Translated material
Teacher instead of Churov
On June 1, the Vasileostrovsky District Court issued a decision in the case of Nazarova v. Ivanova and Novaya Gazeta, assessing the business reputation of the head of the Vasileostrovsky education department at 30 thousand rubles.
The subject of the previously announced one hundred thousand dollar claim was 4 phrases published in Novaya Gazeta in St. Petersburg. According to the court decision, 3 of them discredit the business reputation of the plaintiff and must be refuted in the printed publication.
It was difficult to get to the court hearing itself. Although openness is one of the principles of legal proceedings, Russian courts are poorly equipped to receive the general public. Today, journalists, representatives of the public... and graduates of school No. 575, who came after the exams to support their now former Russian language teacher, were arguing for seats in the hall. Journalist and one of the leaders of the League of Voters Olga Romanova and deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly from the Yabloko faction Boris Vishnevsky came to provide moral support to the “honest teacher.”
The court questioned the plaintiff's witnesses. Natalya Obukhova, the director of school No. 28, answered all the questions confusedly, could not remember anything in her testimony, just as she did not remember the defendant. Although earlier she signed a well-known letter from 13 directors and head teachers of schools in the Vasileostrovsky district to the deputies of the Legislative Assembly, condemning Ivanova’s act. The latter, after the trial, commented on the witness’s behavior as follows: “She is a young director, recently working at a school, it is not surprising that she defended the education department. We all depend on the head of the department.” Timur Shokhin, a member of the TEC, tried to convince the court that Nazarova was not involved in checking the protocols at all. According to Ivanova, it was Shokhin who brought lists that were supposed to be falsified to polling stations.
As a result, the court, after listening to the opinions of the parties, decided to partially satisfy Nazarova’s claim, oblige the defendant to pay the plaintiff 30 thousand rubles in compensation for moral damage, and the newspaper’s editors to publish a refutation.
A few minutes before the announcement of the decision, Nazarova’s father shared his impressions with the bailiffs in the court hall: “We lost the case.” Apparently, he was also not satisfied with the court's decision.
The heroine was greeted with applause from the courtroom, and she could barely hold back her tears. Then, having gathered, she announced to the journalists and supporters who surrounded her that she had been waiting for such a decision: “I thought it would be worse. After all, 30 thousand in half - only 15, that is, only two pensions...Say, am I happy with this decision? But this, to some extent, once again proves where we live and what kind of system we have.”
However, the defendants are not going to give up and will file an appeal against the court's decision. When asked if she would like to take part in the elections, Tatyana Ivanova boldly replied that she would not mind taking Churov’s place: “Why not? I'm still young. Over 14 years of work, I have gotten to know this system well, I know how it should be. Try to buy me! They haven’t printed that much money yet!”