Rights in Russia

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?

My guest today 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.

This podcast was recorded on 29 August 2024.

My questions include: 

1. Askold, I watched your film with great interest. Please explain the origins of the title. 

2. In the Sheffield Docfest programme, your unique access to people and events is much praised.  Tell us how the documentary came about?  In the credits, it says that the film was made with the support of Novaya Gazeta.  Was it their idea or did you approach them with the idea?

3.  Tell us about the relationship between you and your team. Your co-director, as well as two others in key roles – the sound recordist and the editor - all chose to remain anonymous, but you didn’t.

4.  I heard a journalist at TV Dozhd say that the Russian authorities had played the independent opposition media, that they had done everything to get opposition journalists to quit Russia voluntarily so that there would be no one left to push back against government pressure and censorship in Russia.  What do you think?

5.  You didn’t leave Russia straight after the beginning of the war.  You now live outside Russia.  What prompted your departure finally? 

6.  Do you keep in touch with your “anonymous” colleagues from the film?  How are they doing?

7.  Many people, including in your film, talk about Russian journalists’ own self-censorship.  Do you think this is an option?  Does it promote or destroy quality journalism?

8.  Access to all independent sources of information in Russia is increasingly restricted.  What sources of information remain open to Russians and is there a demand for it?  Has this changed since the Ukrainian army’s recent incursions in the Kursk region?

9..  Tell us a little about yourself.  Where did you grow up and how did you become a documentary film-maker?

10. I remember very well the strong impression I took away from your 2017 film about Ukrainian film-maker Oleg Sentsov, who was arrested during the annexation of Crimea and taken away to be imprisoned in Russia.  What did your close interactions with and observations of Ukrainians reveal about the differences between Ukrainians and Russians?

11.  Could you have predicted then that Russia would start a full-scale war against Ukraine?

12.  How do you see the war ending?

13.  Are you currently working on a new project?  

14. How do you find living in a foreign country?

15. How do you see your future? In Russia?  Under what circumstances?

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?

4. 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?

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

6. 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?

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

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

9. 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?

10. 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?

11. 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?

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

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 profession did you think you would pursue in the future?
2. How did it come about that you specialised in torture?
3. In Russia, it seems to me, few people are concerned about torture – people think ‘that’s just how it should be’, or ‘they deserve it, and that’s all there is to it.’ How do you explain the rather high tolerance for violence in Russia?
4. 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?
5. 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?
6. I read somewhere that you have said that “all wars end in a resolution of peace.” In your opinion, will Russia’s war against Ukraine also end through peace negotiations? With the intervention of international forums, or do the warring parties no longer have confidence in them?  
7. What is it like for you and other human rights defenders to work under current conditions?
8. Since the spring of 2022, when the register of foreign agents is updated every Friday, have many of your colleagues left the country or given up their human rights practice?
9. How does the ‘foreign agent’ label affect your professional work. And can you explain what is an “undesirable organisation”?
10. Have you ever received any threats yourself? Or have there been administrative cases initiated against you?
11. 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? And what if they are exposed  to torture in detention? What should they do then?
12. Is there such a thing as psychological torture? Have you experienced it yourself in your work as a human rights defender?
13. 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?
14. You said somewhere that ‘even if a person is not themselves directly involved in torture, they could still be party to the system of violence.’ Can you elaborate? 
15. What does the police treatment of suspects in the terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall in March this year tell us about today’s Russia?
16. In Russia now everyone is living with uncertainty. What options for the future of your work do you see?
17. 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 work in the field of human rights in Russia?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?