People and Nature

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I can recommend no blog more highly than People and Nature. Whether you’re interested in climate change and the environment, energy, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, the UK, labor and social movements, international solidarity campaigns or history, Gabriel Levy has written so many incise, supremely well-grounded articles and interventions on these subjects since 2011 that it would take a month of Sundays to take all of them in. But since you’ll undoubtedly learn more about our world by reading People and Nature than by subjecting yourself to the endless eardrum buzz of media and social media, this is exactly what you should do.

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I hope, dear readers, you get time for reflection, rejuvenation and relaxation in the midwinter holidays. If you find yourself reaching for your phone for something to read – then, rather than winding yourself up with news of Boris Johnson’s vileness, go a level more thoughtful: look at those People & Nature articles you missed out on first time round. Here is some stuff that has stood the test of time. Thanks for your interest, and see you all (virtually or really) in the 2020s.

Image courtesy of People and Nature

86 Years in Prison for 7 Defendants in Network Case

Defendants in Network Case Receive Up to 18 Years in Prison
Bumaga
February 10, 2020

The Volga District Military Court, [sitting in Penza], has [convicted and] sentenced seven defendants in the Network Case.

Dmitry Pchelintsev was sentenced to 18 years in a maximum-security penal colony. Ilya Shakursky was sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony and fined 50,000 rubles. Investigators claimed they were organizers of a “terrorist community.” Both men alleged that FSB officers had electrocuted them in order to obtain confessions.

Maxim Ivankin was given 13 years in a maximum-security penal colony, while Andrei Chernov was sentenced to 14 years, and Mikhail Kulkov, to 10 years. They were found guilty of involvement in a “terrorist community” and attempting to sell drugs.

Vasily Kuksov was sentenced to 9 years in a penal colony. He was accused of involvement in a “terrorist community” and illegal possession of a weapon. Another defendant, Arman Sagynbayev, received 6 years in prison.

The verdict handed down by the court in Penza suggests that the acquittal of the Petersburg defendants in the case is less likely, Viktor Cherkasov, the lawyer for Viktor Filinkov, a defendant in the Network Case, told Bumaga.

“It sends a message,” said Cherkasov. “It is difficult to hope [for a positive outcome], but we are still determined to protect Filinkov’s interests.”

Cherkasov said that he planned in court to point to the faked evidence in the case. He also that he would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights if Filinkov were found guilty. The next hearing in the Network Case in Petersburg should take place between February 25 and February 28.

[In October 2017 and January 2018], antifascists and anarchists were detained in Penza and Petersburg. They were accused of organizing a “terrorist community,” allegedly called “the Network.” Its alleged purpose was to “sway the popular masses for further destabilization of the political situation” in Russia.

The defendants in the case said investigators had tortured them as a way of forcing them to confess and weapons had been planted on their persons and property to further implicate them. [Some of] the arrested men had played airsoft together: this, investigators, said was proof they were planning terrorist attacks.

Investigators claim that the Petersburg defendants in the case, Filinkov and Yuli Boyarshinkov, acted as the group’s sapper and signalman, respectively. Their trial is scheduled to resume in late February.

Translated by the Russian Reader

This verdict doesn’t leave me at a loss for words. I’m just convinced there is no point in using them when everyone who could listen has made a point of tuning out people like me. If someone invited me to appear on their aptly named alternative radio program or their globe-spanning Qatar-based international TV network (as nearly happened in the past), I could talk for hours about the Network Case. But that’s not going to happen. Although if I were a betting man, I would wager that our tiresome planet’s obnoxious pillars of liberal truth—the New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, and Al Jazeera, among others—will suddenly weigh in on the case after blithely ignoring it for two years, as will many if not all of the crypto-Putinist “Russia watchers” in our midst, eerily silent until now. Barring a sudden revolution, don’t imagine this is the last such case in Russia, a country that has worried so many people around the world for the last several years that they’re determined not to know anything particular about it except “Putin” and “troll factories.” And don’t imagine that a show trial just as juicy and unjust won’t be coming to a theater near you. Please don’t reprint, repost or otherwise reference this article without prefacing it with my remarks. I’d like to preempt “spontaneous” shows of “solidarity” by people who couldn’t be bothered to do anything when it would have made a difference. Despite the well-known saying, it IS a popularity contest, and seven innocent young men in Penza have lost it. [TRR]

Petersburg Police Sabotage Pussy Riot Video Shoot

Police Sabotage Pussy Riot Video Shoot at Lenfilm Studio
Mediazona
February 9, 2020

Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has told Mediazona that police have sabotaged the filming of a video for the Pussy Riot song “Rage” at Lenfilm Studio in Petersburg.

“There are cops and Center ‘E’ officers at the filming of our video at Lenfilm. First, they came and made us sign an obligation not to promote ‘homosexualism’ and ‘extremism,” and then left to talk with Lenfilm management. Half an hour later, the lights were turned off throughout the building. The shoot was scheduled to run from noon to six in the morning. So, the whole thing’s a bust,” Tolokonnikova said.

Police at Lenfilm in Petersburg. Photo by Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. Courtesy of Mediazona

The producers tried to rent a generator, but they were not permitted to bring it on the premises of the studio.

“Two days before the shoot, plainclothes officers visited Lenfilm and insisted they cancel the shoot. Surprisingly, Lenfilm refused to heed their request, telling them that we had paid and all the paperwork was in order,” the performance artist added.

Tolokonnikova said that feminist activist Nixel Pixel (aka Nika Vodwood), artist Lölja Nordic, and photographer Aleksandr Sofeev were among the people slated to appear in the video.

“There were supposed to be riot cops [OMON] in the video, but a real patrol showed up instead. The song is about resisting the authorities,” Tolokonnikova told Mediazona.

In an interview with Znak.com, Inessa Yurchenko, who was appointed Lenfilm’s new director general two days ago, called Tolokonnikov’s story a provocation.

“The guys were supposed to have actors in police uniforms, so they cannot pass that off as there being police officers there. There are no police officers on the premises of Lenfilm. It’s not nice to show pictures of actors and provoke the public,” she said.

Yurchenko threatened to call the police.

“I won’t be surprised if there are more provocations on their part—then I will be forced to call the police,” she said.

Yurchenko explained that the blackout in the studio had been caused by an accident on the power grid.

“The head of security will now have to follow regulations while the cause of the accident is established, and so he will have to ask [people] to evacuate Lenfilm because it’s a [secure] facility,” she said.

She added that the activists could return to the film studio when the power was restored.

Translated by the Russian Reader

“He Fell on the Knife”: Moscow Jury Acquits Man Who Confessed to Involuntary Manslaughter of Gay

Moscow Jury Acquits Man Who Confessed to Involuntary Manslaughter of Gay Man
Takie Dela
February 7, 2020

A jury at Moscow’s Basmanny District Court acquitted a man accused of murdering homosexual Roman Yedalov, reports the LGBT group Stimul, whose lawyers represented the interests of the victim’s friend and mother in court. The website xgay.ru reports that the assailant’s name is Anton Berezhnoy.

The defendant admitted his guilt in part. He claimed, however, that he had not caused the death deliberately but accidentally: the victim had allegedly “[fallen] on the knife.” On February 6, when asked the question of whether Berezhnoy had caused Yedalov’s death or not, the jury said he had not, thus obviating the following question as to his guilt.

A final verdict will be handed down by the presiding judge in a few days but, according to law, the verdict cannot be a guilty one for the defendant. Stimul’s lawyers have already said they would appeal the court’s decision.

“The evidence and testimony presented in the trial convinced me that the altercation was provoked by the defendant,” said Anton Lapov, a lawyer for the injured party. “I’m convinced that it was this bloody outcome that the defendant envisaged. One person had their life taken, while another person was robbed of their health.”

The murder occurred in the early hours of June 29, 2019, at Kursk Railway Station in Moscow. Berezhnoy assaulted gay couple Roman Yedalov and Yevgeny Yefimov, who were returning to their home in the Moscow Region, and struck them with a knife.

The murder was captured on CCTV. Courtesy of Takie Dela

Yefimov’s wounds were not life-threatening and he survived, but Yedalov died on the spot. According to Yefimov, Berezhnoy shouted insults relating to their sexual orientation during the attack. Yefimov suspects that Berezhnoy followed them from a night club.

The Russian Investigative Committee launched a criminal investigation into the murder. Yefimov and the dead man’s mother were named as the injured party, while Berezhnoy was remanded in custody. During the trial, the prosecutor argued that the available evidence proved the defendant’s guilt. Yedalov’s mother told the court that she was proud of her son for defending his friend by stepping between him and the assailant.

In November 2019, Maxim Pankratov, the star of a video on the YouTube channel Real Talk in which children asked him questions about homosexuality, reported that he had been threatened. People on the street recognized him and shouted “Faggot! Pervert” as he walked past. Another group of strangers attempted to attack him at night, but he managed to escape. Pankratov underscored the fact that he had not talked with the children about sex and had not committed violent acts against them.

After the video starring Pankratov was posted, the Moscow police charged the channel’s creators with “promoting homosexualism [sic] among minors,” while the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case into sexual violence against minors. Investigators claimed that the conversations with children were designed to arouse them sexually and induce them to have sexual relations. The video was deleted after the scandal erupted.

Translated by the Russian Reader

“I Examined You from a Distance”: Journalist and Human Rights Lawyer Attacked in Grozny

84412382_3207050759323702_7873276774191202304_n “My poor head.” This was the photo that reporter Elena Milashina posted on her Facebook page after being attacked in Grozny earlier today.

Novaya Gazeta Journalist Elena Milashina and Human Rights Lawyer Marina Dubrovina Assaulted in Grozny
Mediazona
February 6, 2020

Novaya Gazeta has reported that persons unknown assaulted its correspondent Elena Milashina and human rights lawyer Marina Dubrovina in Grozny.

Milashina and Dubrovina had arrived in Grozny for the trial of blogger Islam Nukhanov, who shot a video entitled How Kadyrov and His Associates Live, Part 1. After the video was posted, Nukhanov was charged with illegal possession of weapons, punishable under Article 222 Part 1 of the Russian Criminal Code.

Novaya Gazeta writes that the assault took place in the lobby of the Continent Hotel and near the building’s entrance. Unidentified men and women beat up lawyer Marina Dubrovina.

“It was mostly women who assaulted her, punching and kicking her,” the newspaper said.

The newspaper noted that the assailants videotaped the incident.

Milashina and Dubrovina are now having their injuries documented by physicians and plan to file charges with Chechen law enforcement authorities.

84105461_3207145192647592_8637423701794488320_n Human rights lawyer Marina Dubrovina. “We are being driven to the crime scene in a police van with its lights flashing,” writes Elena Milashina.

Milashina has just written that Musa Bekov, a neurosurgeon at the Grozny hospital [where they went], refused to examine Dubrovina carefully.

“I examined you from a distance. Everything is fine, everything will heal. Have a nice day,” Milashina quoted the doctor as saying.

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Yegor Skovoroda
Facebook
February 6, 2020

It so happened that four years ago, when Kadyrov’s men attacked our van in Ingushetia, lawyer Marina Dubrovina was the first person I called and told about it —while lying on the floor of the van, its windows broken. I was beaten with sticks, first in the van, and then in a roadside ditch. Several young women next to me were beaten in the same way.

Today in Grozny, Marina Dubrovina and Elena Milashina, from Novaya Gazeta, were attacked near a hotel. I would not be surprised if the perpetrators were the same, but the man who commissions all crimes in Chechnya is Ramzan Kadyrov. Novaya writes that Marina was beaten up.

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Chechen Man Who Shot Video “How Kadyrov and His Associates Live” Charged with Crime
Mediazona
December 9, 2019

Novaya Gazeta reports that Islam Nukhanov, a Chechen man who shot a video entitled How Kadyrov and His Associates Live, has been charged with a criminal offense.

According to the newspaper, Nukhanov spent most of his time outside Chechnya, but in the spring he came to the republic to apply for a free operation. It writes that Nukhanov often watched the videos of opposition blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov.

“He frequently raised in conversation the question of how people were so filthy rich and lived in such palaces in a subsidized republic with very high unemployment,” Novaya Gazeta writes.

On October 31, Nukhanov posted a video, entitled How Kadyrov and His Associates Live, on YouTube. Shot from a car, the video features houses in a Grozny neighborhood that Novaya Gazeta calls the “Chechen Rublyovka.”

The newspaper describes the video’s contents: “The dashcam blankly records the houses on either side of the road. The driver does not utter a single word.”

According to Novaya Gazeta, the next day men in camouflage uniforms burst into Nukhanov’s house and took the young man away. It writes that the men confiscated all of his telephones, his computer and CPU, and the “ill-fated” Ford Focus whose dashcam Nukhanov used to shoot his video.

Novaya Gazeta writes that a day after the arrest Nukhanov’s father saw his son at the police station. He had been beaten up, his hand was bandaged, and his clothes were bloody and nearly torn to shreds.

Nukhanov was charged with illegal possession of weapons, as punishable under Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code. According to investigators, the young man was summoned to the police station to “verify intelligence.” Once at the station, Nukhanov allegedly behaved suspiciously, and so it was decided to search him. Police allegedly found two gun cartridges in his pocket, and when they searched his car, they also found a pistol. The young man pleaded guilty on the advice of his state-appointed lawyer.

The newspaper writes that Nukhanov spent nearly a month in the basement of the Grozny central police station. The court remanded him in custody only on November 27. After his wife hired Nukhanov a “proper” lawyer, he withdrew his confession.

Thanks to Yegor Skovoroda for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader

Children of the Soviet Union

This fascinating documentary, made by Disney in 1987, gives its putative US television audience a glimpse into the daily life of a Leningrad schoolboy, Alyosha Trusov. Alyosha attends Leningrad School No. 185, an English-language magnet school that my boon companion had graduated only a few years before this film was made.

Thanks to Yelena Yoffe for the heads-up.

Everything Is Normal: The Life and Times of a Soviet Kid, a recent memoir by the narrator and protagonist’s older half-brother Sergey Grechishkin, also gets my seal of approval. I would especially recommend it to university lecturers teaching courses about everyday life in the late-Soviet period and anyone else who wants to know what childhood was really like for what anthropologist Alexei Yurchak has rightly called “the last Soviet generation.”

Don’t be scared off by Grechiskin’s explicitly pro-capitalist, pro-western stance: he is too good a writer to let that get in the way of the story he has to tell, which he tells much more honestly than most of his compatriots and, certainly, nearly all westerners who have written about the period.

Thanks (again) to Yelena Yoffe for the heads-up. Grechishkin’s book turned several long bus trips in December into supremely pleasant journeys.

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This book is both a memoir and a social history. On one hand, it is a light-hearted worm’s-eye-view of the USSR through one middle-class Soviet childhood in the 1970s–1980s. On the other hand, it is a reflection on the mundane deprivations and existential terrors of day-to-day life in Leningrad in the decades preceding the collapse of the USSR.

The author occupies a peculiar place in the Soviet world. He is the son of a dissident father and also the stepson of a politically favored Leningrad University professor and Party member. He also occupies a peculiar place in the literal geographic sense — both his home and school are only a few blocks away from the city’s KGB headquarters, where a yet-unknown officer called Vladimir Putin is learning his trade.

His world is a world without flavor. Food is unseasoned. Bananas are a once a year treat. A pack of instant coffee is precious enough to be more useful as a bribe to a Party official than a consumable. Parents on business trips thousands of miles away from home schlep precious and scarce bottles of soda across the Soviet empire for their kids. Everything is bland: TV, radio, books, music, politics — life itself. The author staves away boredom the best he can, with a little help from his friends. They play in the streets of their beautiful city, still resplendent with pre-Revolutionary glory; make their own toys and gadgets; and, when they get older, pass around forbidden novels and books of poetry.

But occasionally, an infinitely more exciting world makes itself briefly known. A piece of foreign bubble gum with a Disney wrapper. A short Yugoslavian cartoon. A smuggled cassette tape with mind-blowing music by someone named Michael Jackson. And these hints of a completely different life introduce small cracks into the author’s all-pervading late-Soviet boredom — cracks that widen and widen, until reality itself shatters, and a brand new world rushes in.

Court Extends Azat Miftakhov’s Term in Custody Until April

Moscow City Court Extends Mathematician Azat Miftakhov’s Term in Custody Until April 7, 2020
OVD Info
February 4, 2020

Moscow City Court has extended the term in custody of mathematician Azat Miftakhov, charged with disorderly conduct, as reported in Novaya Gazeta‘s live blog from the hearing.

Since Miftakhov has been in remand prison for a year, further extensions of his remand in custody had to be decided in the city court rather than in a municipal district court.

According to the Telegram channel Vestnik Buri Originals, Svetlana Sidorkina, Miftakhov’s defense attorney, reported that before court hearings her client was not delivered directly from the remand prison to the court by the Federal Penitentiary Service, but for unknown reasons was driven around town in a paddy wagon.

The defense asked the court either to transfer the mathematician to house arrest or release him on bail in the amount of 1,994,000 rubles [approx. 28,500 euros], but the court sided with the prosecution and extended Maftakhov’s term in custody till April 7.

Miftakhov, a graduate student in mathematics at Moscow State University and an anarchist, was arrested as part of an investigation of a case of group disorderly conduct, as punishable under Article 213.2 of the Russian Criminal Code. Police investigators allege that on January 30, 2018, Miftakhov, Andrei Yeikin, Yelena Gorban, Alexei Kobaidze, and Svyatoslav Rechkalov broke a window in a United Russia party office and threw a smoke grenade through it. Rechkalov and Kobaidze have fled Russia, and their case is now being investigated separately. In December 2019, the Russian Interior Ministry reported that it had completed its investigation of the case of the broken window at the United Russia party office.

Miftakhov was detained on February 1, 2019. He would later tell his lawyer that he had been tortured with a screwdriver. For the next eleven days, his arrest was extended under various pretexts. OVD Info has written in detail about different aspects of Miftakhov’s arrest and published a timeline of developments in the broken window case.

Translated by the Russian Reader

“Aggressive Migrants Without Money Advance on Lakhta Center”

fullsizeoutput_2003 The Lakhta Center skyscraper construction site in November 2018. Photo by the Russian Reader

Aggressive Migrants Without Money Advance on Lakhta Center
Lidia Lvova
Moyka78
February 1, 2020

The workers who have been building Lakhta Center, apparently, have no plans to retreat after hearing promises that they would be paid for their work—but not now, later, possibly within six to eight months.

Moyka78 has a video showing offended workers storming an office building on the premises of the skyscraper complex construction site.

It seems that hundreds of people are not willing to wait for months for their hard-earned pay.

Amid the shouting, a mediator can be heard trying to negotiate with the strikers. The builders of Lakhta Center respond only with indignation to his promises.

The workers make obscene gestures and react aggressively to the promises.

It is possible that to improve their performance the workers were fed such performance-enhancement drugs as meldonium.

Videos Showing Unrest Among Workers at Lakhta Center Have Appeared on the Internet: According to Our Information, They Were Pacified a Week Ago
Fontanka.ru
February 2, 2020

Videos showing unrest among workers of the Turkish company Renaissance Construction, which is doing construction work at the Lakhta Center complex, have appeared on the internet. Fontanka has learned that the events recorded in the videos took place on the premises of Lakhta Center last Monday, January 27.

Police had to go to the site on the morning of January 27. The incident ended with one accidentally broken office window, the police issuing a ticket for swearing in a public place, and an awareness-raising discussion among the parties to the conflict.

Around two hundred employees of Renaissance Construction, the general construction contractor at the facility, demanded payment of their 2019 end-of-year bonus from management.

“Owing to the unrest among workers at the Lakhta Center construction site on January 27, 2020, Renaissance Construction JSC has conducted negotiations with the workforce to ascertain all the circumstances that gave rise to their complaints and looked into all their claims,” a spokesperson for Renaissance Construction told Fontanka.

As the spokesperson noted, the company explained to workers that they had been paid in full on January 15, and no back pay was owed to them.

“Currently, work has resumed at the site, and a constructive dialogue with the workers and outreach work are underway,” the spokesperson told Fontanka.

Thanks to Sergey Abashin for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader

Nine Activists Detained in Petersburg at Picket Against Amendments to Constitution

con-1 “Our motto: The constitution is forever, while the president and government [should serve] only 1 (one) term.” Photo by Maksim Klyagin for RFE/RL

Nine Activists Detained in Petersburg at Picket Against Amendments to Constitution
Maksim Klyagin
Radio Svoboda
February 1, 2020

Our correspondent reports that several activists picketing against proposed amendments to the Russian Constitution have been detained on Senate Square in Petersburg.

Several people were detained without explanation. Police pointed at them, after which they were escorted to paddy wagons, one of which has left the scene.

According to OVD Info, the detainees include Vadim Kazak, Yevgeny Musin, and Marina Ken. Kazak was put in a paddy wagon for refusing to sign a warning about [violating] the rules for holding a public event. He has been taken to Police Precinct No. 77. Musin was detained for holding up a placard that read, “Say no to Putin’s amendments to the Constitution!”

con-2 Riot police detain picketer on Senate Square in Petersburg. Photo by Maksim Klyagin for RFE/RL

Our correspondent reports that police have also detained activist Alexander Tonkonogov, who was holding a handmade placard on an A4-sized sheet of paper. Yegor Stroyev has also been escorted to a paddy wagon.

One of the picketers, Vladimir Shipitsyn, was detained brutally by police.

“They’re carrying him by the arms and legs, they can’t lift him up. He hit his hand on the ground. They’ve put him on a bench,” our correspondent reported. An ambulance has been called for Shipitsyn, but it has not yet arrived. He has been loaded into a paddy wagon.

con-3

Riot police drag protester Vladimir Shipitsyn by the arms. Photo by Maksim Klyagin for RFE/RL

A total of eight activists were detained. The police stopped arresting people, and the riot squad soon left the scene. The picketers were standing in groups but had no placards.

Update, 3:39 p.m. MBKh Media has reported that activist Andrei Makashov was later detained on Nevsky Prospect. Although he had no placard, he had been among the picketers on Senate Square.

What Happened at the Rally Before the Arrests Began
Indefinite Protest, the movement which organized the rally, had labeled it a “people’s gathering” in defense of constitutional government. People took turns holding up placards and picketing. Around fifty people took part in the event. There were arrests at a similar picket on January 26.

“Even in a concentration camp, you can’t go too far. People rebelled in Stalin’s camps. But we’re not in a concentration camp, and you can’t do like things like that [with the Constitution]. I don’t think we’re active enough, because all those scoundrels and crook have a stranglehold over the country,” said Asan Mumji, one of the picketers.

“We have lived for a very long time in a country not governed by laws. First, there were the monarchs, then some bandits and general secretaries. The first attempt to make Russia a law-based country was in March 2017, when people wanted to create the Constituent Assembly. The second attempt was in the early nineties when the current Constitution was adopted. This doesn’t mean that I fully approve of it, but it works—it protects human rights and ensures the rule of law. It is completely wrong to destroy it, especially given the fact that we have had one man in power for twenty years. The state is not someone’s personal property, it belongs to everyone. It’s the managers who should be changed: they should not be allowed to get comfortable in their posts,” noted picketer Vladimir Shipitsyn.

One of the activists argued that there should be solid grounds for every amendment.

“But there have not been good arguments for any of them: they’re like surprise gifts. The only thing Putin cited was the growing public demand for radical reform. But, in fact, this was nothing other than demagoguery,” she said.

Vladimir Putin announced plans to amend the Russian Constitution during his address to the Federal Assembly on January 15. The president proposed giving the Russian Constitution precedence over international law and enshrining the status and role of the State Council, which Putin has revived. The opposition fears that Putin wants the constitution amended in this way so that when his current term as president runs out in 2024, he can head the State Council and thus remain in power.

Putin has appointed a working group of seventy-five people to draft amendments to the constitution. The group has already proposed one hundred changes to the country’s basic law. A law bill on amending the constitution was unanimously approved by the Russian State Duma in its first reading. The second reading has been scheduled for February 11, but it could be postponed to a later date.

According to a poll conducted by the Levada Center, forty-seven percent of Russians believe that the constitution is being amended to advance Putin’s interests by expanding his powers and allowing him to remain in power beyond 2024.

Thanks to Yevgenia Litvinova for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader