Dead end

Leonid Parfenov and Lisa Glinka flew to Astrakhan to see Oleg Shein .

I spoke with Leonid yesterday. The hunger strike is really fair and very difficult - and the worst thing is that it is honest.

It’s unclear what to do. Lisa is very worried. She believes that deaths are possible in the near future. But people resisted because they had no other way.

doctor_liza : "Hunger"

There are about thirty people in Oleg Shein's room. 22 of them went on hunger strike. Today is day 23.

This is a step of desperation, since all requests, complaints and appeals either remain unanswered or are returned to the hungry in the bureaucratic circle.

It’s stuffy, the smell of hunger can’t be confused with anything, you can already feel it in the corridor.

The hungry are verbose at first, but their strength does not last long. Everyone has a waxy pallor, especially visible on the face and hands of Shein himself. People save their energy latently, calculating their movements and the position in which they are. Lean on a table or wall when speaking. This is an energy saving mechanism enabled by the body.

At first glance, you cannot identify everyone who needs help; people greet everyone who comes willingly, with another hope of being heard. After an hour, you can see how difficult it is for people to communicate.

An elderly woman lies on the floor. A middle-aged man sleeps at the entrance, not hearing anyone entering and not reacting to the cameras and questions of the few journalists. A guy of about twenty, deathly pale, stands against the wall and says that all appeals have absolutely no meaning, and it is unthinkable to tolerate lawlessness.

Parfenov and Shkumatov listened carefully and watched the violations recorded on video, leafing through endless requests and refusals to these requests, collected by one of the observers in a cardboard folder. I don’t know if they will be able to convey this to those who make decisions.

With great difficulty, it was possible to agree on the release of five women and a pale guy from the hunger strike. The rest are now, with the exception of one journalist Elena, men. I also don’t know how much their strength will be enough.

On the day of our arrival, the newly elected mayor of Astrakhan left to celebrate his birthday. Andrey Malgin wrote about this .

“We have no choice,” say the remaining starving people. I understand them."

Original