Translated material
Kant and his accomplices
The story of two lawyers from the Kaliningrad region and their clients who do not want to be silent and pretend
"Why are you silent?" -They ask us from abroad. The same question can be posed this way: is there a society in Russia? Let's try to answer it with the example of the city of Kaliningrad. Of course, historically it is not quite Russian and not quite ordinary - at least the fact that in Kaliningrad is the grave of the philosopher Immanuel Kant.
What does Kant say to us? The founder of the moral philosophy of modern, he thought of the fact that "every legislator is for himself." Not a “judge”-so anyone will find an excuse for why he is silent. "Legislator"! And these are us, and not those who invented on March 5 - for us, and not for ourselves - Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code and 20.3.3 Administrative Code about the discrediting of the Armed Forces. You never know what you can write, says Kant. It is important that not on paper, but in the moral nature of a person, where his mysterious categorical imperative was opposed. Just do not pretend that you do not know him. You know, you know! “And not a car with a piece of paper, judge, it's not about her.”
Going to the ground from the “transcendental”, it must be explained that the standard posters “no ...” and other agitation do not even formally fall under the dispositions of articles 207.3 of the Criminal Code and 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, and this is obvious to anyone who makes decisions on them.
They "understand, but they can’t do anything."
Now about those who can do something.
1
Military pensioner Major Dmitry Sidelnikov woke up on February 24, watched the TV and laid himself such a moral law that something needs to be done. Previously, he served in the missile forces, “sat on a nuclear button” and understands what it is, and now he has a small cinema in the trading center of the resort Zelenogradsk. At the advertising monitor at the entrance to the Sidelnikov shopping center, he launched the credits "No ...!" Between the videos, that is, 30 seconds about Batman, then “no ...!”, Then again “well, the hare, wait a minute!”. So it was spinning until May, until one of the resort was tapped.
While there was a search, one of the rental neighbors in the shopping center, having learned what was the matter, cut the wire from the monitor: he is a patriot, but some kind of vigilant. Now Sidelnikov is waiting for decisions in two cases under Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. However, there are few resorters buy tickets to the cinema now, since "Hollywood has left Russia."
2
Sergei Erykalkin recently moved to Kaliningrad from Kamchatka: having accumulated money there, here he bought several ATVs and opened the point of their rental. He went to the Central Square of Victory, and the court wrote him a fine ... Well, what do you need, man? Katya on your ATV along the Curonian spit, enjoy your life, because you can not send you back to Kamchatka, but even worse ...
3
Alexey Zhuravlev and his son went out to the square with the poster “No ...”, and when they took his father, his son with the same poster took his place. Both are already in Bishkek, so that his son does not fall under partial mobilization, and the father will be judged the other day in absentia: the bird has already flown away, and the jaws of law enforcement agencies cannot stop - they clat on their own.
4
The eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Yariza appears in one and a half dozen protocols about the detention of other people, unfamiliar people, all protocols begin the same: “Yariza held the poster“ no ... ”, and such and such or such and such stood with her and“ could not help but be aware ”.
5
Yegor P. at the time of the detention of the age of 18 has not yet been fulfilled, and not the court wrote out a fine for participating in the rally by the Mom, but the commission for minors. Forty teachers gathered at the meeting and God knows who else, and let Yegor raise: “You probably did not understand the significance of your actions? Or maybe he just passed by? "
Yegor answered the commission: “I understood everything perfectly well, it was not by, but for the rally, because ...” (here we would not have substituted it again). The commission began to ask her mother why she did not raise her son well, and my mother answered: "I am proud of my son."
6
Mikhail Sukhorichkin -a 20-year-old Muscovite, fell in love with Kaliningrad and entered the university here. When a special operation began, he bought a spray can, but for some time he was afraid to use it until April 6, at night, crept up to the military memorial and on the back wall, so as not to offend the memory of the fallen, the inscription made. He was found on the records of video cameras and interrogated in the police department with a lawyer on duty, but when they signed everything, and she left, again detained and led a completely different conversation. As a result, Sukhorichkin recorded a repentant interview there, still available on the network: “I’m just an idiot, they just explained it to me.”
Sukhoruchkin left the ATS and disappeared - his parents had come from Moscow, on the fourth day of the searches, they thought that they would not see their son at large, or even alive.
And at this time he walked, throwing the phone, on foot to the Polish border, where, having calculated the gap in the bypass of the patrols and making the laza in the thorny wire with the help of logs, he managed to cross it.
Then he could not call his mother for a long time, as he was in the camp for the interned, and as soon as he was given political asylum, he called and found it.
7
Oksana Akmayeva is a completely different person, she is known to all Kaliningrad: she worked in newspapers and on the radio, and recently engaged in the organization of jazz and other international festivals, which many in Kaliningrad had been held until 2022. On the morning of February 24, as Oksana told me on the phone, before that she did not go to any rallies, she “fell into a daze, dressed in a clean one” and went to the square, “like a somnambula”, she only asked her 17-year-old son Matvey, because he would certainly condemn something there. On the square, peace -loving old women tried to talk with cops in spherical helmets, but there was no dialogue. The provocateurs appeared, shouted something, the police walked around, squeezing the ring closer.
They withdrew to a friend to smoke and “how true Kaliningraders began to look for a trash” - here they tied them. And at that moment, Oksana recalls, as in a movie, bells were hit in a new -water temple in the square.
A few days later, Matvey, who walked with the dog, saw a mass -made tape with the inscription on the doors of their entrance: “Zhivote is a traitor” - exactly the same were glued on the doors of other people detained at the rally, at the addresses that they reported in the police. Oksana did not scare the inscription, but she was frightened for her son: what if the gluing tape did not run away?
Oksana went to court alone, but, for her luck, in the corridor she was seen by the lawyer Selizarov - also a regular of festivals: "What are you doing here?" They signed an agreement and entered the hall together. If it weren’t for Catherine, Oksana would have said to herself a criminal article, but at some point she told the judge at some point: “Let me, your honor, I will be responsible for my principal.” And everything was a fine.
Oksana, still not going to leave anywhere, since her whole life was connected with her beloved city, flew first to Georgia - to spend the “Kafka and Orwell forum” there, which had been gaining momentum in Kaliningrad for ten years (we even met there earlier). Now she was confirmed that she was waiting for her in Germany, first in a special camp in Friedland, which translates as a “city of freedom” (after the war, a camp for the Germans who did not want to stay in the GDR was organized there).
Only the things that Oksana thoughtfully selected several months, everyone was not the same, but she did not take the necessary. Because it is like that, having thrown everything, this is an inhuman experience.
8
Igor Lazarevich Baryshnikov is an engineer, he goes to rallies as to work. He had already paid fines and spent a total of 32 days for four administrative cases for participating in illegal events and one - for insulting the president, and now under criminal case under article 207.3 of the Criminal Code - for discrediting the armed forces on a closed page on Facebook*. Baryshnikov is 63 years old, he returned to Kaliningrad 7 years ago from Magnitogorsk when his mother broke his leg, but he lives now in the city of Sovetsk (about two hours on a minibus from Kaliningrad) with his mother, who turned 96 years old.
He does not tell his mother about the courts, so as not to worry, and when they had a search in their house for 7 hours, she seems to have not understood anything. During the search, a book about the Nuremberg process was seized, among other things, which was attached to the case as material evidence, which is not very clear what, and there are one and a half thousand sheets with various examinations.
At the court sessions that began at the end of September, Baryshnikov sits between two lawyers (Selizarova and Bonzler), and they hold him on both sides so that he does not jump up and does not say too much.
The instruction is: “To answer briefly, only to the questions: name, surname, year of birth” ... The trouble, however, happened even when the judge after these questions asked if Baryshnikov had government awards: “No ... thank God.”
Well, Igor Lazarevich! This may cost you another year from scratch! But besides the two lawyers on guard, somewhere here Kant sits with his categorical imperative and also pushes him to the side. Meanwhile, the judge, in great detail, asked the witness - a social worker of the Jewish center - about the state of health of her mother, and this is a good sign: everyone understands that if his term is real, this will kill his mother.
I asked Baryshnikov, with whom we talked to three different messengers (he had a connection all the time), would he come around if he would write about him in the newspaper. He replied that he had nothing to fear - there will be no worse.
His story is valuable to us by the fact that he knows in the face of all regular rallies and says that after February 24, many new ones came to Victory Square, and after the announcement of partial mobilization, another new wave rose, in which female faces prevail.
There are one and a half dozen examples in my travel notebook. We have chosen only the most striking and directly related to a special operation. All these people every time understand that they may have troubles, but, as a rule, they are not preparing for them in advance, and when they are delayed and released before the trial, they call Moscow at the OVD-Info **. From there, their data is sent back to Kaliningrad to the lawyer Maria Bonzler, and then she calls them to find out when the court will be, and personally meets most often already in court.
For the entire Kaliningrad Chamber of Lawyers of about 600 people until March 2022, she was one. Her grandfather was the illegitimate son of the Prussian Baron von Bontsler, and Maria herself in 1995 was working in the Public Chamber of the Kaliningrad Region. Then, in connection with the First Chechen war, the theme of “soldiers' mothers” became relevant, whose organization in the region Bonzler created-after the war, mothers fled somewhere, but the organization remained. Based on the materials of her and other human rights NPOs, Bonzler wrote three books about the military personnel who died in peacetime and their parents and earned the prize of the Moscow Helsinki group. Having received the second higher legal education, Bonzler passed the lawyer and began to conduct cases related to the military service: there were many military units in the Kaliningrad region, and she had enough work, but then things were also added to unauthorized rallies.
On February 22, as if anticipating something, Bonzler got into the hospital with a heart attack, she was taken away from her phone so as not to provoke a new one, and she heard about the special operation that had begun only from other patients.
Leaving the hospital on March 5, she found out that tomorrow Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses would enter into force, and on March 6, on Sunday, on Victory Square, in addition to the previous one, which was charged with an old article about illegal rallies, grabbed the people already under a new article. On March 18, 12 judges of the Central District Court of Kaliningrad were appointed 28 such cases, and Bonzler realized that all her physical forces would not be enough.
Meanwhile, the lawyer Ekaterina Selizarova, who specializes in general in civil matters, woke up on the morning of February 24, and just like all clients Bonzler, laid the law that something needs to be done. Katya Selizarova does not look like the image of a human rights activist to whom we are used to: a very monitoring ourselves, spectacular, tenacious, and what is called “successful”. However, until this March she was not a human rights activist. Katya’s mother once resigned from the post of deputy chairman of the regional court, she herself began the secretary of the court hearing, she personally knows all in this closed world, including judges, and everyone knows her here too.
They are perplexed, of course, what kind of sludge fell under her fashionable tail - and this is again a "restless old man Immanuel." Having climbed over the Internet, Selizarova found in all reports about her affairs colleague Bonzler, with whom she had not been familiar before.
She called and offered help - now for 600 people in the regional lawyer chamber there were already two of them.
Katya teaches a new girlfriend to endure and even crushed her in a shop with one of her friends: after all, it is also necessary to live, and not just drag around the courts.
On March 21, Bonzler and Selizarova became a little easier than the 18th, but they still ran along the floors of two buildings of the Central Court, accompanied by a crowd of those whose affairs were appointed for later hours and simply sympathetic. On the way, they could catch Akmayev (about her above) or someone else who arrived in arrogantly without a lawyer. Such cases are directed to the three judges of this court, from which it is clear what to expect, but there were many judges, and they, explains Selizarov, are all different, there are even those who, as can be seen in the eyes, sympathizes with the protesters, but “can do nothing”.
Katya, of course, concentrated and did not give her free will, and Bonzler - when working at this pace and simply by nature - could no longer restrain himself and at least three cases led to provocations from the judges who had already studied her well. However, only two wrote denunciations, and then at the next meeting in someone’s case, she even said “thank you” at the next meeting in the next meeting.
On March 21, Bonzler defended, among others, Alena and Sonya, one of them was a waitress, and another artist, they are not familiar with each other. Their position was that they “just walked by”, nevertheless, the judge brought Bonzler to discuss what was happening at the rally. "It turned out a complete mismatch of positions and an acute political discussion occurred"
Based on the two statements of the judges, the third judge - Oleg Podushkin from the Leningrad District, where the case was transferred for the sake of objectivity - Bonzler awarded two fines of 30 thousand rubles. To the honor of colleagues from the Law Chamber, they sent an “opinion” to the court, in which they asked to terminate the persecution: according to Article 18 of the law on the lawyer, “the lawyer cannot be brought to any responsibility ... for the opinion expressed by him in law.” So far, the position of the chamber was not taken into account, including in the appeal, but the case has a precedent value not only for Kaliningrad, and this decision will be appealed further-to the cassation instance in St. Petersburg, and there, possibly, to the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, more and more new people go to the Victory Square, and no one knows how many more of them will be released in the near future - after all, military operations continue, and partially mobilized for that. Of course, this is still only a drop in the sea, maybe the statistics of the lawyer chamber correctly reflect the ratio of those who came out and who did not come out: 2 to 600.
There is, of course, in Kaliningrad, his supporters of his - local patriotism due to the historical origin of the enclave and a large number of military units are generally quite specific.
But some judges, closing the folder with the decision, say with pressure, looking into the eyes of the lawyers: "Close!" And one FSB investigator told Bonzler: “Eh, I’ll retire soon, I will organize children's holidays.”
Well, God forbid ... if the world awaits us ahead.
The proto, which is in Kaliningrad, has come into motion: before there was no need, but now-you can’t get anywhere: we must think and assume for yourself some moral laws, without which, like everyone, he feels vaguely, he is not quite a person. Old ties are torn, but new ones are formed.
What are these people who have come to our pages thanks to Bonzler? What kind of person is she herself? And Katya? They are all very different, but unites them, if you turn to Hannah, by the way, who also lived in Königsberg, is the ability to bear moral judgment, not to bend under the aggressive-audible majority and the inability to cross a certain line. It can be said that these are those who simply do not want to lie, living in through an insulting society.
And everyone has its own feature: someone is ready to endure to such a limit, and someone is no longer able to and, “like somnambul”, almost unaccounted for Victory Square.
But the devil exists, and this is a guarantee that the moral law once becomes “universal” - so, in any case, Kant believes.