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Attention! Translation was done using AI, mistakes are possible
Until 2017, I was part of this wave of patriotic euphoria that followed the start of the war in Donbas. At first I was like: “Woo-hoo, Russia is strong!” and all the rest, but then I realized what a bad precedent it was. Before that, I’d sincerely believed state media, but then I watched “He’s Not Dimon to You” (Alexei Navalny’s investigative film about the multi-layered corrupt system headed by then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev — SP), and my political views did a complete 180.
On the night of February 23rd to 24th, I wasn’t sleeping, so I saw it — the start of the war — happen live. It felt like a bad dream, because in the first days of the war I expected to simply evaporate. Kaliningrad is the westernmost military base. And if a nuclear war broke out, I’d evaporate first.
On the first day, I walked out to a shopping center across from Victory Square, which is the central square of Kaliningrad. There was a group of people who’d just gathered spontaneously, without signs, without anything, exchanging opinions. After that came an enormous amount of news, and I had this feeling of paralysis.
Bucha… When I filtered through the news about what happened there, I came to the thought: “Hello, we’re in fascist Germany.” I have no moral right to sit and wait. Bucha isn’t a gentleman’s war — it’s a massacre. That made me abandon my illusions of a war fought by rules. I had thoughts of burning down the military recruitment office, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
The first graffiti was in a backwater area. I already had spray cans — I’d been painting over drug ads; they’d annoyed me to no end, so I bought paint to cover them up. There’s a canal that runs past a restricted zone 200 meters from my house. That’s where I did my trial run — wrote: “Putin = war.” But nobody walks there; nobody would see it. So I decided to hit more public spots on April 5th and 6th and leave it there.
I didn’t have a plan. I took a walk where I usually walk, and there was the Monument to the 1200 Guardsmen. I decided — yes, this will do. I walked through the monument so as not to leave anything on the memorial plaques or steles, because that would be tasteless. I went around the back and wrote there. I was scared. It was after 1 a.m. I left the inscription and walked off, made a loop, and went home.
On the evening of the 8th, they came to my apartment. First they said it was a delivery. I opened automatically, and they immediately put me on the floor. They presented a search warrant. They said: “You’re detained. Criminal case.” They conducted a search. Said they found me on cameras.
They explained that the Monument to the 1200 Guardsmen is the most important monument in the city; they explained that this was an insult to the grandfathers. I’d insulted many important people, and the case was under special oversight.
I said: “Yes, I made that inscription because I believe Putin is responsible for this war, and war is bad.” They started explaining to me that there are “Banderites” in Ukraine, that I was actually a fool. They tried to find out whether I supported Navalny, whether I’d participated in protests before. I dodged without giving a direct answer.
First I signed a witness statement, then the same text but as a suspect’s statement. After that, I received a travel restriction as a preventive measure and a summons for the next day for investigative procedures — we’d go to the monument together and I’d show them how I did it. After I signed all the papers, the lawyer left, the investigator took my passport and walked out, I was left alone in the office, and 3 people in civilian clothes walked in. One of them sat in the investigator’s chair and started pressuring me.
“You mangy dog, do you even know what you’ve done?” — those kinds of expressions. Then it was: take off your glasses, they’re going to beat you now. He asks who told me to do this. “Answer or don’t answer, we’ll beat you either way — get up against the wall.” There were blows, but much lighter than I’d expected. The only time I really got hit: I started shielding myself, and I took one to the shoulder. It left a mark that lasted a week and a half.
When I tried to defend my fingernails amid the string of insults, arguing that I play guitar, the first guy said: “Give me a hammer, I’ll smash his fingers off.” They didn’t bring one, of course, but that was the moment I was ready to go for his throat. And I thought about it several times during that ordeal — he was completely careless.
The second one just sat and watched until I started crying. They kept asking: “Who told you to do this? Who are your friends?” When I started crying, one verbally stopped the other and began asking the questions himself. And I started answering the way they wanted. That is, at first I answered that I did it because I’m against the war. But then I started answering that it was because I’m an idiot. And then the second and third guys pulled out their phones and started recording, and I started answering the way they say on TV. The recording was published on the Telegram channel “PiZtolet Makarova.”
They made me state my full name, where I study, why I made the inscription: because I’m an idiot who chose the wrong sources of information and held a mistaken opinion. They asked what I’d do now. I answered that I profoundly apologize to all the defenders of the Fatherland whose memory I insulted. At the university, I would no longer study unless I joined the patriotic organizations that operate there. Then they asked how I feel about Putin; I answered that Putin is the supreme commander-in-chief, I support his actions against Nazism in Ukraine, and other such nonsense.
Then they released me but didn’t return my passport. And the second person changed the time on the summons the investigator had given me. It had been 11 a.m.; now it said 1 p.m. And he told me to bring 12 red carnations. I immediately understood — to lay at the monument. And if I showed up tomorrow, I’d continue participating in this circus. But if I stopped lying and told them what I actually thought, I’d go to the pretrial detention center, possibly with a fracture.
The thought that I needed to go to Poland came the moment I walked out of the station, around 1 a.m. I packed a backpack, carried out an enormous amount of water. I left the house at 3 a.m. in breathable sneakers with two liters of water. I’d wanted to take food too, but I forgot it on the table.
I walked through courtyards. It’s 35 kilometers to the border. On the way out of Kaliningrad, a criminal investigation officer stopped me — he was looking for a drug stash courier. Among my things, I had a flute. And when he saw the flute, he was like: “All right.”
It took me 3 days to reach the border. I navigated by the sun, mostly walking through fields. I reached the white border roads, where at night, border patrols drove by at 10-minute intervals. A stretch of forest about 20 meters wide, and a fence. Barbed wire, cameras. I waited for daylight so I could see the barbed wire. I made a gap in it using two logs and crossed the Polish border in the most straightforward, stupid way possible. I came out to a village and asked the first people I met where the police station was.
As soon as the Polish officers arrived, I said that I was leaving Russia, that I was being persecuted for graffiti, that I’d been beaten at the police station, and that I was requesting international protection. When I explained the situation, the border guard who spoke Russian said: “Okay, dude, don’t worry — you’re in Poland.” They ran me through their systems, took fingerprints, and that same day took me to the town of Braniewo, where there was a court hearing. I was given 60 days so I wouldn’t flee anywhere, and they took me to a camp in Białystok (a guarded center for foreigners — SP). The food was good; there was access to a library. After that, a lawyer contacted me — hired by my relatives who live in France. Now I’m with them.
