Pavel Oskin, photographer, organizer of photo tours, lives in Prague. As soon as the war began, I organized a shelter for Ukrainian refugees http://ukryt.org/ After February 24, I had to part with the majority of Russian-speaking clients. “Sixty percent just went crazy.” Today it has become more difficult to help refugees,” notes Pavel. People are accustomed to war. It doesn't affect most people personally. According to him, only the most persistent and caring continue to help systematically.

Alexey Yesod (Alikin) is a journalist and telegram blogger. He wrote for the publications “Russian Planet”, “Takie Dela”, “Moscow Daily News”, etc. Since 2016, he has hosted the TG channel “Russian Futurist”, among whose admirers was Vladlen Tatarsky.

Nikolai Kasyan is a political activist from Moscow. He has been involved in social and political activities for 10 years. Nikolai started as a volunteer at the Anti-Corruption Foundation. With the outbreak of the war, he left Russia, but returned in the summer of 2022 to participate in municipal elections in Moscow. While collecting signatures for his nomination, Nikolai communicated with people, and his anti-war position was important to many.

Ksenia Dobrovskaya was born in Russia, spent her childhood in Ukraine, and went to Prague with her family as a teenager. He calls himself an ideal example of adaptation. Citizen of the Czech Republic. She married a Czech. Involved in the political life of her new homeland. At the same time, neither Ukraine nor Russia are strangers to it. And she acutely feels that war is just around the corner.

Galina Vanechkova is a teacher of Russian literature, born in the 30s in the Urals. Survived the Second World War. In the 50s, she married a Czech, although she did not immediately receive permission from special authorities to marry a foreigner, and left for Prague. Worked at Charles University. She devoted all the years spent in Prague to literature and Marina Tsvetaeva.

Konstantin Kosov is a fire safety engineer who has worked all his life in the fire department of St. Petersburg. He chose his profession to “be useful to society.” One day, while on shift, I got a locker in which someone had forgotten “The Gulag Archipelago.” Read it. Then I read Shalamov and other dissidents. I came to the conclusion that little has changed in the management of the country.

Alla Rykhlitskaya, head of the department of choreography at Kherson University, Honored Worker of Culture of Ukraine, dancer. Currently teaching choreography online from Prague. After the occupation of Kherson by the Russian army, she followed her daughter to the Czech Republic.

Anastasia Steinert is a journalist from St. Petersburg. Lives in New York since February 2022, works at the Museum of Russian History. She talks about moving to the USA, studying at an American university and the peculiarities of life in the most expensive city in the world. Anastasia writes about the situation in the Russian Federation for American media and gives lectures on Russian history.

Victor Vakhshtain is a sociologist. For 14 years he was the dean of the faculty of sociology at the Moscow Higher School of Economics and Social Sciences (Shaninka) in Moscow. Emigrated from Russia after the authorities attacked Shaninka.

Ksenia Luchenko is a journalist, analyst, engaged in media education programs and research on media and the Russian Orthodox Church factor in the socio-political life of the Russian Federation and Eastern European countries.Until 2022 it worked at RANEPA. Currently he teaches at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Science in Montenegro.

Armina Volpert, former honorary consul of Russia in Mexico, about abandoning the profitable tourism business with the Russian Federation, helping wounded Ukrainians and fighting propaganda. What happens behind the scenes of luxury tourism during the war in Ukraine? What is Mexico's role in the context of this conflict?

Artem Vazhenkov is a civil activist. Former coordinator of the “Voice” movement in Tver. For more than 10 years, I participated in various political projects, observed elections, including in Belarus, and in the end, “I came to what I came to”: “I’m not in Russia now. I have the discriminatory status of “foreign agent”.

Melania Rakovich-Struve is the owner of a Russian book store in Paris and the YMCA-Press publishing house. Born and raised in Paris, in a family of emigrants. Great-granddaughter of Pyotr Struve, a famous Russian public and political figure, editor, publicist and philosopher. Since 2016, Melania has continued the work of her father and grandfather - she manages the Russian book store Les Editeurs Réunis and the YMCA-PRESS publishing house in France.

Andrey Pivovarov is a Russian politician, former executive director of the Open Russia movement. Ex-political prisoner, released on August 1 as part of an exchange between Western countries and Russia. Now located in Germany. We spoke with Andrey about the exchange and the possibility of returning home, why the authorities in Russia are intolerant of civil society, and whether he feels like a loser after seeing it destroyed.

Alexander Kozlov, artist, sculptor, restorer. Lives in Prague. He left, “escaped,” as he put it, from the USSR, in the late 80s. The war affected his family directly. My mother-in-law died in a bombing in Mariupol. The father-in-law was forcibly taken to Crimea, where he soon died. A mother of more than eighty years old fled from Sumy to Prague, but could not live without her homeland. Returned to her homeland.