Translated material
Dress, go out the street naked
On July 15, 2021, my last name at number 28 appeared in the register of foreign agents of the Ministry of Justice. From this moment in my life, nothing has changed and everything has changed.
“Turn off! Come out on the street naked,” Butusov sang when I was a young maid. For six months now I have been feeling naked. As if they took off all the clothes from me and said: now you will live only like that. And it seems that I have not been young for a long time for a long time, but there was nothing to cover up, they didn’t even leave the very moment.
“Three rubles 54 kopecks of dividends for shares received in the reporting period?” Keeps my curator from the Ministry of Justice, who has twice has already wrapped me with the first financial report of the “foreign agent”. “In general, you must indicate everything, but at your discretion.” For these 3 rubles 54 kopecks, even a polyethylene package in Moscow has not been bought for a long time, but every three months, each “foreign Agent” should submit an account to the Ministry of Justice, in which you need to tell about all its income, even such insignificant, and their expenses.
My curator in the Ministry of Justice by the name of Lysikov, this dear and always polite person, with whom I have already talked on the phone more than once, knows more about me than all my men combined, because in my life I had never had to report to anyone, as they say, God merciful. Now I dream of printouts of my bank cards and payments, payments, payments. I put them on a calculator, double -check them, then just in case, as in school, I write out the dials in a column and also fold/read it.
“The main thing is that at the end all the numbers from all pages - in, g, s, e, e, and - came together,” the voice of my curator sounds lulling music. No, not in a dream, in reality. In the last report, I realized that the amount of 2291 ruble 64 kopecks is a return for the paid kindergarten, where my three -year -old son did not go until he was sick, I entered the wrong leaflet. “Yes, this is a mistake, I will have to redo it,” the curator confirmed my fears, and I again opened an Exel native sign that has already become a native sign, and I want to believe that this time I entered where it was necessary (sheet, p. 13, 14), all the numbers seemed to be converged and, I hope, the report will be accepted, amen.
How many more people in the Ministry of Justice, except for my courteous interlocutor, in other bodies have access to our “foreign” reports, I don’t even want to present it - I suspect that there are many of them. It seems that in Russia we have a law on the protection of personal data, banking secrets, etc. - But this, apparently, does not apply to the "foreign agents".
In addition, according to the law, I have to lay out this one report on public display once again, voluntarily telling the whole world, how to conduct my subversive foreign activity, the figures of income and expenses, however, they graciously allow us to smear. Where is the pole/pylon or you need to go on the rostrum/stand on the stool to publicly repent and how to lay out everything in the spirit? We assume that I talk about it with this column.
And here, I confess, I get a little awkward - a little less than walking on the street naked, of course, but still. There is nothing to tell. The Fatherland branded you/gave the order (emphasized the necessary), and you seem to be ready to repent, since the homeland said "you must", but, the priests are cute, tell me at least what? I raised my head for a long time what to write in the corresponding column (types of activity, sheet 3, paragraph 1.1), and wrote as it is: a journalist. Then she found out that other “foreign agents” do the same.
Probably, it was necessary to add that I put a mandatory posture of 24 words with a caplocom to the photographs of my children on my own Facebook (this, this message (material) was created and (or) widespread by a foreign media that performs the functions of a foreign agent, and (or) a Russian legal entity that performs the functions of a foreign agent), as a law that received a lawyer among the “foreign agents” of an affectionate nickname "*Bala", which means "an unnecessary thing that does not perform its function." A very accurate definition, in my opinion, although maybe the highest meaning of this nonsense is to show the rest that “foreign agents” are also people, do they also have children or pets that they love, and therefore put their photos on the social networks?
Even Putin, the President of Russia, constantly telling that in America, “foreign agents” have even worse, and we just made the same law (that are not true, because the laws are different), called the situation with the “Bala to the pictures of children” comic . And what? And nothing. Or Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, congratulating Russian journalists on January 13, said there should be no journalists among foreign agents. But for some reason, none of those present and received different prizes of reporters there specified him, how to understand this? Should journalists not include in the register of foreign agents? Or vice versa-those who got into it should somehow cut out of the profession? How, by the way? To pass the diploma of the journalism faculty of Moscow State University in the same Ministry of Justice for eternal storage, eat it, to burn publicly, how were partybytles were burned not so long ago?
Or maybe the meaning of “*balls” is to show everyone that tomorrow and you, the same ordinary user of social networks, can be in my place and you won’t even know in court why you suddenly have such an “honor”? By the way, I have already passed the ships - Zamoskvoretsky and the Moscow City Court, both lost. At the process, I never found out who I was spying on and how much money I get for it - my salary of the journalist, which I receive, was voiced by working on Radio Liberty, and for four years (although even the total limitation period is 3 years), they did not even allow us to hold a piece of paper with a lawyer. And now, as it turns out, not a single Russian law prohibits the journalist to work where he wants, and receive money for it. Moreover, under our constitution, free labor is in principle prohibited. And the same design - to work where you want, receiving a salary for this - suddenly becomes a crime, for which after two fines - for example, I forgot about "*ball" in front of my post or there were complaints about the report - you are threatened with criminal liability until two years of prison.
You can, of course, look at it differently: in the Mozhaisk colony of the Moscow region, where convicted women-Moscow women who have children are sent, you will be taught to sew mittens. Probably, seamstresses in the zone are more necessary for our country than journalists. The same reports once a quarter, too, with a great desire, you can wrap it to your benefit: my friend is already laughing when I tell him how I brought a loan with a loan all week to report. “Well, you see, you will become an excellent accountant, you will finally find a normal job,” he encourages, in general, as he can.
By the way, I have to lose in two more instances in order to file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights. What will this give me personally? I think nothing. In the best case, a few years later, the ECHR judges admit that the authorities of the Russian Federation exceeded their powers in relation to the “foreign agents”, and their intervention in private life is unprecedented and not justified. Maybe even some compensation will be awarded, which will be paid from our taxes with you, and not from the wallets of those who invented and fulfill all this, while receiving a salary.
The banality of evil. But the worst thing is that you get used to everything. And the rage, which was in the first months, when I sent letters to all instances, including Putin, trying to understand why and why I suddenly began to live and how to live with it now. By the way, I received a bunch of the same type of answers from different state bodies, I already have a separate daddy of them, and not a single answer on the merits of the questions asked.
The main thing, existing in this absurd reality that has already become familiar to you, not ask yourself the question "why?" Why am I doing all this-I rush to a notary, I make a digital signature to register a legal entity (this is another requirement for “foreign agents”-to register a legal entity within a month, which the Ministry of Justice will immediately include in his register of “ino-agents”, and you will immediately become a “foreigner” in the square), to submit reports as a media and the media and the media and the media and the media Once every six months, like a legal entity, a “foreign agent” and make a bunch of some nonsense. Why should the state contain the army of officials who monitor our social networks and publications, check reports, go to the courts, where all the same non -meaningful phrases say anything? Questions that do not have a meaningful answer.
If at the end of 2020 there were only 17 people and organizations in the foreign register, then by the end of 2021 their number increased to 111, and from Russia, according to Free Russia Foundation (recognized as undesirable), more than 1.5 thousand activists, including journalists, left for criminal and political persecution.
Return clothes, Herodes.
Elizabeth Time - journalist
The "Opinion" expressed in the heading of the point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial office