Protests in Belgrade by the Association of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Serbs against the war (O.Hoffman/Shutterstock)
Ilya, a student at the Federal University of Kazan (Russia), after demonstrating several times against the war in Ukraine so as not to be arrested again, flees and arrives in Serbia, where he continued to demonstrate against the war. The testimony, collected in Belgrade by Chicco Elia
(Originally posted by Q Code Magazine on February 24, 2023)
On February 24, 2022, my roommate at Kazan Federal University in Russia, where I was studying, woke me up with the words: “The war has begun”. I was 18 then.
I was overwhelmed by emotions: horror, anger, rage. Naturally I started thinking about how to deal with the war and Putin. I ran to the nearest store and bought paper and paints. Back in the student dormitory, I drew three anti-war posters and posted them on the balconies of the building so that people coming from the street could see them.
I wrote about my action on student blogs, then went to the center of Kazan, with the “No to war” manifesto. As I stood there freezing on the street, my roommate called me and told me that the police and university administration had spotted me with their cameras.
Everything happened quickly, apparently the administration did not like the fact that I carried out my anti-war action in the student dormitory and also wrote about it. At that moment I didn’t worry much about future problems, in the knowledge that the war, very real, had begun. In the evening of the same day there was a demonstration against the invasion of Ukraine. A large number of policemen pushed back the protesters. My friend has been arrested. The demonstration was spontaneous, I discovered it by chance, while participating in the political life of my country. Due to bad organization, shock and fear, there weren’t many demonstrators on the street, only a few hundred.
I returned to the dorm late at night. My neighbors were depressed, some openly expressing their support for my action against the war. It’s been two days of endless viewing of war footage. I vaguely remember going to university in those days, my head was elsewhere.
On February 27, I again participated in anti-war actions. First I attended an event in memory of Boris Nemtsov, the assassinated Russian opposition politician who had organized demonstrations against the war with Ukraine in 2014. At this event I laid flowers at the monument to political repression in Kazan . I was stopped by the police, but after taking note of my passport details, they let me go.
I went to the anti-war demonstration. When I arrived at the square where the demonstration was supposed to take place, the police stopped the last remaining participants. I walked out with a flag and placard in front of the crowd of policemen. I was immediately arrested and taken to a police van.
I felt comfortable in the van – there was a friendly atmosphere among the protesters, everyone was trying to support each other.
We were taken to the police station. I waited in the van for 6 hours until they took me to a cell. They took my fingerprints and photographed me in the round and in profile: I felt like a gangster from a TV show.
I was interrogated by a policeman, but they didn’t hurt me.
After the interrogation they took me back to my cell, but they didn’t leave me alone for long. They took me out of the cell, handcuffed me and took me to another police station in a van with flashing lights. In the initial police station, there was no place to sleep.
There wasn’t enough room for everyone, so I spent the night in the administrative inmate cell on a narrow wooden bench with no sheets. I didn’t get much sleep: the cops were always around, I could hear the news on the television.
The next morning they took me to court. They handcuffed me again, like the other inmates. The courthouse was full of people – all the protesters were tried at the same time and that’s why I waited 8 hours for the court order. I was fined 5,000 rubles and I was released.
They gave me back my phone, backpack and shoelaces – they take the laces off prisoners to prevent them from hanging themselves.
My classmates discussed my detention, the war and Putin animatedly: everyone seemed to support me and show solidarity. In the following days, I distributed anti-war leaflets, calling for anti-war demonstrations.
On March 6, in the morning, there was a knock on my room door. A neighbor opened the door. The police broke in and came looking for me. They started insulting me, at one point they grabbed me by the hair and threatened to beat me. They confiscated all my things. They told me to pack to go to jail. When I tried to call a human rights organization, a policeman snatched the phone from my hands and started looking through applications, chats, messages.
They took away my phone, laptop, bank cards, posters and flyers. They took me to the police station and told me to write an explanation about my anti-war interventions. At the police station, I was also threatened, but in a gentle way. They told me not to speak out against the war, otherwise they would come to my parents and expel me from university and I would end up in prison. Then they let me go, naturally without my belongings.
There was still a risk of being arrested, so I decided to leave Russia. I arrived in Serbia. Here I worked illegally in a factory and as a dishwasher. I attended anti-war meetings and rallies. Now I’m trying to get a visa for Germany, but so far I haven’t been very successful. What I know for sure is that I will never go back to a country that has chosen war and isolation: I want to live, study, work, travel, start a family. Just like my Ukrainian peers and here in Belgrade I met many of them. It’s not much, but it’s what I know.
If we talk about what I really wanted was to live to the point where wars would become unacceptable and cancel themselves out, I would like to live in a peaceful and free Russia.
If we talk about more concrete wishes, I want to continue my studies at the university, which now seems very difficult – I can’t do it in Russia. Now I’m trying to get a humanitarian visa for Germany (Visum nach 22.2 AufengenthG); I’ve been trying to get this visa since August, but the process seems to have stopped. And I do not know what to do.
For Russia to change for the better, the president must first change. Now, in addition to the fact that a real criminal who started the war came to power, he also has a huge amount of power in his hands, he decides almost everything – it shouldn’t be like that. One person cannot decide for all the inhabitants of the country how to live. Secondly, we must stop lying to ourselves and start calling it a spade, we must investigate the war crimes in Ukraine and bring those responsible to justice, we must investigate the numerous crimes of abuse of power, the unjust persecution of citizens, free all political prisoners.
And of course, there can be no improvement in Russia without stopping the war and returning the territories of Ukraine.
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