– What is the purpose of endless appeals, cassations and complaints, if all decisions of the Russian court are predictable, and the ECHR for him is a meaningless set of letters?
– It's time to repeat the question asked by Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean: “Well, you killed me to kill! And then, what are you going to do next?" Let's remember the title of Alexei Yurchak's book about the Soviet Union: "It was forever…
"…until it's over."
– And our Czechoslovak friends had a saying: “With the Soviet Union – forever. But not a day more." Not every Reich is a thousand years old. Let us recall the trials of the leaders of the "black colonels" junta in Greece and over the cogs of the "death machine" that operated in Argentina in 1977-1983. Or let’s remember the junta of the “black colonels” in Greece, under which the country withdrew from the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court: the ECHR all these years, from 1967 to 1974, accumulated an array of decisions that were then “forever” brought to execution.
It is foolish to say that justice in modern Russia is impossible, if it – albeit in a truncated form – was possible even in the USSR. My great-uncle Sergei Sergeevich Ruzov, one of the founders of Soviet hydrography, was sentenced to death in the winter of the siege of 1942 in the "case of the Leningrad intelligentsia." The execution was replaced by ten years of “sharashka”, he survived the “eternal” exile in the Turukhansk region, was released and lived to see his executioner tried in 1955. Nine people who were involved in the "case of the intelligentsia" did not live to see freedom. But in the end, investigator Kruzhkov received twenty years, seven of which he served. And the “chief executioner of Sandarmokh” Mikhail Matveev, the head of the NKVD pre-trial detention center in besieged Leningrad, where Sergei Sergeyevich was held and tortured, was convicted in the case of the Belbaltlag firing squad even before that. True, he was released and, as a valuable cadre, was again assigned to work.
Even now, working in the courts turns out to be a meaningless occupation. It prevents tragedy from being turned into statistics. For more than a quarter of a century I have been investigating enforced disappearances of people – abductions, detention in secret prisons, torture, extrajudicial executions, hiding bodies … Only during the Second Chechen War, from three to five thousand people ended their lives in this way. There are four sentences in Russia for this number of disappeared. And several hundred judgments handed down in Strasbourg. On none of these hundreds of decisions, Russia has not complied with the requirements of finding and punishing those responsible. But these decisions add up to evidence of the widespread and systematic practice of enforced disappearances. That is, they allow, in accordance with the 2006 UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances, to qualify them as crimes against humanity, with all the ensuing consequences, including the absence of a statute of limitations. According to Russian law, for the most serious points of Article 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Kidnapping”), the statute of limitations is 15 years. It would seem that the executioners of the "vile zero" can sleep peacefully – say, Igor Girkin (Strelkov), in 1999-2005, one of the coordinators of the system of enforced disappearances . But the sum of the Strasbourg decisions makes it a crime against humanity. And the future prosecution of these “comrades” is as important a task as the prosecution of Nazi criminals <On November 17, Girkin was sentenced in absentia by the Hague court to life imprisonment for complicity in the destruction of a passenger Boeing in 2014 and the death of its passengers and crew – The Insider> .
It would seem that the executioners of the "vile zero" can sleep peacefully
This task became even more urgent with the beginning of the war in Ukraine. "Heroes" of past wars become participants in a new war, and Russia's post-Soviet wars should be viewed not as separate episodes, but as "a chain of wars, a chain of crimes and a chain of impunity." The diamond in this chain is General Surovikin, who, while still a captain, did not bear responsibility for the first death of civilians in the new Russia on the night of August 20-21, 1991. Then everyone was forgiven, and the case was closed. He was not convicted, made a "brilliant" career and is now in charge of the entire "operation" in Ukraine, and as the commander of the Aerospace Forces, he is also in charge of air strikes. Here is one of the results of this "chain of impunity".
Another example: while Memorial was being shut down, the Human Rights Center, together with colleagues from Novaya Gazeta, international organizations and heroic lawyers, brought the courts in the “Syrian case” to an end at the national level. In 2017, a video appeared on the Web: people who speak Russian, do not hide their faces, presumably “Wagnerites”, beat a person with sledgehammers, dismember, burn a person . The alleged identities of the participants in this case have been established. The Main Military Investigation Department dismissed our appeal, and the Basmanny Court decided, and then confirmed in the appeal proceedings: the video does not contain signs of a crime and does not even provide grounds for a pre-investigation check. On November 6, the Moscow City Court confirmed this decision in the cassation instance. Now we know what is NOT a crime for the authorities, and we have uncovered the mechanism of impunity. This is also important for the future, including for international institutions.
So all our work for thirty years turns out to be quite modern and "has a great future" (like adjika, which Comrade Stalin spoke about in Iskander's "Feasts of Belshazzar"). And this work must be continued.
– How do you and your colleagues work now, in conditions of war?
— The most important work for the Russian human rights community is to help Ukrainians displaced to Russia. Help them complete the documents they have lost, or simply provide assistance where the Russian state sent them. Even three hundred citizens of Ukraine were taken to Kamchatka! Someone is coordinating such inter-regional assistance to Ukrainians. And someone helps refugees go abroad: thousands and tens of thousands of people in the regions do this important, albeit inconspicuous work.
The most important work for the Russian human rights community is to help Ukrainians displaced to Russia
With “partial mobilization”, legal assistance to those mobilized turned out to be no less in demand. We should talk about the reciprocal "mobilization" of the human rights and legal community to solve these problems.
At the same time, no one canceled assistance to political prisoners. The memorial list of political prisoners has become a separate important topic for the prosecutor's office in the process of our liquidation. This list is still being replenished, now it is done by an organization that separated from the Human Rights Center. So this is not a new list, but a continuation of the old one. From 2008 to the beginning of 2022, a thousand people were on this list, including those who served time and were released. As of October 30, there were 502 people on this list.
There are a lot of specialists who talk about history in terms of "processes", looking down from the angelic heights, where people are indistinguishable, and therefore operating with large numbers with many zeros. We count people not as zeros, but as ones. The scale of our memorial work with the past or with the present is a separate human life, a separate human biography.
— Do you really believe that the Russian judicial system can be reformed?
– The question is natural. Some domestic court decisions, when compared with the same Strasbourg ones, give the impression of a Frankenstein monster: they are sewn together from separate parts, logically unrelated to each other. In addition, the very language in which these solutions are written is not intended for human understanding.
But sooner or later it will have to be done. Obviously, new judges will have to be selected and taught in a new way. In the current system, judges often become yesterday's assistant judges and secretaries of the court, that is, parts of this very machine, and not those people whose knowledge and life experience allow them to make judgments regarding the fate of other people.
And each of them is just an element of the conveyor. This entire conveyor reminds of an execution in an electric chair: several people, each turns their own switch, and none of them knows who exactly closed the circuit. There is no sense of responsibility. What to do with it?
I'm afraid that there is a long process ahead, connected not only with retraining, but also with the change of professions by some characters. For example, Judge Krivoruchko, known from the “Magnitsky list”… I also know him: exactly three years ago he slapped me with another three hundred thousandth fine for non-marking. Is it possible to re-educate Judge Krivoruchko? Or does he still have to do something else?
Let's say one person finally lost touch with reality and declared war. But why didn't the performers refuse to continue this absurdity at any stage?
– One of the reasons is the civil service system built during the Putin years, where “the entrance is a ruble, the exit is ten”. People are loyal to the system not only because they receive some kind of preferences. For example, after leaving the civil service, you must coordinate your employment with yesterday's employer within two years. Formally – in order to avoid corruption. But really, it's an addiction. The colossus is by no means on clay feet, and paper with stationery glue turns out to be very strong binding materials.
– The court confiscated the Memorial building on Karetny Ryad exactly after the announcement of the Nobel Prize winners – and it was awarded on the birthday of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the murder of Anna Politkovskaya …
– "Coincidence? I don't think!" Is this how it is customary in Rus' to comment? Some things are impossible to predict. All this, except for the birthday of He Who Must Not Be Named, is the result of a long process. The court is the end of a long bureaucracy of various power and non-power structures. The “order” for Politkovskaya was received by the killers, it seems, in the spring of 2006, they watched for a long time and hardly thought about anyone's birthday. The coincidence of dates is an accident, albeit symbolic. Is that the Nobel Committee was joking.
The coincidence of dates is an accident, albeit symbolic. Is that the Nobel Committee joked
And it is no coincidence that people who have known each other for a long time and know each other well are awarded. Ales Bialiatski, leader of the Belarusian human rights movement Viasna, is our friend and colleague. On October 6, with the Center for Community Freedoms, I participated in an event at the OSCE session on the “human dimension” and said to Alexandra Matviychuk: “Lesya, you received an alternative Nobel Prize (that’s what The Right Livehood Award is called), but you can’t stop there, you have to move forward! When will the real one, Lesya?” And in the morning… a little funny, but symbolic.
From the perspective of the Nobel Committee, the prize went to a struggling civil society under pressure in Eastern Europe. But this is not a very symmetrical construction: an aggressor country, an accomplice country and a country defending itself from aggression. This raised questions among people of state thinking, who attribute all the "serfs" to their bars: "whose will you be?" We have to explain: “we won’t be anyone’s”, we are not slaves, and civil organizations are not assigned to states – we are not Putin’s, Ales Byalyatsky is not Lukashenko’s.
Everything is not easy, Memorial is eventually deprived of its premises. Compared to the fate of Ales Byalyatsky, this is not the worst, but we also have our own sitting people: Yuri Dmitriev, Bakhrom Khamroev. Some of our colleagues were killed… And the "Center for Community Freedoms" is now working under bombs. During the war, the Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to citizens of the warring parties – this is the first time.
This award goes to the entire memorial movement, and even more broadly, to the social movement to which Memorial belonged and still belongs. In the 1980s, Memorial was the most massive social movement in the former USSR. And then, when it became unfashionable, still many people worked, trying to do something. In Chechnya, during the First War, dozens of people worked in the so-called "Kovalev group", starting with Sergei Adamovich himself and his peers, Soviet dissidents. My wonderful Chechen colleagues. Natasha Estemirova, who was killed in 2009. Lawyer Stas Markelov, whom we met in 1993, was dragging the wounded together during our “Little Civil War” in Moscow. Many other people who sacrificed – some with freedom, some with life. Dozens of friends who put their lives into this work. This is also a prize for those who did not live to see it: like Arseny Borisovich Roginsky, like Sergei Adamovich, like his friend Alexander Pavlovich Lavut and many, many… Like Natasha, Stas and Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya. This is a prize for everyone for whom both history and human rights (seemingly worn out phrase) were important, for whom it was a matter of life.
Why was the Memorial building confiscated so late?
– During the last summer-autumn, departments tried to "bite" us. So slow! It was clear how clumsy this machine was, what difficulties with communication, until there was a “life-giving pendel” – until the matter was “put under control”.
I understood: at this stage, the prosecutor's office and the court are "working" with us. The Ministry of Internal Affairs tried, it did not work. And the FSB is waiting! Because if they turn on at this stage, without an additional command from above, the results of their “labor” will be credited to those “leading” organizations at this stage of the “action plan” implementation, which are competitors for them. What for?
And indeed, the FSB turned on at the beginning of 2022. But slowly: not the end of the year! February – the arrest of Bakhrom Khamroev, whose case was used as an "entry point". March – searches in the offices of "Memorial", seizure of a huge amount of material. Interrogations began. Having worked to the end of the liquidation of the Human Rights Center, speaking in court on the appeal on April 5, I left … At the beginning of June. To avoid getting interrogated. For some reason I didn't want to ask…
I left at the beginning of June. For some reason I didn't want to ask
On July 5, they started looking for me, calling from the FSB. Why exactly then? According to their action plan, interrogations were scheduled for the third quarter!
And they took care of the building, because this was preceded by another circular letter from the Prosecutor General's Office: to work with what was left of the "Memorial" "on the ground." So the current trials are just the beginning.
– What will happen next?
– Parts of this Leviathan are moving in the regions: checks, visits, inquiries to memorial organizations and reception offices, to lawyers and activists. Somewhere we will learn about it – from colleagues, friends, in publications, in the media there will be some kind of response …. Or it will not be – against the backdrop of everything that is happening, this is not a sensation. It's like in a physical experiment: an event occurs, but not always and not all elementary particles from this event fall into the detector. But it's understandable: now they will work with Memorial in all regions.
Bakhrom Khamroev, the case against whom was used to justify the searches at our place, was recently charged with a new charge – now under the article "on organizing the activities of a terrorist organization." For the fact that on behalf of other people accused of participating in the Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir (banned and recognized as terrorist), he filed complaints in Russian courts and in the Strasbourg court. That is, now the FSB considers as “terrorist activity” doubts in the decisions of the courts, the appeal of these decisions in the Russian authorities or in the European Court, whose jurisdiction Russia at that time recognized. Moreover, this was done before similar charges were brought against Navalny.
– What is the similarity of the current "grave" with the Stalinist campaigns?
– Firstly, this is a criminal event both in terms of methods and goals. Like Stalin's "social engineering" in the name of cannibalistic goals and ideals.
Secondly, this is a typical mass operation, and not a process that follows laws and regulations and is tied to individual people. Now, after all, they are mobilizing categorically – not only carriers of military specialties. They grab anyone. It was about the same in the thirties – "mass operations" were categorical: "kulak" (order 00447), "Harbin", "Polish" …
Third. All these operations were impossible without falsifications, without imprisoning almost random people. And now it's the same: the plans for "partial mobilization" turned out to be impossible – there is no working system of military registration. And they mobilize whoever they get. Then they also gave unrealistic plans – although no one said that they were unrealistic. When the “kulak operation” was planned, cipher telegrams were sent to all departments of the NKVD: “raise a file cabinet for such and such “colors” and report the total number.” “Color” is a label on top of the card to understand who is there: a priest, a White Guard or a Trotskyist. “Raise” means to put the card upright. Let's say I, the head of the department, report: "973 accountable." I'm coming to Moscow. There, first, a general meeting of all regional leaders. Then Yezhov and his first deputy Frinovsky call us one by one, talk and give me the limit for the “first category” (for execution): 1200. No one directly tells me: falsify! But the figures from the very beginning give such that it is impossible to fulfill the set plan without falsifications if we work on the card file of those whom we consider enemies. Нужно арестовывать кого-то, кто в учеты не попадает, иначе никак. И начинается соревнование между регионами: кто будет самым успешным, того наградят, а последний сам попадет в мясорубку. По «кулацкой операции» предполагалось «оформить по первой категории» 79,5 тысячи человек, в итоге расстреляли около 400 тысяч — в пять раз больше.
Мы видим сходную «логику кампании» в этой «частичной мобилизации». Видим, как в настоящем живет наше нерасколдованное прошлое.
И точно как во время сталинских кампаний, в самом угаре такой кампании вдруг появляется критика сверху «отдельных недостатков». Самые безумные практики прекращают, но лишь когда непоправимый вред уже нанесен. Никто не говорит о самой основе кампании — преступных целях и преступных средствах. А потом историки (теперь — публицисты и аналитики) ищут замысел, хитрую социальную инженерию… А замысла там просто нет.
— Если говорить о кампаниях, то дела о государственной измене ученых-физиков подпадают под эту категорию?
— Эта категория дел очень неновая, шпионские дела фабрикуют с 90-х годов. Сейчас «вредна для здоровья» ученых аэродинамика, гиперзвук. Тоже типичная кампания — но не массовая, нет у нас массы ученых. И если после массовых арестов ученых в «ежовщину» далее Лаврентий Палыч Берия, ликвидируя «перегибы», постарался использовать тех, кто выжил, то сейчас вопрос об использовании по специальности не стоит.
Эпигоны сталинского времени каждый раз оказываются глупее своих предшественников и объектов воздыханий. Логика советской кампании почти всегда в конце концов вела к незаметной извне ликвидации механизма, делавшего последствия столь катастрофичными.
После Большого террора были отменены «альбомные» осуждения, позволявшие подписывать «акты» наперегонки. Было введено визирование смертной казни специальной комиссией ЦК ВКП(б). Даже во время войны этот механизм работал, кого-то миловали. Именно так уже упоминавшемуся моему двоюродному деду Сергею Сергеевичу Рузову, осужденному в блокадную зиму 1942-го, весной заменили расстрел на десять лет «шарашки». Комиссия ЦК была «стопором» на колесе террора, чтобы оно не слишком раскрутилось.
Или в 1959 году, после менее известной почти трехлетней репрессивной кампании, был введен механизм «профилактики». Сажать не всех, попавших в поле зрения «органов», а только примерно каждого сотого, к остальным применять административные меры воздействия. Тогда в ЦК помнили, как мясорубка могла провернуть тех, кто только что крутил ее рукоятку…
В ЦК помнили, как мясорубка могла провернуть тех, кто только что крутил ее рукоятку
Или кампания сплошных карательных депортаций народов, начатая осенью 1943-го и прекращенная к лету 1944-го. Оказывалось, что после сплошных депортаций целые регионы, обезлюдев, «выпадали» из хозяйственного оборота. Ведь в горах невозможно остановить сельскохозяйственные работы, пока вывезенных чеченцев не заменит так называемое «правовое население». А в воюющей стране это неприемлемо. Поэтому депортация крымских татар в мае 1944-го была последней из таких сплошных. Когда Красная армия вступила на территории, где было не придуманное, а реальное массовое антисоветское партизанское движение, — в Западную Украину и в Литву, — были массовые депортации, а сплошных уже не было.
Для нынешних обожателей «славного прошлого» эти репрессивные кампании — образец для подражания. О том, как товарищ Сталин или Политбюро сами себя тихо критиковали, отменяя наиболее дикие практики, никто знать не хочет. Поэтому сами они свои ошибки не исправляют, а усугубляют. И один из выводов из нашей работы (как и из работы «ОВД-инфо», наших ближайших коллег) — понимание того, какова современная система контроля общества государством.
Я уже говорил о введенной в 1959 году и просуществовавшей до 1987-го системы «профилактики»: в позднесоветское время на одного посаженного было около ста «профилактированных», и советская власть продержалась благодаря этой системе контроля над обществом лет тридцать.
Первое. В России сейчас больше сотни уголовных дел по «гориновской», «антивоенной» статье 207.3 Уголовного кодекса. Вроде немного, хотя много: в брежневском СССР по политическим статьям за год осуждали несколько десятков человек, а современная Россия — это примерно пол-Союза, да и год не кончился.
Второе. Помимо этих уголовных дел, с начала войны есть более 4 тысяч протоколов по «антивоенной» административной статье 20.3.3, где уголовная ответственность наступает после второго протокола. И десятки тысяч (на июль — более 20 тысяч) административных дел по «митинговым» статьям, где ответственность по «дадинской» статье УК наступает не со второго протокола, а позже. Эти тысячи — аналог «профилактированных» советского времени. И соотношение посадок и «профилактики» близкое.
Третье. В СССР была смертная казнь, а у нас она вроде бы не действует с 1996 года. Хотя погодите, есть политические убийства: Немцов, Эстемирова, Политковская, Маркелов… И есть система отравлений оппозиционеров агентами правительства, которую вскрыли в последние годы: Навальный, Кара-Мурза и т. д. Кроме людей известных, это коснулось и «низовых» активистов — скажем, Тимура Куашева.
Четвертое. Мы знаем об условиях содержания в тюрьмах и лагерях, знаем про пытки как системный фактор расправы с непокорными.
Все эти четыре фактора вместе возвращают Россию — нет, не в тридцать седьмой, а в какой-нибудь 1973 год, когда власти вполне эффективно контролировали общество. И в 1973 году Майдана не было ни в Москве, ни в Киеве, ни в Тбилиси, ни в Вильнюсе. Таким образом, обычные сегодня разговоры о том, «а чего это вы все не встанете, не выйдете и не сбросите „злочинну владу“?», обретают важный контекст. Тогда, полвека назад, никто не мог выйти и сбросить. В СССР эта система контроля социума была эффективна, и наши власти сумели ее восстановить.
— В Сыктывкаре состоялась выставка «Право переписки» , а в Гёте-центре в Тбилиси прошла выставка «Папины письма» . Расскажите подробнее о просветительских проектах.
— Все началось в 1989 году, во время первой поездки на Соловки детей соловчан, сидевших там — и исчезнувших в 1937-м. Среди них была Элеонора, дочь Алексея Вангенгейма, основателя советской гидрометеорологии. Там, на соловецкой пристани, несколько человек показали друг другу свидетельства о смерти родителей. Раньше в фальшивых свидетельствах, выданных в пятидесятые годы, было указано, скажем: «умер в таком-то лагере такого-то числа такого-то месяца 1942 года от сердечной недостаточности». В новых, только что выданных свидетельствах о смерти были указаны точные даты: 3 ноября 1937 года. Они увидели: совпадают год, месяц, число… Возможно, смерть забрала их в одном и том же месте. Восемь лет спустя это место было найдено: урочище Сандармох, где расстреляли большой Соловецкий этап — 1111 человек.
У Элеоноры Вангенгейм сохранились лагерные письма отца. С четырех до семи ее лет отец, по сути дела, слал ей в письмах и открытках «уроки природоведения»: гербарии, описания всего, что он видел, помнил, знал. Редкий случай: отец не потерял связь с ребенком, находясь в заключении. Матерям было немного легче, примеров с отцами — гораздо меньше. Из таких историй сложилась «мемориальская» выставка «Папины письма», потом книга. Книга была переведена на немецкий. А теперь — опять выставка, по-немецки и по-грузински. Это кажется невероятным: связи, сохраненные несмотря на лагерный режим, несмотря на расстрел… Собственно, наша работа все эти годы и состояла в том, чтобы восстанавливать эту связь людей и времен.
Еще в Тбилиси есть таблички «Последнего адреса». Этот проект идет сейчас не только в России — во многих странах. В сентябре в Париже первая такая табличка появилась на доме, где жил белогвардейский генерал Евгений Карлович Миллер и его семья.
А 29 октября в Тбилиси у дома 37 по проспекту Руставели, рядом с одной из табличек «Последнего адреса», люди читали вслух имена расстрелянных. Акция «Возвращение имен» началась пятнадцать лет назад в Москве и сейчас приобрела международный масштаб: в этом году она прошла в 22 странах и 77 городах.
— У многих опустились руки. А откуда вы сейчас черпаете силу, работоспособность?
— Для меня эта война началась очень давно. Маятник истории двинулся назад еще году в 1992-м. Я все время это ощущал. И сейчас ничего принципиально нового для меня не наступило…
Даже когда несколько месяцев назад я покинул Россию, то отправился в длительную командировку. И всего лишь продолжаю то, что делал много лет. А силы дают те, кто своей работой и своей жизнью показал: именно это и есть нормальная жизнь. В конце концов, тем, кто отправился на десять лет в заключение за эту работу, как Адамыч < Сергей Ковалев — The Insider>, тем, кто жил многие годы среди войны и продолжал помогать людям, как Наташа <Наталья Эстемирова — The Insider>, было сложнее, чем мне. Странно считать, что моя работа тяжелее.
Был момент, когда хотел уйти, в начале 2003-го. Что такое — искать пропавших в Чечне? «Клиент всегда мертв», как в сериале. Но в январской командировке было трое выживших. Три человека, которых удалось вытащить. Это уже много. И я не ушел. Прошло двадцать лет…
Беседовал Алексей Огнёв