Poet Boris Bulgakov was handed a draft summons as he walked out of jail

The poet Boris Bulgakov, who took part in the Mayakovsky Readings, an anti-draft demonstration with roots in Soviet dissident movements, told Mediazona that he was handed a summons as he was released from detention.

According to Bulgakov, when he left the detention center at 6:00am on September 30, police met him, arrested him, and took him to an enlistment office. Bulgakov didn’t have his draft card with him, so he told the enlistment office that he was unfit for service for health reasons. But he was handed a summons anyway, requiring him to present at the enlistment office on October 3.

“The enlistment officer made a point of saying, in front of a police officer and two witnesses, that if I did not appear I would face a criminal case, prison, and sexual abuse from patriotic prisoners,” said Bulgakov. He added that he did not plan to go to the enlistment office.

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• The Mayakovsky Readings, which have been declared “antimobilization,” took place in Moscow on September 25. The next day, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs searched the home of Moscow poet Artem Kamardin, a participant in the readings. They beat and tortured everyone in the apartment and Kamardin, according to his lawyer, was raped with a dumbbell. Kamardin, Egor Shtovba, and Nikolay Dayneko were suspected of a criminal offense – inciting hatred, humiliation, and violence against “volunteer armed groups” of the so-called LNR and DNR. Bulgakov was charged with failure to comply with an officer’s orders.