"He was desperate and tired"

Omeda Kolesnikov's friend talks about his life and suicide

On December 25, 18-year-old Vlad Kolesnikov committed suicide in Zhigulevsk. He became known in the summer of 2015 after he publicly spoke out in support of Ukraine. Vlad posted posts condemning the annexation of Crimea and state propaganda on his Facebook page. He hung on Podolsk Street, where he lived with his grandfather, a poster “X .. war”. Once Vlad came to the Podolsk industrial and economic college. A.V. Nikulin (he studied for a coal-kulinar) in a T-shirt with a small patch of the color of the Ukrainian flag.

This is a common confrontation for Russia of a romantic hero and autocracy

“Putin sits with his flock of criminals and refuels the country, and with the help of powerful propaganda ... Russian media are actively promoting the image of the enemy in the form of Ukrainians, in the form of Pindos,” Vlad said in June in an interview with Radio Liberty . “To say what you think is the only way to preserve yourself as a person. To remain an adequate person and fight for a chance to live in a normal world,” he told me six months ago. Then the actions of Vlad, almost a child, seemed to me a manifestation of incredible fearlessness. I was struck that Vlad dared to say publicly that many adults are now at risk of discussing only in the kitchens. But Vlad simply expressed his opinion on important political issues. But the price that the teenager had to pay for the poster and the flag on the T -shirt was terrible. He was kicked out of the house by his own grandfather, classmates were called in the face “fascist-nazi” and “schizophrenic”. The teachers promised to ask string more on the exams, and then Vlad was completely excluded from the technical school. After Vlad went to his father in Zhigulevsk (Vlad called his departure a link), his grandfather gave an interview to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda . He convicted his grandson in relations with the CIA, unceremoniously quoted Vlad's personal papers and said that he was very respectful to the KGB.

December 25, Vlad committed suicide. He was quietly buried on December 27 at the cemetery in Zhigulevsk. After the funeral, Vlad's father in an interview, again, “Komsomolskaya Pravda” said: “My son was a cheerful person. I felt in what condition he was, what he was thinking about. I could swear: he had no thoughts about suicide.” However, the correspondent of our radio station Claire Bigg Vlad repeatedly wrote that his life in Zhigulevsk is unbearable, he is depressed and lonely. Classmates in the culinary technical school of Zhigulevsk, where Vlad continued his studies, poisoned and insulted him. “I can’t even remember how many times they beat me in essence. You just go along the corridor - and“ on you, bitch! ”, And on the ear ... I can’t even think in a terrible dream what kind of fabric, for the flag and news about it - such a car may start,” he wrote Claire Bigg Claire.

Grandfather Vlad said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda that his grandson had no friends. Not true: I know that he was friends with two classmates from the Podolsk technical school. "Vlad is not afraid to get disapproving opinions. Vlad is a person of words and deeds. When a person thinks differently than a herd of rams, they begin to spread rot," one of them told me, but asked not to call his name out of "fear of Stalinist repressions." The friend and former classmate Vlad forced the administration of the VKontakte social network to remove offensive comments from the page of Vlad, which appeared there after his death. “He was a very kind, sweet and responsive guy who was not lucky with the environment. I in many ways shared his political views, but kept my opinion with me, was afraid of problems,” the girl told me. She asked her name to leave secret.

I still cannot believe that Vlad died. I cry every day

On the day of Vlad's death, next to him was his best friend and former classmate Nikolai Podgornov . Vlad and Nikolai fought together with propaganda, condemned the war with Ukraine and supported each other in everything. In June, Vlad told me that he would leave Russia only with Nikolai, because he “has no one more expensive and closer than Nick.” Shortly before the suicide, Vlad in correspondence with Claire Bigg was very worried about his best friend. Vlad said that parents in the fall locked Nikolai into a psychiatric clinic and he “turns into a vegetable”. After I found out about Vlad's death, I immediately thought about Nikolai. For some reason, all the time I remembered his words said to me in June: "There is nothing surprising in our actions. This is the usual confrontation between the romantic hero and autocracy for Russia." I called Nikolai and asked for a meeting. He did not answer for a long time, and then suddenly agreed to see himself. I arrived in Podolsk to understand why the talented and very brave Vlad committed suicide and how Nikolai lives after the death of a best friend.

Nikolai sits in front of me in a cafe near the station in Podolsk. On it is the gray sweater in which he and Vlad hung the poster “X ... war”. Nikolai looks very neat, calm and restrained. His hands in the scars from the cuts, which he applied to himself in order to feel less mental pain. Nikolai says that he is drinking sedatives now. He does not know how to deal with his condition. “I still can’t believe that Vlad died. I have been crying every day. I had one real friend. We are very similar in many ways, but I can be diplomatic, tell people what they want to hear. And Vlad was uncompromising everything. He did not consider it necessary to hypocrite and lie for his own safety,” says Nikolai.

The strongest drugs were given to me: haloperidol, amitriptyin, Akinon, Prozin. Due to the side effect of drugs, I could only stupidly swing from side to side

In October, parents put Nikolai in the sharp department of the teenage center at the Moscow Psychiatric Hospital No. 15. “I agreed to hospitalization under the influence of a family and a psychiatrist. He told me:“ If you want you to make a worthy member of society from you, an asocial element, you need to be treated. ”I thought I would have time to rethink my life and think. Instead, they gave me the strongest drugs: haloperidol, amitriptylin, Akineton. From the treatment, due to the side effect of drugs, I could only stupidly shook from side to side.

When a person thinks differently than a herd of rams, they begin to spread rot

He was discharged a few days before adulthood. Doctors said: “We do not want to engage in the design of papers, transfer to an adult department, otherwise you would have been treated with us for a month.” After discharge from the hospital, Nikolai, under the control of his parents, continued to take antipsychotics. “The condition was-that I will have a will, inside-the void. I was not interested even with Vlad to communicate. And I decided to stop drinking tablets in full, spit them out. After that, I came to life a little, but due to the consequences of treatment, I remember that in recent months a vaguely, like a bad dream,” says Nikolai. I ask Nikolai why the parents decided that he needed treatment in a psychiatric clinic. Nikolai replies that his father and mother began to doubt his mental health after their political actions with Vlad. Nikolai repeats that his father and his mother does not blame. Since doctors believe that he is unhealthy, it is, despite the fact that Nikolai felt better before hospitalization.

Prior to the placement in the hospital, Nikolai gave the floor to Vlad to visit him at Catholic Christmas and kept his promise. Immediately after Nikolai arrived, Vlad took Galoperidol from him and laid it together with his pills. According to Nikolai, Vlad had long found out how to make a deadly dose of drugs available without a prescription, and kept it with him.

“Vlad all the time said that he did not want to live. Different people tried to help him from the country, but he stopped believing in himself. Thoughts about suicide appeared in June, he often talked about it, so often that I had already stopped being afraid of him. I have no unequivocal answer to the question of why Vlad committed suicide. Apparently, he finally desperate and tired. I supported the Lord, said to live on,” he said to live on. Nikolai.

If, after our actions, at least one person realized that war and lies is bad, we fought for nothing. And Vlad's death was not completely in vain

On December 25, according to Nikolai, Vlad went into his room for a few minutes, then ran out of there to the corridor. He shouted that he had drank twenty tablets of haloperidol. Vlad was sick, he went to the toilet. Five minutes later, Vlad's father opened the door, saw his son unconscious, felt the pulse and called an ambulance. The medical team arrived ten minutes later and stated death. Nikolai stayed in the house of his father Vlad before the funeral. “I had to take Vlad on the last journey. You can’t imagine how hard it was for me these days in the house of Father Vlad. The relatives of Vlad asked me:“ Why did you come, are you crazy? ” Grandfather would not leave me at rest, rewritten my passport data ... All the time he depicted a positive young man to his father, that his son was doing well and he was optimizing in the future ... Now he blames Vlad's death Recently, his political protest has some sense and I do not regret our actions.

Sometimes I think to pass myself to a psychiatric clinic. Let it be better to be a vegetable than constant pain

Nikolai does not hide that he is very bad now. Parents moved him to his grandmother. They do not want Nikolai to communicate with his younger brother. “Sometimes I think to pass myself to a psychiatric clinic. Let it be better to be a vegetable than a constant pain. I often reflect on suicide ... Due to treatment, I could not continue to study at the university and took an academic vacation. Now I’m looking for a job in Podolsk. I want to come somewhere every day. It's hard to sit at home all day and think about owning the Owner endlessly,” he says.

Nicholas is very worried about what happened to Vlad's unfinished book. The Computer Vlad was seized by investigators. There remained drafts of the book that young people were going to write together. “Vlad had to talk about how everyone does not give a damn about each other in the Zhigulevsky culinary technical school. I am about indifference in a prestigious Moscow university. In our society, one person for another is an empty place. I will write about it. Now one.”

Nikolai said that in 37 days he had changed a lot in a psychiatric hospital. Most of all is now afraid of returning to the hospital. “I need to save the little that I have. I follow the news, and my political views have not changed, but now I am avoiding any conflicts. If they take it to the police, then they will immediately send me to a psychiatric hospital. My parents will make me agree financially and I don’t have a choice. I don’t have Vlad, I am not a hero,” says Nikolai.

A few days after our meeting, Nikolai sent me a link to the cartoon about the penguins, which he often reviews recently. The plot of the cartoon is like this. Penguins hatch eggs, warming them with the warmth of their body. One penguin had a very strange egg: a chick did not want to hatch from it. The rest of the penguins believed that this was not an egg, but a white oval stone. They called Penguin an eccentric and demanded that he leave an empty venture. But our penguin did not believe them and took care of the egg as best he could. When it was urgent to swim to the other side, Penguin took the egg with him. The penguin sailed with an egg in the wings for a long time and stubbornly on the stormy sea. In the end, Penguin lost his strength and drowned, but did not release an egg from the wings. “He realized that the last time I saw ice and the sun. All this would have remained for him for many years if he would let go of the stone, but Penguin was sure that he had not a stone, but an egg with a tiny penguin, who had not yet been born, but his beloved,” the last words of this cartoon sound.