Another year without good news? Not really!

“Vorstka” asked a variety of people - from political scientist Ekaterina Shulman to blogger Prikolena - to formulate at least one good news of the outgoing year

“Verstka” has a New Year’s tradition - for the third December in a row, we are asking writers, doctors, activists, scientists, musicians and other people who our audience follows and loves to share at least one good news or good memory for the year. And we traditionally collect refusals: “good news is not for me!”, “due to my duty, I focus on the other side of the coin,” “the news is still secret,” “alas, no.”

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Nevertheless, we received 13 life-affirming (or almost) answers - about justice, the power of human relationships, courage, teenagers, music and about one rescued cat. Here they are:

“The living always have options. Only the dead have no options": release of political prisoners

Ekaterina Shulman
political scientist

Snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps

The good news of 2025 is news of liberation from bondage. More than a hundred Belarusian political prisoners have been released from prison as a result of a complex and little-publicized trade between the American and Belarusian administrations. Singer Naoko and her guitarist fiance slipped between the teeth of the repressive machine, escaped from the Russian Federation and are now singing at a concert in Vilnius. The living always have options, only the dead have no options. I suspect this is the main result of the first half of the twenties.

Sasha Filipenko
writer

Unfortunately, many, many still remain behind bars, but at the same time I was happy that many brave and wonderful Belarusians were finally free. When I heard about this news, I thought: “Fuck, how awesome!”

Oleg Orlov
human rights activist, one of the founders of the Memorial society, was released from a Russian colony as part of a major exchange of political prisoners in August 2024

This year, all the main good events for me were associated with very bad events. There is a terrible war going on. It would seem, what kind of good news could there be? But for me and my colleagues it was important to make our own, albeit small, contribution to confronting the aggressor. It’s good that we released a large report based on the results of our work in Ukraine (and not only there), where we describe in detail the system of illegal, secret and semi-secret prisons created in the occupied territories.

In December, my friends, human rights activists from the Viasna organization Ales Bialiatski and Vladimir Labkovich, were released. A long time ago, they came to Moscow for a trial when I was tried for calling Ramzan Kadyrov guilty of the murder of [human rights activist and journalist] Natasha Estemirova. Then, in 2011, I went to Minsk when Ales was tried. After his release, Ales came to Chechnya for trial, when Memorial member Oyub Titiev was arrested and tried on trumped-up charges. Well, in 2021, I managed to attend one court hearing in Minsk at the trial of the “Vyasnovtsy” Ales Bialiatski, Vladimir Labkovich and Valentin Stefanovich. Then Lukashenko’s regime banned me from entering the territory of Belarus, and I could not attend the trial...

It’s fortunate that Ales and Vladimir are free, but human rights activists from “Viasna” Valentin Stefanovich, Marfa Rabkova and many, many other political prisoners remain behind bars.

And so with all good events - satisfaction from the work done, joy and happiness for the people who found themselves or remained free, but...

“The old must already fall off and go into oblivion, giving way to the new”: about the young and brave

Lena Malakhova, or Prikolena
Author of sketches and parodies of the Russian opposition and Russian independent journalists in exile

I was very pleased with one personal discovery this year: the CIS youth, plus or minus my age and bubble, are the best people. We are not too complex, we trust imposed hierarchies much less, we realized the value of personality and mental health much faster than all previous generations. All this gave us a huge boost at the dawn of our growing up. True, the world around us has really annoyed us, so this doesn’t really help, but without it it would have been even more difficult :-)

And at the same time, unlike Western youth, according to my personal observations, we treat any ideologies with much greater irony and deliberate distrust. In general, we seem to be psychologically older. And although we do not have the privileges that holders of passports from first world countries have, due to our detachment and internal jokes, we are sometimes able to go through more than they do.

Therefore, in spite of everything, I am glad to be born in Samara in 2001.

Tatiana Lazareva
public figure

In 2025, I was very impressed by the courage of Diana Loginova , Naoko, who, despite all the stuffy prohibitions, went out into the street and sang, as well as the young guys around her who sang with her, whose spirit cannot be crushed.

I keep saying that the old should already fall off and go into oblivion, giving way to the new.

The embodiment of this idea was the project “Where am I?”, which my team and I launched this year - it is about teenagers who were forced to leave their homes due to the war unleashed by Putin. With this project I am trying to give them support, support their feelings, push aside their fears. We made eight films about teenage immigrants in different European countries, and I admit that their stories are incredibly inspiring to me. Looking at our heroes, I believe that they will replace the old dysfunctional mechanisms and rusty systems - young, strong, fearless, open to this world.

The project itself has grown over this year and now wants to live its own life. There is already a closed online community - a micro-universe without adults, but with safety rules. And the telegram channel “Where do I want to work?” about vacancies and volunteer opportunities. We are preparing a winter creative camp with lectures and classes on interesting topics, and a podcast...

So for me, 2025 turned out to be about the young and brave. And I’m happy that we have such a future, all that’s left is to help them a little or just be there for them in this difficult time of challenges and trials. Give some safe space to look around and spread your wings.

“Terribly interesting and delightful”: about music and musicians

Andrey Aksyonov
author of the podcast "Decline of an Empire"

This year has been super busy for me personally: on the one hand, I was appointed as a foreign agent, and on the other, I gave an interview to Yura Dudu. Personal results for the year seem to be mixed and startling.

But I would like to talk not about myself, but about music: in 2022, I, like many others, had the feeling that Russian musical culture had turned into a desert. Many, from Tequilajazzz to Lucidvox, emigrated to different countries and, in fact, ceased to exist. Stepan Kazaryan no longer organizes the “Pain” festival, but takes artists to Belgrade and develops the musical culture there. And so on.

But now, in 2025, it is clear that music in Russia is alive and thriving; for me personally, several releases have been released that I listened to completely. I won’t even say anything about “Bond with a Button,” which was snobbishly criticized in Afisha magazine and on Twitter (in such a situation, I want to be more ironic at Twitter and “Afisha” rather than at “Bond with a Button”).
Rushana released an excellent album “Just about”, “I’m looking for a person” posted “Embraces of Spring”, the group “Lampabikt” published “Stumps”.

“Thank You” is an example of a group that managed to survive in exile, recorded the poignant Dom in Belgrade. “Attention, lingonberry” from Yekaterinburg released “Ambiguous”. True, as I just discovered, this was still on the eve of 2025, but let’s leave it as a bonus.

All this is terribly interesting and delightful.

Coin
singer, musician, songwriter

The most important event this year for me was the performances of street musicians. Songs about freedom, love and peace began to sound throughout Russia. Among others, there were my songs. Knowing that they are sung on the streets of St. Petersburg or my native Yekaterinburg is a feeling so inspiring, deep and reverent that words cannot express it.

I was very worried about all the guys, and especially about the members of the Stoptime group who went through arrests. I wish them safety, as well as all my listeners. And I dream that music will become free again .

“We received 14 times more applications than places in the Serbian group”: about the caring nature of volunteers

Anastasia Burakova
lawyer, founder of the “Ark” project, which helps Russian emigrants in different countries

Due to the nature of our work, we often talk about how something got worse. But there are many small personal success stories in The Ark - and it’s even difficult to choose. I’ll tell you about Serbian language classes.

For three years now, Kovcheg has been organizing free language courses for anti-war Russians: both emigrants and those who cannot leave, but want to maintain and develop international contacts. Our teachers are mostly volunteers, and the costs for this area are low.

Over the past year and a half, many Russians have been forced to move again, and Serbia has become a point of attraction for the diaspora. We began to receive requests to open Serbian courses. With great difficulty, we found a volunteer who was ready to teach Serbian. And when they opened enrollment, we received 14 times more applications than places in the group!

We sounded the alarm in the Ark channel and chats, and several more people joined the team and were ready to help with learning Serbian. So, thanks to caring people, we were able to give more people the opportunity to learn a new language.

“We just stopped by to drink cocoa, and it’s so cool!”: about the new school and children who are preparing for Christmas, New Year and Hanukkah

Dima Zitser
teacher

The only thing we can grab onto (or one of the few) is our loved ones, our children. And our only opportunity to influence the world and somehow influence the future is to concentrate on making our loved ones feel good. It’s just such a confidence that grows stronger and stronger every day.

This philosophical idea is how it is translated into practice, for example: we opened a school in Estonia on September 1. It is very, very important for me and for my colleagues. We have children from different countries, well, first of all from Estonia, but from other countries too. I think we have brilliant teachers and amazing children.

I just returned from there, despite the fact that today is a day off. Parliament started working at the school, and so they decided that today they would come and prepare classes for Christmas, for the New Year, for Hanukkah.

Well, we just stopped by to drink cocoa with them. And it's so cool! When you see how people can realize themselves together with you. This is just great happiness. One of the few points when you understand why you smoke the sky.

“My heart jumped”: about accidentally seen graffiti

Nadezhda Skochilenko
is involved in helping political prisoners, the mother of Sasha Skochilenko, a former political prisoner released during a major exchange in the summer of 2024

There is almost no good news in the world of political prisoners, but even in the midst of hopelessness, something happens that still makes you smile. It happens that a person asks whether it is dangerous to write letters [to political prisoners], and six months later he already tells who he sent the parcels to in the colonies. Yes, this is not a sensation for some, but for me it is great news. It’s wonderful when endless collections for the needs of political prisoners are closed, for me this is an incredible miracle!

And the coolest thing was when in Berlin I saw graffiti dedicated to Bogdan Ziza. One of the first to speak out against the invasion of Ukraine. He was sentenced to 15 years of strict regime (!) for pouring blue and yellow paint from buckets on the facade of the city administration of Yevpatoria, and then throwing two prepared Molotov cocktails.

I knew about this graffiti, but I saw it by accident, and my heart jumped. I wrote to Bogdan about this, but I don’t know if this message reached him. Write letters and help political prisoners - and there will be more good news.

Sasha Skochilenko
artist, former political prisoner

I learned about Bogdan Ziz when I was preparing two exhibitions with my curator from Artists Against the Kremlin. He was preparing a large exhibition dedicated to political prisoners, and there were folders with drawings that the OVD-Info organization gave us. One of them contained nothing but one photograph - the administration building, covered in yellow and blue paint. It looked like in a movie: we open a folder, and this looks at us from there.

So for the first time I found out who Bogdan Ziza was, and how powerful a thing he actually did. This artistic action is, on the one hand, anti-war, and on the other, against the annexation of Crimea, because Bogdan was born when the territory of Crimea was Ukrainian. This is a gesture that is worth a lot. It’s not like changing price tags in a store on the sly—it’s going out and swinging buckets like that, “Tie me up, people.” The man’s hand did not tremble; he took it with all his strength and swung it at such a terrible moment.

I know that Bogdan is now being tortured. His situation, as a person who refused to receive a Russian passport in the occupied territories, is worse than the worst. He is sitting in a terrible colony, suffering from very severe chronic pain, there is no medical help there - Ukrainian citizens are treated much harsher in Russian prisons than Russian citizens.

I would be glad if more people talked about Bogdan. Judging by what he created, he is an artist of great magnitude and great courage. I would like to see more monuments to Bogdan and more events in his support.

“People bound by the values ​​of non-violence take care of each other”: about a fair court decision and the very first trustee

Marie Davtyan
lawyer, expert on violence against women

Somehow you can’t even think of or remember good news right away. But I'm going through the months. One of the most striking and very important events for us is the court’s finding of Mikhail Khachaturian guilty of sexualized, physical and mental violence against the Khachaturian sisters. We have been moving towards this since 2018, and in April the court finally found their father guilty, albeit posthumously. This is a very significant event for us and for the girls; it is a matter of justice and their moral compensation.

From personal events: this year I was congratulated on my birthday by my very, very first confidant in a domestic violence case. She turned to me for help back in 2009, and we fought with her for many years, even reaching the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

We have been communicating with her periodically for a long time. And this time, when she congratulated me on my birthday, I thought about this. How joyful it is to see a person who lived in a very difficult situation of violence for more than ten years, but has rebuilt his life - and quite successful. Her children have grown up, she is doing well. For me, this is a morally supporting element: everything is not in vain.

Even this year, we were able to meet with lawyers from different regions who also handle such cases. It’s very pleasant to get together in an informal atmosphere; over the past few years, we have greatly united not only professionally, but humanly. People who are bound by non-violent values ​​try to take care of each other - this is a very good process.

“Implement something you’ve never done before”: a study on asset freezing

Zhanna Nemtsova
journalist, daughter of Boris Nemtsov and co-founder of the foundation named after him

Every year I challenge myself to do something I've never done before, and for the past few years I've succeeded.

From what I can talk about publicly, I consider my achievement to be the advocacy campaign around the assets of private, non-sanctioned individuals frozen in the EU.

Among those who fell under this measure are hundreds of thousands of Russians who left, as well as citizens of other countries who used the Russian financial system. Many of them are middle class and below.

The report was published by the Nemtsov Foundation at the end of October, and I can now rightfully call myself an expert in this field.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped me with this and continues to help me. There are two aspects here that I consider good news: I realized that people trust me; and I took a direct part in the study of this problem.

“Not for the sake of a war invented by elderly grandfathers”: about horizontal connections

Andrey Zakharov
investigative journalist

It seems to be a purely St. Petersburg story : in August, employees of the Brodsky Museum, driving a boat along the Fontanka River, noticed a cat in a hole in the granite embankment. How he ended up there is unclear: according to one version, he fell into the water during a fight with other cats, and then climbed out of the water into a crevice. Volunteers of the organization “Koshkospas” tried to rescue the cat for seven days; a local resident, who had previously fed the animal, even climbed into the water in her dress. The prisoner did not want to get out for a long time, but in the end the rescuers made a ladder with a cage at the other end, and the poor fellow climbed out along it to freedom.

But this story, in my opinion, is broader: it is about how quickly and selflessly our fellow citizens can build horizontal connections for the sake of a common cause. Not for the sake of a war invented by elderly grandfathers - the supporters of this war themselves complain that no one cares about it. But for the sake of something good and bright.

I have no doubt that as soon as Russia has the opportunity to engage in politics without fear of going to prison, these same people - as during the protests of 2011-2012 - will go to protests, observers at polling stations and volunteers at the headquarters of the new Navalnys. In this sense, this news is not just about saving the cat (by the way, he was named Orpheus) - it is also about our future, whenever it comes.

Cover: Dmitry Osinnikov

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