“They were forced to undress and squat”: how detainees were treated at an anti-war rally in Nizhny Novgorod

I went to the action, but there was no action as such. We [in Nizhny Novgorod] have Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, where protests usually take place, and people walked there. There were more cops than people. Those who came walked in groups, and then grouped next to the man who sang Tsoi with a guitar.

First they screwed the singer, then they screwed us all. Then, as usual: we were taken for a ride in a paddy wagon and taken to the police station. They let the defender in, but he didn’t have time to help everyone. Other detainees began swearing at us, the defense lawyer began to prove to the police that this was petty hooliganism, after which the police kicked him out of the premises.

I and a number of other people had an arrest article [of the Code of Administrative Offences]. A riot policeman approached my friend and said that they would definitely leave us for a long time now, because the defender had angered the police. We were detained at three o'clock in the afternoon, at four we were at the police department and only at two o'clock in the morning we were taken to a special detention center. Then we waited for two more hours on the bus in the cold, because the special detention center refused to accept us. As a result, we got there at five-thirty in the morning.

We were cold and sleepy. They wound me up one by one, forced me to strip naked and do squats. We all thought it was normal. What else can you expect from Russia? And only when I read that there was something similar in St. Petersburg and that it was not cool, I was like: “Wow! They shouldn't have done that."

That moment when you think it would be better if [such bullying] were “according to the rules” - it’s unpleasant to realize that you are being bullied on purpose. A policewoman with a blank face—she was absolutely not interested in us—led us into some closet with dirty laundry. There you had to put your clothes on the floor. You balance on one foot, taking off your sock and trying to get your foot back into the shoe. They also forced me to take off my socks. Well, at least you could stand in your boots - the floor was cold. Squatting naked when you haven't slept all night and haven't eaten all day is not cool.

We were taken to a cell. As it turned out, there were bedbugs in the cell. We spent about five hours there, all this time we were not allowed to sleep. They would come in and ask if we needed anything, then they would take us out of the cell. Then they conducted a search and turned over the mattresses. I do not know why. Then a woman came in who forced us to do naked squats and demanded that we undress in front of everyone (there were eight women in the cell). This time, however, she didn’t have to strip naked—she was interested in underwear. Then the police came into the next cell and shouted very loudly, I also don’t know why.

At 10 am on March 7, we went back to the police station, at about three o'clock in the afternoon we were taken to the court, from there I was released.

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