Heroes and antiheroes of 2016

Heroes...

Ildar Dadin

A letter from Ildar Dadin, the first Russian convicted under article 212.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, to his wife from the Segezha colony IK-7 is a calm and terrible document. Dadin, as about things quite everyday, spoke about torture in the colony and that his very survival was in question. Perhaps it was this tone, the tone of a person experiencing a nightmare as a routine, that provoked a reaction even in official circles. Not only real, but also state-owned human rights activists had to fuss. The leadership of the Federal Penitentiary Service is to dodge (the head of the colony, Major Sergei Kossiev, was even temporarily removed from his post). Other prisoners spoke up. The terrible world of the Russian prison, where the most sophisticated bullying of people is the norm, briefly emerged from the darkness. Dadin did not open it, but reminded that here it is, this world, nearby, and, according to the proverb, no one is safe from a close acquaintance with it.

Dadin was not afraid to go out on single pickets, knowing perfectly well that now you can get into the zone for this. He got in first. But even there it turned out to be too bold, too inconvenient for the system. The system responded in the best way it could, with humiliation and torture. Daddy didn't give up. The system, of course, did not break, but it failed. Ildar was transferred to another colony - "for security reasons." And on December 15, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation accepted for consideration his complaint against the anti-constitutional article of the Criminal Code "on repeated violation of the rules for holding mass events."

Denis Karagodin

Tomich Denis Karagodin worked for four years in the archives to identify everyone involved in the death of his great-grandfather (the peasant Stepan Karagodin was shot during the Great Terror as a "Japanese spy"). The great-grandson did it. He learned the names of everyone - from the executioners who carried out the sentence to the provocateur who was put in a cell with his great-grandfather. Now in his plans - to bring to justice the participants in the massacre of the ancestor, with Stalin at the head, for "a murder carried out by a group of persons by prior conspiracy."

Karagodin is already being accused of striving to “split society,” and it is no coincidence that history has become the patrimony of propaganda, monuments are erected to the leader of the peoples, power is sacred here, and not the memory of those whom the government killed. Karagodin starts a dangerous game with the state, which is headed by members of the corporation that destroyed his great-grandfather. He shows how the history of the state's crimes against its own people can be given a personal, personal dimension. He does the most, from the point of view of the executioners, a terrible thing - he announces the names of specific killers of a specific person, not allowing them to hide behind talk about the "justification of the decisions of the leadership" or "historical necessity."

Alexander Sokurov

Sokurov is not included in the "number of persecuted creators." Rarely does a year go by without a Russian or international award. In 2014, he received the State Prize from the hands of the President "for his contribution to the development of domestic and world cinema." And in 2016, at a completely protocol event - a joint meeting of councils for culture and art and for the Russian language - he asked the president a really uncomfortable question. Really uncomfortable for a vindictive and almost omnipotent person.

Not about censorship, not about his own troubles (like Yevgeny Mironov at the same meeting), but about the Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov, who, on trumped-up charges, is serving an unthinkable twenty-year sentence in a Russian colony. Questions about censorship are a convenient pass for Putin, a reason to say that censorship is impossible and to speculate about “insulting feelings.” No, of course, Putin easily avoids this, like any other issue - there is a law, there was a court ... But the name is pronounced, and already the propagandists on TV have to lie about a terrible terrorist, and at least someone will think about something else one crime of the state.

Alexey Navalny

On the one hand, how not to mention Navalny when making a list of the heroes of the year, if only because of the poverty of the opposition political scene? On the other hand, why, exactly? FBK investigations are an important matter, and for investigators it is also risky, but in a country where corruption has won, any high-profile revelations rest on the absence of results. What will happen to the next thief caught by the hand? Nothing. In addition, for the opposition politics of this year, Navalny is also a participant (or, as some people think, one of the initiators) of the scandal with the primaries of the Democratic Coalition. But towards the end of the year, thanks to the decision of the ECHR, which forced the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to send the notorious Kirovles case for review, Navalny got a chance to turn the political agenda around and did not miss it. Played ahead. By declaring that he would take part in the presidential elections, Navalny demonstrated at least courage - no one knows how the second trial in Kirov will end, and dirt has already poured from the TV. Now it is Navalny and his election project that are the main assembly point for opposition politics in the new electoral cycle.

Boris Nemtsov

Nemtsov was killed in February 2015. The year 2016 passed entirely without him. But if you do not mention him, the list of heroes of the outgoing year will be incomplete. To those who did not closely follow opposition politics in the last years of Nemtsov's life, he seemed more like a party-goer, a guest from the past, a memory card from the reckless nineties, than an active and influential player. But it was his absence that helped to realize who Boris Nemtsov really was for the remnants of the opposition. The year 2016 turned out to be rich in squabbles between the oppositionists, who then began to divide places in the list of a party that had no chance of entering parliament (his party), with such fury, as if the fate of Russia depended on it, or even just throw mud at each other , as if state television is no longer enough for this. And each story made him breathe - he would have found the words. He would help negotiate. He would not bring the case to complete disgrace. The absence of a hero explained who the hero was. And it is symbolic that PARNAS, a party that retained its significance largely due to its place in the Yaroslavl Duma, also lost the German mandate, which made it possible to participate in federal elections without prior collection of signatures, and by the end of the year - some of the at least somehow noticeable members who call themselves the "Nemtsov team".

...and antiheroes of the year

Igor Sechin

Every monarch must have an all-powerful temporary worker. Vladimir Putin has the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin. His project for the privatization of Bashneft was criticized by the government, and even the president hinted after the fact that the privatization of a state company by another state company was a strange thing. But everything happened the way Sechin wanted. And the main critic of the deal, ex-Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukaev, was under house arrest. And it is difficult to resist the assumption that this is not a demonstrative flogging of a presumptuous official who dared to raise his voice against Igor Ivanovich. And for the rest, an example so that they remember their place. Moreover, the head of Rosneft is successful not only in the field of state entrepreneurship, but also in the judicial arena. Sechin wins any trial. Especially since the FSB plays for him. Rumor has it that his courage is already beyond the bounds of what is permitted, and further - a gradual surrender of positions, the end of a career, the lot of all temporary workers. But so far, Igor Sechin is entering the year 2017 as an unconditional triumph, the head of a supercorporation and almost the master of the country.

Vladimir Medinsky

The state is trying to nationalize culture, and turn creative people into machine gunners of the party. The Minister of Culture has repeatedly voiced this position directly. But 2016 was the real "year of Medinsky", a former PR man, former deputy and pseudo-historian. Medinsky emerged unscathed from the scandal surrounding embezzlement in the ministry entrusted to him (Deputy Minister Grigory Pirumov was under arrest), slipped out of the clutches of the attestation committee - professional historians did not dare to consider the dissertation of an official colleague, in which schoolchildren's mistakes were discovered. Medinsky reckoned with historians - he called everyone who tries to call the story of the "28 Panfilov Heroes" a myth, that is, to call a spade a spade, "complete scum." Throughout the year, rumors about his imminent and inevitable resignation did not subside, perhaps not unfounded: on the eve of the new year, the Duma refused to hear the minister’s report, and they still plan to check his dissertation at Moscow State University next year. But while he is at his post and in his place, not just an official, but the ideal embodiment of what Putin's Russia understands as culture.

Ella Pamfilova

With the arrival of Ella Pamfilova to the post of head of the Central Election Commission, certain hopes were associated: in a sense, her appointment instead of the odious Vladimir Churov could be interpreted as a concession (not without irony - almost five years later) to one of Bolotnaya's key demands. An unexpected sign of liberalization in an era of uninterrupted tightening of the screws. But traditional scandals - with the use of administrative resources and roundabouts - began already during the local elections in Barvikha. And the September elections to the State Duma showed that Pamfilov’s heroes can act no worse than Churov’s guardsmen: we saw the same outrageous results of the party in power in the national republics, a sudden increase in turnout in the middle of voting day, statistically unimaginable results that coincide up to tenths of a percent in dozens of polling stations in Saratov and Mytishchi, traces of a clear rewriting of protocols. And also - several loud statements from the head of the CEC and no action. There was no noisy scandal only because the elections themselves did not arouse particular interest among the public. In December, Pamfilova promised Vladimir Putin to "work on the mistakes" following the results of the Duma elections. Apparently, in order to work in the presidential elections not more honestly, but more accurately. No obvious blemishes.

Vitaly Mutko

Among the scandals associated with Russia in the past year, doping is one of the loudest. Our pride, our sport, our athletes are under attack. Sports - traditional, from the twentieth century, with its geopolitical confrontations - a way to bloodlessly demonstrate their own superiority. Sublimation of war and an important element of propaganda. Not without reason, after all, Putin personally fought for the right to host the Olympic Games in Sochi, and for the World Cup. The opening day of the Sochi Olympics is now an official holiday, Winter Sports Day. That is why the report of the McLaren commission turned out to be a particularly painful blow. The arguments of the McLaren report are still disputed, and not only by Russian officials, but he has already ruined the career and ruined the reputation of many athletes. Some lost their awards, including those for the Sochi Olympiad. And the scandal has a name. This name is mentioned more than once in the report: “Vitaly Mutko was in the know and covered all the actions with the samples of the “dirty” athletes of Russia. Sports Minister Mutko directly influenced the substitution of doping samples. Mutko was not even allowed to the Olympics in Rio, was deprived of official accreditation. And also (at home), following the results of the scandal, they were promoted - they were transferred from ministers to deputy prime ministers. How else? To punish Mutko means to confirm all McLaren's accusations. Yes, and do not drown in the urine of a proven person.

Prisoners in uniform

Of course, the anti-heroes of the year were also the security forces - colonels and generals, in whose bins they found "unrecorded" - millions of dollars and billions of rubles, and they themselves, who had decided their fate only yesterday, moved to the bunks in Lefortovo. An iconic figure is Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko ( photo above ). Whether this is the fight against corruption, or a new division of the “food base” that is shrinking due to the crisis, the public is wondering. Immediately there were rumors about a large-scale reorganization of law enforcement agencies, they confidently started talking about the imminent resignation of the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, especially after his faithful "talking head" Vladimir Markin left his post. But the matter was limited to the sacrifice of a pawn.

Photo: Alexander Baroshin, Denis Karagodin, Elena Mulina/Interpress/TASS, Alexei Antonenko, Evgeny Feldman, Sergei Petrov/TASS, Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS, Artem Korotaev/TASS, Vladimir Gerdo/TASS, Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS