Text version
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On September 12, searches were carried out across the country.
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As part of a fabricated criminal case,
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they affected not only people connected to the Anti-Corruption Foundation,
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employees of regional headquarters, but also
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volunteers and their relatives. At the same time,
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it is obvious to everyone
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that the sole purpose of this case is
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to obstruct our work and stop
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our investigations. The searches and interrogations are
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an absolute legal outrage that
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could, nevertheless, have been called
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sadly routine for us, if this time it
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had not led to a tragedy in Voronezh.
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Investigators came to search the home of
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our lawyer's grandmother.
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She died three days later, unable to bear
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what had happened.
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We are telling this story so that
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everyone can see: our state can
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do this to anyone. We want those
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who give orders to persecute
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innocent people to remember that on their
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conscience are not just confiscated computers, but
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a human life.
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[music]
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My grandmother's name is Valentina Nikolaevna.
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She was a part of my childhood from the very beginning.
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My sisters and I spent
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When I think back on my childhood, after
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school I would more often go to my grandmother's than home,
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because I always really wanted to
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see her.
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But we spoke every day over
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FaceTime. And when I finally
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settled in Voronezh and started working at the headquarters, she knew
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what I was doing, but she would say that
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those years were coming back now,
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that even a 'black maria' (a Soviet-era police van associated with political repression) might come for me.
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By then she had already started having
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age-related health problems, things like angina,
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and so on, and we tried especially hard
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to keep her calm and not upset her.
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But there were people who did upset her. In this
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house I spent my entire childhood, and in this same
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house my grandmother lived until her final days, ever since
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she moved to Novovoronezh.
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[music]
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My grandmother was a very dignified woman.
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She was always beautiful, with a straight back,
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perfect posture, and people always
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gravitated toward her because, first of all, she was
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kind, and at the same time she was
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always a very straightforward person
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who always told the truth to
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people's faces, and I guess I inherited that too.
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There were no politicians in our family.
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My grandmother followed politics
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only to a certain extent, so for
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her it was a mystery where I got this from. And then,
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when I started working at the
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headquarters, she was of course always interested
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in how things were going there and what we were doing.
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Later I bought her a tablet, and it had
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a separate button with a link
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to the Navalny LIVE channel and to Alexei's main
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channel. And when we talked
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or when I came to visit her, we would
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often discuss various
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investigations. The one that
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stood out to her more than the others
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was, of course, the one about Peskov's watch.
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After that, every time we were simply
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having dinner, when I came to see her,
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or just having tea, and the TV showed
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either Navka or Peskov,
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there was a 99 percent chance she would say something
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about
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Navka and those watches. Of course, she
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worried about her grandson, like any grandmother would,
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but it was important to me that she understood why
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we were doing this, and she supported me in every way.
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There had never been any searches before, and
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while we had more or less gotten used to searches at headquarters
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during Alexei's presidential campaign,
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then
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this was the first time they had come to someone's home.
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So when, at around seven in the morning,
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a little later, I got a call from my
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grandmother's number, I looked at who was calling me
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and was quite shocked.
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The feeling was something like surprise mixed with
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fear, and when I answered, I already
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understood that something was wrong. My grandmother
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never called that early in the morning. When
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I picked up, it was not my grandmother
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speaking to me, but an officer who
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identified himself as a police officer.
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The search itself was not something deeply
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traumatic for my grandmother. She was frightened in the first few minutes,
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when several people first arrived and
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she was deciding whether or not to open the door.
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But when they identified themselves, of course
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she opened it. Then, when they called in a witness,
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her friend, she calmed down a little.
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But that calm lasted only until
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the moment when, an hour later, they said
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they were taking the tablet. She
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begged the investigators not to take it.
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She gave them the tablet password
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because the investigator asked her to tell him
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the password.
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She told him the password, and after that they
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said the tablet would still have to be taken
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anyway because they had received such an
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order.
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Basically, that was the entire justification for why they were taking
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the tablet. And that was when she
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really became distressed.
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She sincerely did not understand why they were
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taking it. It was right there, she had shown them everything,
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and she did not understand why. She did not
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understand the motive. I think these
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people were not thinking very much
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when they carried out these
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operations.
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I think they had a specific
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task assigned to them
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from Moscow, even though they were operating here.
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the investigator's specialists
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from the regional Investigative Committee, that is,
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they had been given a task during the search
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to identify all the equipment
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so they clearly came here with that
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goal, without taking into account
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any additional factors, even though we
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are now in an apartment where it is clear from everything
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that no one younger than seventy
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lives here, judging both by the setting and by
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what is in the apartment. On Friday night, my grandmother
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started having heart trouble, but since she
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is a medical professional, she
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preferred to take some pills
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instead of calling an ambulance, because with hospitals
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she really did not like being admitted; more often she
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would go there
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to see a general practitioner. Then in the morning she woke up,
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and everything seemed fine. She even went downstairs,
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sat on a bench, talked to someone,
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came home, made syrniki (cottage cheese pancakes), and after
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that
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some time later she started feeling
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unwell again. She made it to the door, and soon after
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the neighbors called for help, and she was hospitalized in
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intensive care. After tests, she was diagnosed with
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a massive heart attack
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Even though my grandmother was not the healthiest
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person, she still would have made it to her anniversary, in any
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case
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if not for this situation. The entire team
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that
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came to search my grandmother's apartment remains to this day
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a closely guarded secret
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No one gave us the report
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At the Investigative Committee, they said that a request
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could not be submitted by me because I was not there
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myself, and I did not sign any
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documents. Whoever did sign them should
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be the one to make the request. Putin keeps
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Bastrykin (head of Russia's Investigative Committee) and his entire structure
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of the Investigative Committee in place only because
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he understands that they will stop at nothing
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and if they need to carry out some
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direct order
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they will do it. I want
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to disappoint everyone who thinks that my team and I
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will somehow suspend our
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work. Absolutely not. We will continue
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to carry on our activities, we will
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keep helping people
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Lately I have been giving quite a large
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number of interviews, and it is fairly
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difficult. Every time I make the
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decision to agree, I do it
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for one reason only
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I hope that at least one out of a thousand
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security officers involved on September 12
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and who may still go to someone else's home
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in the future
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will have this whole story come back to mind the
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next time they come to the home of
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some activist and see there
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a sick elderly person, and something in
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their head will finally click: wait
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a minute, if there is a line, it is here, and if in the end this
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saves even one life, then all of this
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will not have been in vain