This is what it was like this morning at Yaroslavsky Station in Moscow. Thank you to everyone who came to meet me. And the police really gave me a "luxury-category" reception. They even announced that there was a bomb at the station and that everyone had to be evacuated. Classy. I keep being bothered by the fact that I can’t thank each and every person who came out yesterday to Manezhnaya Square in Moscow and to other squares in other cities. So I tried to do it this way: from the station I stopped by home, dropped off my things, and went to Detention Center No. 1, where Vsevolod Matveev is being held. A wonderful man I had never met before that moment, whose car broke down on Manezhnaya Square and got in the way of police vans taking detainees away.
Vsevolod Matveev, a father of four, was pulled out of his car by five police officers, and some swine of a judge from the Tverskoy District Court gave him 15 days in jail, denying the basic human right to have your car break down exactly where conscience and civic courage demand it. He turned out to be the only person placed under administrative arrest over the events of July 18. So far. This is what I told him: Vsevolod, I can’t shake everyone’s hand, but through you I want to thank them all. Matveev is a great guy. He said the judge’s ruling seriously disrupted his personal plans, but he doesn’t regret a thing. He sends his regards to everyone. It’s a pity they wouldn’t let us take a photo together. I don’t know whether you felt the handshake I tried to pass on to all of you through Matveev in this rather rapturously sentimental way. I hope you did. I tried. P.S. Via a link from Drugoi: TV Rain did finally put together a video with the soundtracks mentioned in my "pre-verdict post."
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