"Russia finally broke my heart"

Director of the Center for Vilius.NENT, Anna Rivina - about the new Labyrinth project, the FEM IS series and emigration

In March 2022, a lawyer and director of the Center for Assistance to Visilia.net Nasiliy.net’s violence left Russia. Now, together with the specialist’s team, she launches the Labyrinth project, aimed at helping women who, because of the war, were forced to move to other countries and encountered violence there. In parallel on YouTube, the FEM IS documentary, created by Rivina with a new team, is released. "Cold" talked with Rivina about its new projects and how war and domestic violence are related.

On June 27, you launch the Labyrinth project. Is it associated with “violence. Non” or will it exist separately?

- Everything that does “Violence. NO” remains in Moscow and focused on Moscow and Russia. Those projects that I go now have nothing to do with them. There are no people from that team, and there are no binding links except me. And then, in the new projects, I appear not as the director of “Violence.net”, but as a person who understands the gender topic.

This is done so that the fines for the in agent do not reach for new projects?

- Yes, but also because I now live in Russia (after the outbreak of war, Anna Rivina moved to Tbilisi. - Approx. "Cold") and I can’t imagine when and under what circumstances I will return. I want to respect myself and do what is important to me, without absurd restrictions that do not give me the opportunity to feel the way I would like.

Therefore, now I just made a completely new organization that works in another country and where people who do not live in Russia work. This NPO is called Rivina Foundation. In order for the Center for Violence.net to become well known, years of hard work have gone. Now I do not have the opportunity to come up with such a name so that everyone immediately understands what kind of project it is and who does it. But I have my reputation, the reputation of partners. Therefore, the only thing I can put as a quality mark is my last name.

We did the Labyrinth to help those who are not in Russia. Although we will also help those in Russia, since this project is aimed at helping people who are forced to be in another country. And we perfectly understand that there are Ukrainians who had to go to Russia, and in this case they may need a “maze”. Everything else is not about Russia at all, but about the consequences of what Russia has done and what we all have to face.

How has your life changed since the beginning of the war?

- Russia finally broke my heart, and I perceive this war as my personal tragedy. I always had a faith that changes can soon occur that will lead to something good. I love the Russian language, adore my hometown of Moscow, my favorite office, where I worked with my favorite team. I already had the experience of life outside Russia, but no matter how much I traveled, I always returned to Moscow. I am a person who always cries for the New Year under the anthem, I always watched Putin’s appeal, although I never supported him and did not like. But for me it was necessary. This year I could not see and made it for the New Year to make peace and freedom.

Why couldn't you?

- Because the stage of my disagreement with Putin, the denial of him as my representative grew into a physical disgust.

I realized that all four generations of my family only deceived us. She deceived when the Russian Empire was destroyed, deceived throughout the existence of the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. There were only some small rudiments of hope that something could change, but this never happened. For some reason, only now I was caught up with awareness: if all previous generations were deceived, why suddenly some other card will fall? And I realized that he would not fall out.

The most important and close people who invested most of all in my formation and talked to me - these are my grandparents. And they are closely connected with Ukraine. I found my great -grandmother, who was born in Kharkov in 1908. My mother was born in Lviv, my grandfather from Odessa. I look at the map of military operations and understand that in the cities where the fighting is going on, one of my relatives was born, someone studied. My grandfather was a political observer, in another 2009 he wrote that Putin did not like Ukraine and that all this would lead to war. In recent years, he and my grandmother could only talk with me about Ukraine. It was a burden to me, I said: "What are you talking about, there can be no war." My grandmother told me not to discuss this by phone, not to write on this topic. Grandma was gone in November. And now she does not see this, but everything that she was talking about came true: the war has begun, and nothing can be published on this topic.

For me, current events are part of what has happened in Ukraine and in Russia for centuries. If you look at how millions of people in our country react to the war, to whom all this is very to their liking, it becomes clear why colleagues for all these years could not explain to the Russians that it was impossible to beat women. Everything is very interconnected.

Why did you decide to launch the Labyrinth?

- When the war began, I was in shock for the first weeks. In appearance, for the team, I was jerking, but inside I had all -consuming darkness. And when I had the idea to help women who, like me, moved somewhere and may encounter violence there, I found an application point where I can direct all my strength. And it became much easier for me to experience what was happening. Now this project gives me strength.

But this is still resourceful. How do you combine the work of the head of “Violence.net” and the label of the “Labyrinth”?

“It's hard, and I understand perfectly well that a calm working mode looks different.” But now we don’t have to think about a calm working mode, because we live that we have never lived, and we are reacting differently to this. I will now describe the situation that will seem absurd, but it was. Exactly a year ago, without my total control, our administrator could not buy an air freshener. There was such a format of work when everyone asked me a billion questions. Now we have other people who ask these questions, and most of them can give an answer. It became easier because my team grew up in terms of ability to make decisions, and I am madly proud of her.

But in “Violence. No,” I broke firewood, hiring a lot of young employees. I thought: now I will put the forces in them, I will give them a good salary and they will bloom. But it works in very rare cases. Therefore, with the "Labyrinth" I went the other way: we have a small team, and all the women in it are cool in their topic. I do not need to explain to them what to do. I am delighted with how cool to work with adult specialists.

Judging by the form of searching for volunteers, the geography of Labyrinth is quite large. The countries of the European Suu, Moldova, Georgia, Turkey, Serbia, Armenia, Great Britain and Israel.

- We started with a simple one: we looked where the main flows of beige are going. Now our task is to make a map of assistance in these countries. In fact, it will be an aggregator that we make in four languages ​​- English, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.

Interestingly, the most difficult thing was to find Belarusian translators. As I understand it, basically there are no problems in using the Russian language, but it was very important for us to make Belarusians visible in this project. It’s like with feminitations - you need to make people visible in order to understand what problems they face and what help they need.

And what help will you offer?

- We will not be able to provide women with legal support, because each country has its own legislation. In addition, we are used to in Russia that there is no law against violence, that this system does not work, and if we are talking about European countries, then this is better.

But we make detailed instructions for each country to which an unlimited circle of persons can use. How to call the police what to do when the policeman arrives, what to do if the police do not come - step by step. All instructions are written using specialized NPOs from different countries. Key organizations will also be registered in them where you can contact-because when a person comes to another country, he does not know the language and does not know that someone works with the problem of violence. In the future, we will use all the forces that we have to make such a map of help in general for all countries.

The second direction is psychological support. We will have about 15 psychologists who will consult women online, and the coordinator who will receive applications and distribute them between psychologists.

The third direction is a volunteer network. We have just begun to collect it: since the project has not yet been launched, it was not possible to do this effectively. But, when he starts, we will look for volunteers from different countries so that they can help in the field: we would know local cuisine, culture and language, could escort to local organizations, hospitals, and police. Of course, we will teach all them, of course, I always had a rule that untrained volunteers cannot be allowed to the victims. Because the most important thing is not to harm.

That is, in general, the Labyrinth will help the victims of domestic violence?

- No, he is not only about home violence. There may also be both rape and other types of sexualized violence. We tried to separately register violence against children, including bullying, which is associated with the national aspect, such as "Russian whores came." I recently talked with a Polish colleague from a human rights NPO, who said that the Poles giggled already and seriously say that the Polks are too ambitious and obscure: “A bunch of Ukrainians, which you can marry, finally came up.”

They don’t really talk about this, although this is basically obvious, because there is no war without a growth of gender violence. And due to the fact that there is a war, they push this topic back and say: “Then we’ll figure it out, now it’s not up to it.”

In addition to the Labyrinth, you and the team released the series about feminism FEM IS. What is this story?

- About two years ago, I met with Ksenia Sobchak, and we discussed how she could help “violence. NO”. I then said that I have a dream - to make a large project worth a lot of money, which I do not have, namely: to collect the coolest experts and carry them around the country. To make not a school of feminism for 20 people, but a large -scale project to increase feminist literacy.

I believed that if you turn to Sobchak and it would be interested in it, then the project can turn out loud, attract attention. This did not happen, and I thought: since there is no way to bring experts and female activists somewhere, you can shoot them for the series.

We have ten topics: feminism and money, feminism and children, feminism and sex, feminism and violence, and so on. We wanted to publish the series on March 1. But after February 24, it became generally not clear how to be with him. And I realized for myself that I could not let it out if we do not do something on the topic of the war. Therefore, we shot another series - about feminism and war. In total, 11 episodes turned out - on June 23, we laid them out in open access to YouTube.

Who is this series designed first of all?

- Before the war, I had the idea that this project could reach a very large audience. I wanted opponents of feminism, who watched the series, to think: “Wow, it turns out, we really do not like feminists, but in any case we will now talk not only about unshaven armpits.” But the war changed everything very much, including my feeling of myself and my educational mission.

I realized that I was tired of being a teacher of kindergarten, who will explain everything to the children now. Therefore, now I believe that this series is only for those who are interested in feminism. If someone in this series finds a lot about himself and thinks about something, it will already be a victory. We have a disclaimer in which it is written that we are not trying to make anyone feminists or professionalists.

You said that because of the war, many countries push the theme of gender violence. Is it possible to say that now in Russia and in other countries the same problems with violence and its consequences?

- Of course not. Russia in this sense costs separately: until Russia left the Council of Europe, it was the last country without a specialized law. They did not want to accept him for a very long time and diligently. The whole state system said: "No, we will not fight this violence, we will not pay attention to it." This is the normalization of violence: total inaction from the police, unprofessional judges who are always trying to find some insidious motives from a woman.

And now, of course, Russia is an aggressor country that unleashed this massacre. Thus, she once again showed that abstract family scrapers, patriotic and national interests for her are many times more important than human life and human health. The European concept of human rights boils down to the fact that human life is the main value. Russia, however, demonstrates in every possible way that this is not so.

So you decided to leave Russia?

- Yes. And another important idea about creating a new organization, and emigration, and gender violence - why I need to call a spade a spade and why I am ready for all the risks associated with this. My team and I have been explained to women for years that if they are very bad and scary, then you need to leave. That neither children are the basis for enduring the beatings, nor the fear of the unknown. That we will definitely help to find work and one way or another will try to get them out of this horror by the hand. In response, hundreds of women talked about how their life became better after they left the rapist and received the help of the center.

I understand that domestic violence and state work according to one algorithm, so it is very important for me not to adjoin this violence, not justify it, not be ashamed, not to think that I myself am to blame. All the templates that women apply to themselves in cases of domestic violence, I apply to myself about state violence by the subject called the Russian Federation.

In an interview , you said that after the people fighting in Ukraine will return to Russia, there will be more violence. And that “Violence.net” is already working on programs for helping people with PTSR. How is work in this direction progressing?

- We will not work with PTSD, but with the growth of violence of the house after the military returning and, most importantly, with the fact that in Russia there will be even more soaking cases of violence. Because it will be much more difficult to blame the military for the military’s violence: not only with emotional, social, but also from a legal point of view, because they may have a kind of immunity. Therefore, they may have their own system of military tribunals, so they will not have to participate in military processes. Or due to the presence of ranks, they will be illegally covered and not let them get things against them. It is very important to say that this will be not only in Russia, but also in Ukraine too.

When there was an anti -terrorist operation in Ukraine [in the Donbass], a striking case appeared, for which Russia is not yet ready. After the return of Ukrainian soldiers from the war, profile organizations recorded an increase in violence. There was a dilemma in the public field: to let this into a discussion or the military - heroes who can do everything? I bow to women and men who insisted that this problem should be discussed. It was very cool.

Of course, our problem is that “violence.net” is the Moscow organization. We cannot fight the consequences throughout the country. We understand that almost all the soldiers who got to Ukraine are not from Moscow, but from the regions. And in the regions it is quite a trouble with enlightenment on the topic of violence, and with the help. Therefore, it will be necessary to adapt to circumstances, and besides this, you can’t fall under an article on the discrediting of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Because, if we say that Russian soldiers beat Russian women, this will be the same discredit.

That is, the growth of domestic violence in the military families is the inevitable consequence of the war?

- If you study international experience, it becomes clear that it cannot be otherwise. People come in whom all the landmarks are erased, their eyes are blurred by death, blood, horrors. What to wait? And all this is superimposed on absolute lawlessness regarding violence in relation to women in Russia.

It is also obvious that the normalization of violence occurs. We see that even in war, people get used to all this. At first you think: “Oh Lord, bombed the house. What a nightmare. " And over time you think: "Bombed another house, you think, and they bombed another city." And it works with violence the same way.

Remember the terrible story with a girl who walked in a short skirt, she whistled from the car, she showed the fact. The men stopped, put her on her knees, beat her, and her knees were simply in meat. She took off how she looked after that. Of course, there are comments: "He’s a whore, to blame, it was necessary to dress normally." Let us recall the story of two years ago, when the girl went to the Hermitage garden, someone asked “how much she would take for sex”, she sent a fuck. И ее головой били об асфальт прямо напротив Петровки, 38. И все такие: «Ну сама виновата, зачем надо было ребят посылать, могла бы мило ответить». Таких случаев будет точно больше.

Насколько тяжело было принимать решение об отъезде, не зная, когда ты сможешь вернуться?

— У меня за несколько месяцев два раза было состояние «все, беру билет [в Россию], пофиг, что будет». Но я запрещаю себе смотреть фотографии московской квартиры, где мы только доделали ремонт и я еще не успела везде ручки дверные поставить, которые у меня лежат в коробочке. Мне присылают видео из офиса «Насилию.Нет»: и, с одной стороны, я хочу видеть, что там происходит, с другой — пытаюсь не смотреть, потому что мне от этого очень больно.

Когда пострадавшая от насилия уходит от насильника, она вспоминает не только, как он ее бил, но и первое свидание: в каком она была платье, какой он был милый. У меня очень много таких воспоминаний. И нужно тратить много сил, чтобы вспоминать еще и то, как тебя обижают, как тебя называют предателем, как мой бывший начальник Антон Красовский ( С 2016 по 2018 год Ривина работала исполнительным директором фонда «СПИД.Центр», Красовский — председатель совета фонда. — Прим.«Холода») постит, что я — шпион Великобритании.

Конечно, у всех у нас в разной степени посттравматическое расстройство. Сейчас я еще на адреналине и получается дистанцироваться. Посмотрим, что будет, когда меня накроет.