I walked past a rally and found myself on the administrative wanted list: the story of a detainee from Moscow

In March 2020, Nikita Yesin was accidentally detained at a bus stop near protests against the construction of the South-East Expressway in Moscow. On September 13, he was again at the police station. This time, the police considered that Yesin was on the “administrative wanted list”. What it is, they themselves do not know.

I was walking along the Okhotny Ryad metro station with a girl. Moved to another station, but did not reach. A police officer approaches: "Hello, your documents." Well, I think it's a standard document check. He took my driver's license, looks at the tablet and says: "Come with us." I say: "And the reason?" He shows me the tablet, and it says: “Esin Nikita. Administrative search.

I say, “That can't be. There are no proven offenses behind me, there are no debts. He says: "Well, let's go and figure it out." We pass into their booth. To my questions about what an administrative search is, the policemen shrugged their shoulders. I also encountered this for the first time. I know the federal wanted list, but I don't know the administrative wanted list. The lawyer also does not know, has not heard of such a thing.

“Well,” the policemen say, “these are most likely bailiffs.

I don't have any debts, so your wording doesn't work.

“Well, then we don’t know,” they replied.

Then they referred to the fact that they have a completely new program that shows whether a person is wanted. She is only two months old, so she is damp, there may be some inaccuracies, the police said.

In the booth, they looked in more detail on the tablet that the initiator [of the administrative search] was the Nagatino-Sadovniki police department, article 20.2, which is about the rally. I thought maybe I had a meeting already. Maybe they already soldered a fine to me there and put me on the wanted list. Looked, there is no solution on the site. I called the lawyer, he says that on the 18th [September] the court. I show the police my “Gosuslugi”, the website of the bailiffs, that there is nothing behind me, I cannot be on the wanted list. They say: "Well, we'll figure it out in the department."

They escorted me to the department on Krasnoselskaya. I was still waiting in line while the migrants were interrogated. Then I go up to the employee: “What happened? When can I leave?" No one explains anything to me why I'm sitting here at all. They rolled my fingers, rolled off my boots, took a picture. They say: “We will send your request to the Nagatino-Sadovniki police department, let them sort it out there.”

The cops generally behaved appropriately. They tried to joke there. Some even understand everything or pretend to understand. Suppose, when my shoes were rolled back, everyone understood that this was a crazy situation. But they have an order, so they can't do anything. They laughed and said: "This is the order." I say: "I'll go out, I'll change my shoes and that's it." They say, "Well, we understand."

I could give it all up. But I was with a girl, I wanted to continue our walk. If I were alone, maybe I would also kick. The only thing I did not want to donate saliva was to wet a cotton swab. Said, “Why is that? Unsterile."

After that I was released. I ask them:

- What should I do next? Now I will leave you, the patrol will stop me again. Again they will say: "You are wanted, let's go."

- They won't stop.

What do you mean, "don't stop"?

- And you say that you have already been detained.

It seems to me that the police themselves do not know what to do in the event of such an arrest. Well, look: I have a wanted list, but they let me go. I think this is already an indicator. A wanted person is usually kept until the circumstances are clarified.

I wrote to the Department of Internal Affairs for the South Administrative District with a request to explain all this to me. Let's see what they say. It’s the same with them: three days for registration, 30 days for consideration, then another 30 days there ... Someday they will answer.

I am not an environmental activist at all, I do not belong to any protests. On March 19, I was detained absolutely by accident at a bus stop. I even showed the police officers a video where I was just standing there, the protest was 150 meters away from me, and they grabbed me. Just fell under the general distribution.