26 – 29 January 2026
by Anna Karetnikova
Source: Facebook
26 January 2026
It seems that the saga surrounding the nomination of representatives to PACE has come to an end. This is very good news; everyone can be congratulated, and we can hope for some kind of productive and effective work ahead. So far, I’ve only written about those who do not represent me, but now I’m pleased to point out that my interests in this organisation are, I believe, represented by Oleg Orlov. At the very least, our views are closely aligned, as is our understanding of what ought to be done and which particular tasks should take priority. Of course, we disagree about many things, but these are just part of professional discussion. I don’t expect any particular miracles from this platform, but I would like to believe that in the course of its work less time will be spent on leadership struggles and conflicts, and more on communicating and discussing the important problems faced by all of our anti-war inclined compatriots.*
Source: Facebook [for this and other reactions to the nomination of representatives to PACE see ‘On the nominations to PACE’s Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces‘ – ed.]
27 January 2026
Now, still on the themes of yesterday’s discussions, I heard Dmitry Gudkov on a broadcast, and he was saying that with the PACE platform it will be easier to help compatriots abroad in difficult situations—which is, of course, indisputable. It’s always easier with a mandate than without. And there are many such situations, Dmitry (not Gennady) said. I understood this to mean that this included those where his help was no use. But you see, he went on, everyone knows about the story with Bi-2, but they don’t about others—and here’s the most interesting point—because journalists aren’t interested in writing and broadcasting about them.
This really upset me. I would be very interested in reading and watching those stories. I’m interested in general in what’s happening with people not only in Russia but also with forced emigrants, what difficulties they’re having and how they’re dealing with them. And I would be very pleased by stories with happy endings and very glad to learn about instances when Dmitry (not Gennady) Gudkov and his colleagues rendered people swift and quality assistance.
That’s why I want to shout, Journalists! Don’t go chasing after sensations and famous names! Don’t overlook the variety presented in abundance by Dmitry Gudkov! Talk more about happy rescues, about successes in assisting so to speak ordinary people! I’m certain I’m not the only one who wants to know more about that. I’m counting on you, journalists! And what ever comes of this…
Source: Facebook
29 January 2026
The device that surprised me a week ago of tossing a trump card into the public discussion, amplifying it for a while, and then discrediting both it and, consequently, one’s opponents’ points of view is being repeated with enviable constancy. It seemed obvious to me that this is the typical and basic undermining of a thesis worth consideration, but no!.. Evidently, the calculation is that it will leave a bad aftertaste.
Following the woman murdered by American immigration opponents, a woman who was first placed on a pedestal and then dropped into the sewer, now there has been a second murdered person who was such a terrific young man (a nurse, he helped veterans, a loving son), and it turns out the hooligan was also an activist: he spat at a car and broke its taillight. I’m not planning to discuss here what anyone might make of themselves: both an activist and a nonactivist, or whether it’s good or not to have a permitted weapon. But no, this does not mean that activists can be shot if they aren’t attacking you, and this does not mean that even with illegal migration there should be a struggle like the one going on right now in America.
Interestingly, though, another completely different story has suddenly developed following the very same template. People are writing that far from the United States, in Kyiv, an elderly woman died due to an electric and heating outage resulting from Russian bombardments. And this is written . . . well, let’s just say stridently, and in considering raising a monument to her the deceased is also good in every way: a pensioner, and a Jew, and a Holocaust survivor. Only later it turns out she didn’t freeze to death but died for another reason.
And no, this doesn’t mean there weren’t any bombings, that they aren’t inflicting horrible sufferings on the population, that Russia isn’t trying to freeze Ukraine to death, that we don’t need to keep helping, or that there are no war crimes. But it’s as if this device was used on purpose, and yes, it will leave a bad aftertaste.
And once again, I don’t understand. Does this just happen and only get exploited by propagandists after the fact, or is this a well thought-out pattern? I personally am already starting to fear stories with positive heroes or obviously innocent victims, both alive and dead, simply because I suspect a catch, and for every idealization I foresee a subsequent discrediting of both the person and the idea.
Source: Facebook
29 January 2026
Ten years ago I wrote a post on Sergei Davidis’s birthday. I was looking back, I thought, on a life lived, seeing there only ruins. And as people also say, THEY DID NOT YET KNOW AT THE TIME that…
Well yes, we did not yet know at the time that it would not be long before the start of a full-scale, very long war that we can’t call a war, that we would all have to leave our homeland, that our friends and comrades would be thrown in prisons, that Sergei himself (by the way, also on his birthday) would be arrested in absentia and then both sentenced and declared a terrorist, while I would only be preparing for my first foreign agent criminal case.
That’s the kind of decade we’ve had. The world changed before our eyes, and not for the better, alas, and we changed, too, probably, but I wouldn’t change anything in the words I wrote then, though maybe I would add that even then, when I had to flee Moscow, Sergei was the person I could not have managed without, and he was the first to come to my aid. There is also the fact that, under his wise leadership, ‘Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial’ has been doing work that is, in my view, extremely important, and brings us closer to the bright line, and gives us both meaning and hope.
Thank you, Sergei, and happy birthday! Wishing you all the same—and peace.
—And now, finally, my ten-year-old post!
It’s the birthday of my best friend, Sergei Davidis! An excellent lawyer, a staunch and honest opposition politician, a caring friend, and for me, someone it has been hard for me to imagine my life without for . . . how long? Twenty years? Or twenty-five? I don’t remember anymore how many years have passed since one day at some political demonstration in the 1990s I asked oh so cleverly whether the pleasant-looking youth in dark glasses (I remember the stylish glasses to this day!) wouldn’t care to join us going to the meeting of the democratic youth organization . . . and my then-fiance and future husband glowered.
Oh, we’ve lived through so much since then . . . the tumultuous 1990s . . . survival . . . soul-searching . . . politics and business . . . raids and barrages . . . love and parting . . . hopes and their dashing . . . Chita central prison and victory. Without Seryozha I wouldn’t be me, of course. That is, I would definitely be different. And no matter what was happening in the world, in our big and my personal worlds, I always knew he was somewhere, and all I had to do was call for help—and he would come. And I would try to come, too. If need be.
Sergei buried my grandmother and was by my side when we buried my mama. How my mama loved him. . . . I don’t think I have any friends who have done more for me in life. It’s funny. “In grief and in joy…” (c)—through thick and thin.
I marvel at Sergei today. To fight and be honest, to remain a politician in Russia’s hopeless inertia today is beyond my powers. To argue, to spit into the wind, to head into the storm, to stand under fire. . . . To remain modest and ironical, in addition to being encyclopedically educated and willing to take on (!) responsibility for everything happening . . . how can he? I don’t know. I hide in a prison. And don’t try to fool myself that I didn’t run away. He didn’t.
Sergei has a marvelous wife and daughter. And, I’m sure, a great future that is not long off. After all, he is, in part, one of its pilots and creators. For us all. In our stead. When he is by my side, I’m not afraid. May none of us be afraid when Seryozha is by our side. People like that do not betray. Wishing you happiness, love, personal fulfillment, and victory!
Source: Facebook
29 January 2026
A TV crew from Germany came to my town to shoot me for a TV film. Seryozha went downstairs to greet them. When he appeared from the lift with the first set of suitcases, I could only imagine that the TV crew thought they were going to stay with us. ‘I’m in shock myself’, Seryozha commented, but then he started pulling out suitcases I hadn’t noticed right away, and it became clear that they’d decided to stay in town for a long time.
That was all just idle speculation, of course, and the suitcases held all kinds of equipment, basically entirely as usual. And as usual, after they’d endured my boring speeches, they asked me to go out on the balcony and smoke for the camera for art’s sake.
I’ve been desperately trying to quit smoking, and I’m covered in nicotine patches, but since I hadn’t quit entirely, what could I do? So I made my way onto the cold balcony (no need to boast of my view from the ninth floor).
Well, for appearances’ sake I tried to resist and asked through our remarkable interpreter whether progressive German television approved of harmful smoking on film, but through him they assured me that it was actually welcomed and approved if it was for the sake of beauty and the vitality of art.
I wandered onto the balcony as I was told and thought, This is strange . . . here, in France, several groups have filmed me . . . and each one, yes, each one, had to send me out on the balcony to smoke for that very same beauty! How do they achieve beauty if their subject doesn’t smoke? What act would they then ask him to perform? Maybe recite a poem from a chair? Or does he just look out into space? (This ordinary thing just occurred to me: take out an album and thoughtfully examine the photographs. . . . Who knows what other variations there are?)
I got thoroughly chilled on the balcony, and the TV crew started gathering up their many devices. And right then—yes, they managed to surprise me. Here was something I’d never done! Through the interpreter they told me they needed me to smoke one more time, and they . . . would shoot this from a drone. They were all set to start the motor and launch a drone from the ground while I stood and smoked on the balcony, completely blue and especially beautiful. I meekly inquired of the marvelous interpreter, also a cinematographer, whether this was entirely legal.
He admitted not entirely but they took full responsibility.
‘They’re leaving and we’ll be left behind’—burst from me, which was perfectly logical, inasmuch as we were talking, naturally, about Russian prison, and that phrase is fairly popular there. And soon after a drone appeared in my window.
It hovered directly opposite and started waiting for me to come and smoke a third damn cigarette after the other two. It looked like a bat facing forward. No drone had ever looked at me facing forward before, and I had never seen a drone. I went over to it, enchanted, and I was so frightened my lighter broke. Which meant I couldn’t smoke now, but I couldn’t let it down so I at least pretended. It kept flying and flying, and looking and looking. . . . A very strange feeling. Mildly terrifying. I saw them controlling it from the ground, but it felt like a perfectly live being.
‘I’m lucky’, I told Seryozha. ‘I saw a drone head on. Lots of people—more and more, actually—have also seen a drone head on. Unfortunately, though, that was the last thing they saw, while I’m sitting at the table drinking coffee.’
‘In technological countries’, Seryozha began, ‘in places like Japan and China drones deliver all kinds of supplies, all kinds of goodies from the stores. . . . How’d you like to live there?’
‘I wouldn’t’, I said honestly. ‘The naturally useful thing flew toward me for art’s sake, but since it is indissolubly linked in my mind with the war, I’m not eager for a repetition. We looked at each other—and that’s that. We met, and that was that.’
Source: Facebook
Translated by Marian Schwartz
* Translated by Annabel Pedgley
