16 October 2025
by Sergei Davidis
Source: Facebook
The hellish hell that is now going on in the Homeland and that the Homeland is now bringing down upon Ukraine inevitably becomes a habit.
Sometimes, of course, when something unusual happens, the pall of familiarity disperses and the wild insanity of what is going on offends the eye and ear once again.
I experienced just this effect now personally in response to the criminal case against Pavel Siutkin and the jailing for short terms under administrative law of the young musicians of StopTime.
After being questioned by the Investigative Committee, on the brink of arrest, Siutkin, a historian of gastronomy (I’d never heard of him before), said, ‘any honest writer, journalist, or historian in Russia must always be prepared for prison. Well, today that role has fallen to me. No need to despair, though. The day will come when this gloom over Russia will fade away’.
It’s all even clearer with the musicians who had assembled for street concerts for the public of songs by Noize and Monetochka.
But both these examples, I think, are much more important for the fact that they overturn the primitive and false construction that says everyone who is in Russia is a bearer and supporter of evil.
Life is everywhere. And although many opponents of the war and the dictatorship have been forced to leave the country, free-spirited people remain in it, and new free generations are embarking on adult life.
These narratives demonstrate once again the absurdity of contrasting those who left with those who stayed, a contrast bordering on racism, of labeling everyone who stayed in Russia as slaves, imperialists, and supporters of the war.
Russia will be free!
Translated by Marian Schwartz
