"Observer in the field": the detention and arrest of the volunteer of St. Petersburg human rights initiative

Detention of Alexei Belozerov / Photo: Konstantin Shamshura

GPZ

I graduated from the Smolny Institute of Free Arts and Sciences of St. Petersburg State University and since then I have been engaged in free arts and sciences. He worked as an editor in the magazine "Session" - "Journal of Cinema and Time." Now I am working as a video editor in CSCenter - the educational project Jetbrains and Yandex, also in STEPIK, an open educational platform.

On the fifth of May was the action "He is not a king for us." He is Vladimir Putin, of course. On May 7, his inauguration took place as the President of the Russian Federation - the fourth. I was at a rally in Bolotnaya Square in front of the third - May 6, 2012. Then it turned into a large -scale police violence, and then my life shared “before” and “after”. So on the fifth of May I just could not help but go.

To participate in rallies, I am too "ironic." I envy those who go, take the flag, screams something, builds barricades, fights with riot police-but I can’t, I don’t know how to yet, I hope to learn someday. In the meantime, I need some excuse, or something-a distance. To make it not so scary. On May sixth, 2012 I was with the camera, shot for the newspaper "Paper". And this time he went as a human rights activist.

In St. Petersburg there is a group of assistance to the detainees, GPZ, it appeared back in 2011, when the first protests after the Duma elections and, accordingly, the first detentions began. Then the St. Petersburg Open School of Human Rights arose. In many ways, due to its graduates of the State Physics and Enterprise, it expanded and began not only to wear gearboxes, but also to provide legal assistance: to explain to people how to behave in the police department, how to protect their rights; act as defenders in court. During different shares, a hot line works (write down the phone: + 7 (812) 987-82-31), someone goes to the police department, to the court.

There is such a role-an “observer in the field”: you take with you a piece of paper on which it is briefly written what to do for detainees, where to call, what to say to the cops, how to behave in court, forms of petitions and complaints ... If you see that someone is detained, or is about to be detained, or it can be seen right in the face of a person that you will definitely be detained today, and you seem to provide legal assistance. This is what I did the fifth.

I walked with the protesters. You go and look around, look where the cops will come from. At first, one was delayed. They grab a person from the crowd, lead with their hands, and you run after him, try, if his hand is free, give a piece of paper. One guy whom the cops led, I put the handout in the back pocket of the jeans, he was frightened, fell to the ground, shouted: “I was thrown into my back pocket! It's not me! " I to him: "Relax, this is a memo for the detainees." Such work. And if you see the bus into which people are stuffing, you can try to throw a set of documents through the window, so that everyone on the bus has something to read about their rights. And we were looking for buses, could not find, squeezed through the crowd ...

Opposite Marata Streets, the cops were already lined up in chains, squeezed people back, not letting them to the Moscow station. Remember this photo , where the guy closes with a road sign, and cops step on him. So, there was a chain of riot police, they pushed some people and this guy, including, I ran reflexively to the rescue (what would I, ask, could help them out?). While I was running, the guy fell, they stepped on him, stepped over him, and I was alone face to face with this line.

And then we left Marat ago, and already at the hotel I saw a bus - cheers, detained. I went to the bus, began to show something with gestures, “open the window”, “take the handouts”-they don’t understand. I attached a sheet to the glass: "Write down the phones." They understood, they began to record. And then it was fast. I heard the scream of my partner and realized that I was lying on the asphalt, and around the Cosmonauts. In general, one ran out on the left and gave me a club on my legs-it doesn’t hurt very much, but effectively: you immediately fall, and ten more-on the right ... I didn’t even see them, I was facing the bus. They dragged on the asphalt and stuffed it into this very bus. That is, I ended up among people who wanted to help.

There is adrenaline when you got into a cordon, or you run from the cops, or something else. When you sit on the bus, everything is calm. The rally continues, and you, according to our instructions, need to find out what the name of those who are sitting on the bus are to take phones from them so that no one is lost. The first task is to get acquainted, overcome natural distrust, try to make your advice hear. Therefore, not up to emotions.

Alexey Belozerov in a special -receiving / photo date is provided by Belozerov

Police

I think I was detained for no particular reason. They poked their finger simply: “Take it out” - and that’s it. As I understand it, when they grab out of the crowd, they are delayed arbitrarily, for whom the eyes will catch on ... And by the walkie -talkie it is easier to say: “There is that with the flag”, “over there in a red hat”. There is a special sign - they can be delayed. I stood alone, did something suspicious, so they detained me.

I was brought to the 15th police department, with several other people I was separated from the rest of the detainees, placed in the notorious “monkey”. Then they made a protocol. They brought into the room, two witnesses and two police officers are sitting there: one writes the protocol, the other searches you. Remove the chain, remove the laces, remove the shoes. The policeman says: "Take off your pants." I say: "I will not." He says: "Take off." I say: "You can shoot me yourself what you want, I will not help you." They persuaded: “What are you embarrassed, do you go to the beach?”, “Yes, we just fix bodily harm.” As a result, they did not undress me, although they threatened.

Next is the chamber of administrative detention. This is such a concrete cage, some kind of light is conditional. The concrete floor, painted walls, mud, vomit, dried in the corner, one of the walls of the bench - two boobs, you can lie down if you do not move much. I lay down on a bench and realized something wrong: the hands and face are itching, burning-not good. At first I thought, maybe it was because of stress, but after some time I realized that someone was eating me naturally. I sang to look closely-and on this white sheet, which I somehow lifted for myself, I saw how just such red drops of blood crawl: pumped bugs. We began to study these two boobs. And there are these bugs ...

And I had to get off the remarkable ones with the remarkable ones, to move to the opposite wall, to where the vomit is dried, and on the concrete floor, somehow crumbled, to sleep. Bed bugs also crawled there, but less willingly. There were still some kind of insects of unidentified form, similar to lice or ticks, but too large for both (although I am not a specialist, of course). In general, we convinced each other that lice could not be of this size, and somehow calmed down. At some point, I open my eyes, and in front of me is a neighbor’s feet. And I see that this insect creeps in his leg, slowly, like in a horror film, crawls to the edge and wraps it inside ...

We told the employees, of course, that bugs. But something to them. One of the comrades had an allergic asthma, and he felt that there would be an attack: dust, no ventilation ... Meanwhile, the ambulance came to one of the detainees, and we also began to shout: “doctor, doctor”. The doctor came and said: “This is on your nervous ground. Do not be nervous, and everything will pass, ”and left.

Out of the morning, out of 36 people, 9 people reached the court. The rest of the night was stolen and released under honestly, under the subscription. They take a signature under a piece of paper like "I undertake to appear at the hearing when they call me." And they give one more, which has no legal force, they say, "the consideration of the case then and then." Well, then you throw this piece of paper and wait for a real agenda. But we are such - we are respecting papers.

Special receiver

Then we were taken to the special receiver. The cameras are all double. Two types of people are sitting in the special cost: guys from rallies and drunken drivers. The camera is placed, grouping under the article: political with political and, since you can smoke in the cell, then non -smokers with non -smokers. Drunk drivers are usually smoking.

The cell is not just dirty, but super -ghost. Everything is covered with a layer of dirt, the walls are shameless, shabby, plumbing lost white color for a long time, the window is also puzzled, there are pigeons. Souls - the cleanest place in the entire specialisters go to the shower by the Vester (but I was lucky a couple of times, and I walked alone). Of course, there are no cabins, three watering can on the one hand, three on the other. Souls - during settlement and on Saturdays. It’s hard for people who are accustomed to going to the shower twice a day. But even they, I am sure, will be easier in a special -reception. Everything is very dirty, and you do not really need to be clean, you merge with the environment.

Once a day you can go to the library and take a book. There are a fair number of books like "Svarog-Volkolak-Vedmak". A fair amount of Soviet waste paper ... Everything that I read in fifteen days, from there. “Lot 49” is shouted, Pinchon, the “clusters of anger” by Steinbeck, “The noise and rage” of Fulkner, the “Moon harshly” Heinlin. With pleasure, I first read the “Snail on the slope”, “Waves extinguish the wind” and the “lame fate” of the Strugatsky - all about how the actually new species arises inside humanity: practically our case.

All this was in the prison library, but everything was lying in a terrible mess. At some point, I suggested: "Let me figure out the library for you, in a day or two I will figure it out as it should." They say: "You understand, no one reads it, only you have come here, nobody needs it, only books are spoiled." The cop says: “Here we have such a good book, with such pictures they brought -“ Little Prince ” - and they ruined it all, they spoke all over.”

As I said, the cameras are very dirty. A great way to raise your mood for yourself and your neighbor is to get out there. And you can do this at least every day. You can ask for a bucket, rag and mop. I washed the plumbing very well, it became almost white, in the sink it could even be washed.

I was allowed to leave a fitness bracelet. When I sat in prison the last time, after seven days spent in the cell, I felt very relaxed: you lie, then you will fall asleep, then wake up; I woke up, read, fell asleep again. And you go free, go through a hundred meters - and that’s all, tachycardia, you fall, there is nothing to breathe. And this time I decided that I would take ten thousand steps every day. Starting from some point, I really walked around the cell: seven steps there, seven back. You go through some time, and it turns out ten thousand. And when I went out, there was no such problem.

The worst thing is that you cannot be left alone. The toilet behind the bark is unpleasant, but also tolerant, but the fact that from the moment of detention and before the release you are not alone for a second - it oppresses. And the last time I went out, they also met me, a certain number of people with cameras. They tried to take the comments, and I did not yell at anyone there, but I was very unhappy - because it was like a continuation of the impossibility of being alone.

And this time I wrote a piece of paper: “I ask you to transfer the camera into a single status,” one of the neighbors thought of. The last week I lived alone, and I felt good. I walked as much as I wanted, read, sat, sang the songs quietly - went crazy as I could. And when this time I met a lot of friends, it was very pleasant, I spoke with pleasure with everyone and felt good, good.

Although many say: "Well, how alone is it, impossible, monstrous." For several days in the evenings, some guys were shouted from the windows to the windows, I don’t know in what language; And there was so much pain, longing, when someone shouted to someone "Where are you, where?" (I don’t know the language, but I understood), it was obvious that someone was very bad to sit alone. I was cool.

Major

While sitting, you are in such a special condition. On the one hand, you are not happy with anything, but you also do not allow yourself to lose heart. Such a suspended state: you are everywhere temporary. First, temporarily on the bus, then temporarily in the cell, then temporarily in court, then temporarily in a special reception. Therefore, it is very difficult to say what feelings you feel for all this. What feelings do you feel when your flight is detained for a day? For three days? These are the same feelings here. You are waiting for something quite concrete-what will be free. And there is no object to which you can have hatred. Probably, if you are in prison, there are such objects. Some kindergarten or cellmate there, who humiliates you in every possible way ... But here-no.

Mass repressions and totalitarian horrors begin when an organized opposition has already been destroyed. While she is, they are engaged in it. Peaceful people begin to take away from the bed at night in an unknown direction, when there is no one to stand up for them. There is such a song by Yegor Letov, it is often remembered in connection with the thought that I now expose: “We are the ice under the feet of the major”, about hippers and punks: sweet smoke, flowers in the hair, “the major will be able to change their minds, he goes ... but while we are, there will be an evil head, the major will slip, we fall under the feet of the major.” Again, I do not know what is true of this, and what is from this - self -toss and illusion, that everything is not in vain, but the main thoughts are like that.