In the Shadow of Pussy Riot

It so happened that the consideration of the cassation appeal in the Moscow City Court regarding the preventive measure (in the form of detention) for Leonid Kovyazin, the seventeenth accused in the “Bolotnaya case”, coincided with the cassation appeal in the “Pussy Riot case”. At first, it was even planned to hold meetings on these cases one after another - in a small hall number 319 on the third floor of the Moscow City Council. However, due to the large influx of writing and filming brethren at the “pusek” process, the consideration of their complaint was moved to a large hall located next door.

So Leonid’s fate was determined behind the scenes, while the doors were swarming with people who didn’t get to “Pussy Riot” (however, they weren’t offended either: the trial of the girls who became world famous was broadcast on “plasma” next to the meeting room). So everything that happened in hall number 319 this time remained without the close attention of representatives of the federal press.

Kovyazin’s defense, presented in the Basmanny court (which sent Leonid to jail on September 7) by a young lawyer from RosUznik, Ruslan Chanidze, was strengthened this time. And how: by the vice-president of the Guild of Russian Lawyers, Vladimir Samarin, known for many “landmark” trials. And I am sure that if our Russian court had been independent and fair, the arguments of the defense that I heard at the trial on October 1, Kovyazin would already be free. At least, Chanidze’s assistant Yulia Polukhina (part-time correspondent for Novaya Gazeta), who attended most of these meetings on other “swamp prisoners,” told me that she had never seen such a level of preparation.

In fact: in the period following the hearing in the Basmanny court, the lawyers did a great job, collecting documents refuting literally all (on the list) of the grounds on which Kovyazin was taken into custody.

1. The court was presented with an obligation to pay bail for Leonid’s release in the amount of 700 thousand rubles, signed by me at the notary. This amount includes the contribution of dozens of ordinary residents of Vyatka (including those who bought tickets for the charity performance of the Drama Laboratory), entrepreneurs, citizen of the Russian Federation Nikita Belykh... (The Basmanny court did not consider the possibility of releasing the defendant on bail).

2. The case was accompanied by guarantees signed by the artistic director of the Theater on Spasskaya, the adviser to the governor of the Kirov region Boris Pavlovich, the teacher-organizer of the Theater on Spasskaya Sergei Berezin, the actress of this theater Evgenia Tarasova, as well as Elena Kozlova, a methodologist at the Interregional Center for Innovative Technologies in Education. The guarantors guaranteed that Kovyazin would not hide from the investigation and would appear for interrogations and court hearings. In addition, the appeals of dozens of Vyatka residents-spectators of the play "Drama Lab" on September 27, who wrote to the court with a request for the release of Leonid, were presented for review. In this honorable list, alas, there was no governor Nikita Belykh, nor banker Alexander Lebedev, to whom local civil activists asked to vouch for the “prisoner of Bolotnaya,” but the guarantees of the “less great” were also very important - at the district court they It simply could not have happened, if only because of the transience of the events that took place at that time.

3. Documents were read out indicating that the grandmother, with whom Leonid Kovyazin lived in Kostino, needs daily care due to her severe chronic illnesses and difficult financial situation: with a pension of 8,000 rubles, she has to pay more than 3,000 for utilities alone , the rest is spent on medicines, so there is practically no money left for food and other urgent needs.

4. It turned out that Kovyazin’s mother is not able to care for her grandmother. If only because she lives in the area and in order to get to Kirov (with two transfers), it takes her 3.5 hours each time. In addition, “her” regular bus runs only twice a week. Mother works in a library, her salary is 7,000 rubles. She is not able to constantly be with her grandmother due to her busy work and limited funds.

5. Lawyers proved that Leonid Kovyazin is a person organically integrated into Vyatka society, who has permanent sources of livelihood (this was questioned by the representative of the investigation in the Basmanny court, who sought on this basis to place Leonid in custody). He earned his living and to help his grandmother through freelance work at the Vyatka Observer, photographing and videoing weddings and anniversaries. In May of this year, he was expelled from the fifth year of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Vyatka Humanitarian University at his own request: having passed all the exams, he decided to follow a different path - to seriously engage in theater and documentary cinema. At the very beginning of September, he was hired as a stage driver at the Theater on Spasskaya, but did not have time to begin his duties due to his arrest.

6. At the court hearing on October 1, it also turned out that investigators hid from the Basmanny Court the full list of diseases that Kovyazin suffers from. Lawyers believe that this was done deliberately: one of them is included in the list of diseases approved by the government of the Russian Federation (after the death of Magnitsky in a pre-trial detention center) that exclude the detention of persons under investigation.

All these arguments served as the basis for V. Samarin and R. Chanaev to demand that their client’s preventive measures be changed to a written undertaking not to leave the place or, in extreme cases, to release on bail. “The chosen preventive measure in the form of detention is not only illegal, but also inhumane,” Samarin appealed to the court.

The presentation of evidence and the presentation of lawyers took more than an hour. The prosecutor's speech took no more than a minute. Ignoring the arguments presented, he urged the court to uphold the decision of the Basmanny Court, saying that release on bail, in his opinion, would not be able to ensure Kovyazin’s appearance to carry out the necessary investigative actions.

After a short meeting, the judges agreed with the prosecutor, leaving the decision of the Basmanny Court in force.

PS The court refused to view the video recording of the events on Bolotnaya Square, taken from the roof of the Udarnik cinema: it clearly shows all the movements of “a man similar to Kovyazin” in the ill-fated episode with the toilets (the Basmanny court was presented only with a “cut” of footage, advantageous investigation). From this video it becomes obvious that a) the toilets began to be turned over without Leonid’s participation, b) he participated in the movement of six, but only one toilet, and moreover, not one (which minimizes the amount of damage he caused) and c) he did not “hide from the scene of the crime” (as determined by the Basmanny Court), but remained in the square until the protesters were completely ousted). But it's not evening yet. Perhaps this recording will appear again in court, but in November.

PPS The Moscow City Court did without direct communication with Kovyazin, limiting itself to a video signal from pre-trial detention center No. 4. Leonid was sitting in a cramped cage installed in some room with bare walls. Over the past month, he had mastered the rules of court etiquette: he stood up during answers without additional reminders, and said “your honor.” He looked serious and haggard. He was a man of few words. And I didn’t ask for drawing paper, like in the Basmanny court...