The Diary of a Russian: Getting detained in Moscow

April 11, 2022 — VERA YAKOVLEVA

On Sunday, March 7th, I got detained in the centre of Moscow. It was a lovely sunny day, and I was walking in a crowd of… just walkers? protesters? It was hard to say. I was in the city centre two hours after the announced beginning of the protest. Who were these people? Hardly anyone dared to shout out anything or take out a poster, but I could hear people talk – they discussed which way to head next.

Coordinating the protests has been an increasingly difficult task. It worked mainly through Telegram. Minor, seriously anonymised, and so not-yet-banned political movements like the youth party “Vesna” took over the initiative and spread in their channels the directions with live updates. Independent news channels could also make posts like “People in the streets are saying they are heading towards …”, which was nothing less than a guidance for their readers in the streets, disguised as live reporting. Yet, it was risky even to follow those channels: some said the police forced people to unlock their phones and scrolled through their social media. Did anyone get arrested for reading the wrong stuff? I doubt it, but everyone was afraid, myself included.

Anyhow, I was right under the massive grey walls of the State Duma when two Russian guards approached me from behind and asked to follow them. They did not tell me their names and ranks, nor did they explain to me what they were going to do. They took away my phone and passport and locked me in a police van – a rather unpleasant grey metal box packed with people, with two small windows covered with bars. It was cold, yet stuffy inside.

In the van I met a group of 17 surprisingly diverse people.

An IT engineer claimed he had been trying to think for himself for the last five years. He did not like Putin, disapproved of the war, but insisted that the Ukrainians were Nazis. 

A recent graduate of a Tech Uni works as an aerial bomb engineer. He has to do a three-year contract with a company that sponsored his studies, but dreams about quitting the job as soon as possible. After detention, he was neither afraid nor worried – just hoped the police would report to his office and he’d get the sack. 

A young fitter Vadim was the loudest one in the van. He kept shouting and flinging his hands, effing and blinding. Boiling over with emotion, he tried to convince everyone around he had just been going on a date – the name of the date was though hard for him to remember. When Vadim noticed people talking politics next to him, he started shouting out things about Putin, and Eltsin who had put in Putin, and his granny’s miserable pension. He was trying to reach out to the guards from behind the bars: “It’s you who are fascists! You are the Nazis! What are you doing to your own people?!” – he was shaking the metal door, shaking himself with anger. “It’s Russia that needs denazification!” His words of denazification of Russia were picked up by other van passengers. I made a shy attempt to interfere and say that we probably should think about desovietization in the first place – but this idea did not meet much approval in our small group. 

Yet Vadim had his own political idol – it was Boris Nemtsov, a politician in opposition to Putin who was shot in the street in 2015 after he had tried to convince western politicians to impose stricter sanctions on Putin’s elite. Vadim had watched every single interview with Nemtsov on YouTube and talked about him in lower voice, with due admiration: “He was a real man!” 

Marina, an office worker aged about 40, planned to go for a walk in the city centre with her ten-year-old daughter. The daughter changed her mind just before leaving, and so Marina was walking alone in the streets, caught by the crowd. She stopped to make a video of what was going on to send to her daughter but got immediately detained. She was trying to convince everyone around she had not idea about the meeting – but, of course, had an opinion of what was going on in the country.

Two sixteen-year-old fellows from the suburbs to the north of Moscow were the coolest ones. Wearing black tracksuits, with three bunches of tulips, the two were in fact heading towards the shopping mall “Kids’ World” and then planned to visit someone’s granny but got nabbed by the guards. Guys were sad and truly worried. “That’s it. Your mum will never allow you to hang out with me again,” – “Yeah, and no chance they’ll let us go out tomorrow,” – “Do you think I’ll get a place at the Emergency Services college after this?” – “So what, you can still go to a cooking college, why you need that Emergency stuff.”

There was also a silent slim curly-headed young man with a tragic look in the corner of the van. He was best informed and could answer any question about our rights after detention. It really helped to install peace in our stormy van.

At the police station, we were all questioned and photographed, and then sent upstairs to wait in a big pompous hall. There was already a group from another van, detained three hours before us in the same place, waiting to read and sign their individual reports. There was a loo, you could ask for a glass of water, but not for a phone call – so none of us could tell our relatives where we were or call a lawyer.

If in our van it was Vadim-the-fitter who was the loudest one, the first van was headed by a 66-year-old lady, ready to stand for the truth to the utmost. Her grandfather had spent a few years in GULAG, and so she bravely confronted the policeman, saying she was not the one to be trifled with, her family was far too experienced for that. She identified an agent provocateur in her van and convinced everyone not to talk to him. He looked indeed rather shifty.

After a while, an unobtrusive policeman who oversaw the only cell in the building, empty at the time, went upstairs to the hall and spent most of the night with us: “It’s more fun here with you.” Marina asked him if there had been anything important in the news since we were detained, but he said he did not know what to trust in the news. “And how about the TV, official channels?” – she wondered. “Frankly, I haven’t watched TV for ages now, I even unplugged it from the socket,” – he replied.

The night was late, and I started to worry about catching my train at 5 am – that train would take me to St Petersburg and eventually to Helsinki. I was walking past the door behind which people signed their reports. I sat at the door and walked again. I studied the informational posters on the walls (“How Behavioural Features Help to Identify a Suicide Bomber”) and police reports that someone dropped by chance at the printing machine. Apparently, on the same day, the police received a call from a man who had killed his wife. He suspected her of cheating, took a knife, killed her, and immediately called the police to confess. Well, instead of doing real things, the police were busy processing anti-war protesters.

A chatty policeman noticed my interest in those documents and tried to work on me, inviting me to get employed with them. “55k rubble in salary (£550/month at pre-war rates), long holidays, early retirement, and on Fridays you can go home at 4.45 pm,” – said a man who was in office on a Sunday night. “At least it’s fun here. Do come. We’ll promote your candidature.”

But to be honest, he was really helpful and allowed me to get released quicker, so that I could catch my train. It was already 2.30 am, and I was the first one from our van to enter the reporting room. The “individual” reports were composed in much the same way. He/she was walking with a group of 200 people crying “No to war!” I was even flattered to be credited with such an act of courage. In fact, there was no real crowd and indeed no cries, not to mention posters. 

“So, you are our revolutionary woman! In all sincerity, after so many hours sitting here with you all, I feel connected to you guys,” – the chatty policeman was in a light-hearted mood – “I even sympathise with you. But only deep in my soul.” I corrected a dozen of typos in the report, he was thankful. At parting, he asked me not to be cross with him, instructed me not to go to protests but better to get a job at the police. 

The next day I would find out how lucky I was – at other police stations people were undressed, humiliated, and beaten. Thank you, the chatty policeman, for remaining just a bit more human than you had to.