Evening Medusa

Interview with Sergei Savelyev, who gave Gulagu.net an archive of torture in prisons. Natalia Oreiro became a citizen of Russia. The peak of the autumn covid wave has not yet been reached

Good evening,

THIS MESSAGE (MATERIAL) IS CREATED AND (OR) DISTRIBUTED BY A FOREIGN MASS MEDIA PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT AND (OR) A RUSSIAN LEGAL ENTITY PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT

This is Meduza's daily newsletter about the most important things that happened during the day. And on Mondays - also about the events of the weekend. Let's start with the good news: we asked our readers how to cheer themselves up in these dark and cold times - and we learned not only about mulled wine! You can sew crazy pillowcases, felt wool (instead of boxing), and also cook “super-confusing” or sculpt dumplings with friends. If you get tired of the disturbing news from this newsletter, come back here right away (all the tips are here!).

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Pulse

Breaking news today again has to start with the coronavirus

• Petersburg announced a lockdown. According to Fontanka, the authorities did this to prevent Muscovites from coming to the city.
• The Crimean Ministry of Health plans to purchase mobile refrigerators for storing the bodies of those who died from covid. Morgues can no longer cope with the load.
• The peak of the autumn wave of COVID-19 in Russia has not yet been reached , the chief infectious disease specialist of the Ministry of Health believes.
• Putin banned restaurants from opening at night and ordered unvaccinated Russians over 60 to self-isolate.
• The Ministry of Health of Russia allowed the use of Sputnik V when vaccinating breastfeeding women against covid.
• Putin instructed to give working Russians two paid days off for vaccination against covid.
• The Ministry of Health of Russia allowed the simultaneous vaccination against influenza and covid.

But there is more news

• The Ministry of Internal Affairs put on the wanted list Sergei Savelyev, who handed over a video archive of torture in colonies to Gulagu.net.
• Fedor Emelianenko defeated Timothy Johnson by knockout at the Bellator tournament in Russia. The fight lasted less than two minutes.
• The Ministry of Internal Affairs put Aleksey Poltavets, a defendant in the Network case, on the wanted list. He told Meduza about the murders of Yekaterina Levchenko and Artem Dorofeev, and confessed to one of them.
• Uruguayan actress Natalia Oreiro became a citizen of Russia.
• The creators of FindFace have begun testing technology that allows them to identify people with shotguns and rifles near schools.
• More than 200 scientists asked the Prosecutor General's Office not to challenge the house arrest of the rector Shaninka Sergei Zuev and not to transfer him to a pre-trial detention center, as the prosecution asks.
• Biden's nine-month drop in ratings was the largest among elected U.S. presidents since World War II, according to Gallup.

Texts of the day

The case of Marina Rakova and Sergei Zuev seemed like an attack by the state on liberals and Shaninka. As Meduza found out, behind it is a redistribution of the multi-billion dollar market of school textbooks

On October 7, Marina Rakova was sent to a pre-trial detention center on charges of embezzlement on an especially large scale. Prior to that, she made a brilliant career from a graduate of Baumanka to Deputy Minister of Education and Vice President of Sberbank. In addition to her, her former Sber colleagues Maxim Inkin and Yevgeny Zak were detained in the case of embezzlement. As well as the executive director of Shaninka Kristina Kryuchkova and the rector of the university Sergey Zuev.

Meduza special correspondent Anastasia Yakoreva found out how this criminal case appeared and how it is connected with the redistribution of the multi-billion dollar market of school textbooks in Russia.

One of the defendants in the Network case was charged with the murder of Ekaterina Levchenko. Meduza special correspondent Kristina Safonova spoke to her mother

19-year-old Katya Levchenko disappeared in the spring of 2017, but her mother Tatiana found out that her daughter was dead only in February 2020. Meduza then released a large investigation into the possible involvement of several defendants in the Network case from Penza in the murder of Yekaterina Levchenko and Artem Dorofeev. In early October 2021, charged Maxim Ivankin, who had already been sentenced to 13 years in prison for participating in a “terrorist community” and trying to sell drugs on a large scale, was with their murder in early October 2021. Soon, another person involved in the case, Alexei Poltavets, was put on the wanted list. Meduza special correspondent Kristina Safonova spoke with Tatyana Levchenko:

“I wanted to talk for the simple reason that a lot of people sympathize, empathize with Ivankin. He is supported, praised, how good he is, poor, unfortunate. And no one even thinks, there is no thought that suddenly he did all this? If he did all this with my daughter, how poor, unfortunate, good is he? How can it be supported? And where is Katya with me then? There is complete silence about her. As if the murders never happened.

I also want everything to be fair, correct and according to the law. But supporting a person who is highly likely to be a killer, like this? [Doing it] just because the system isn't working right, I feel like it's kind of not human at all."

Interview with former prisoner Sergei Savelyev, who gave human rights activists a video of torture in prisons. And in the end he himself became a target for the security forces

Former prisoner Sergei Savelyev, who donated the torture video archive to the Gulagu.net project, worked as a CCTV camera administrator at the tuberculosis hospital of the Federal Penitentiary Service in the Saratov Region (OTB-1) while serving a nine-year sentence on drug trafficking charges. In mid-October, fearing persecution by the security forces, he asked for political asylum in France. And on October 23, he was put on the wanted list and arrested in absentia.

We talked with Sergey Savelyev about why people are tortured on a massive scale in colonies and why no one is punished for it.

“ [FSIN] was interested in how the information was leaked and where the archive is stored. All they want is to stop future leaks. And shut my mouth. They immediately told me there: “We know from which mail you sent letters, we know your correspondence and instant messengers.” I, being in Belarus and having a [mobile] number of a Belarusian operator, was under the supervision of Russian special services .”

Coronavirus again

The authorities introduce "non-working days" to combat covid. Do they have any sense if half of the people will still work, and the other will go on vacation?

Last time, "non-working days" throughout the country were introduced between the May holidays of 2021 (then "did not work" for 10 days). These short “holidays”, of course, cannot be compared either in duration or in the severity of restrictions with the “lockdown” in spring 2020, which lasted 42 days and was accompanied by regional bans on the movement of citizens. The recent May experience was probably considered successful: then the emerging outbreak of the epidemic was quickly suppressed in most regions. However, the current situation is fundamentally different from then. Meduza figured out whether the new restrictions will be able to defeat the next (but one of the strongest in a year and a half) outbreak of the epidemic.

Podcast "What Happened"

Why is the Yeltsin Center allowed what other public and educational structures have long been persecuted for? And can this “ideological offshore” survive?

On October 23, during the Ural Music Night festival, singer Vadim Samoilov at the Yeltsin Center site uttered insults against liberals, the LGBT community and the Yeltsin Center. Later, after the performance, festival director Yevgeny Gorenburg apologized for the singer's words.

Since opening in 2015, the Presidential Center has come under fire for its liberal leanings. Director Nikita Mikhalkov stated that the Yeltsin Center "destroys the national identity of children."

At the same time, in 2015, the Yeltsin Center was opened by President Vladimir Putin and then Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. And the board of trustees of the organization includes high-ranking officials.

Why is Yeltsin Center still allowed to do things that everyone else in Russia is already strictly forbidden to do? Discussing with political scientist Andrey Kolesnikov.

Listen to What Happened on Meduza and YouTube , and subscribe to Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Podcast and other podcast services.

Playing squid? Well, nooo...

Let's better remember our yard games from childhood

It seems that the most popular series in the history of Netflix has already been watched and discussed by everyone - so today we will do without it. Better remember your favorite yard games from childhood! Some of them would certainly make great challenges for the second season. You just need to learn the rules properly. It seems that our test can help with this.

We do not lose heart and get ready to sew crazy pillowcases. Your Medusa