A Russian Diary

by Anna Politkovskaya

  The sense of being embattled, left over from the cancellation of the evening at the conservatory, dissipated with the first words spoken and sung, to be replaced by a great sense of solidarity, and of being at one with the legacy of Sakharov.

  The tricks were not over yet, though. Realizing they had failed to humiliate the human rights movement, the authorities did an about-face, and the Philharmonia started advertising a “Sakharov Concert” in the Grand Hall of the conservatory. They set up a doppelgänger, a parallel concert to which, naturally, neither Sakharov's friends nor those who had been prisoners of the Gulag, nor members of the human rights movement, nor Sakharov's relatives, were invited.

  “They” seem to have decided to try to privatize even the memory of Sakharov. Most likely the aim was to throw dust in the eyes of the West.

  May 22

  Sunday, and marches were called across the nation “for free speech, against censorship, violence, and lies on television.”

  I supposed that most of the demonstrators would be members of the press corps, and that they would lead the parade. In fact, apart from journalists covering the event, there were only two representatives of the press marching: Yevgenia Albats, who has left journalism for teaching, and me.

  The demonstration had been jointly organized by Yabloko, the Communist Party, the Union of Right Forces, the Russian Union of Journalists, the Moscow Helsinki Group, the Citizens’ Congress, Committee 2008, the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites, the Committee for the Defense of Civil Rights, the Human Rights Association, the Social Solidarity Movement, and the National Bolsheviks (in strength). Limonov made a speech.

  Everybody assembled at the memorial to academician Korolyov on Cosmonauts’ Avenue and processed to the broadcasting center at Ostankino, blocking the road.

  May 23

  The National Bolsheviks held in the Pechatniki women's prison for the December 14 occupation of a room at the presidential administration's building have gone on hunger strike.

  May 24

  Yukos is no more. The company in its former incarnation has been done away with. Its main asset, Yuganskneftegaz, has been pried away with the assistance of German capital. The holding company, Yukos-Moscow, has been liquidated.

  May 28

  The party conference of the Union of Right Forces. Nikita Belykh was elected chairman of the political committee and head of the party. He is a government man, the deputy governor of Perm Province, so the administration has taken over the Union of Right Forces too. It has promptly ceased protesting about the abolition of elections for governors, for example.

  At the behest of the presidential administration, the Duma's main preoccupation throughout its spring session has been to expunge the last vestiges of democracy in the electoral legislation. Laws have been amended to ensure that those out of favor stand no chance of getting into power, no matter what the electorate might think. The main innovations are:

  The electoral deposit required of political parties has been increased to $2 million.

  The quorum for a valid election is being sharply reduced in order for them to continue taking place at all. Where previously the minimum turnout was 20 percent, there will now be no minimum requirement in local elections. It is a complete travesty: if even 2 percent of the electorate turn out to vote for a mayor, he will get in.

  There is no longer to be a restriction on the number of remote or portable ballot boxes at polling centers. Machinations involving remote voting were the main tactic for falsifying the last elections, both parliamentary and presidential. They stuffed them with as many votes as were needed, away from the polling stations and hence outside the purview of observers. Indeed, in the municipal elections in St. Petersburg this system has proved its worth marvelously, the number of voting slips in remote ballot boxes exceeding those from electors who voted in person at polling stations.

  The box for voting for “None of the above” is to be removed from ballot papers. Up to 20 percent of votes cast have been for “None of the above” recently, and this has greatly vexed the presidential administration. There will now be no way to register a formal protest vote in elections.

  Observers may no longer be provided by public associations. No independent observers will be allowed, only those nominated by political parties. International observers will be allowed only if invited by the state authorities. The presidential administration will decide which observers to invite, and which to keep out.

  Is the administration desperately afraid of elections, even when they are as “managed” as the recent ones? Or is it just tired of worrying whether it can get away with its deceptions and wants to impose conditions even more favorable to itself?

  All these presidential amendments adopted by the Duma are still not enough for Dmitry Medvedev, director of the presidential administration, who told representatives of the regional electoral commissions that elections were a “threat to stability” in Russia. Putin did not rebuke the director of his administration.

  In Moscow, the Communist Party, the National Bolshevik Party, Yabloko, and Rodina held a joint protest meeting on Revolution Square in support of political prisoners. They are showing solidarity with the women on hunger strike, and demanding that they not be held in prison while the December 14 case is pending. They want a stop to further persecution of the opposition on political grounds, and demand a wider amnesty for prisoners in custody who are charged with trivial infringements of the law.

  Much the authorities care.

  May 30

  At 10 a.m. three of Limonov's supporters who have been on hunger strike at NBP headquarters came out and blocked the entrance to Red Square. They locked themselves between the gates of the archway next to the History Museum. The protesters wore T-shirts bearing the legend “29-day hunger strike” and held portraits of the National Bolshevik political prisoners. They demanded their release, and a response from the state to the hunger strikers in the Pechatniki women's prison.

  They also scattered leaflets with the statement:

  Freedom or Death! The fourth week of our hunger strike has come to an end at the headquarters of the National Bolshevik Party. We have seen once again that the Russian state authorities are indifferent to the life and security of their citizens. There has been no reaction to the hunger strike on the part of the authorities. What more could be expected of people who, without hesitation, poisoned their country's citizens with gas in Nord-Ost, fired from tanks at child hostages in Beslan, deprive the aged of their benefits, imprison the innocent, express admiration for the bloody dictator Karimov [of Uzbekistan], and declare an insulting amnesty of a mere 200 prisoners to mark the sixtieth anniversary of victory in the Second World War? We hunger strikers are obliged to come out onto the street in order to voice our protest at such a murderous attitude toward the citizens of Russia. We say no to the power of pitiless officials and police state butchers! Long Live Free Russia!

  The protest lasted just over half an hour. At 10:35 the National Bolsheviks were arrested by agents of the Federal Security Service and fined 500 rubles [$17.50] for “an unsanctioned picket in the vicinity of the residence of the president.”

  June 7

  In North Ossetia there has been a sudden transfer of power. President Alexander Dzasokhov, whom nobody could stand any longer, has been demoted to the position of senator and member of the Soviet of the Federation, representing North Ossetia. He bears full responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of children and adults in Beslan, and should have been put on trial. Putin, however, does not put his allies on trial. He has replaced Dzasokhov with Teimuraz Mamsurov, an “antiterrorist appointment.” Mamsurov was previously leader of the North Ossetian Parliament. Two of his children were held hostage in Beslan but survived. Subsequently, however, all he did was whitewash the actions of the authorities.

  In his speech from the throne to the deputies of the Parliament, Mamsurov declared, “I shall try to be worthy of the high trust of the president.” Appointees no longer nee
d to aspire to winning the trust of the people.

  June 16

  Representatives of the opposition on the left and right have signed a charter of alliance, prompting one of Yavlinsky's now rare public appearances, in Yaroslavl. He looked weary and depressed.

  He told the local journalists, “I get invited onto television periodically just to show the public that I'm still alive. They are pleased to know that, but that is as far as their interest goes. What can you do in such circumstances? No more than ask the authorities to grant you a certain percentage of the vote in the elections. It's like a rigged sports match where the result doesn't reflect the game.” Nowadays Yavlinsky lectures at the Higher Institute of Economics in Moscow. He has postgraduate students, writes books, and gives talks abroad.

  The new leader of the Union of Right Forces, Nikita Belykh, appears to be urging the Kremlin not to persecute them, but to see them as being useful. “We are an opposition, a constructive opposition. We have never said we were loyal to the authorities, but at the same time we do not believe in opposition for its own sake.”

  His words are completely lifeless. Is there any point in making the effort to resuscitate these old democrats merely because they are familiar faces? Are they capable of doing anything at all for the country as democratic leaders, or should we simply accept the way politics is developing? If we are realistic, none of the movements or parties in the democratic spectrum deserve the support of an honest person unwilling to compromise his conscience.

  In the absence of grown-up politics, an increasing role is played by youth politics, which does not keep wondering what its role should be or whom it should support. It does not care what Yavlinsky thinks and most likely has never heard of Nikita Belykh.

  June 20

  It is six months since the mass outrages committed by the militia in Blagoveshchensk, Bashkiria, and the surrounding villages on December 10-14, 2004. It is almost two months since the publication of unconstitutional, secret instructions issued by the Interior Ministry of Russia on the permissibility of taking violent measures against Russian citizens, instructions highly germane to the Blagoveshchensk violence. Now, finally, a commission has been put together in Moscow under the auspices of the ombudsman for human rights to discuss where we go from here.

  A meeting of this commission is the sole official reaction by the state authorities to a whole series of “cleansings,” similar to those in Blagoveshchensk, which have occurred, and are still occurring, in many places including Bezhetsk, Nefteyugansk, the village of Rozhdestveno in Tver Province, and the village of Ivanovskoye in Stavropol Region.

  The extraordinary brutality of the security services within Russia over the past six months has produced no wider public protest, no social repercussions. The president has continued to consider himself above defending the Constitution, not once apologizing to the hundreds of people “purged,” injured, and beaten up, for his failure to protect them. Parliament is in the president's pocket and has devoted not a single session to the extraordinary events in Blagoveshchensk and their aftermath. The procurator general has failed to demand publicly the immediate annulment of the unconstitutional Interior Ministry instructions.

  Now, on June 20, the ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, opened the commission's first session. The procurator general was represented by Sergey Gerasimov, deputy procurator general of the Privolzhiye federal district. Representatives of the Interior Ministry included the deputy head of the department of organizational monitoring, Gennadii Blinov (who did most of the speaking for the lot of them), and Vladimir Vladimirov from the local department of the Federal Drug Control Service. He had nothing to say, like most of the other militiamen present.

  Things got off to a brisk start. Lev Ponomaryov of the Human Rights Association, a member of the unofficial public commission for investigating the events in Blagoveshchensk, asked, “What is the current situation with criminal prosecutions in connection with the Blagoveshchensk events?”

  SERGEY GERASIMOV: “The inquiry has been completed. All the accused have been acquainted with its findings. Ramazanov, the head of the Blagoveshchensk internal affairs office, has so far read twenty-two of the fifty volumes. Our prediction is that if he continues to read at his present rate, he will need about another month. The case will then be forwarded to the court.”

  (The longer he spends reading the evidence, the less it will be in the public eye. The procurator's office will not be pressuring Ramazanov.)

  PONOMARYOV:“Certain officers of the Interior Ministry of Bashkiria were initially suspended, but now they have been reinstated. Why is that?”

  GERASIMOV: “They appealed, saying they had been unfairly suspended, and the court refused to confirm their suspensions. In my opinion the Interior Ministry of Bashkiria acted incorrectly. If employees of the procurator's office were involved in something of this kind, their employment would have been terminated.”

  VERONIKA SHAKHOVA (ex-editor of the Blagoveshchensk newspaper Zerkalo, fired for giving a truthful account of the December events): “But our procurator Izmagilov simply refused to accept statements from the victims! Now he has not been punished, but merely disappeared from view.”

  GERASIMOV: “A few days after the events he wrote a statement and was relieved of his post.”

  SHAKHOVA: “ Is that the extent of his punishment?”

  GERASIMOV: “Yes.”

  SHAKHOVA: “Well, now he has applied to become a judge. Has the procurator's office given a reference on him to the Collegium of Qualification of Judges?”

  GERASIMOV (discomfited and unsure how to reply): “I don't know. Possibly something has been sent.”

  SERGEY KOVALYOV (the first Russian ombudsman, former deputy of the Duma, a convinced democrat, a dissident in the Soviet period, comrade-in-arms of Andrey Sakharov): “But tell me, is nobody even raising the matter of his breaking the law in the course of performing his duties?”

  GERASIMOV: “Dismissal is the severest sanction. No evidence of criminal activity was discovered.”

  VLADIMIR LUKIN, ombudsman: “Nevertheless, this case has had repercussions, and problems are continuing. Irregularities of the same kind have occurred since Blagoveshchensk in Tver Province, and there are suspicions that on the night of June 11-12 something similar occurred in Stavropol District. How can we ensure that this kind of thing is stopped? Perhaps the fact that the guilty get off with total impunity is causing it?”

  GERASIMOV: “The Interior Ministry cannot impose order in its own department. The minister of the interior should be the master of his house—he should bang his fist on the table. Any number of procurators are not going to be able to force the militia to put their house in order.”

  LYUDMILA ALEXEYEVA (chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group and a member of the Presidential Commission for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights): “At first, when we took on this case, we thought it was simply mismanagement on the part of the local Interior Ministry, but now we know about Order No. 870 DSP. The militia were carrying out this order. We are campaigning to have Order 870 repealed, but are there other departmental orders regarding ‘filtration points’?”

  (Orders No. 174 DSP and No. 870 DSP of September 10, 2002, signed by Boris Gryzlov, who at that time was minister of the interior, and Appendix No. 12 to Order No. 870 DSP—“Instructions on the Planning and Preparation of Forces and Resources in Emergency Circumstances”—laid down how officers of the Interior Ministry are to react in “Emergency Circumstances,” “Emergency Situations,” and a “State of Emergency.” They introduce the concept of “filtration points” and a “filtration group.” According to these documents, not only can we be punched in the face whenever a militiaman or OMON agent sees fit, but we can also be subjected to arbitrary detention, sent to a filtration point, and, if we resist, they are also allowed to “exterminate criminals.”

  These documents appear to grant a militiaman the right to consider anybody a criminal. Today these orders, which amount to a de facto aboli
tion of the presumption of innocence, are to be found in every militia station.)

  GENNADII BLINOV: “ As regards the creation of the so-called filtration point in Blagoveshchensk, that was just elementary incompetence on the part of the individual in charge locally. Order No. 870 was approved only to protect the population and our territory in the event of a state of emergency. It applies only in those circumstances.”

  OLEG ORLOV (cochairman of the Memorial Human Rights Center): “But in Order No. 870 reference is made not only to a state of emergency, but also to emergency circumstances and emergency situations. How is the creation of filtration points in a state of emergency regulated? And what are ‘emergency circumstances’? These concepts are not to be found anywhere in our legislation.”

  BLINOV: “The Interior Ministry has one more week in which to reply. Let us not be overhasty An impressive team of lawyers is working on it. Let us wait.”

  (What are we talking about here? In the corridor, Sergey Gerasimov, who was in charge of the Blagoveshchensk criminal investigation, openly admitted that Order No. 870 had not been sent to him because it was secret. This order, in accordance with which citizens were herded into a filtration point, beaten up, tortured, and gassed, can in fact be read on any number of human rights websites—Memorial, The People's Verdict, the Human Rights Association. It has been translated into English and is available to international human rights organizations. How else does it have to be brought to the notice of the deputy procurator general?)