Who goes for the loaf?

The idea of ​​the civil campaign “life according to the law” is to literally fulfill the requirements of the new law on rallies, according to which, if desired, any gathering of citizens can be recognized as a public event. The symbol of the campaign was the “march for the loaf” . The Nizhny Novgorod authorities refused to coordinate the procession , however, they did not interfere with the campaign for bread . Followers of the action were then found in the Komi Republic, Belgorod, Ryazan and Yekaterinburg. PublicPost met activists from Nizhny Novgorod who became famous for trolling the local administration.

We met Andrei Rudy, whose LiveJournal has long been the main mouthpiece of the “loaf walkers,” at the Minin monument opposite the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.

Civil activist Andrei Rudoy recently joined the Left Front

Minin Square is one of the favorite gathering places for the Nizhny Novgorod opposition. Thus, having gathered to discuss the details of the rally for free education on July 1, on the occasion of good weather on the square, members of the organizing committee of the action were met by police officers, center "E" and a special forces battalion. “We were shocked. In addition, they tried to accuse my comrade Alexander Krasnov (coordinator of the Left Front in Nizhny Novgorod) of organizing an uncoordinated event, and they pushed some papers for signature,” recalls Andrei. According to the activist, the organizing committee actually invited everyone on VKontakte to join the discussion, but did not plan any event: “In fact, every meeting of ours, not a rally, became impossible to hold. And we thought that if they so want, we will inform about whatever we want to do." The idea of ​​marching with a loaf of bread, as the oppositionists themselves say, belongs, rather, to the “collective mind.” The very next day, several notifications were submitted regarding the approval of various trolling actions.

Places of opposition glory in Nizhny Novgorod

Along the Kremlin, Andrey and I walk to the monument to another local celebrity - Valery Chkalov, born in the village of Vasilevo, now Chkalovsk. From here there is a panorama of the Volga, which has not yet mixed with the Oka. The Chkalov staircase goes down straight to the river. “And here we were going to start OccupyNN on May 9, but everything was blocked off,” says Andrei, “then the three of us drew posters and stood to the side as single pickets. We stood like that for about an hour and handed out leaflets. First with these They detained Dima with leaflets, then they came up to me. I said that they had no right to detain me for a single picket, and they told me that I looked like such and such a robber, 9 police officers, 8 riot police officers, a whole bunch of them, came for the two of us. After about 15 minutes they are informed that there is a person with a poster nearby, and then they are happy, because now we can solder on the illegal holding of a street event.” With a smile, Andrei talks about the bewilderment of the police who searched his things: “They found leaflets and my texts in Latin, for a long time they could not understand what it was, they took photographs and played this way and that. I’m from the history department, so I’m translating from Latin.” The first detention ended in a fine.

Andrei is 21 years old, next year he will finish his master’s degree at the University of Nizhny Novgorod, and is going to graduate school: “Now I’m studying Athenian democracy, but I would love to go to the department of modern national history.” He proudly talks about three scholarships: student, social (the tiniest) and Oxford for academic achievements and social work (donating blood, participating in student life). “Now, of course, you will joke about the State Department,” Andrei laughs. “But I started receiving Oxford several years before I became a civil activist.”

He also plays music, writes poetry and stories, but all this had to be put on hold: “I graduated from music school, so I can play both the piano and the guitar. In music, in rap, I throw out all my aggression, because as a civil activist I I can’t afford this, but now I don’t have time for anything: work, study, politics, personal life, LJ posts.” “Protesters are often accused of being slackers,” Andrei says offended, “but this is not true: from the age of 13 I worked during all holidays, and now during my studies. Whatever I was: I worked in construction, I was a courier and a CCTV operator."

For him, as for many young Nizhny Novgorod activists, it all started after the Duma elections, after the first rally on December 10: “I thought for a long time that I was the only one who was opposition-minded and that people would never wake up.” Now he regrets that he got involved in politics so late.

“The employees of the “E” center asked me, like all the detainees, what didn’t suit me, because the movers get paid normally,” recalls Andrei. “I told them that my prospects were to work as a teacher for 8 thousand rubles and not be able to start a and support the family. And they told me: “You are not ideological.”

We return with Andrey back to the Kremlin walls, where the OccupyNN camp existed for some time, and go to the main pedestrian street of Nizhny - Bolshaya Pokrovskaya. On the way, Andrei talks about refusals to approve street actions and dispersal of rallies: “What tricks the authorities are willing to resort to, before the first rally in December, they talked on local television about the threat of terrorist attacks, the chief sanitary doctor spoke and talked about the increased danger of getting sick.”

After a tour of the places of opposition glory, Andrei hands me over to his comrade-in-arms, the head of the Nizhny Novgorod Left Front, Alexander Krasnov, who notified the local administration about the wedding rally.

Alexander Krasnov notified the administration about the wedding

Alexander is 25 years old and has been in politics for five years. He says that he joined the Communist Party of the Russian Federation while still studying at the Faculty of Engineering Physics and Chemistry of the Nizhny Novgorod Technical University, but stayed in the party for only a few years: “There are good people there, but there is no opposition in it, they are only involved in elections: preparing for elections, holding elections, and when they’re not there, they talk about elections.” After graduating from university, he served in the army and then joined the Left Front.

Dmitry Kapelyush - organizer of a guitar concert near the entrance

In Alexander's Lada we go to the Left Front office. He jokes that I will see “a real day in the life of an opposition leader.” The office is somewhere in the outskirts, in a dilapidated building among construction debris. To the sound of sewing machines (apparently there is some kind of factory here), we enter a small room: there are fabric sofas, two tables with computers and a drum kit. "Can I take a picture?" - “It’s better not.”

From the Left Front office we head to the office of the yet unregistered Rot Front party. There, Alexander and his colleague from the social movement “Labor Nizhny Novgorod” Alexei Gorshkov spent an hour writing demands to the head of the administration , the meaning of which can be boiled down to the thought: “We will attack you en masse with notifications until we achieve freedom of assembly.”

Sergei Kornienko coordinates the picket in the Kremlin

With demands and another batch of notifications, we again go to Minin. Several guys are already waiting for us at the monument to the militia hero with their notices. Student Svetlana coordinates a walk with a hamster, and junior researcher 23-year-old Sergei Kornienko (on his behalf they filed a “march for a loaf”) notifies the regional governor Valery Shantsev about the picket in the Kremlin. All of them are Left Front activists. They have all turned into professional politicians over the past six months.

Svetlana Solntseva wants to walk her hamster

Sergei, for example, was supposed to become a military man - he graduated from the radio-physics department of the Institute of Military Education of the University of Nizhny Novgorod: “In terms of workload, it was two faculties. I thought that after I would become an officer, but as a result, our graduation turned out to be unnecessary for the Ministry of Defense, and now I study stars and various nebulae at the Institute of Applied Physics."

Activists check notifications for legality

The next day, another group of Nizhny Novgorod oppositionists submitted notifications. But not seriously (it was Saturday and the administration was not working), but for Ukrainian television, which became interested in their initiative.

Nizhny Novgorod residents bring several dozen notifications daily to the reception office of the head of the administration.

We go to the meeting place - McDonald's on Maxim Gorky Square - with Polina Mushnikova, the organizer of the walking of the hamster Fedya and the procession on the water "Public Swim". The girl is 18 years old and has just graduated from school. “Where are you going to study?” - “I will be a lawyer, in our country you need to be able to defend yourself.”

Polina Mushnikova - organizer of the procession on water

“For example, here we have five people who recently tried to save an architectural monument from demolition, they were detained and given up to 15 days,” Polina was indignant. “The courts were held at night, no one was allowed in, not even lawyers who were beating on the doors with lawyer’s orders.” ". “The riot police simply threw us (the activists) away from the building,” Polina points to a bruise the size of an egg on her leg. “It’s scary, and even more terrible what will happen to the country next. I see these impudent faces of the BSN (special forces battalion - PublicPost), which They throw us to the ground and say that nothing will happen to them for this, and I stop being afraid altogether.” Polina, by her admission, was the most ordinary schoolgirl: she loves traveling, shopping and clubs. “I was interested in politics, but like this: I’ll groan and groan, oh, what a nightmare, that’s all” - “What has changed?” — “The elections on December 4th, I read the observers’ reports and didn’t believe my eyes, and on December 5th I read an Internet broadcast from a rally in Moscow, where people were beaten. And then I decided that on December 10th I would definitely go to a rally in Nizhny Novgorod , my first rally." At home, the girl keeps an old fishing rod with a cardboard tied to it (the bottom of the box) - the first banner: “And then I myself became an observer, and the more I saw this arbitrariness, the more strength I had and the less fear. Well, how could it be otherwise? When the employees of the "E" center began to take an interest in me, I realized that I was on the right track."

According to the girl, after they began to “live” according to the law,” the activists began to feel pressure: “My and Alexey Sadomovsky’s (agreed on walking the dog - PublicPost) mobile phones were blocked, and Andrei Rudoy and Alexander Krasny had someone try to hack their accounts on social networks."

Daria Gladskikh did not submit notifications, but has already suffered from an SMS attack

I meet other guys at McDonald's. Another Russia activist Daria Gladskikh (21 years old) also complains about problems with her mobile phone. According to her, her cell phone number receives messages from unknown numbers every minute, despite the fact that she has not yet had time to submit a single notification: “In addition, some activists also received messages from me, saying, help, I’m being taken to the forest, Bastrykin’s such messages."

Alexey Sadomovsky coordinates the walking of a dog named Flik Filibuster Artful Pirate

Among those gathered for the shooting was civil activist Alexei Sadomovsky, whom Polina spoke about. “This is not the first time they have put pressure on us,” says Aleksey. “Those who live on the first floor have their windows broken almost every month. It’s been worse. For example, we were preparing a car rally “For Fair Elections” on February 19. I went out in the morning wash the car. A guy ran up to me, shouted “Lekha” and started beating me, then he got into some car and drove away. I then looked at the video - we have cameras all around - I found the owner of the car in which the attacker drove away, I found him. the car owner’s VKontakte account, I found the person who beat me. I brought a statement to the police and all the information, but no, they still can’t reveal it. Why can’t they? And before May 6, they broke my windshield. , they tore off the mirror and stole the number. The result is the same: the criminals were not found.”

A trip to a rally in Moscow on May 6 (Nizhny Novgorod activists took part in the “Let’s not let a thief into the Kremlin” action on Manezhnaya Square, an alternative to the “March of Millions” on Bolotnaya Square) turned out to be an adventure for Polina as well. “My friends and I agreed to go to Moscow. They were supposed to pick me up at 8 am,” the activist says with delight. “On the night of May 6, a car with two employees, possibly from the “E” center, was on duty outside my window: in the morning They rang the doorbell, the intercom, they knocked. I ran from the door to the window, shaking. Half an hour before my friends arrived, I disguised myself, tied a scarf on my head, took my backpack, and came out of the car. I’m running, and at this time my mother is running around the house with my backpack. I take off my clothes and take my backpack. And as soon as I threw off my things, the Eshniks’ car drove past me until my friends picked me up. stopped. It turned out that they were targeting us. We changed the car and left." "Truly spy passions. Do you like detective stories?" - “I used to read science fiction, but now I read Kafka.”

Panorama of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin