On September 25, the traditional Mayakovsky Readings were held – in the center of Moscow, at the monument to Mayakovsky, those who wished to read poetry. The readings on that day were declared “anti-mobilization”. Half an hour after they started, the police showed up. The speakers and the audience fled, but the security forces detained some of the people, catching up at the subway. Among them, the poets Nikolai Daineko and Yegor Shtovba were detained.
In the evening of the same day, pro-government channels began publishing a video of Artyom Kamardin reading anti-war poems, demanding that he be found and arrested. After that, the poets Boris Bulgakov and Nazar Arifdzhanov and their friend Polina Yakunina were arrested. They were detained at the exit from Kamardin's house. All this time, a police car was on duty at his house. Later, Bulgakov and Arifdzhanov were sentenced to 10 days each, and Yakunina 7 days for "disobedience to the police."
On September 26, at two o'clock in the afternoon, a detachment of police special forces with a grinder opened the door to Kamardin's apartment. In the apartment with him were his girlfriend, activist Alexandra Popova, and their friend Alexander Menyukov.
The police did not let lawyer Leonid Solovyov into the apartment, saying that they were carrying out an operational-search activity – “examination of the premises”. In the apartment they beat Kamardin very badly and raped him with a dumbbell. After that, they forced him to apologize on camera for his poetry. The police spent about three hours in the apartment.
Popova was also beaten in the apartment, and then in the UK. Doctors diagnosed her with a concussion, bruises on the soft tissues of the head, thighs, and legs, and shedding of the skin of the left hand. “I have a lot of superglue on me, because the security forces stuck stickers on my face with superglue, tried to seal my mouth, pulled out my hair, kicked me, threatened to rape me with five of us,” Popova told Novaya Gazeta. Europe".
In the UK, she was shown a video of the rape of Kamardin.
According to Popova, $600 was missing from the apartment after the “search”.
While the security forces were cracking down on Kamardin, Popova and Menyukov in the apartment, Nikolai Daineko and Yegor Shtovba were detained in court again (they were released the day before, but served with a summons to court under the protest article). In court, both were given 20,000 fines. The policemen who detained the poets took them to the investigative department of the Tverskoy district. There, Daineko and Shtovba were demanded to apologize on camera for participating in the Mayakovsky Readings.
After this video with apologies Kamardin, Daineko and Shtovba was published by the police channel "112". In the video, Kamardin has a swollen face, abrasions on his head are clearly visible.
From Kamardin's apartment they took him to the Tver police department. Lawyer Leonid Solovyov has already been admitted there. After fingerprinting, Kamardin was transferred to the department of the Investigative Committee for the same area.
In the Investigative Committee, Kamardin, Daineko and Shtovba were interrogated until three in the morning. Kamardin was brought in as a suspect under Art. 282 part 2 p. "a" of the Criminal Code (incitement of hatred or enmity with the use of violence or the threat of its use). Daineko and Shtovba were interrogated as witnesses. At two o'clock in the morning it became known that both Daineko and later Shtovba were brought in as a suspect.
As The Insider learned from sources close to the investigation, the case of the poets is being handled by an investigative group headed by Ilya Andreevich Savchenko, senior investigator of the Investigative Department for the Tverskoy District of Moscow.
During interrogations, Daineko and Shtovbe were shown videos of poets performing at Triumfalnaya Street. Including speeches by Kamardin, where he said: “Freedom for Russia, peace for Ukraine! Take care of yourself, desert, do not follow criminal orders!
During interrogation, Arifjanov and Bulgakov were shown photographs of torture by Kamardin in order to intimidate them and force them to apologize on camera for being present at the reading of poetry. Arifjanov told his sister about this when he was given a phone after the trial. “[Kamardin] is all bloodied, his arms are arched, there is blood everywhere – a grimace on his face when you realize that they are about to kill,” Sofiko Arifdzhanova quoted his message to The Insider.
She also said that on September 27, Polina Yakunina was taken from the special detention center to the Sokolniki police department. The reason is unknown. The lawyer for Arifjanov, Bulgakov and Yakunina, Mikhail Shabelsky, filed complaints against their detention.
After being tortured and raped, Kamardin was taken away from the UK in an ambulance. There, in the presence of a lawyer, doctors diagnosed him with a concussion, a closed craniocerebral injury, bruised chest and numerous abrasions on his face. But the doctors refused to hospitalize Kamardin, and he was taken from the hospital to the detention center.
“What these bitches did to Artyom, Artyom is simply gone. He was chosen as a victim, as such a message from the security forces to show everyone who is conditionally released, speaks out against the authorities, against the war, that “dudes, we will * beat you all with improvised items if you speak out against the war,” said The Insider is Kamardin's friend, ex-Mayakov Readings resident Danny Kulinich.
Lawyer Kamardin Solovyov told The Insider that he does not yet know the details of the charges, since his client is still in the status of a suspect. “Now I don’t know about his state of health, since I haven’t reached the isolation ward yet, but at night he wasn’t very good,” he said.
Presumably, employees of the Grom special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs came to the apartment to Kamardin, Popova and Menyukov. This unit was originally part of the disbanded Federal Drug Control Service. "Thunder" provides power support for events held by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Torture Kamardin commented on Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov. He, as usual in such cases, said that he did not know anything about this, but added that you can always contact the prosecutor's office.
Ivan Astashin, Evgenia Tamarchenko
