Dragnet (Yelena Gorban and Alexei Kobaidze)

Suspects in Vandalism Committed Outside of United Russia Office Sent to Temporary Detention Facility
OVD Info
February 14, 2018

Paddy wagon in which Gorban was taken away. Photo by Maxim Pashkov. Courtesy of OVD Info

Yelena Gorban and Alexei Kobaidze, suspects in the vandalism case (Russian Criminal Code Article 214) opened after a protest outside a United Russia party office on January 31, have been sent to Temporary Detention Facility No. 1 (Petrovka) in Moscow, as reported to OVD Info by their defense lawyers, Svetlana Sidorkina and Maxim Pashkov.

Gorban and Kobaidze have been jailed for 48 hours. On February 14, investigators plan to pursue their investigation, perhaps by confronting the detainees. According to the lawyers, Gorban has confessed to violating Article 214 Part 1 (vandalism) of the Criminal Code, while Kobaidze has refused to testify, invoking his right not to incriminate himself under Article 51 of the Russian Constitution.

Police arrived at Gorban’s home early in the morning. They searched the flat she shares with her parents, confiscated all electronic devices, and took the young woman to the Investigation Office of the Interior Ministry’s Moscow Directorate. Gorban has problems with her eyesight, but was not allowed to take contact lenses or eyeglases with here. The activist was delivered to the Investigation Office and interrogated as a witness. Her attorney, Svetlana Sidorkina, was not allowed to see her client for four hours. When Sidorkina was finally allowed to see Gorban, she had had decided to confess her guilt and testify.

The police came for Kobaidze in the evening. He refused to open the door, and the police were unable to enter his flat for a long time. Kobaidze’s neighbor Alexei Markov was apprehended by police and taken to the Novogireevo precinct, because he had returned home and refused to opened the door to the flat with his own key. He was then taken to the police station on the premise that he could be inebriated. After testing Markov, the police took him back to the flat and, after showing him a search warrant, opened the door with his key. After the search, Kobaidze was also taken to the Interior Ministry’s Investigation Department and interrogated as a suspect.

During the interrogations, police officers questioned Gorban and Kobaidze about an unauthorized march by Moscow anarchists on Myasnitskaya Street to protest the torture of anarchists and antifascists in Penza and Petersburg (see below).

Translated by the Russian Reader

••••••••••

I have previously posted the following translations of popular press articles on the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case and the FSB-led investigation of the April 2017 bombing in the Petersburg subway, which upon close examination seem eerily like carbon copies of each other.

How “Stability” Has Really Been Achieved in Russia

Viktor Filinkov. Photo courtesy of Filinkov’s wife and OVD Info

Petersburg Anarchist Viktor Filinkov, Arrested in Terrorism Case, Says He Was Tortured
Mediazona
January 26, 2018

Antifascist Viktor Filinkov, arrested for alleged involvement in a terrorist network, has told members of the Public Monitoring Commission (PMC) he was tortured, according to the PMC’s report, which Mediazona has in its possession.

According to the PMC report, injuries “inflicted in the last two or three days” were discovered on Filinkov’s body, including numerous traces of burns from an electric shocker all over his right thigh, a hematoma on his right ankle, and burns from an electric shocker on his thorax.

Filinkov explained he suffered the injuries on January 24 in the car in which he was put by FSB officers after he was detained at Pulkovo Airport in Petersburg. The activist was then taken to the local Interior Ministry headquarters, and from there to a hospital. Filinkov was then driven into woodlands and held in the car for five hours.

FSB officers were seated in the front of the car, according to Filinkov. The middle row of seats was occupied by a man wearing a mask, while Filinkov and another man wearing a mask sat in the back of the vehicle. The injuries were inflicted between seven and eight o’clock in the morning.

According to the PMC’s report, “The FSB officers demanded that Filinkov confess, and having obtained his consent, they forced him to memorize the particular wording [of his confession].”

The masked men said very little, while the FSB officers threatened Filinkov that if he subsequently reneged on the confession, the beating they had given him would be a “light version” of the beating he would get later.

Afterwards, Filinkov signed a statement, addressed to the local Interior Ministry headquarters and the local FSB headquarters, in which he informed them of all the things he had been prompted to say. The FSB officers then demanded he not deny the statement in court, threatening to place him in a pretrial detention center with tuberculosis patients.

The only things the masked men said were “Stop twitching!” and “What you shouting for?”

Filinkov was transferred to another car in the woodlands, a Lada Priora, and taken to the local Interior Ministry headquarters. According to Filinkov, the masked men seemed to know their way around the building, as if they had been there many times. They also discussed the fact they should keep their faces hidden because of the security cameras in the building.

The PMC’s report notes that the men wiped the blood off Filinkov’s face with his own hat and with snow, and traces of bood were left on the hat. The leftist activist was also told that if he behaved badly, the FSB would “get to” his wife “even in Kyiv.”

On January 24, Filinkov’s wife told OVD Info her husband had disappeared on his way to Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport. The antifascist was scheduled to fly to Kyiv at eight o’clock in the evening on January 23. The last time they communicated that day was three o’clock in the afternoon, when Filinkov texted his wife that he was headed to the airport and would text her again after he arrived there.

On January 25, it transpired that the Dzerzhinsky District Court in Petersburg had remanded Filinkov to police custody for two months on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist network (per Article 205.4 Part 2 of the Russian Criminal Code). According to police investigators, Filinikov and unidentified persons who “supported the anarchist ideology” were branch members of a terrorist network whose purpose was to engage in terrorist activities, propaganda, and justification of terrorism.

Today, the wife of another Petersburg antifascist, Igor Shishkin, reported he was missing. Shishkin went missing after his home was searched and he was taken away by law enforcement officers.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Diana Rudakova: Seven Days in Jail for Supporting the Wrong Candidate

intro_diana 1
Diana Rudakova

Diana Rudakova, Navalny’s Tambov Campaign Coordinator, after Seven Days in Jail: “I Wasn’t Afraid and Did My Best”
Yekaterina Ivanova
7X7
November 13, 2017

Diana Rudakova, Alexei Navalny’s campaign manager in Tambov, was released on November 8 after spending seven days in the police special detention center. Rudakov was detained on November 1 after holding a well-attended rally, featuring Navalny, on October 29. 7X7‘s correspondent caught up with Rudakova and found out what her court hearing was like, what violations she was accused of, and why she went on hunger strike at the detention center.

Diana, let’s start with the background. Tell us how Tambov got ready for the meeting with Navalny this time round. As far as I know, you again had problems with the venue and contractors.

Our preparations were long and thorough. We distributed over eight thousand invitations to the meeting with Alexei. We looked for contractors and equipment. It was quite complicated, of course: people are afraid to work with us, afraid of pressure from the mayor’s office. So we looked for contractors in neighboring towns, but even that doesn’t guarantee you will get a stage and sound equipment. For example, our contractor from Ryazan turned around at one in the morning when he was halfway to Tambov. He said they had put the squeeze on him. He couldn’t work with us even though it meant he didn’t work at all that day. So we found another contractor in the middle of the night. On the day of the meeting with Alexei, we noticed all the roads around the shopping center [the meeting took place at the Bashnya Shopping Center on the outskirts of Tambov] had been blocked. We immediately made up our minds that the stage could not be transported to the venue, so we were ready to physically drag it there.

Plus, there were the sudden KVN [Club of the Funny and Inventive] performances, meant to distract young people and compete against the meeting with Navalny?

We didn’t even bother with the KVN command performances. They were trifling compared to the problems we had to solve on the eve of the meeting. But the meeting took place. It had to take place. Navalny met with supporters in a field. He spoke standing atop a speaker case and a small table. So, the simplest recipe for a successful meeting is Alexei and a group of people.

How many people showed up? How many people did you count on?

I was really happy with how the meeting turned out. I had expected half as many people to show up. We got a quite accurate count of the attendees, because we had handed out invitations, keeping the stubs for ourselves. We also counted the number of people who signed up on our mobile app. We handed out tickets to 1,243 people, and 1,291 people signed up on the mobile app. So the real number was somewhere in the middle. Plus, lots of people stood outside the fence: they didn’t come in, because it was closer to the stage. This was about two or three hundred people. So, all in all, there were about 1,500 people. This makes it, of course, the largest such event in Tambov history, not counting United Russia “rallies,” where people were forced to attend.

Tell me all about your arrest. How did it happen? What were the charges? Why did they send you to jail?

Literally the day after the meeting, I came to work and saw policemen in our campaign headquarters. What was surprising was they had decided to arrest me for a solo picket I had held on October 7. Apparently, they had already written up the charge sheet and were holding onto the case file like a trump card, which they could pull out when it suited them and punish me. After detaining me at the office, they took me straight to the Soviet District Court. If a Navalny campaign volunteer is tried in the Soviet District Court, there’s a 100% likelihood of jail time. As we were approaching the court building, but hadn’t yet entered it, the policemen were already figuring out how they would drive me to the special detention center. I asked one of them to pretend to be lawful at least and wait until after the hearing. “Diana Borisovna,” he replied, “you’re an intelligent woman, and you know things work.”

You wrote on Facebook that the hearing was a pure formality.

The hearing lasted between ten and twelve minutes. The judge came into the courtroom with a pre-prepared ruling and commenced to read it out. He didn’t let my lawyer or me make a final statement. So I was sentenced to seven days in jail. I’m certain that the punishment had to do with the regime’s need to make an example of me to others. Because the authorities have stopped authorizing meetings with Navalny altogether. Holding meetings on private premises would have been a way out of this impasse. After our successful meeting, the federal campaign headquarters decided to focus on this format.

What prompted you to go on hunger strike?

After I found that my deputy coordinators and campaign office volunteers had been detained and sentenced to jail, I realized things could not go on this way and I went on hunger strike. [Leonid Yarygin was sentenced to 25 days in jail; Igor Slivin, to 20 days in jail and a fine of 300,000 rubles; and Margarita Zaitseva, to 5 days in jail.]

When you were in the detention center could you receive information from the outside? Did you know that many people tried to support you emotionally, that they handed out leaflets and circulated petitions?

A huge thanks to the folks and reporters, my friends and comrades who helped me on the outside by signing petitions, writing letters, reaching out to the independent media, and publicizing what happened to our campaign staff. After I went on hunger strike, a policeman immediately (ten minutes later) came to the detention center to write me up for violating Article 19.3 of the Russian Federal Administrative Code (“Disobeying a police officer’s lawful request”), because the day before I had refused to be fingerprinted and photographed, as was my right under the law. The next day, the policeman came again to write me up for something else. The deputy prosecutor and the prosecutor, all kinds of ombudsmen and overseers kept coming and going. A doctor constantly came to see me. Not a day went by when there wasn’t someone burning with the desire to talk to me about my hunger strike. So, if I hadn’t done it, my time in jail probably wouldn’t have been so rich.

Of course, I knew many of my friends and comrades on the outside were doing a lot to publicize the nasty things that happened to our campaign staff. If it hadn’t been for them, everything would have turned out differently. If it hadn’t been for them, I probably wouldn’t have made it out of the detention center, but would have immediately been dispatched to another court, where I would have been sentenced to another stint in jail.

I simply cannot thank people enough. A huge thanks to the campaign office volunteers who kept our office running, welcomed visitors, collected signatures on petitions, and plastered the entire city with leaflets defending Leonid, Igor, and me. They held solo pickets. When I was released and I was able to see all this, I was really touched. It’s quite hard to get information in the detention center, because you’re issued a mobile phone once a day for fifteen minutes and only to make calls.

How are things in the Tambov campaign headquarters now? What are your plans for the near future? Are you ready to throw in the towel after what has happened? You’re a young woman, after all, but now you’ve been arrested and spent time in a detention center.

Now we simply have to do what we need to do. I’m guided by the famous proverb, “Do what you must, and come what may.” I’m doing my best so that in the future, however it turns out, I can say I did everything I could, whether Russia becomes free or, on the contrary, remains unfree. In either case, I won’t have to be ashamed I was afraid. I wasn’t afraid and I did my best.

Diana Rudakova is 25 years old. She graduated from the architecture and construction program at Tambov Technical University in 2015. Her graduation project won third place in the Russian Nationwide Landscape Architecture Competition, which took place in Moscow at the Central House of Architects.

In 2012, Rudakova was co-organizer of a campaign opposing the merger of Tambov’s two universities, Tambov State and Tambov Technical, a campaign in which over 1,200 students were involved. From 2015 to 2017, Rudakova worked as a landscape designer in the Tambov Municipal Amenities and Landscaping Department while also being involved in the historical preservation movement. Since May 26, 2017, Rudakov has run Alexei Navalny’s campaign headquarters in Tambov.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Photo courtesy of 7X7 and Diana Rudakova

Court Extends Yuri Dmitriev’s Arrest

dmitrievyuri-semnasem — Russian political prisoner Yuri Dmitriev

Court Extends Yuri Dmitriev’s Arrest to Late January
Chernika
October 12, 2017

Yuri Dmitriev, head of the Karelian branch of Memorial, will remain in police custody until next year. Judge Marina Nosova made this ruling on October 11 as part of the criminal case against the famous historian and researcher of the Stalinist Terror, who has been charged with producing pornography featuring his foster daughter. The prosecution had petitioned the court to extend Dmitriev’s arrest for three months. The defense, however, plans to appeal Judge Nosova’s ruling in the Karelia Supreme Court.

Judge Nosova also rejected an appeal made by Dmitriev’s defense counsel to disqualify the forensic experts who have been evaluating the photographs of Dmitriev’s foster daughter, which are the main evidence in the criminal case. As Chernika reported earlier, the previous findings, reached by analysts from the Center for Sociocultural Expertise, who concluded the snapshots were pornographic, were smashed to smithereens by Dr. Lev Shcheglov, president of the National Institute of Sexology, who drew the attention of both the court and the public to the fact that the forensic experts in the Dmitriev case were not professionals, but an art historian, a maths teacher, and a pediatrician. Consequently, the court ordered a new forensic examination from the so-called Federal Department of Independent Forensic Expertise, based in Petersburg. It has transpired, however, that this “department” is an ordinary firm, founded with the minimal amount of charter capital.

Moreover, Novaya Gazeta v Sankt-Peterburge has claimed the pompously named firm is registered in a flat on Srednayaya Podyacheskaya Street in Petersburg. The firm was recommended to the court by Petrozavodsk prosecutor Yelena Askerova.

_____________________________________________________

Yuri Dmitriev, head of the Karelian branch of Memorial, was jailed late last year. He has pleaded not guilty, calling the case against him a “set-up.”
According to Dmitriev’s defense attorney Viktor Anufriev, the photographs found on the historian’s computer, which are essentially the main evidence against him, are not pornographic, but a record of the child’s health. Anufriev also claims that shortly before Dmitriev’s arrest someone broke into his flat and turned on his computer. Subsequently, an anonymous complaint against Dmitriev was filed with the prosecutor’s office, and Dmitriev was detained soon thereafter.
Many famous politicians, writers, actors, filmmakers, and musicians have voiced their support for Dmitriev, including Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Vladimir Voinovich, Dmitry Bykov, Andrei Zvyagintsev, Venyamin Smekhov, and Boris Grebenshchikov.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Photo courtesy of 7X7/Barents Observer.

Read my previous posts on the Dmitriev case:

They Jump on Anything That Moves, Part 2: The Arrest of Dmitry Trubitsyn

Alyona Rydannykh
Facebook
June 9, 2017

The Trial and the 1990s have arrived in Akademgorodok. It’s awful and dishonest and scary. All of Akademgorodok, including the polite employees at the courthouse, are on the side of common sense and Dima’s side. Everyone knows everyone else in our town, and if people in a place like that say someone has a perfect reputation, they really mean perfect.

How awful.

Mikhail Amelkin
Facebook
June 9, 2017

The police searched Tion yesterday. They detained Dima Trubitsyn, the company’s founder and inspiration.

This is a continuation of the hullabaloo over registering medical equipment. All the recommendations were implemented, but now the case has shifted to different plane, and Dima is personally at risk.

I’ve known Dima since school. He’s a fine honest man with a crystal clean reputation. He has done a lot not only for the company’s employees but also for education, for schoolchildren and university students, for the consumers of our products, and for the economy as a whole. He has always said he would prove it was possible and necessary to run a successful tech company in Russia, to support the country and the economy with actions, not words. He has never been involved in politics, believing one shouldn’t whinge and complain, but get up and do it.

I realize the law enforcement agencies play the game by their own rules. Professional lawyers are now working on the defense. I would be flummoxed if Dima were remanded into police custody during the investigation. From my point of view, that would be overdoing it. Dima is not a villain: I believe that with all my heart. Jail is too severe a measure of restraint for such an honest man, a man willing to prove his case with his visor open and standing up straight.

How can you help? By reposting this message and voicing your support for Dima in the comments to the repost. Tell us about Dima as you know him. Show that you care, that you are concerned about the situation and are keeping an eye on it.

What WON’T help is screaming, chewing out the authorities, and guessing and surmising why what happened has happened. I would ask you not to do this out of respect for Dima, who never engaged in such jawboning himself.

What is it stake is not the company, but a specific man’s life, a man who has not wronged anyone. I just ask you to support him on the personal level. He’s a good man. He’s never lived for himself, and, even as he has been locked up in the pretrial detention facility, he has been planning to make the world a better place.

Tion Smart Microclimate
Faceboook
June 9, 2017

We wish to inform you that on June 8, Tion’s offices in Novosibirsk, Berdsk, and Moscow were searched by law enforcement in connection with a case involving the sale of medical products that, allegedly, do not meet safety requirements.

Tion works in strict compliance with the laws of the Russian Federation. We regard the present circumstances as unjustified pressure on a transparent, law-abiding company, since all the equipment we sell has the necessary permits.

The current grievances are rooted in the past, when there were inaccuracies in registration certificates due to imperfections in legislation. The inaccuracies were corrected on a routine basis and in close cooperation with the relevant government agencies. The selectivity of the investigative bodies raises obvious suspicions that this is a deliberate campaign against a market leader.

The decision to take the company’s director general into police custody is unjustified and aimed at hindering the company’s work. Such actions were typical in the 1990s.

Nevertheless, it is business as usual at Tion. We have been fulfilling our obligations to our employees, contractors, and clients. The company’s non-medical businesses have not be affected.

We will defend our position in accordance with established procedure and are confident of success.

Ilya Beterov
Facebook
June 10, 2017

Briefly about Dima for those who don’t know about him and the whole situation. We studied at university together. Then he went into business, and I stayed in science and became a lecturer. Our paths almost never crossed for several years. Then I started taking my students to see his company, to show them a beautiful, modern production facility, built from scratch by an ordinary man. Basically, it was a paradigm of success in the innovative economy, which was all the rage back then. The atmosphere of enthusiasm, youth, and dynamism was also impressive. Later, more and more new educational projects sprang up around Dima, and the company built its own lab for researching aerosols, expanded its ties with the physics department, and established a foundation for supporting students at physics and maths magnet schools. Accordingly, Dima has a rare reputation in our day and age, and because of it I am taking his side without knowing all the particulars of the present case. He and I diverged in terms of political views. I believed that doing business in Russia without protection from the criminal world or the authorities was madness, but Dima was an optimist. Actually, this optimism has two sides. On the one hand, a production facility like that would have been impossible without it. On the other hand, I can easily imagine the carelessness with paperwork that is common in Russia did not bypass the company and served as the peg on which to hang the present case. At the same time, I’m confident Dima was never involved in falsifying descriptions of equipment. Despite my thoroughgoing skepticism, I didn’t anticipate he would be the first of us to come under attack. I learned about the attack against him a year ago, and I believe it is coming from fairly serious criminal and oligarchic organizations. The name and surname of the person who ordered the attack can be easily found. But then a simple question arises. Maybe we should stop hypocritically arguing that Russia needs a competitive economy, technological clusters, innovation, financing from the business world, and other nonsense? There are people with influence. If the production of something has to be set up, give them the assignment, and they will hire specialists and get the job done. But the chatter about innovation and competitiveness has to be stopped once and for all.

Novosibirsk Entrepreneur Detained over Bacteria
RBC
June 9, 2017

The head of one of the oldest residents of Akademgorodok Technopark, Aeroservis LLC’s Dmitry Trubitsyn, has been detained by investigating authorities over charges he sold defective air purifiers.

According to police investigators, Aeroservis (Tion Group of Companies) received permission in 2011 to manufacture the TION-A and TION-V air purifiers, which eliminate bacteria and viruses.

Later, investigators claim that Trubitsyn “had the idea of producing and selling the air purifiers in violation of established standards in order to reduce production costs and maximize profits from their sale.”

They allege that the suspect built and sold air purifiers lacking the necessary components for air purification.

“As a result, during the specified period, the rigged equipment was delivered to clinics in over one hundred cities and towns in Russia. Yet the proceeds from the sale of each air purifier ranged from 45,000 to 98,000 rubles,” the investigators write in their statement to the press.

Tion has said it regards the situation as “unjustified pressure on a transparent, law-abiding company, since all the equipment we sell has the necessary permits.”

According to the company, the charges made by the investigative authorities have to do with the past, “when there were inaccuracies in registration certificates due to imperfections in legislation.”

They say the inaccuracies were corrected when they were brought to light, but “the selectivity of the investigative bodies raises obvious suspicions this is a deliberate campaign against a market leader.”

“The decision to take the company’s director general into police custody is unjustified and aimed at hindering the company’s work. Such actions were typical in the 1990s.”

The company likewise said it was conducting business as usual.

Charges have been filed under Article 238.1, Part 2, Paragraph a, of the Russian Federal Criminal Code: the production and sale of unregistered medical devices on a large scale. The crime is punishable by a prison sentence of five to eight years and a fine of one million to three million rubles.

Dmitry Trubitsyn, a 35-year-old Novosibirsk entrepreneur, founded the Tion Group of Companies.

Founded in Novosibirsk, Tion designs, produces, and sells modern air purifiers. Production takes place at the Berdsk Electromechanical Plant and in China, while design is done at the Akademgorodok Technopark.

Alexei Okunev
Facebook
June 9, 2017

The company that custom-ordered the criminal investigation, Potok (“Stream) does not use “UV, ozone, HEPA filters, and photocatalysis” in its air purifiers. They don’t even use “chemical substances.” This is called “space-age technology” and will be delivered to hospitals and maternity hospitals.

Oksana Trubitsyna
Facebook
June 11, 2017

Friends, thank you so much for your support.

The criminal case against Dmitry Trubitsyn and the police searches at the company are unprecedented coercion against a successful, law-abiding business.

Unfortunately, it is not only we who are under attack but also the very possibility of establishing successful tech companies in Russia. This cannot be tolerated.

Tion is a transparent company. Tion’s equipment is effective and safe. Dmitry Trubitsyn has not broken the law.

We will prove it in court.

We are not entirely certain of the reasons for what has been happening to us. We assume the law enforcement agencies are being used as a tool by competitors. Alas, market competition in Russia can assume such ugly shapes.

What is happening now with Tion?
– Dmitry Trubitsyn and his lawyers are deciding what steps to take next to defend themselves.
– We have appealed to the ombudsman for the defense of entrepreneurs’ rights.
– Tion’s management seeks to ensure the company’s smooth operation. After the weekend, everyone will come to work and keep working on projects.
– Tion has been closely interacting with the media. We are preparing answers to the flood of negativity that has washed over us and defending our reputation.

What can you do?
– Pass all your ideas, thoughts, and useful contacts on to the Tion employees you know. We will review everything and contact you if necessary.
– Write a letter to the President of the Russian Federation via the official website letters.kremlin.ru. Unlike the well-known website Change.org, the Kremlin is required by law to reply to your letters. A large number of letters could raise the issue to the very highest level.

What can do harm to the cause?
– Uncoordinated communication with the media and, especially, with television can misshape perceptions of the situation badly. It will be harder and harder for us to fight back.
– Involving various politicians and public figures. The situation facing Tion is a matter of (harsh and unacceptable) relations within the market. Interacting with political forces automatically strips us of part of our support and forces us to deal with irrelevant issues. It will complicate our lives.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the accusations against Tion?

Law enforcement is attempting to accuse us of manufacturing low-quality medical equipment by citing the outcomes of a study allegedly done by one of Rosdravnadzor’s expert review centers. [Rozdravnadzor is the Russian Federal Service for the Oversight of Public Health and Social Development—TRR.] The substantive part of the expert review is lacking: technical tests were not conducted by any experts.

Special attention should be paid to the fact we were able to receive the findings of the “expert review” only two months after our competitors had been using them with a vengeance.

Is it true that Tion’s products are dangerous to your health?

Our products are safe, as confirmed by dozens of independent examinations. Many of these examinations can be be easily accessed on our official website.

Why, then, have investigators concluded your equipment is dangerous?

Conclusions on the danger of using the equipment are based on a mismatch between the mass of the air purifier, as indicated in the instruction manual, and the mass, as indicated in the registration file.

The accusation is without substance. It is bureaucratic and very far from the truth.

Is it true that Tion’s products were initially equipped with photocatalytic filters, but at some point the company stopped using them?

Yes, it is true. Photocatalytic filters facilitate the removal of molecular pollutants (i.e., those in a gaseous state, unlike dust and microorganisms). In Tion’s products, this function is still performed by a catalytic adsorption filter, which handles molecular pollutants just as well as photocatalytic filters.

Is it true that Tion got rid of the photocatalytic filter covertly?

No, it’s not true. Tion’s website describes its air purification technology in detail. It doesn’t involve photocatalysis.

Police investigators claim that, after the photocatalytic filters were removed, Tion’s products ceased to eliminate viruses and bacteria. Is this true?

No, it’s not true. Viruses and bacteria are eliminated by HEPA filtration. Moreover, the captured microorganisms are additionally deactivated by ozone, which is subsequently destroyed by the catalytic adsorption filter.

Tion’s photocatalytic filter-less products passed all the necessary certifications and were registered for medical use. Roszdravnadzor had no complaints.

Moreover, certain competitors never used photocatalysis in their equipment, which in no way kept them from obtaining permits.

Is it true that Tion specifically removed the photocatalytic filter in order to save money and increase its profits?

Yes, it’s true, and it’s a good thing. Only perverted logic can lead one to the conclusions which police investigators have reached.

Photocatalytic filters are not obligatory for effective purification. Tion’s design makes it possible to achieve the necessary level of decontamination without resorting to photocatalysis, which has been proven by multiple independent studies.

Business should make a profit. Reducing costs is an absolutely legal and reasonable means of increasing profits. Introducing new, more effective, and cheaper technologies is one way to reduce costs without reducing the quality of products. Designing, popularizing, and making new, more efficient technologies cheaper is the Tion way.

Tion’s profits are spent on designing new products and on charity and social projects that you all know about. This is not to mention the fact we pay taxes and salaries.

Is it true that Tion founder Dmitry Trubitsyn made a front man director instead of him?

No, it is not true. As the company grew and new investors came on board, its structure became more complicated. At the moment of his arrest, Dmitry Trubitsyn was the director general of Tion Holding Company JSC, to which the other legal entities in the Tion Group of Companies belong as subsidiaries, for example, Aeroservis LLC, which is the subject of the criminal investigation.

_____________________________

A huge thanks to Alyonna Rydannykh for the heads-up and supplying me with all the Facebook posts and articles used in this collage reportage. Translated by the Russian Reader. This is latest in an occasional series of posts on the regime’s apparent hostility toward medium and small businesses and traders. You can read the previous post in the series here. TRR

Maria Eismont: The Dmitriev Case Is the Most Important Thing Happening in Russia Right Now

1482844382 — Yuri Dmitriev. Photo courtesy of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group

The Yuri Dmitriev Case
The Accused Should Be Nominated for a State Prize
Maria Eismont
Vedomosti
June 8, 2017

“A person cannot disappear without a trace. People differ from butterflies in the sense that people have memory,” the man with long grey hair and long grey beard said onscreen.

The presentation of books of remembrance for those shot during the Great Terror in Karelia packed the screening room at the Gulag History Museum in Moscow: people even sat on the stairways. The editor of the books, Karelian historian and search specialist Yuri Dmitriev, from Memorial, was the man talking onscreen. He has spent the last six months in a pretrial detention center, absurdly charged with the crime of producing pornography.

Dmitriev sent his greetings and gratitude from prison, not so much for the kind words said about him, as for acknowledgement of his life’s work. Memorial’s historians all concur it is unique. No other region in Russia has such a complete compendium of the names of those who were shot as Karelia does. As his colleagues argue, Dmitriev succeeded in turning the figures of those who perished during the Great Terror into memorial lists complete with names, biographies, and burial sites.

The speakers occasionally slipped into the past tense, but immediately corrected themselves. Dmitriev is still alive, and we must believe he will soon be released, find the execution site of the other two Solovki “quotas” [political prisoners at the Solovki concentration camp who were transported to three different sites outside the camp in 1937–1938 to be shot and buried in secret—TRR], and present the next book of remembrance. This powerlessness, these slips of the tongue, and the trembling voices fully convey the horror of a time when the days when people were shot are long past but people still fall victim to political repression.

The Yuri Dmitriev case is, perhaps, the most important thing happening in Russia right now, first of all, because a patriot who for decades had, bit by bit, resurrected thousands of names of this country’s citizens from official oblivion, citizens murdered cruelly and senselessly in the state’s name, has himself been subjected to persecution. “The introduction to the list of terror victims will be brief: may they live in our memories forever,” writes Dmitriev in the foreword to one of his compendiums, The Motherland Remembers Them, a book in which the names are listed not in alphabetical order, but under the names of the villages where the victims lived before their arrests. “The moral of the story is also brief: remember! As is my advice: take care of each other.” Now there is a Russian national idea for you. The author of these books of remembrance should be nominated for a state prize and a government grant to keep on with his work.

There is another important thing about the Dmitriev case: the charge his persecutors chose for him. He was not charged with “extremism” or “separatism,” which have been commonplace in politically motivated cases, but with child pornography and depraved actions towards a minor. The charges not only guarantee a long sentence and promise the accused problems in prison but also challenge the public to support him. “What if something really did happen?” Dmitriev’s friends and relatives acknowledge that while those who doubt Dmitriev or are willing to countenance the charges are an overwhelming minority, such people do exist, and some of them are “decent” people.

The number of “pedophilia” cases, based on controversial, contradictory, clearly flimsy evidence and flagrantly unprofessional forensic examinations, has been growing for several years. Recently, I attended a similar event in Naro-Fominsk, seventy kilometers southwest of Moscow. It was also a memorial evening for a living person who had been incarcerated on charges of depravity against a child, actions the man could not have committed, according to witnesses who were nearby when the crime was alleged to have occurred. Dozens of people had come to remember what a good male nurse Zhenya had been. Then they corrected themselves: not had been, but is and will continue to be. Then they cried.

“Pedophilia” cases have long been custom-ordered to rid oneself of rivals and used to pad police conviction statistics, but now they have been put to use in political cases.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Comrade Koganzon for the heads-up

The Extremist Schoolboy from Perm Territory

"Extremism is no joke, even virtual extremism. You can easily go down for it, and get a harsh sentece. Russian Federal Criminal Code, Articles 282 and 280." Public service billboard, Lesnoy Prospekt, Petersburg, August 7, 2016. Photo by the Russian Reader — “Extremism is no joke, even virtual extremism. You can easily go down for it, and get a harsh sentece. Russian Federal Criminal Code, Articles 282 and 280.” Public service billboard, Lesnoy Prospekt, Petersburg, August 7, 2016. Photo by the Russian Reader

FSB Detains Schoolboy on Extremism Charges in Perm Territory
OVD Info
December 19, 2016

16-year-old Mark R. was detained by FSB officers right in the middle of classes in the village of Uralsky, located in Perm Territory’s Nytva District. The teenager has been charged with calling for extremist actions (Criminal Code 280.2). The local news agency Periskop reported the incident, citing its own sources.

The schoolboy was interrogated at the regional FSB office. Mark has now been released on his recognizance and is attending school.

The charges were filed in connection with a entry made last spring on the social network Vkontakte. During a discussion with Christian friends, the schoolboy had written to them that “churches should be burned down.” Experts from the Interior Ministry office for the Republic of Udmurtia conducted a linguistic forensic examination and concluded the “statement was hortatory in nature and encouraged hostile action.”

Translated by the Russian Reader

Polite Farmers Are Dangerous Farmers

Court Orders Arrest of Tractor Convoy Organizer and Participants
Lenta.ru
August 28, 2016

Alexei Volchenko, leader of the Polite Farmers movement. Photo courtesy of Nikita Tatarsky (RFE/RL)

The Kavkazsky District Court in Krasnodar Territory has ordered the jailing of Alexei Volchenko, leader of the Polite Farmers movement, and eleven other participants of a planned tractor convoy to Moscow. Quoting Olga Golubyatnikova, a member of the Krasnodar Territory Public Oversight Committee, the news website Caucasian Knot reported the arrests on Sunday, August 28.

Volchenko will spend ten days in jail for not authorizing the convoy with Krasnodar Territory authorities. The other farmers will spend between five and ten days in jail. According to Golubyatnikova, the leader of the Polite Farmers admitted his guilt “due to pressure from the police.” According to her, Volchenko said at his court hearing that a policeman had threatened to charge him with extremism.

Golubyatnikov also reported that Volchenko would be serving his administrative arrest in the Ust-Labinsk detention center.

On August 25, the Askay District Court in Rostov Region ordered three of the participants in the tractor convoy jailed for ten days and fined eleven others, ruling their actions an organized political rally. The farmers themselves claimed they had not organized a political rally but had simply been attending a meeting with Leonid Belyak, deputy presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, and Andrei Korobka, deputy governor of Krasnodar Territory.

On August 24, the Rostov Regional Prosecutor’s Office organized an inquiry into the legality of the farmers’ protest.

The Krasnodar farmers’s convoy set off on August 21. Fifty people in seventeen tractors and several passenger vehicles left the village of Kazanskaya in Krasnodar Territory’s Kavkazsky District and headed towards Moscow. They had planned to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to solve the problem of the courts, which, in their view, issued unjust rulings [sic]. On August 22, the activists were invited to meet with Kuban authorities and temporarily halted the procession. On August 23, they were detained by police officers.

Translated by the Russian Reader

See my previous dispatches on the ill-fated Krasnodar tractor convoy:

“Krasnodar Farmers Head to Moscow in Tractor Protest Convoy,” August 22, 2016
“Tractor Pull: Police Block Farmers’ Protest Convoy to Moscow,” August 23, 2016

Alexander (Winter of the Patriarch)

Masha [Alyokhina]
Facebook
May 29, 2016

A month ago, an acquaintance invited me to his house.

“I want to tell you a story,” he wrote.

We met. We left the kitchen, where there were a lot of people, and went to an empty room. He stood by the window and told his story.

“Recently, I met a guy at this party. We had some drinks, and he tells me he used to work in the security organs. So, in February 2012, they were called to an emergency meeting. Meetings like this are rare thing. They have them when there is a terrorist attack or something like that. So they called them to the meeting and said that some girls had danced in a church, and the patriarch was furious and had rung up Kolokoltsev, who was then the [Moscow Police Commissioner], and demanded to find them.”

To find us.

“‘And I found the blonde,’ he told me.”

“‘Alyokhina?’”

“‘Yeah. When I realized it was her, that it was her IP address, I thought for a moment about what to do next.’”

“‘Did you know she had a kid?’”

“‘I knew. But I did my job.’”

“And then he tells me,” my acquaintance went on, “that during the trial, they got them together and showed them a special speech that the patriarch had videotaped for them in gratitude. Like, you guys are doing important work.”

“How did he decide to resign?” I asked.

“That was how he decided to resign,” my acquaintance replied.

“Does he have a name?” I asked.

“Yes. It’s Alexander.”

That was the story.

Translated by the Russian Reader

The Most Educated Nation on Earth

Natalia Sharina, librarian and “extremist”

Only pure Nazi scumbags arrest librarians. I say this as someone who worked for four years in a public library. I cannot imagine anyone ever arresting our librarians at a big public library in the Pacific Northwest for any reason related to their professional duties.

This should be yet another signal to Russians (“the most educated nation on earth”) to get off their self-satisfied butts and send the current regime down the drain, but they really, really like the freedom from responsibility that “life under dictatorship” gives them, so this story will be another source for sustained yawning here (if even that), like nearly everything else that has happened since Putin was triumphantly “elected” to a third term, including the recent abduction, murder, and gutting (“autopsy”) of a 18-month-old Tajik baby by Petersburg police and medics, who will all be getting off scot free for their hideous crimes, because they are normal “white” people, not “black asses.”

In response, I am expecting another vigorous round of whataboutism from many of my “progressive” Russian and Russianist (i.e., for all intents and purposes, Putinist) friends. They will be furiously searching for stories about the horrors of life in “enemy” countries like the US and Finland or wherever.

(Or Norway, Sweden and Denmark: for “progressive” Russian patriots, the Scandinavian countries are a special imaginary hell on earth they have to keep picking at rhetorically like a scab they do not want to heal ever. Search me why this is the case. Maybe it has something to do with the terrible “betrayal” to the international communist cause represented by social democracy, but look where we are now, my communist comrades!)

But no sensible leftist, liberal, hip contemporary art curator or just plain person on earth is going to keep buying this Russian “progressive” political song and dance at this mind-numbing rate of total societal breakdown. People who do not want to deal AT ALL with their own homegrown Nazi scumbags have no right to comment on the political affairs of other countries or hop around the globe preaching the evils of capitalism and “neoliberalism.”

A librarian. Unbelievable.

Photo courtesy of Rushincrash