SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: In 2006 I received a letter from the deputy director of the Department of State Policy and Legal Regulation of Education in the Russian Ministry of Education and Science. This was in response to our demand to teach human rights in Russian schools. “The importance of studying human rights,” I.M.Remorenko wrote, “raises no doubts.” Then came a lot of verbiage about how human rights help cultivate citizenship and patriotism, while at the end of his address the official explained that domestic legislation is amended so frequently that there is no sense in introducing a human rights course in schools, all the more so since any citizen acquires knowledge of human rights throughout his life. So why bother? In 2007 the Minister of Education said that, OK, human rights would be taught at school as a separate course, but – no such luck. For this reason I have always admired the tireless work of enthusiastic educators who work to ensure that schoolchildren and teachers learn about human rights as the protection of each person’s dignity and freedom, their personal, political, social, economic and cultural rights. Simon Cosgrove and I recently spoke with Andrei Suslov, a professor at Perm State Humanitarian Pedagogical University, who has been teaching human rights for over 20 years. The hour flew by and we could have talked much more. We hope you enjoy listening as much as we did: our interviewee Andrei Suslov, one of the leading experts on human rights education.Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week the guest on our podcast is Timur Georgievich Kobaliya, a Russian human rights activist and graduate of the American International Visitor Leadership Programme and the UK Foreign Office’s first visitor’s programme for human rights defenders in Russia. Timur is the founder of the NGO TV Russia and former head of the Human Rights Council of Volgograd. Timur also heads the international organisation Georgian-Russian Forum and has three applications against the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights.The questions we discuss in the podcast include: When and why Timur Georgievich became a human rights defender; when NGO TV was set up and why; successes and difficulties; the impact of the law on foreign agents; Volgograd as a region in terms of human rights; cooperation with the authorities; future change for better or worse; Navalny’s return; what’s next for human rights organisations in Russia; what lies ahead for Russian civil society in the coming years.

The podcast is in the Russian language. You can listen to the podcast here on Podcasts.com and also on Rights in Russia (https://www.rightsinrussia.org/podcast-6), SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Timur Kobaliya was one of the founders of the Youth Advice and Training Centre in 2010 which is when he began working on human rights issues. In 2013 the centre was labelled a “foreign agent”. As Timur told us, the formal impetus for this was the NGO’s participation in the Georgian-Russian forum, which the human rights defender heads. The actions of the Russian authorities, including the fines levied against the Centre, prompted Timur and his colleagues to appeal to the ECtHR. The closure of the Centre prompted Timur to set up two organisations: the Volgograd Human Rights Council and the Internet Channel for NGOs (NGO TV). Timur runs the television channel with a staff of six and, understandably, the authorities could not but give it their attention. The channel’s presenter, journalist Aleksandr Batmanov, was sentenced in October 2017 to two years and one month in a maximum-security penal colony after being found guilty of stealing Kolbasa [like a German sausage] from a supermarket. The European Federation of Journalists added Aleksandr Batmanov to its list of journalists prosecuted for their professional activities. Although the mission of NGO TV Russia is to promote the activities of non-profit organisations and civic associations, activists and youth, the local authorities are stubborn in their unwillingness to cooperate with such groups, refusing to see them as allies. The picture is familiar, and not only for Volgograd. Simon Cosgrove and I had an interesting conversation with Timur, and we invite you to listen to this recording.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is the Russian civil society activist Aleksei Andreevich Minyailo. Aleksei Minyailo’s many roles include those of entrepreneur, election observer and philanthropist. He has also been a trainer of election observers – a role he played in Crimea in 2014 when he created a network of independent observers for the referendum. Aleksei Minyailo was also involved in the 2019 Moscow City Duma elections when he was part of Liubov Sobol’s election team. Together with Sobol, he went on hunger strike in protest at the authorities’ refusal to allow her to stand in the elections. On 2 August 2019 he was arrested on charges of inciting riots on 27 July 2019. After two months in pre-trial detention, the charges against him were dropped and he was released.

The podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia, SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “You started writing a book in prison, thought up two training programmes and wrote letters to people in prison. How is it possible that people on the outside were discouraged while you, who were in prison, tried to cheer them up? What helps you to be free a person in any circumstances?” Today we tried to get answers to these and many other questions. The hero of today’s podcast is a man who makes the world a better place. In the past he managed to do this when working and volunteering in elections. He also did this when he worked help young people who who have been in orphanages to adapt to the difficult business of life outside. A defendant in the so-called Moscow case, he even made the world a better place when he was behind bars, cheering others in his letters from prison. Aleksei Minyailo was was released from custody in the courtroom when charges against him under Article 212(2) of the Criminal Code were dropped. Today, Aleksei Minyailo is making the world a better place by helping all those who have taken to the streets and squares of Russian cities to protest. He, along with more than a hundred volunteers, staffs a hotline listening to callers who are in difficulty, reassuring them, telling them what to do. Aleksei told us that the state terrorism we are seeing now makes him say to those serving in the Federal Guard Agency, the FSB or other such organisations: “Come to your senses and get out as quickly as possible. Run away from there, because this gang will not be in power forever and you will have to answer for what is being done.”

The questions we discuss with Aleksei Minyailo include: How do you primarily see yourself today – entrepreneur, election observer, civic activist or philanthropist? How do you rate the quality of elections in Russia? What success have you had in getting businesses to cooperate with community activists in the field of socialisation of young people who have spent time in children’s homes? How did it happen that the charges against you were dropped when you were prosecuted and remanded in custody for an offence under Article 212 (Part 2) of the Russian Criminal Code as part of the Moscow case? How was it possible that after you were remanded in custody people at liberty were discouraged and you tried to cheer them up from behind bars. How do you see the protests of 23 January 2021 differing from those of August and September 2019? Do you still work with Liubov Sobol? How do you see the prospects for Aleksei Navalny? How do you see the future of human rights in Russia?

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is the Russian civil society activist Evgeniya Chirikova. Yevgenia Chirikova is especially well known for her campaign to save Khimki Forest. She was the leader of the movement Environmental Defence of the Moscow Region (Eco-defence) and Movement to Defend the Khimki Forest, as well as a member of the organizing committee of Strategy 31 and a member of the Coordination Council of the Russian opposition. She now lives in Estonia. To learn more about her work today, you can visit the website: activatica.org.

The questions we ask Evgeniya Chirikova in the podcast include: why do you live in Estonia? how did you become an activist? What was Strategy 31? How do you assess the situation of human rights in Russia? and the situation of human rights defenders and organisations? What do figures like Boris Nemtsov and Alexei Navalny mean to you? Why did Aleksei Navalny, now a prisoner of conscience, return to Russia? How do you view the January 23 2021 protests in Russia? What is the future for democracy and human rights in Russia? How do you feel about life in Estonia and how would you compare life there with life in Russia?

The podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia, SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: ‘ “It simply became impossible for us to work in Russia after the foreign agent law was adoopted, but we try to help Russian civil society from a safer distance, and to do so more effectively.” Evgenia Chirikova needs no introduction. Her enthusiasm, affability and energy have contributed to her being known by so many. She is loved and respected.

“Alas, her native country tries to intimidate and squeeze out its patriots, distorting everything: the notions of patriotism and love of one’s homeland held by the Kremlin do not include ecology and justice. Zhenya and her family have moved to Estonia, where she does a hundred and one things, including sprucing up her farmstead, which stands close to the sea.

“Simon Cosgrove and I talked to Zhenya this weekend – what a great story she tells! We talked about the defence of Khimki Forest and remembered the politician Sergei Mironov who was once a supporter of the forest defenders. Saturday’s events in Russian cities made us think of the Strategy 31, a campaign to defend the right of assembly in Russia, and so much more.

“Eesti on minu teine kodu, Zhenya Chirikova told us, now in her sixth year of doing what she loves in the country that has become her second home. But listening to Zhenya, you realize that her home is the whole world.”

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week, our guest is Mikhail Benyash. Mikhail Benyash is a lawyer from the city of Sochi in Krasnodar region. In September 2018 Mikhail Benyash was beaten and detained by police after a meeting with his client who was taking part in a peaceful protest in Krasnodar. The court jailed him for 14 days and in addition sentenced him to 40 hours of compulsory work for disobeying a police officer and violating the rules on public protests. Amnesty International declared Mikhail Benyash a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. In 2018, Mikhail Benyash was charged under Article 318(1) of the Russian Criminal Code (“Use of violence against a public official”) and in October 2019 he was sentenced to a fine of 30,000 roubles.

Issues discussed in the podcast include: Mikhail Benyash’s criminal prosecution; cases he has worked on in recent years; factors determining the outcome of a court case; the degree of independence of the courts in Russia; specifics of the Krasnodar region; reasons why Mikhail Benyash became a lawyer and works on human rights; the role of the European Court of Human Rights; changes introduced to the Russian Constitution last year; the return of Aleksei Navalny to Russia; the future of human rights in Russia.

The podcast is in the Russian language. The podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia, SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “In the autumn of 2018 I wrote to Boris Grebenshikov about Mikhail Benyash, the Krasnodar lawyer who was detained and beaten by police in September 2018 but released on bail a few weeks later. Mikhail’s release was helped – among other things – by the support of lawyers, the reaction of the Federal Bar Association and the fact that Amnesty International recognised him as a prisoner of conscience. Mikhail Benyash, a man of fortitude and courage, wrote to me on his release: ‘In the detention centre I often read ‘The Movement Towards Spring’ to myself. It struck me that the young BG was able to understand and feel things that only came to me in prison, and only after my second visit. If you know him, please pass these words on to him.’ I relayed Mikhail’s words to the musician. Boris Grebenshchikov answered my letter briefly but succinctly: ‘Thank you, Sergei! It’s worth a lot.’ Last Sunday, Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with Mikhail Benyash about many things: his work, Navalny flying to Moscow at that very time, the current Russian justice system, the difficult work of a human rights lawyer – in other words, about the very words of that very song by BG: ‘Some people have a tendency to sing. / Some of them to their detriment’.”

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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Our guest on the podcast this week is Robert van Voren. Robert van Voren is a human rights activist and expert in psychiatry who teaches Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia and at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. Robert is also executive director of the Human Rights in Mental Health of the Global Initiative on Psychiatry and executive director of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania.

The topics we discuss in the podcast include: what initially sparked Robert van Voren’s interest in human rights in Russia; punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union; dissidents in the Soviet Union; how the Soviet experience still impacts Russia today; the most important human rights developments in Russia since Soviet times; the future of human rights in Russia; civil society in Russia; plans to mark the upcoming centennial of Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov; political trends in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

The podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia (https://www.rightsinrussia.org/podcast-2/), SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “I was sitting on an Aeroflot plane to Moscow and I was scared. But I did not think for a second that I would not do it. Such a thought never entered my head. I recently saw a documentary about Soviet dissidents. There were interviews with a number of the old guard of human rights activists. And it was important for me to hear they were afraid. They were afraid. But they did what they had to do. There was no other way for them.” After reading The Gulag Archipelago in 1974, 18-year-old Dutch schoolboy Johannes Bax wrote a letter in 1977 to Vladimir Bukovsky, who had just been released from the Soviet Union. It was not just a letter, but a list of 44 questions to the Soviet dissident. Bukovsky answered, and Johannes went to visit him the following year. In fact, with Bukovsky’s blessing, Johannes, who took the name of his uncle who died in a Nazi camp as his pseudonym (Robert van Voren), became a kind of “postman”. He traveled to the USSR and Soviet dissidents send samizdat through him to the West. Our podcast this week provides a glimpse into a fascinating story. Today Robert van Voren is a professor of Soviet and post-Soviet studies at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia, and at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. Robert is also executive director of the Human Rights in Mental Health of the Global Initiative on Psychiatry and executive director of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania.

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This week our guest is Sergei Ivanovich Belyaev, president of the Ekaterinburg human rights organisation, Sutyazhnik. Sutyazhnik, one of the most important human rights organisations in the Urals Federal District, was founded in 1994. Sergei Belyaev became president of the organisation in 2002.

The questions we discuss in this podcast include: the history and work of the human rights organization Sutyazhnik; the legislation on so-called “foreign agents”; civil society in Ekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk region; the role of the human rights commissioner in Sverdlovsk region; the activities of the Yeltsin Centre; and the future of human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia, SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Ekaterinburg is the third most populous city in Russia. Besides that, the city is known for the remarkable human rights activists who live and work there. Among them is Sergei Belyaev, president of the human rights organisation Sutyazhnik. In our podcast Sergei talks about how the authorities put obstacles in their way from the very beginning. During their first attempt to register an association in Ekaterinburg back in 1994, the request of the human rights activists was turned down on the grounds that the authorities did not like the name. Although dictionaries explain that a Sutyazhnik is someone who is ready to sue for any reason, the negative connotation of the word is far-fetched. The activists filed a lawsuit against the denial of registration for Sutyazhnik and the registration authority quickly relented without waiting for a trial. “What’s wrong with the name? Someone likes to settle disputes in court,” says Sergei Belyaev, “He likes to do that, he takes pleasure in it.” And in fact – there’s nothing wrong with that! A lot has changed since 1994 in the country and in Ekaterinburg. But Sutyazhnik, which was branded a foreign agent in 2015, still lives and works.

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This week our guest is Boris Lvovich Altshuler. Boris Altshuler is a physicist and human rights activist, a senior researcher at the theoretical physics department of the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, chair of the NGO Right of the Child and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. The issues we discuss in the podcast include: participation in the Soviet-era human rights movement; acquaintance with Andrei Sakharov; the NGO Right of the Child; the state of human rights and civil society in Russia; celebrating the 100th anniversary of Andrei Sakharov’s birth; and the future of human rights in Russia. This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to the podcast on our website Rights in Russia as well as SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Just before we started recording the podcast with Boris Lvovich Altshuler, I told him that my very early childhood was spent in Arzamas-16, where my parents worked until the early 1960s. It was there that Boris Altshuler also spent his school years. Boris Altshuler, in our conversation, just as my parents once did, called the place ‘The Object.’ It was at ‘the Object’ that B.L. Altshuler’s father, the physicist Lev Vladimirovich Altshuler, worked and was friends with Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov. He inherited this friendship after he met Andrei D. Sakharov in 1968. This collaboration – in the fields of physics and human rights – lasted more than 20 years. In general, all the stories Boris Lvovich told last Sunday were interesting and fascinating. It was like reading a good novel: the plot grabs you from the first lines: “My dissidence began in an anonymous way. In 1968 I wrote a text with a friend of mine called The Leningrad Programme. We made 10 copies and then destroyed the typewriter.” Or again, as the physicist Boris Altshuler tells us: “In 1982-1987, I worked as a street cleaner. And then – perestroika! – I was hired as a researcher at the Theoretical Physics Department of the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the head of the housing district where I had worked gave me a reference, stressing that I was “a good street cleaner.” Listen to our conversation with Boris L. Altshuler.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest is Professor Bill Bowring. Professor Bowring teaches human rights and international law at Birkbeck College, University of London. Bill Bowring is a practising lawyer who has represented applicants from Russia before the European Court of Human Rights in many cases. He is a co-founder and member of the Board of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC). He is also President of the organisation European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights.

The questions we discuss on the podcast include: when did Professor Bowring first become interested in Russia; examples of professional work in Russia; in terms of human rights, what distinguishes Russia from other countries; the most serious human rights issue in Russia today; civil society in Russia; the apparent desire of authorities in Russia to control everything; right of association in Russia; the FSB; the role of the European Court of Human Rights; recent developments; the future of human rights in Russia.

This podcast is in the Russian language. As well as on the Rights in Russia website, you can also listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “A podcast with Bill Bowring, founder and board member of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC). Bill is the author of more than 130 publications on international law, human rights, minority rights, Russian law and philosophy. The grandson of an American Quaker, Bill showed us a portrait of Oliver Cromwell hanging on the wall of his home office. “We always had a portrait of Cromwell on the wall in our family,” Bill Bowring told us. Professor Bowring, who lives in Britain, teaches human rights and international law at Birkbeck College, University of London. His first degree, in philosophy, was from the University of Kent. He has worked at Birkbeck since 2006. He previously taught at the University of East London, the University of Essex and London Metropolitan University. As a practicing lawyer since 1974, he has represented applicants before the European Court of Human Rights in many cases since 1992. Shortly before the first anniversary of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the case of Marina Litvinenko v. Russian Federation was brought before the European Court of Human Rights – on behalf of Marina and her family. This case was drafted by human rights experts Keir Starmer and Bill Bowring. We talked about many things, even the monument to Engels recently erected in Manchester. Too bad we didn’t have time to discuss the professor’s recent article ‘Marx, Engels, Lenin and the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination in International Law’ from the Handbook of Law and Marxism, but we did talk a lot about human rights in Russia and Britain. Do have a listen."

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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Today our podcast is dedicated to Arseny Borisovich Roginsky (1946-2017) who passed away on this day, 18 December, three years ago. We were lucky enough to do a long interview with him in April 2013. This podcast contains excerpts from that conversation. As he talked, Arseny Borisovich would smoke and from time to time opened the windows of his office. The noise of the city came in through the windows and remained fixed in the recording along with his unforgettable voice. Vechnaya pamyat’.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Irina Vladimirovna Kosterina. Irina Kosterina is Programme Coordinator of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Russia, a sociologist and gender researcher, trainer and organiser of rehabilitation retreats for activists, human rights activists, journalists and NGO workers.

The questions we discuss on the podcast include: what is the Heinrich Böll Foundation and what are the programmes of its Moscow branch; the Femfest which took place in Moscow in November 2020; the meaning of “Gender Democracy”; how Russian society feels about the idea of equal rights for men and women; the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on attituded to gender equality; the difference in attitudes and evaluation of the idea of gender equality between Russians and the peoples of the Caucasian republics; the Böll Foundation’s studies on the role of gender in four Caucasian republics; the Foundation’s new project in Russia on overcoming and preventing burnout, stress and fatigue among NGO employees, activists, human rights defenders and journalists; what the future of the human rights movement in Russia holds

This podcast is in the Russian language. As well as on the Rights in Russia website, you can also listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Irina Kosterina is a sociologist, gender researcher, and programme coordinator of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Moscow. Simon Cosgrove and I talked to Irina about many things: feminism, the recent Femfest 2020, the “traditional values” of the state, the role of men and women in the Caucasian republics, the burnout of people working in NGOs, and much more. For me, this was a continuation of a conversation we had started last August, when Irina stopped by for a visit and I treated her to my kari and showed her our local area. Speaking of feminism, Irina shared with us a recent story about how people concerned about “traditional culture” crashed the streaming of Femfest 2020 – it’s not clear whether out of their own enthusiasm or for money – which made it necessary to limit entry to the online event to those who registered. Although the word “feminism” often provokes an inadequate and aggressive reaction from a certain category of people, ideas of equality and justice are slowly gaining popularity, as Irina Kosterina discussed in our podcast.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on our podcast is Sofiya Yurievna Ivanova. Sofiya is a human rights activist in Ryazan, where she grew up and graduated from the Lomonosov Pedagogical Institute. Sofiya leads the work of the Ryazan School of Human Rights and was a long-time organizer of youth programmes at Ryazan Memorial and the International Youth Legal Camp “Citizen of the World.” Since 2009 Sofiya has been the coordinator of the Ryazan branch of Golos, the indepdent election monitor. Sofiya Yurievna is a laureate (2016) of the Moscow Helsinki Group award for her contribution to human rights education.

The podcast discusses the following issues: membership in the Komsomol and the CPSU; the Ryazan School of Human Rights and youth programmes at Ryazan Memorial, including the “Citizen of the World” youth camps; teaching human rights courses at a number of educational institutions in Ryazan; working as a coordinator of Golos in Ryazan; development of the human rights movement in Ryazan and its current state; the difference between the work of a human rights defender in Moscow and in the regions; the law on foreign agents and its impact; the future of human rights in Ryazan and in Russia.

This podcast is in the Russian language. You can listen to it here:

You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia, SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: About ten years ago I travelled to Ryazan to discuss with Sofia Ivanova the matter of cooperation with Amnesty International in the field of human rights education. We talked about what training would be worthwhile and where – the conversation was in a deserted cafe. Literally five minutes after the start of our conversation, a young lady came in and for some reason chose a table next to ours in the deserted room. She even sat down with her back to the nearest side of her table, opened her laptop and leaned back on the chair. I don’t remember if she drank coffee or tea, but her ear, big as a radar, was turned towards us. A familiar story, Sofia Yurievna and I thought, and left the disappointed eavesdropper for another cafe. Such nervousness among people with large ears is not surprising. After all, Sofia Yurievna Ivanova, in their opinion, is a dangerous person. The head of the Ryazan School of Human Rights, head of youth programmes at Ryazan Memorial, a long-time organizer of the International Youth Legal Camp ‘Citizen of the World’, she is someone who tells her compatriots about human rights – and what can be scarier than that for local officials. In addition to this, Sofia Ivanova heads the Ryazan regional branch of Golos, the election monitor. She was our interlocutor in this, our latest podcast with Simon Cosgrove. It’s fascinating to hear about the life of a human rights defenders in a regional centre such as Ryazan.Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Olga Borisovna Sidorovich. Olga Borisovna is director of the Institute of Law and Public Policy and editor-in-chief of two important law journals: Sravnitelnoe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie and Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie. The Institute of Law and Public Policy is an NGO and one of the leading independent legal centres in Russia. It was founded in 2000 and is engaged in the study of constitutional processes in Russia and worldwide, strategic litigation, legal education, research and publishing. The Institute’s engagement in strategic litigation via the procedure of Amicus Curiae has resulted in case law decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and the European Court of Human Rights. In 1993, when the new Constitution of Russia was being created, the Centre for Constitutional Studies of Eastern and Central Europe was established under the Moscow Public Research Foundation. Seven years later, it was transformed into an independent organisation – the Institute of Law and Public Policy.

The issues discussed in the podcast include the history and work of the Institute of Law and Public Policy; the amicus curiae procedure; reform of the Russian Constitutional Court; amendments to the Constitution made this year; ongoing changes in NGO legislation and the future of the NGO sector; and the future of Russia’s legal system.

This podcast is in the Russian language

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This week our guest is Mikhail Valentinovich Savva. Mikhail Savva is a human rights activist, a political scientist and former professor at Kuban State University. In 1993-1994 Mikhail Savva was head of the Department of Nationalities, Regional Policy and Migration of the Krasnodar Region Administration. In 1994-1995 he headed the Department for Nationalities Affairs of the Ministry of Nationalities and Regional Policy of Russia, a position from which he resigned over the first Chechen war. In 1995-1996, Savva was deputy gead of the Krasnodar Region Administration and the Administration's representative to the Regional Legislative Assembly. He then became head of Krasnodar City Hall's department for public and interregional relations. From 1996 Savva worked at Kuban State University where he was an associate professor and then professor in the Department of Political Science; from 2001 he was a professor in the Department of Public Relations and Social Communications. From January 2001 Mikhail Savva also held the position of director of grantmaking programmes at the Southern Regional Resource Centre, an NGO. He was also a member of the Krasnodar Region Public Oversight Commission, monitoring human rights in places of detention. Savva is a specialist in the field of interethnic relations research and the author of a large number of publications in this field. In April 2013 a criminal case was initiated against Savva under Article 159, Part 3, of the Russian Criminal Code ('Fraud on an especially large scale'). In June 2013 the Union of Solidarity with Political Prisoners recognised Mikhail Savva as a political prisoner. In April 2014 a district court in Krasnodar convicted Savva and gave him a three-year suspended sentence. Since 2015 Mikhail Savva has lived in Kiev. He is currently chairof the board of the Owl Expert Group, an NGO registered in Ukraine.

The issues discussed in the podcast include: the reasons for, and course of, his criminal prosecution; conditions in pre-trial detention centre; the major issues facing the Russian judicial and law enforcement systems; the Southern Resource Centre; right of association in Russia and Ukraine; relations between Russia and Ukraine; the future of Russia.

Sergei Nikitin writes: "Hoping for justice in modern Russia is a sign of not being in your right mind." Our latest guest on the podcast, Mikhail Valentinovich Savva, told Simon Cosgrove and me how, since April 2013, the FSB has been mocking him, accusing him of not having conducted the classes in social entrepreneurship planned as part of a project under a grant from the regional administration. "In fact, I conducted even more of them than was required," says Mikhail Savva. In May 2013 a second case was initiated against Savva, already under Article 159 of the Criminal Code. He spent a year in pre-trial detention centre ? 5, in a cell of 9.5 square meters on the 4th floor of the building of the NKVD internal prison built under Yezhov. A year after his home was first searched - in April 2014 - Savva was given a three-year suspended sentence. He left behind the walls built by Yezhov, but it was clear to the professor that the local Chekists would not stop at this. At the end of 2014 he was again brought in for questioning. After this interrogation, it became clear to Savva that any day fresh fabricated charges would be laid against him. In early 2015, Mikhail Valentinovich left Russia. In a country where courts - according to Savva - are fully dependent on the FSB, where candidates for judges are reviewed by the FSB before being appointed, there is no justice. Mikhail Savva is carrying on his work, now in Ukraine. He writes expert opinions at the request of lawyers from European countries, the United States, Ukraine, Russia and Israel with regard to asylum and extradition cases. Our conversation was extremely interesting. I kept catching myself thinking that I was glad that this wonderful man managed to slip out of the hands of the Chekists. But I regret he had to leave his home, his country.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here. The podcast is in the Russian language. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

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This week our guest is Svetlana Alekseevna Gannushkina, human rights defender, chair of the Civic Assistance Committee, a member of the board and director of the Migration and Law Network of the Memorial Human Rights Centre. Until June 2012 (from 2002) Svetlana Alekseevna was a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council.

The issues we discuss in our podcast include: when and why Svetlana Alekseevna took up human rights work; about the work of the Civic Assistance Committee and the Migration and Law Network; the policy of the Russian authorities towards asylum seekers and how this can be compared with that of other countries; the law “on foreign agents”; the experience of working on the Presidential Human Rights Council; the difference between human rights protection and politics; and the future of human rights in the Russian Federation.

You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia, Podcasts.com, SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes.

The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "I remember 18 years ago when Svetlana Alekseevna, standing next to me in Spaso-House and watching George W. Bush Jr. approach us inexorably, told me she wanted to avoid a handshake with the US President. It was probably not a dislike, but a natural modesty that perfectly matched the courage and bravery of Gannushkina, this wonderful human rights activist. Last Saturday Simon Cosgrove and I talked to Svetlana Alekseevna and she remembered how a sense of personal dignity made her a human rights activist back in her school years. "All my 10th grade I dedicated myself to fighting with the school director," she remembered. Already after graduating from school, having bought a copy of the Labour Code of the RSFSR, Svetlana Gannushkina was able to defend her friend, who had been illegally dismissed from the Historical and Archival Institute - the girl was restored to her job. This was just the beginning of human rights activities for Svetlana Gannushkina, chair of the Civic Assistance Committee, a member of the board and head of the Migration and Law Network of Memorial Human Rights Centre. We had a very interesting conversation and it is available in our new podcast.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here

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This week our guest is Marina Alekseevna Dubrovina. Marina Alekseevna is a human rights defender and lawyer from Novorossiisk. For many years Marina Alekseevna has worked with the Migration and Law network, which is part of the Memorial organisation. She has also worked with the Public Verdict Foundation. Marina Alekseevna has defended many individuals in prosecutions in Chechnya, including the human rights defender Oyub Titiev.

The questions we discuss in the podcast include: the Oyub Titiev case and other high profile court cases in Chechnya and elsewhere; the human rights situation in Chechnya, Krasnodar region and Russia in general; the use of torture by law enforcement agencies; the role of the European Court of Human Rights; problems of the judicial and law enforcement systems in today’s Russia; the attack on Marina and the journalist Elena Milashina; the safety of human rights defenders and lawyers, especially in Chechnya; how Marina became a human rights lawyer; and the future of human rights and the rule of law in Russia.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: I have always admired human rights defenders who live outside the capitals. Marina Dubrovina, who lives in Novorossiisk, is among them. She is a wonderful lawyer who started her career after attending a lecture by Karinna Moskalenko. In the conversation that Simon and I had with Marina last week, Marina talked about about how this lecture “turned her life around.” Marina has been a lawyer with the human rights organisation Migration and Law since 2003, and since 2007 she has been an advokat (barrister), always distinguished by her high professionalism and – I would add – courage. We talked to Marina both about the attack on her in February this year and about an attempt to deprive her of her lawyer’s status. We discuss the Oyub Titiev case and the cases of Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klych. We recalled the cases of Vitishko and Ghazaryan, Mikhail Savva and Vyacheslav Merekha – all these people were defended by Marina Dubrovina. They and many others have been helped by this outstanding lawyer from Novorossisk.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here. You can also listen to the podcast on Podcasts.com, SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

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This week our guest is Nina Zakharkina-Berezner. Nina is a co-founder and director of the French NGO DestinationEst (D’EST) which aims to increase dialogue between Russian and French civil societies, as well as involving European politicians and opinion leaders. Her work focuses mainly on advocacy practices and exchange programmes dealing with various topics such as municipal policy, migration issues, social entrepreneurship and others. DestinationEst helps key civil society actors from Russia share their experiences with professionals and politicians in France and the EU. The questions we discuss in the podcast include: the main goals of DestinationEst; how to find partners in Russian civil society and among human rights organisations; the level of interest in France in what is happening in Russia; the views of Russian activists about France; the role of the EU-Russia Forum; the state of civil society in Russia today; the future of civil society in Russia; the work of the Memorial Human Rights Centre; and human rights in Chechnya. This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia, SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Nina believes it is very important to draw the attention of the French public to what is happening in Russia. And she seems to be doing it successfully. Unlike Madame Narochnitskaya, whom I mention in the podcast, who opened the so-called Institute for Democracy and Cooperation in Paris 13 years ago, Nina is running very interesting projects with our compatriots. However, it’s clear that that Narochnitskaya’s is a Kremlin project, as is the so-called Russian Spiritual and Cultural Orthodox Centre, and both are engaged in something other than democracy and cooperation. Nina told us about her projects, her work with Memorial Human Rights Centre and even how, despite the pandemic, she managed to take part in a series of single-person pickets in Kamchatka.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here

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This week our guest on the podcast is Dmitry Aleksandrovich Petrov. Dmitry Aleksandrovich is deputy chair of the council of municipal deputies of the Yakimanka district in Moscow. He is also a co-founder of an environmental project for the public monitoring of air pollution levels in his district and the city more widely.

The issues we discuss in the podcast include: What is Yakimanka district? What powers do council members have? Is the public interested in municipal elections? How much time does working as a deputy take up? Why were you elected from the Yabloko party? What were the elections in 2017 like? Are local elections similar to national ones? What is the environmental project “breathe:Moscow”? How do you see the future of your municipality and the city of Moscow?

This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen on our website or at SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “The poem ‘I enter every house on Yakimanka,’ which we remember from childhood can well apply to Dmitry Petrov. Last week Simon Cosgrove and I spent more than an hour in an interesting conversation with Dmitry, a member of the council of deputies of the Yakimanka municipal district. A huge puddle in front of the entrance to his house, which got in everyone’s way, was, as it is now called, a trigger for Dmitry. Over the next two and a half years, Dmitry worked to convince the local government that it was their responsibility to keep the local area in good order, and as a result of his persistent reminders and demands he achieved the desired result. ‘It’s difficult to participate in the life of the city,’ says Dmitry. The bureaucrat’s art of avoiding responsibility and issuing noncommittal responses often sends citizens who have lost hope ‘back to the sofa’ with the feeling: ‘The world is against us!’ The desire to show people that in the city – at least on the municipal level – there can be government with a human face led Dmitry Petrov to run for deputy. I found his story about how he gathered signatures to stand for election particularly interesting, how he and his team visited all apartments (incidentally, when I lived in Moscow I never opened the door to any unexpected caller), how ten people were elected to the council of deputies of Yakimanka municipal district, of whom nine were from Yabloko and only one from United Russia. As to be expected, Dmitry told us how the powers of a municipal deputy (at least in Moscow) are severely restricted. As a deputy you are obliged, literally, to do very little. But if you want you can work to achieve quite major and important things for the city. The full verse of Agniya Barto’s poem sounds a little frightening: ‘I enter every house in Yakimanka. And I put iron scrap on my sled at every gate.’ Dmitry Petrov does not need iron scrap, and he does not need a sled. It seems to me that he is an excellent deputy, ready to help people, and he sees his main task as follows: ‘I would like at least some of those people whom I serve to rid themselves of the false notion of their own supposed helplessness’.”

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here

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This week, our guest is Sergei Markovich Lukashevsky. Human rights activist Sergei Markovich is director of the Sakharov Centre in Moscow, a post he took up in 2008. By education a historian, Sergei Markovich has worked for both of Russia’s most famous human rights organizations, Memorial and the Moscow Helsinki Group, and, before moving to work at the Sakharov Centre, together with Tatiana Lokshina he founded and worked at Demos, a Moscow-based human rights organization that specialised in monitoring and reporting on human rights in Russia.

The issues discussed in the podcast include: the development of the human rights movement in post-Soviet Russia and its current state, the law on foreign agents, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and, of course, the work of the Sakarov Centre, its plans for the future, the importance of Andrei Sakharov in Russia today and the upcoming centenary of his birth.

This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen on our website or at SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “If you walk along the Zemlyannoi Val towards the Yauza river from Kursk metro station, on the even-numbered side you will see House No. 48B, where Sakharov lived, and on the odd-numbered side you will see a path that will take you past the Transfixed Pegasus and a piece of the Berlin Wall to the Rusty Angel and the Sakharov Centre. Last week, Simon Cosgrove and I talked to Sergei Lukashevsky, the director of this unique centre. Sergei Lukashevsky is someone with extensive experience working for human rights organisations (Memorial Human Rights Centre, Moscow Helsinki Group, Demos, the Sakharov Centre) and he considers the promotion of human rights values his main task. In my opinion, he is doing a great job: the Sakharov Centre has become a public and educational platform where numerous important and useful events, exhibitions, debates and seminars are held. Sometimes events at the Centre irritate characters who are rather excitable and unusual. The Centre’s employees are ready for anything and do an excellent job. Next year the world will be celebrating the centenary of Sakharov’s birth, and of course the Centre, which was established in 1996 on the initiative of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, will be hosting many interesting events. We talked to Sergei about all this but I have the feeling he only had time to touch on the tip of the iceberg that goes by the name of the Sakharov Centre.”

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here

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In this podcast, Irina Flige, human rights activist and director of the Memorial Research and Information Centre in St Petersburg, talks about her work that focuses on historical memory, the role of the Memorial Research and Information Centre and the current human rights situation in Russia. Irina was to appear at Pushkin House in April this year as a joint event of the Pushkin Club and Rights in Russia, but the event was postponed because of the coronavirus. The conversation touches upon the legacy of political repression and efforts to document – and counteract – it, the issue of why Memorial focuses on the physical evidence of repression, and includes topics such as the Sandormokh execution site, the case of Yury Dimitriev, the impact of Covid-19 and Memorial’s latest projects.

Josephine von Zitzewitz is a member of the board of Rights in Russia and a staff member at the UiT Arctic University in Norway. The video version of this podcast was first published by Pushkin House on 10 September 2020. See: https://www.pushkinhouse.org/blog/2020/9/10/historical-memory-in-russia?rq=flige

The podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to this podcast via our website (https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts) on SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/rightsinrussia) and on Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/7HdmvhzC2P6VQS8ijICNHZ) and Itunes (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simo...ei/id1495261418).

The music is from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, performed by Karolina Herrera.

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This week our guest is Aleksandr Vladimirovich Cherkasov, chairof the board of Memorial Human Rights Centre. Aleksandr Vladimirovich is an 'engineer physicist' by education. He has been an activist with Memorial since 1989, and since 1991 he has worked at the Memorial Human Rights Centre, investigating the state of human rights and humanitarian law in various "hot spots", including Chechnya. Aleksandr Vladimirovich also investigated the events of 1993 in Moscow. During the first and second wars in Chechnya, he travelled dozens of times to combat zones to collect information and provide assistance to the victims of the conflict, searching for missing people, prisoners, kidnapped people and hostages. After the war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008 he repeatedly travelled to South Ossetia. We talked about all this and more about how Memorial has been affected by the law on foreign agents, about Natalia Estemirova, about Oyub Titiev, about Yury Dmitriev and about human rights in today's Russia and in the future.

Sergei Nikitin writes: It has long been noticed that among human rights defenders there are many natural scientists, including those from the physical sciences. And just as under the Soviet regime scientific articles often began with Lenin's quote "The electron is as inexhaustible as the atom", so now an interview with a human rights activist with a background in science often begins with the question that goes approximately like this: "What is it in physics that turns those who study the subject into human rights activists? Simon Cosgrove and I began our conversation with Aleksandr Cherkasov in the very same vein: traditions are great things, it is not for us to break them. I would like to point out that during the conversation Aleksandr particularly emphasised the fact that he is a 'physics engineer' who is as far from being a physicist as the courtier is from the Sovereign. Perhaps this is true. But Sasha's storytelling is phenomenal, and he has much to tell. Apart from the fact that he has been involved in many things, remembers the smallest details, names and dates, he delights with his special view of events, his analysis and understanding of what is going on around him. And although Aleksandr insists that "we don't understand what's going on", stressing that this is the beauty of our world, he seems to understand a very great deal, noting that "Physics gives us reason to be optimistic under conditions of unpredictability and incomplete information," urging us to simply live in a world that is unpredictable and so beautiful. Listen to Aleksandr Cherkasov.

The podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to this podcast via our website (https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts) on SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/rightsinrussia) and on Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/7HdmvhzC2P6VQS8ijICNHZ) and Itunes (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simo...ei/id1495261418).

The music is from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, performed by Karolina Herrera.

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Our guest this week is Igor Viktorovich Kochetkov. Igor Viktorovich - one of the founders and current director of the Russian LGBT Network, an organisation founded in 2006 whose main office is located in St. Petersburg. The Russian LGBT Network is an interregional organisation created to provide public support for the elimination of all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It is the first and only interregional LGBT organisation in Russia. The Russian LGBT Network is a member of the International Lesbian and Gay Association.

Topics discussed in the podcast include: the history of the Russian LGBT Network, its goals and objectives; why it was founded in St. Petersburg; the impact on the Russian LGBT Network of the law on foreign agents; the adoption and consequences of the 2013 law against "Promotion among Minors of Non-traditional Sexual Relations”; the situation in Russia in general and in Chechnya in particular for LGBT people; amendments to the Constitution; and what needs to be done to further promote LGBT rights.

Sergei Nikitin writes: The breaking up of the Queer Culture Festival in 2006 was the formal impetus to create an organisation now known as the Russian LGBT Network. On Sunday Simon Cosgrove and I talked to one of its founders, Igor Kochetkov. It was a very interesting conversation in which Igor told us the story of how LGBT people's rights have come to be perceived as an important component of human rights. This has happened in a relatively short time. I remember at the very beginning of my work for Amnesty International in Russia, some Amnesty activists expressed their disagreement with our position on LGBT rights. Now, this area of work for human rights defenders attracts many new people to Amnesty and is welcomed by very many. Paradoxically, it would seem, it was the shameful law of 2013 against 'Propaganda Among Minors of Non-Traditional Sexual Relations’ that has led to this turnaround. A great deal has been done by the Russian LGBT Network, and you can find out more about the organisation and its work from their website: https://www.lgbtnet.org . In the meantime, listen to our podcast with the wonderful Igor Kochetkov.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to it on SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/rightsinrussia/saymon-i-sergey-s-igorem-kochetkovym) Podcasts.com (www.podcasts.com/simon-sergei-0b5d072c0), Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/7HdmvhzC2P6VQS8ijICNHZ) ? Itunes (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simo…ei/id1495261418).

The music is from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, played by Karolina Errera

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Today on the podcast our guest is Andrei Anatolyevich Kovalev. During his distinguished career, he has been a member of the Institute of the US and Canada of the USSR Academy of Sciences and then of the Diplomatic Academy. He worked for the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was a member of the secretariat of the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, worked on the staff of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, and also on the staff of the Office of the Federal Human Rights Ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin. While working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, Andrei Kovalev was engaged in many matters of vital importance for human rights: abolishing the repressive use of psychiatry, releasing political prisoners, drafting a number of laws that paved the way to liberalising foreign travel and freedom of religion. Andrei Kovalev is the author of several important publications, including 'France at the Crossroads of World Politics' (International Relations, Moscow, 1983), 'Behind the Scenes of Russian Politics' (Ibid. - Verlag, Stuttgart, 2012) and a number of articles in the journals International Life, World Economy and International Relations, USA: Economics, Politics, Ideology, The Observer, as well as the newspapers Izvestia, Novaya Gazeta and Komsomolskaya Pravda. He now lives in Brussels.

Sergei Nikitin writes: "Andrei Anatolievich Kovalyov was yesterday our guest on the podcast. He talked about the extraordinarily interesting time he spent working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR under Shevardnadze in 1985 - 1991, where his task was to bring Soviet legislation into line with the international obligations of the USSR. Kovalev spent a significant part of his diplomatic career working on democratic reforms and human rights in the USSR and Russia. His diplomatic service continued until 2004, when he became an advisor to the Federal Human Rights Ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, at the invitation of Lukin himself. Andrei Kovalev does not have the highest level of opinion of Lukin as a defender of human rights, based on his personal experience. Of course, we also talked about the current situation. "I see no limits to the depths to which those in power may go," Andrei Anatolyevich told us yesterday about Putin and his entourage: "The Kremlin has no brakes". In sum, we had a very interesting conversation with a professional and extremely perceptive man. I look forward to reading his book "Russia's Dead End : An Insider's Testimony from Gorbachev to Putin", and I recommend our podcast to everyone."

The podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to this podcast via our website (https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts) on SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/rightsinrussia) and on Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/7HdmvhzC2P6VQS8ijICNHZ) and Itunes (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simo...ei/id1495261418).

The music is from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, performed by Karolina Herrera.

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Our guest this week is Pavel Chikov. Pavel is a well-known lawyer, human rights activist and public figure who is head of Agora International Human Rights Group. He lives in Kazan. During the podcast we discuss strategic issues of court practice and what distinguishes successful court practice from unsuccessful; Agora's priorities in litigation; the degree of independence of Russian courts; the regulatory framework for NGOs in Russia and the impact of the law on "foreign agents"; the recent constitutional changes; the role of the European Court of Human Rights in Russia; the attractiveness of working in the field of human rights for young lawyers; events in Khabarovsk and Belarus; and the future of human rights in Russia.

Sergei Nikitin writes: Everyone knows Chikov. Well, or almost everybody. So that even more people get to know him better, Simon Cosgrove and I talked to Pavel. We had a very interesting conversation. Pavel Chikov talked about what success in the world of lawyering is and about the cases on which Agora's lawyers are working. We discussed a great deal apart from legal issues: about the fact that human rights vocabulary is not very clear to ordinary citizens, about how almost a thousand cases are handled by Apology of Protest, a specialised group set up by Agora, about Agora’s work protecting activists, bloggers, journalists and NGOs. In 2015 the Agora Interregional Association of Human Rights Organizations, which had existed since 2005, was transformed into the Agora International Human Rights Group, with Pavel Chikov at its head. Listen to our conversation, I’m sure you’ll find it very interesting.

The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to this podcast on Podcasts.com (www.podcasts.com/simon-sergei-0b5d072c0), Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/7HdmvhzC2P6VQS8ijICNHZ) and Itunes (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simo...ei/id1495261418). The music is from the Elegy for Solo Viola by Stravinsky, performed by Karolina Herrera.

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This week our guest is Viktor Valentinovich Kogan-Yasny. Viktor Valentinovich is a commentator on public affairs, writer and philosopher. Since 1989 he has been actively involved in public life. He started as an activist of Moscow Tribune and Memorial and in 1990-91 he worked with the Voters' Club of the Academy of Sciences and the Interregional Group of Deputies of the First Congress of Soviet People's Deputies. He was an aide to the chair of the Human Rights Committee of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. Since 1992, he has been chair of the board of the Society against the Death Penalty and Torture, which has now become the NGO, Regional Civic Initiative - Right to Life and Civil Dignity. Viktor Valentinovich is one of the founders of Memorial Human Rights Centre and a member of its board. Since 1995, he has been an advisor both to the Yabloko party and to Grigory Yavlinsky. Among the topics we discuss in the podcast are the death penality in Russia, Amnesty International, the links between political developments and human rights, the recent apparent poisoning of Aleksei Navalny and events in Khabarovsk and Belarus.

Sergei Nikitin writes: Viktor Valentinovich Kogan-Yasny is the latest guest of our podcast. Simon Cosgrove and I spent a very interesting hour with Viktor Valentinovich. I was especially interested to hear his story about how he found premises for Amnesty International in Moscow. In 1991 Marjorie Farquharson, the first representative of the oldest human rights organization in Russia, opened an office for the organisation on Herzen Street with the help of Viktor. The phone number that was allocated to the Amnesty office has remained unchanged for almost 30 years. Victor may not be very familiar to the general public, but he is a very interesting interlocutor. In 1990-91. Viktor Kogan-Yasny was an assistant chair of the Human Rights Committee of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. It was he who founded the Society against the Death Penalty and Torture, where in 1992 he became chair of the board. I read with great interest the posts of Viktor Kogan-Yasny, one of the oldest members of the Yabloko Party, writer and philosopher.

The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to this podcast on Podcasts.com (www.podcasts.com/simon-sergei-0b5d072c0), Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/7HdmvhzC2P6VQS8ijICNHZ) and Itunes (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simo...ei/id1495261418). The music is from the Elegy for Solo Viola by Stravinsky, performed by Karolina Herrera.

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This week our guest is Igor Valentinovich Sazhin, an activist with Memorial and a human rights defender from Syktyvkar in the Komi Republic. Among the topics we discuss are how Igor became involved in the activities of civil society and Memorial in particular, his work as the chair person of the Komi Human Rights Commission "Memorial," the impact of the law on "foreign agents," recent events in Belarus and the future of civil society and human rights in Russia.

Sergei Nikitin writes:

The Podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to this podcast on SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/rightsinrussia/saymon-i-sergey-s-igorem-sazhinym), Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/7HdmvhzC2P6VQS8ijICNHZ) and Itunes (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simo...ei/id1495261418). The music is from "Elegy for Solo Viola" by Stravinsky and is performed by Karolina Herrera.

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This week our guest is Anna Sevortian, executive director of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum, an NGO based in Berlin. Before joining the Forum, Anna worked as Russia Director at Human Rights Watch and has over 15 years of experience working on civil society and human rights issues. Anna has been a Galina Starovoitova Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, and deputy director of the Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights in Moscow. Anna holds a Mid-Career MPA from Harvard Kennedy School and a degree in journalism from Moscow State University. As Forum executive director, Anna is responsible for the overall management and development of the organisation.

The EU-Russia Civil Society Forum is a network of thematically diverse NGOs from Russia and the European Union, established as a bottom-up, non-partisan civic initiative. The Forum serves as a platform for members to engage in joint activities, articulate common positions, provide support and solidarity, and exert civic influence on policy- and decision-making at the (inter)governmental level. Driven by a vision of ‘the civil society beyond borders’, the Forum brings together organisations and people and therefore contributes to integration between Russia and the EU, based on common values of pluralistic democracy, rule of law, human rights and social justice.

EU-Russia Civil Society Forum was officially launched at a Founding Meeting on 29 March 2011 in Prague, Czech Republic. As of today, the Forum has 183 member and supporter organisations from 19 EU member states, Great Britain and Russia.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to this podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes.

The music from “Stravinsky’s Elegy for Viola Solo” is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week our guest is Semyon Simonov, a human rights activist from Sochi in Krasnodar region. For many years, Semyon Simonov has been head of the regional human rights NGO, Southern Human Rights Centre, which provided free legal assistance on human rights violations, organized educational events and facilitated other civic initiatives in collaboration with other NGOs until it effectively ceased to function in 2017 because of fines imposed under the ‘foreign agent’ law. On 20 July 2020 the authorities charged human rights activist Semyon Simonov under Art. 315, Part 2, of the Russian Criminal Code – i.e. a charge of non-execution of a court decision, in accordance with which the organization Southern Human Rights Centre had been fined under the ‘foreign agent’ law. Our podcast is about this case – although we also succeeded in asking Semyon many other questions, as you will heare.

Regarding the charges brought against Semyon Simonov, on 20 July 2020 Dunja Mijatovic, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, said in a statement: “Today’s indictment of Semyon Simonov, a Russian human rights defender in Sochi, for not complying with the legislation on non-commercial organisations is alarming and will have a massive chilling effect on the entire human rights community in Russia.“

Human Rights Watch in a statement said: “This attack against a human rights defender demonstrates how the Russian authorities continue to use the repressive foreign agents law to criminalize the important work of independent groups. Not only should the case against Semyon Simonov be dropped immediately, but the foreign agents law needs to go.”

Frontline Defenders has also issued a statement on the case: “Front Line Defenders is deeply concerned by the indictment of Semyon Simonov and believes that the pressure on and harassment against him is a concerted attempt to effectively make it impossible for him to carry out his human rights activities in Russia. Front Line Defenders reiterates its concern regarding the extension of the “foreign agents” law to include individuals, as it places human rights defenders under increased risk and further hampers their peaceful and legitimate human rights work.”

In its press release on the case, Human Rights Watch noted: “Human Rights Defenders are afforded specific recognition and protection in international law to enable them to carry out their human rights work without undue interference. The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders underscores that everyone performing activities in defense of human rights has the right to seek the protection and realization of human rights at the national and international levels, to conduct human rights work individually and in association with others, to form associations and nongovernmental organizations, and to be protected in the event of violations. The declaration sets out a series of principles and rights drawn from international human rights instruments that are legally binding. It was adopted by consensus by the UN General Assembly.”

This podcast is in Russian.

You can also listen to this podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes.

The music from “Stravinsky’s Elegy for Viola Solo” is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Maria Karp is a London-based freelance translator, journalist and writer. She is the author of a recently published Russian biography of George Orwell and editor of the Orwell Society Journal.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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Our guest this week is Elena Shakhova, chair of Citizens' Watch, one of the leading human rights organizations in St. Petersburg. Elena Shakhova joined Citizens' Watch in 1998 (the organization itself was founded in 1992) and became its chair in 2014 on the death of the group's founder and leader, Boris Pavlovich Pustyntsev. In the podcast, we discuss with Elena the achievements of Citizens' Watch, the organisation's past and present, the impact of the law on "foreign agents", government policy towards civil society organizations, the human rights situation in St. Petersburg and the current state of human rights in the Russian Federation, in the present time and in the near future.

Sergei Nikitin writes: “When prosecutors who come to us to conduct an inspection leaf through our charter, it is especially unpleasant for them to read this: “Citizens' Watch helps to establish oversight by civil society over the activities of law enforcement state bodies - the army, the police and the special services - to prevent them from violating the constitutional rights of citizens.” Elena Shakhova told us this in yesterday's conversation with Simon and me. Elena joined Citizens' Watch, an organisation set up on the initiative of Boris Pavlovich Pustyntsev with the active participation of Yury I. Vdovin in 1998. After the death of Boris Pavlovich, Elena became the chair of the NGO in 2014. You should certainly listen to how Citizens' Watch has worked all these years, how things are going today, and how Lena sees the future."

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to this podcast on Sound Cloud (https://soundcloud.com/rightsinrussia) Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/7HdmvhzC2P6VQS8ijICNHZ) and iTunes (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simo ... ei / id1495261418).

The music from "Stravinsky's Elegy for Viola Solo" is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Igor Averkiev, civil society activist and human rights defender from Perm. Among the many themes we discuss are: how Igor became involved in civil society activity, the work of Perm Civic Chamber (1996-2020), what made Perm a centre of civil society activity in Russia, the difference between civil society activism and politics, the relationship between civil society and government in Russia, the impact of the 'foeign agent' law and the future of civil society and human rights in Russia.

Sergei Nikitin writes: The city of Perm has always seemed to me like some amazing place where there are a lot of wonderful human rights defenders who work successfully in many areas. Where civil society, through its activists, is able to cooperate constructively with the local authorities: governors and mayors. My only visit to this city – many years ago – only strengthened my feelings. Years have passed, the situation has changed: the authorities are not longer doing much to support active people with initiative who are independent of them. But here, too, Perm’s human rights defenders have won: the brand of foreign agents has been removed from the region’s leading NGOs, including the Perm Civic Chamber. Perm Civic Chamber (PCC), which existed from 1996 until this year, was initiated by Igor Averkiev. He was also its chair. Yesterday, Simon and I talked with Igor. We had a very interesting conversation: Igor Averkiev said that the recently closed Perm Civic Chamber because it had fulfilled its mission. Civil society in Perm has matured. Igor noted three phenomena of today that are typical not only for Perm: the presence of an independent, large-scale volunteer movement, charity on the part of private citizens, and the emergence of specific civic communities (green organisations, animal rights, etc.) You can hear our conversation in this podcast.

If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here. The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to this podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. Music from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola is performed by Karolina Herrera.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Aleksei Simonov, president of the Glasnost Defence Foundation since 1991. Aleksei Simonov is a Soviet and Russian film director, writer, translator, human rights activist, teacher, journalist and editor. He was a member of the Presidential Council for Promoting Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights until 2012. In this podcast, Alexei Kirillovich talks about the enormous changes that have taken place in Russia since the last years of the Gorbachev era: the rise of glasnost, the hopes of the 1990s and the deterioration in freedom of expression in the Putin era, especially since 2012. He describes the work and experience of the Glasnost Defence Foundation, the impact of the law on so-called 'foreign agents' on civil society organisations and the difficulties faced by these organisations in obtaining funding. Aleksei Kirillovich also talks about two recent trials of journalists - Svetlana Prokopyeva and Ivan Safronov.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: As Aleksei Simonov once said, “I have not been burdened with government awards, but received several public awards of which I am proud.” And besides public awards, this wonderful man received what I would call universal love and respect. And by right. Last weekend Simon and I had the great pleasure to meet our mutual acquaintance, our friend Aleksei Kirillovich. The waves of the Internet brought the three of us together, although we were hundreds, even thousands of kilometres apart. I first heard the name of Aleksei Simonov many years ago when I saw the film ‘Otryad’ [The Squad] that was an important event at the beginning of perestroika. Later I got acquainted Aleksei Kirillovich in person and learned of his many talents: besides being a film director, he is also a writer, translator, human rights activist, teacher, journalist and editor. And, of course, he is president of the Glasnost Defence Foundation. Simon and I talked to Aleksei Kirillovich about all this, and now the recording of an interesting conversation is available on as our latest podcast.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here. The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to this podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. Music from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola is performed by Karolina Herrera.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Georgy Satarov, president of the INDEM Foundation. Under President Yeltsin, Georgy Satarov was a member of the Presidential Council and, in 1993, he took part in the constitutional assembly on drafting a new constitution. We asked him to comment on the new Russian constitution recently adopted in Russia. During the conversation, we talk about the new Constitution in its historical and political context - and what it means for the protection of human rights in Russia. But this is not all we talked about, as you will hear. The podcast is in Russian. You can also hear these podcasts on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. Music from "Elegy Stravinsky for Solo Viola" is played by Caroline Herrera. The photo of Georgy Satarov is from Wikipedia.

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This short podcast presents another opportunity to hear Tatyana Voltskaya reading her poems, including a poem dedicated to Yury Dmitriev. The podcast is in Russian. You can also hear these podcasts on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. Music from "Elegy Stravinsky for Solo Viola" by Caroline Herrera.

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This week our guest on the podcast is Tatyana Voltskaya, journalist and poet from St Petersburg, against whom a criminal case was opened in April for so-called "fake news". Among other things, Tatyana talks about this case, about the case of Svetlana Prokopyeva in Pskov, about freedom of speech in Russia, and reads her poems - including a poem about Yury Dmitriev.

Sergei Nikitin writes: I don't remember which poet wrote: "Our poems are taken seriously. They shoot you for poetry". The Journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva said in her final address to the court at her trial: "Repression is developing gradually. It is impossible to predict when restrictions on rights and persecution of dissent will turn into concentration camps and shootings". Yesterday Simon Cosgrove and I spent an hour in an interesting conversation with the poetess Tatiana Voltskaya. She is not only known for her poetry. She is a journalist who interviewed a St. Petersburg intensive care specialist. The doctor told Tatiana about the work of St. Petersburg hospitals, about the lack of doctors and ventilators during the coronavirus pandemic. Soon after the publication of the text about the terrible reality, the authorities showed an interest in the article and it soon became clear to her that the authorities - instead of helping the sick, doctors and hospitals - had decided to prosecute her for a criminal offence. The reason was the interview, 'People are being switched off from life support. An intensive care doctor speaks about the hellish conditions of work.' They decided to immediately apply the newly adopted Article 207.1 of the Criminal Code. We can, of course, only be glad that Tatyana Voltskaya is not going to be shot for her article. That her case has reportedly been reclassified from criminal to administrative. But, as Tatiana writes, "Captain Chernetsov opens his mouth, and his smooth teeth whiten" - this Leviathan, if he retreats, then a little. If he retreats, then in order to regroup his forces for evil, and again get his teeth into those who tell the truth, write poetry, or put on performances. They will be tormented by prosecutions, courts, fines. And only peaceful protest by civil society will be able to postpone the moment when persecution of dissent turns into concentration camps and shootings. Listen to our conversation with Tatiana Voltska and her wonderful podcast poetry. The podcast is in Russian. You can also hear these podcasts on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. Music from "Elegy Stravinsky for Solo Viola" by Caroline Herrera.

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This week our guest in the podcast is Olga Sadovskaya from the Nizhny Novgorod human rights NGO, Committee against Torture. The Committee against Torture is headed by Igor Kaliypin. Olga Sadovskaya is the head of the department for international legal protection. Since its establishment in 2000, the Committee against Torture has undergone many changes but remains one of the leading human rights organizations in Russia and has never changed its focus, which is on working to prevent torture in police detention.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "I heard about the Committee Against Torture for the first time many years ago: Amnesty International took part in the Mikheev Case, which Nizhny Novgorod human rights activists had taken up. It was while working on the Mikheev case that Nizhny Novgorod human rights defenders decided to establish a specialized organization - the Committee against Torture. On 26 June - the International Day of Support to Victims of Torture - activists from the Committee Against Torture and Amnesty International went out on joint public actions: in Moscow I had the chance to participate in several. That's when I met almost all the Committee's staff. Yesterday Simon Cosgrove and I spent a whole hour in conversation with Olga Sadovskaya, head of the department for international legal protection at the Committee against Torture. Alas, in all the years that have passed since the creation of the Committee Against Torture, the problem has become no less important. The Levada Center informs us that one in ten Russians has faced violence or the threat of violence from law enforcement agencies. And prosecutions of police officers, even in where violations have been publicised, are extremely rare. Even less often do they reach trial and sentencing. Igor Kalyapin told me of the sad 'records' of their practice: how many times the prosecutor's office has denied human rights defenders in certain cases! I admire the Committee's persistent pursuit of a noble cause: it helps victims to restore justice. Alas, the state seems to be less and less prepared to cooperate with human rights defenders, but they do not give up."

The podcast is in Russian. You can also hear these podcasts on Podcasts.com, Spotify and iTunes. Music from "Elegy Stravinsky for Solo Viola" by Caroline Herrera.

Translated from the organization's website (https://www.pytkam.net): "In 1998 the prosecutor's office for Nizhny Novgorod region responded to human rights defenders' complaints about torture by the police, in which, among other things, it stated: '"Facts" of the use of "torture" on the territory of the region have not been established.' This document served as the basis for the establishment of the Nizhny Novgorod Committee against Torture in 2000. Since then, the word 'torture' has been used by Nizhny Novgorod prosecutors without quotes, and the concept has become an established fact. Also without the quotes. Over time, the Committee against Torture began to work in other regions of Russia, using its own methodology for conducting public investigations. Thanks to the work of the organization's lawyers, by February 2020 147 law enforcement officers had been convicted for the very 'facts of torture,' the existence of which was denied by the Nizhny Novgorod prosecutor's office. In January 2015, the Ministry of Justice entered the Committee against Torture in the register of non-profit organizations acting as a foreign agent. Accordingly, on 1 August 2015, members of the organization decided to dissolve it. On 3 August 2015, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture began work. However, in January 2016 the Ministry of Justice also included this organization in the register of 'foreign agents.' In this connection, the members of the organization also decided to liquidate it. Currently, the organization works under its historical name of Committee against Torture without a legal entity.

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This week our podcast is devoted to the historian and head of the branch of Memorial in Karelia, Yury Dmitriev. Dmitriev's name is especially closely connected to Sandarmokh. It was he who led the expedition there in 1997 that discovered the location of the mass burials of victims of Stalinist repression. Today Dmitriev remains in pre-trial detention as he awaits the outcome of his second trial on charges of child pornography. Our guests are Irina Flige, human rights defender and director of the Memorial Scientific Research Centre, Anatoly Razumov, a historian and expert on the Stalin-era repressions, and Andrea Gullotta, a lecturer at Glasgow University and expert on the life and culture of the Gulag.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Our conversation yesterday was extremely interesting with absolutely wonderful people: Irina Flige, director of the Memorial Scientific Research Centre (St. Petersburg); Anatoly Razumov, historian and head of the Returned Names centre (also St. Petersburg); and Andrea Gullotta, lecturer at the University of Glasgow (School of Modern Languages & Cultures) and author of Russia's Memory War on the Gulag. We talked for more than an hour about Yury Dmitriev and his work over many years to determine the burial sites of victims of political repression in Sandarmokh, Karelia. In yesterday's conversation we talked about how the Russian authorities are trying to interfere with the work of NGOs and independent researchers. About the fact that we see not only the process of rewriting history, but also the rewriting of victims' personalities. About the fact that there is a war of memory, and it is a hybrid war with different elements and aspects. Historical memory in Russia - according to Irina Flige - has hybrid forms: I remember this; I do not remember that. Andrea Gullotta spoke about his resarch into 'the war of memory.' He also noted the importance of international support for Yury Dmitriev. Historian Anatoli Razumov talked about Dmitriev as a historian. He related how they went to Sandormokh together 20 years ago. It is very important to do our utmost so that the memory of state atrocities does not go away. So that new generations know what happened, so that the history cannot be rewritten by either the Chekists who came to power, or the "specialists" serving them.

Yury Dmitriev (born 1956 in Petrozavodsk) is a human rights activist and local historian in Karelia who has worked since the early 1990s to locate the execution sites of Stalin's Terror and identify the victims. Dmitriev was arrested in December 2016 and charged with making pornographic images of his foster daughter. In April 2018 he was acquitted of the charges but sentenced to 30 months in prison for possession of a gun. In June 2018 a second criminal case was opened against him on the basis of 'newly discovered circumstances.' His second trial is ongoing and Dmitriev remains in pre-trial detention.

This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also hear these podcasts on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music is from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, played here by Karolina Errera.

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This week our podcast is devoted to the journalist Yury Shchekochikhin, who was born on June 9, 1950. He would have turned 70 this year. Our guests are the executive director of the Moscow PEN Centre, Nadezhda Azhgikhina, director of the Media Rights Protection Center Galina Arapova and chair of the Yabloko party Nikolai Rybakov. Our podcast consists of two parts. In the first part we will talk about Yury Shchekochikhin as a journalist in the context of his time - above all, as a journalist during the era of Gorbachev's perestroika. In the second half we will consider the profession of journalist. What does it mean to be a journalist in today's world, in today's Russia?

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: The conversation that Simon Cosgrove and I had last Sunday was dedicated to the memory of Yury Shchekochikhin. On 9th June he would have turned 70. Yury Petrovich has not been with us now for 17 years. His was a strange death, that many suspect was a murder. It deprived us of the pleasure of admiring the talent of this brilliant journalist. Yesterday’s meeting on the Internet brought together the most interesting interlocutors: Nadezhda Azhgikhina, herself a wonderful journalist and widow of Yury Petrovich; Galina Arapova, director of the Mass Media Rights Centre, and Nikolay Rybakov, chair of the Yabloko party. I admit, I myself listened to our interlocutors with the greatest interest as memories of Yury Shchekochikhin melded smoothly into a discussion about the nature of journalism today. We remembered this wonderful man, an extraordinarily courageous journalist and politician. We talked about the current generation of journalists, about students, about the fate of journalism in our country – at both federal and regional levels. The hour flew by quickly, but we managed to talk about a great many things.

This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also hear these podcasts on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music is from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, played here by Karolina Errera.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Ashot Airapeyan, chair of the Moscow-based NGO the Centre for Intercultural and Interethnic Cooperation. Ashot relates how the organisation he had headed for 20 years since 1997, the Centre for Interethnic Cooperation, was closed down by the authorities in 2017. He also talks about the problems facing ethnic minorities in Russia and the work his organisation has done and is doing to ameliorate these problems. This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also hear these podcasts on Podcasts.com, Spotify and iTunes. The music is from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, played here by Karolina Errera.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Valentina Cherevatenko (pictured), chair and coordinator of the NGO Women of the Don Union, and chair of the board of the Women of the Don Foundation for the Promotion of Civil Society and Human Rights. Valentina Cherevatenko has led the work of Women of the Don since the organisation was set up in 1993. The organisation is based in Novocherkassk in Rostov region. Under her inspiring leadership, the organisation has engaged over the years in numerous activities, including providing assistance to those who suffered during the war in Chechnya (such as finding missing persons, rehabilitation of those who suffered from trauma, etc.), supporting the creation of dialogue with women in places of conflict, including Chechnya and Ukraine, promoting women's rights, combating domestic violence, improving relations between the police and the public, and providing free legal and other advice. This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also hear these podcasts on Podcasts.com, Spotify and iTunes. The music is from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, played here by Karolina Errera.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Sergei Krivenko (pictured), coordinator of the Citizen and Army initiative, a member of the board of the International Memorial Society and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. Sergei has been one of the leading proponents for the introduction and development of Alternative Civilian Service for conscripts that has been introduced in post-Soviet Russia. His organisation also works to protect the rights of conscripts and improve their conditions of service. Sergei also served two terms as a member of the Presidential Council on Human Rights and Civil Society. In this wide-ranging discussion, he discusses the history of ACS in Russia, the problems that have been overcome and that still remain. He also compares the situation in Russia with other countries such as Germany and Finland, and considers the current state of Russia's on-going military reform. This podcast is in the Russian language.

You can also hear these podcasts on Podcasts.com, Spotify and iTunes.

The music is from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, played here by Karolina Errera.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Maria Kanevskaya (pictured), a civil society activist based in St. Petersburg who is one of Russia's leading lawyers working in the field of right of association. She currently heads the First NGO Laboratory. Maria talks about the development over the last 20 years of the inhospitable environment for NGOs in Russia that exists today. She describes the quite devastating impact of the foreign agent law on the right of association, especially for human rights and environmental NGOs. However, she also describes a veritable 'explosion' in the creation of unregistered, informal groups in civil society that in many ways are taking the place of registered NGOs in what is apparently a reaction against the negative regulatory environment. She also discusses funding for civil society groups. In sum, Maria provides a detailed and considered picture of civil society organisations in Russia, based on her practice as a lawyer and leader of organisations that both study and support the 'third sector.' She also talks about the impact of Coronavirus in Russia. This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to this podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes. The music is from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, played here by Karolina Errera.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Elena Zhemkova (pictured), executive director of International Memorial. International Memorial is one of the oldest and most respected civil society organisations in Russia that is respected worldwide for its commitment to uncovering the truth about Soviet and Russian history and the protection of human rights. International Memorial was founded at the end of the 1980s and was headed for many years by Arseny Roginsky. In this wide-ranging podcast Elena Zhemkova talks about the essence of the work of Memorial, the legacy of Arseny Roginsky, the past and present of the organisation, and looks ahead to the future. This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to this podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes. The music is from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, played here by Karolina Errera.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Karinna Moskalenko (pictured), one of Russia's leading human rights lawyers. Karinna Moskalenko is founder and head of programmes at the Centre for International Protection, a network of groups that is based in Moscow and Strasbourg, and also has offices in Bishkek, Erevan and Kiev. The Centre specialises in bringing cases to the European Court of Human Rights. Karinna Moskalenko is a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, the Moscow Bar Association and the Moscow Lawyers' Committee for the Protection of Human Rights. She is also a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists. She won the first ever case against the Russian Federation heard before the European Court of Human Rights and has acted as defence counsel in such high profile cases as those of Mikhail Khodorovsky. This podcast is in the Russian language.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Sergei Davidis (pictured), member of the board of Memorial Human Rights Centre and director of the Centre's programme on political prisoners. Memorial Human Rights Centre is one of the most authoritative human rights organisations in Russia. The programme headed by Sergei Davidis, among a range of activities in support of political prisoners, maintains a list of political prisoners in the Russian Federation. As of today, there are 314 names on that list. Sergei Davidis talks about how the term 'political prisoner' is defined, what can be done to secure the release of political prisoners, and what can be done to reduce the number of such prisoners in the future. This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also hear these podcasts on SoundCloud, Spotifyand iTunes. The music is from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, played here by Karolina Errera.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Sergei Poduzov (pictured left), co-chair of Chelovek i Zakon [Individual & the Law], a leading Russian human rights NGO founded in Yoshkar-Ola, capital of the republic of Mari El (located about 700 km east of Moscow). Since its foundation in 1999, Chelovek i Zakon has established itself as one of Russia's leading human rights groups with special expertise in the penitentiary and law enforcement systems, among other areas. This podcast is in the Russian language.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Nadezhda Azhgikhina (pictured left), executive director of the Moscow PEN Centre. Nadezhda Azhgikina previously served two terms as vice-president of the European Federation of Journalists, and before that was a secretary of the Union of Journalists of Russia. Nadezhda Azhgikina’s career as a journalist began at Komsomolskaya pravda, where she worked during the 1980s – the years of perestroika and glasnost – before moving to Ogonek and later to Nezavisimaya gazeta. This podcast is in the Russian language.

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A summary of some of the week's events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Lev Ponomarev (pictured left), long-time head of For Human Rights, one of Russia's leading NGOs. In this podcast, Lev Ponomarev talks about the current state of his organisation, his recent arrest and injury as he took part in a peaceful picket outside the FSB headquarters on Lubyanka Square in Moscow, the proposed changes to the Constitution, the impact of the Coronavirus in Russia, and more generally about the main tasks facing human rights defenders in Russia today, the repressive measures against civil society groups and the right of association, the distinction between civil society activists and human rights defenders, between human rights activism and politics, and between different generations of activists. The recent interview with Sotavision to which Lev refers a couple of times during the podcast can be found here. A summary of some of the week's events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here. This podcast is in the Russian language.

If this podcast does not play immediately on the podcast.com website, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. You can also hear these podcasts on Spotifyand iTunes.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Dmitry Makarov (pictured left), co-chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group and co-chair of the coordinating committee of the International Youth Human Rights Movement. The Moscow Helsinki Group is one of Russia's oldest and leading human rights organisations. It was originally set up in 1976 to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki Accords and Soviet human rights abuses. Forced out of existence in the early 1980s, the Moscow Helsinki Group was revived in 1989 and continues to operate in Russia today. A summary of some of the week's events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here. This podcast is in the Russian language.

If this podcast does not play immediately on the podcast.com website, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. You can also hear these podcasts on Spotifyand iTunes.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Galina Arapova (pictured left), director of the Mass Media Defence Centre, based in the city of Voronezh. The Mass Media Defence Centre is one of the leading NGOs and think tanks working on media law and the rights of journalists, bloggers and media outlets in Russia. For more information about the Mass Media Defence Centre, visit its website here. A summary of some of the week's events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here. This podcast is in the Russian language.

If this podcast does not play immediately on the podcast.com website, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. You can also hear these podcasts on Spotify and iTunes.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Natalia Taubina, director of the Moscow-based Public Verdict Foundation (pictured left). Public Verdict is one of the leading human rights organisations in Russia. Its work focuses on abuses by public officials, not least torture and other violations by the police and prison authorities, including those at public events and demonstrations. For more information about Public Verdict, visit its website here. A summary of some of the week's events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here. This podcast is in the Russian language.

If this podcast does not play immediately on the podcast.com website, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. You can also hear these podcasts on Spotify and iTunes.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Tatyana and Nikolai Shchur. Tatyana and Nikolai are human rights activists from the city of Snezhinsk in Chelyabinsk region. Tatyana and Nikolai began their careers as human rights defenders working on environmental issues but since the mid-1990s have focused largely on conditions of detention. For many years they have been leading members of the region's Public Oversight Commission. They also work to improve conditions of life for children without parents. A summary of the week's events in the sphere of human rights can be found on our website here. This podcast is in the Russian language.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin are joined by Nadia Kutepova, a human rights activist from the closed city of Ozersk in Chelyabinsk region. Nadia was director of the human rights organisation Planet of Hopes in Ozersk, specialising in the protection of the rights of those who suffered from the radiation pollution from the Mayak atomic plant based in the city. Planet of Hopes was one of the first NGOs in Russia to be branded as a 'foreign agent' organisation. In 2015 Nadia was forced to leave Russia and now lives in France where she has received political asylum. A summary of the week's events in the sphere of human rights can be found on our website here. This podcast is in the Russian language.

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin are joined by Yury Dzhibladze, director of the Centre for Development of Democracy and Human Rights, based in Moscow. Yury has worked on human rights, democracy, and international organisations since the late 1980s. He is an active participant in international advocacy and has great knowledge and experience with regard to such bodies as the OSCE, the Council of Europe and other international organisations. He works closely with the Civic Solidarity Platform. He is also currently coordinator of the Advocacy Group at the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum. A summary of the week's events, some of which are referred to in the discussion, can be found on our website here. This podcast is in the Russian language.

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This week Sergei Nikitin is on vacation and Simon Cosgrove is joined by Vyacheslav Bakhmin, co-chair of both the Moscow Helsinki Group and the Andrei Sakharov Centre in Moscow, and a well-known expert on civil society in Russia. A summary of the week's events, some of which are referred to in the discussion, can be found on our website here. This podcast is in the Russian language.

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This week Sergei Nikitin and Simon Cosgrove are joined by Aleksei Sokolov, head of the human rights organisation Pravovaya osnova, based in Ekaterinburg in Sverdlovsk region. A summary of the week's events, some of which are referred to in the discussion, can be found on our website here. This podcast is in the Russian language.

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This week Sergei Nikitin and Simon Cosgrove are joined by Jens Siegert, blogger, journalist and expert on civil society in Russia. The first part is an interview with Jens; in the second part Simon and Sergei discuss events of the past week in Russia, a summary of which can be found here.

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Sergei Nikitin and Simon Cosgrove discuss events of the past week in Russia, a summary of which can be found here.

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Sergei Nikitin and Simon Cosgrove discuss events of the past week in Russia, a summary of which can be found here.

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Sergei Nikitin and Simon Cosgrove start the New Year with a discussion of events of the past week in Russia that have bearing on human rights.