Everyone understands what is happening

Photo: Алексей Трефилов (CC) commons.wikimedia.org

The case of Navalny is similar to that of the French Dreyfus affair in the 19th century. We can reference a famous cartoon from that time where, in the first frame, a large family is sitting peacefully at the dinner table; but in the second frame, the table is flipped over and a fight breaks out as soon as someone brings up the Frenchman and his Jewish origins. The difference is that while the French authorities were searching for someone to charge with suspected espionage, the prosecution cast at least a semblance of a doubt as to the innocence of the accused. In Navalny’s case, both the charges and the sentences of the courts are simply farcical and absurd.

“Don’t beat the police”

Perhaps there is no meeting today in Russia without a discussion on the political situation in our country. It seems that to be apolitical in Russia is shameful. The accusation that people only see black and white is only partially true. After the first protests on January 23rd, the state media immediately rushed to justify the actions of the riot police, to protect the injured police force that were (god forbid!) “hit with snowballs by the protesters”. Furthermore, a police car driver even had an eye gouged out; however, as many journalists rightly noted, nobody knows the name of this police officer or his fate, or the subsequent fate of all the “unjustly” wronged police officers. But they quickly identified the person with a smashed skull pictured on the cover of Novaya Gazeta. His name, Maxim Lelyukov, appeared the next morning on telegram channels like Mash (whose journalist visited the palace in Gelendzhik after Navalny’s investigation and claimed in a video report that “he did not manage to figure out the purpose of the building nor the owner’s name”). Novaya Gazeta and I, as the photographer, were immediately accused of faking the photograph.

The next day Maxim was filmed by a journalist from Mash without a bandage. However, my photo showed that the bandage was covered in blood and not in ketchup, as several federal channels tried to prove for a week. The opposition, or independent media in Russia (these words have practically become synonyms in our country), were also accused of manipulating information. Among the main complaints they lodged, they claimed: “you justify the actions of the protesters, blaming only the police, and write nothing about the aggression on the part of the protesters themselves”.

On January 23rd some of the protesters could have committed illegal and violent actions but were stopped by the larger crowd. For example, a group of men aggressively pulled down another man, who had an anti-Navalny poster, from a streetlight and began kicking him. But the nearby crowd dragged these men away, not allowing them to beat the provocateur. A similar situation happened to one of the policemen, beaten during the protests. During one of the clashes between the protesters and the riot police (OMON), some men “knocked out” one of the police officers, threw him to the ground and beat him. The group of seven or eight was immediately pulled apart with shouts of “Stop it! Don’t beat the police!” Both incidents were recorded by journalists and streamed live on the internet.

It is difficult to say exactly where such violent actors come from. On one hand, the most popular account is that they are provocateurs, paid by law enforcement agencies to create such incidents. These cases gave the state media a number of visuals to use as propaganda. State media claim they did not stage anything, that protesters really did beat the police, so the officers, in defence, used force and special equipment. On the other hand, they could have been real protesters – with a high amount of inner aggression, anger and a desire to fight. And so, it turns out that from the point of view of most people, police violence is already becoming justified and even the norm.

From the conversations with people who are out of the loop from journalism, politics and protests, I constantly hear: “The police just did their job. Nothing else.” This mantra becomes an excuse for the violence used by the police against protesters because the behaviour of provocateurs automatically spreads to other participants at the rally. And for the “uninitiated”, this peaceful action turns into an aggressive mass, which is ready to attack not only the police but random citizens who happen to exit the subway at the wrong moment.

During a spontaneous meeting after the sentencing of Navalny on February 2nd, a video was uploaded on a Telegram channel which depicted how the police did not arrest a man after he said “Bryansk-North”. (Bryansk is a Russian town.) It is believed the codeword indicates his involvement with a group of provocateurs whom the law enforcement agencies hired to stir riots. Then these riots are shown on state TV and that is that; the propaganda machine does its job. However, the existence of evidence of collaboration is not taken into consideration by state TV.

Boiling point

After February 2nd, Navalny’s PR team announced a temporary stop of the protests. At the same time, online disputes began. Is it time to stop when the protesters were still invigorated by the latest events? They had not come to a consensus, and on the weekend of February 6th and 7th suggestions about new protests in Moscow were announced on Facebook. Those private initiatives did not receive such a wide response, but they did receive the attention of the police: on Saturday and Sunday in Moscow and St Petersburg the police blocked everything in both city centres.

For now, it seems like Navalny’s arrest and the subsequent detentions at the protests (even of journalists) have reached a boiling point. Most likely, there will be a series of trials of those detained. And the punitive measures will clearly be greater than those during the 2019 summer protests in Moscow, when the trials of those arrested (for throwing plastic cups at riot police) lasted the whole autumn. Those Moscow protests related to the elections to the Moscow Council. Many independent candidates were not registered, and most of their votes were declared invalid. Here the cases could be more serious as there were real episodes of police resistance.

The repressive measures have already affected those public figures who did not attend the rallies. Russian actresses Varvara Shmykova, Alexandra Bortich, and Yana Troyanova, for instance, merely posted words of support for Navalny and the protesters on Instagram. Yet, Shmykova’s photo has already been removed from the Meyerhold Centre of Theatrical Arts website, where she works. And the company Gazprommedia, which owns several entertainment TV channels, has removed Troyanova and Bortich from all its promos: they “cut” ads and photoshopped banners featuring the actresses.

As for journalism, the whole situation is also a vivid manifestation of the fact that free speech has not existed for a long time in Russia. You can basically do whatever you want with journalists. As a journalist, I understand that if I appear at a protest on an editorial assignment, even wearing clear identification as a journalist with credentials, I can still be arrested and charged with participating in protests. When using tear gas, the police do not see our bright vests: two of my colleagues were directly bashed on the head with batons, and my camera lens was smashed. The editor in chief of the independent publication Mediazona, Sergey Smirnov, was detained while walking with his son. He now stands accused of reposting a joke from Twitter, which was seen as a call to participate in protests. This accusation is false. He did not make any such statements.

It is horrible to see how university knowledge differs from my own experience. During our studies at the department of journalism, we were taught critical thinking. The story of Navalny shows that for the next generation of journalists, it does not matter. It is important to be convenient to the government, to keep quiet and just accept what is happening. And whatever you do, do not say anything about politics on social media, otherwise the government will accuse you of destroying “the system”.

Change

I often hear the following when I start to complain: “If you don’t like how things are, why don’t you leave?” To be a journalist of an independent news medium in Russia today is to risk your life. And not only your life, but the lives of your family. I am aware of these risks. Is it scary? Of course, it is. But it sounds even more terrible for me to leave everything behind and go somewhere else, because, as the famous Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov wrote, “I hate the state, but I love my country”. I want the government to listen to journalists’ criticism and citizens’ desires, and to change something and not get rid of those who are not pleasing the regime. I want my children to live in a country where it will be safe for them to express their opinions. As a journalist, I want to help change something in people’s lives (I work a lot with social stories) and not to powerlessly observe from a distance.

There are also some positive changes, I think. The Russian people are reluctantly and gradually realising that something is very wrong with their government. Recently published data from the Levada Center shows that 26 per cent of Russian residents have watched Navalny’s investigative film, another 10 per cent have not seen the film but are familiar with the content. In fact, this means that one in three Russians know what is happening with the investigation. Only a third of the viewers of the documentary are convinced that the facts in it are untrue. The rest are sure of the veracity of the investigation (17 per cent) or believe it to be mostly true (38 per cent).

The increased social tension is not only centred on politics and expressing one’s opinion on social media, for which the authorities can fine or arrest you. More and more people are consulting psychotherapists because of the fear of going out, especially walking in city centres on weekends. However, the reason for the fear varies slightly. Some are afraid of the actions of the police, who may arrest a random pedestrian waiting for his or her tram. Others are afraid of the protesters themselves and the crowd. It seems that the former category is most prevalent.

Looking around, many people see a repetition of 1937 – a period of the most severe Stalinist terror, when government agents, at any moment, could come to your house and throw you in jail. The reason does not matter. It can be you or one of your friends. And everyone will continue to stand by, keep silent and pretend this does not concern them. In Russia, there is a proverb that denotes alienation from social problems: “My house is the last one on the street”. Today, it sounds like an excuse for their own learned helplessness, which many practice.

The impact of the Navalny case on society is analysed by a large number of interpersonal discussions, as well as memes that have appeared online. I cannot say whether it is only a Russian trait to make fun of terrible and unfair things. However, one of the most popular “entertainments” in recent weeks has been to evaluate your salary by the number of golden toilet brushes mentioned in Navalny’s film. What is scary is that most Russians are not able to buy one such brush with their monthly earnings (it costs about 100 euro). Many do not share Navalny’s political beliefs nor see him as a future politician (either as mayor of Moscow or president of the Russian Federation). He is accused of populism, excessive aggression, expressiveness and the bending of the truth for his political agenda. Yet every person, no matter how overcharged, has the right to express his or her opinion. And then I feel sorry for Alexei as a person and as a human being. It is very painful to watch his trial, under the portrait of Genrikh Yagoda, one of the initiators of Stalinist terror. It is physically unbearable to read online transcripts from the courtroom where the absurdity of the accusation is off the charts. And it is quite nauseating to see Navalny drawing a heart for his wife Yulia on the glass. Many people then finally understood: you cannot do this to a person. This is absolute nastiness and cowardice. Yet, while everyone understands what is happening, they still keep silent.

Victoria Odissonova is a Russian journalist and a photojournalist based in Moscow. Her work, including articles and photos, frequently appear in the prominent independent Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.

Alexei Navalny, protests, Russia, Russian politics