An interview with Anna Chagina, citizen of Tomsk, sharing about her fight to stay true to her heart. It took place on the evening of December 1 and was published on December 4, 2022 on the site Siberia.Realities. I made an English version of this interview, to share with others about what I consider to be the true, beautiful Russia – a Russia that is now hard to see, among the terror that is emanating from that country waging war daily on Ukraine, which can be very loud in our consciousness.
Read on to meet a person, who I thank for being an inspiration to me.
Leading up to the interview this happened:
On March 6 2022, Anna was detained at an anti-war rally in Tomsk.
In September 2022, the Prosecutor General’s Office blocked Chagina’s page on VKontakte for anti-war posts, which have now become the basis for initiating a criminal case under Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code. The maximum penalty is up to three years in prison.
On November 30 2022, early in the morning, law enforcers came to the house of the Tomsk musician and music teacher Anna Chagina – this is how she learned that she was being charged in a criminal case for “discrediting the army.”
On December 1 2022, the court determined a measure of restraint – a ban on using the Internet and mail, leaving the house after 22:00, and attending public events.
On the evening of December 1, after the trial, Anna told the Siberian Realities correspondent about her criminal case and her three versions of how and when the war would end.
Interview with Anna Chagina
“Gentlemen, this is my house and my rules”
On the eve of the visit of the security forces, Anna celebrated her birthday, the guests left late. She didn’t sleep for half the night because her nineteen-year-old daughter had a fever, and at 6 in the morning the doorbell rang. Anna opened it and saw a whole brigade: “There were two witnesses, two officers from the FSB, an investigator, a commando and a lawyer.” Only after returning from the detention center, where she spent the night, she discovered that the peephole on the side of the entrance had been prudently sealed with a sticker. At that moment, there was no time to notice it.
Anna says that her fear was so strong that she had trouble to breathe and felt a constant urge to drink.
The second feeling was resentment.
– As soon as they arrived, I said: “Gentlemen, this is my house and my rules.” She insisted that they take off their shoes.
They leafed through all the books, looked through all the folders. I have a lot of papers – printouts, notes, archives. They confiscated computer equipment, a bunch of flash drives and phones, including non-working ones.
To calm her nerves, Anna picked up a guitar and staged a concert.
She sang children’s songs and Okudzhava.
– Actually, I rarely sing concerts, but then I realized that there would be no such chance again. I tried to ignore them.
– Did you have a lawyer?
– They brought one with them. The lawyer by appointment was – both theirs and ours. At my request, she called my friend Igor, but during the search she did not say, for example, that I could write in the protocol that I was against their video filming during the search. We have already added it to the Investigative Committee. My daughter also wanted to film the search on camera, but her smartphone was confiscated. They scared me that they would first lock me up for 48 hours in a temporary detention facility, and then immediately send me to a pre-trial detention center for two months.
The search in Anna’s house lasted about three hours, then she and her daughter were taken to the IC (Investigative Committee of the RF).
– My daughter had a temperature of 39. I asked that she be interrogated first as a witness and released, and then they would talk to me. But first they interrogated me for four hours, and my daughter waited all this time. The appointed lawyer told me that with such a temperature she could refuse to go for interrogation, but for some reason she said this only later. Today my daughter was taken away by ambulance with pneumonia.
During interrogation in the IC, Anna referred to Article 51 and refused to testify on the merits of the case.
– Orally I said that I did not admit guilt, but, in my opinion, this was not included in the protocol. They gave me some paper about cooperation with the investigation, asked me to read it carefully. But I refused to cooperate, and wrote on this document that I did not consider it necessary to read it. Copies of the protocols were not given to me, referring to the fact that the lawyer by appointment photographed the protocols.
– Further IVS (temporary detention facility)?
– Yes. In order to have something to do there, I took a pocket Bible with me from home. I sat in solitary confinement. Cold. The stink from the sink and toilet. By law, they could keep me there for 48 hours, so I asked for detergents to wash the sink and toilet. They brought it in the morning.
The light does not turn off at night. Pop radio “Vanya” played until 10 pm. I am a musician and I have other musical preferences. In order not to let such music into my mind, I meditated. I read the Bible. I made good use of my time.
How was the trial?
– I applied for a change of lawyer, and at the trial I already had my own lawyer. It was possible to make the meeting open. The investigator asked me to choose a preventive measure prohibiting the use of all means of communication. The lawyer asked for a softening, and they left me the opportunity to use the telephone.
Now Anna is forbidden to use the Internet and mail, leave the house after 22:00, attend public events.
– They put on a tracking bracelet of the Federal Penitentiary Service. How do you feel with this?
– When I saw such a bracelet on others, I thought: “These are the fetters of Satan! ..” I feel okay for now. Haven’t tried yoga with this bracelet yet. I’ll work out, my feelings will become clearer … I talk calmly, even joke, but in fact I’m in shock. Once I saw a man who, after an accident, was standing with a split skull – the brain was directly visible. And he spoke calmly. Pain shock. Something similar is happening to me right now.
– To what extent will the chosen measure of restraint, the ban on using the Internet and leaving the house in the evening, complicate your life?
– Already before the criminal case it was worse than ever. In September, the Prosecutor General’s Office blocked my page on VKontakte, which had a very strong effect, because through this page I found private lessons, students with whom I studied music. My income is very low. I tried to sell my apartment in order to buy a smaller house and pay off my debts, but due to the fact that now I am a defendant in a criminal case, I cannot complete the transaction.
“Blessed are the peacemakers”
Anna recalls that on the eve of the March anti-war rally she had a concert.
“There were a hundred people there. Before playing, I openly spoke out against the war. She played one of her favorite Ukrainian carols on the violin. It was received very warmly. After the concert, some in the audience approached me: “My son is going to a rally on March 6. I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid.” There were others. They were surprised: “You say that war is always bad. That Russia attacked.” But even such people did not condemn, they only shared their doubts.
My daughter went to a solo anti-war picket on March 3, and she was immediately taken away.
This was even before the tightening of legislation, which occurred on March 5.
On March 6, I was scared to go out to the protest rally, but I could not stay away. My friend, who is seriously ill, came to the rally with her family. I can’t give her name, because I’m afraid that now everyone will start rowing again. Her husband was detained. It seemed that they would detain her as well.
She came out with a banner “Blessed are the peacemakers.” I took this poster from her and held it up. I stood for ten minutes, and they put me in a traffic police car and took me to the police department of the Savetsky district. Then I was fined under the law “for discrediting the army.”
How long have you been in the protest movement?
– Protest rallies are not the most important thing in my life, but I’m used to expressing my opinion openly. I went to protest for Navalny and for TV-2 (Tomsk independent television company, closed by the authorities in 2014.) . In 2014, when Crimea began, I went to a rally with a poster “Do not shoot at brothers.”
Why are you personally against this war?
“I am against any war. Violence will not resolve any conflict. I sincerely admire martial arts if it is a fair duel one on one and without weapons. And massacre can only achieve universal death.
After February 24, I rethought a lot. The war made it possible to separate what I love from what I hate. Before the war, I wanted to leave Russia for many years. I hate it when a person endlessly endures what cannot be endured – humiliation, filth, an unworthy life. And does nothing about it. War is an attempt by such people to solve the accumulated problems through violence and hysteria.
– What do you like in Russia?
– I love nature, I love some kind of simplicity. Not one that is worse than theft, but a simplicity that can be called openness. The war made it possible to learn that among the Russians there are many honest and decent people. Before the war, I had little interest in politics, I followed the events in the Donbass a little. I took care of my family, creativity and work.
When the war began, Tomsk opened up to me from a new side. I reached a different level of social connections and communications here. Even though we don’t agree on everything, we still manage to keep in touch. It is very important for me. That is why it is worth going to the rallies. Love saves the world.
– You already had an administrative record “for discrediting the army” when you posted posts on VKontakte, which eventually became a pretext for initiating a criminal case. Did you understand what it means?
– I understood. But it was important for me to convey my position to people. I am mentally prepared for the fact that the state will punish me for this. I haven’t talked in detail with the lawyer who is now defending me. But, as far as I understand, I face either a prison term or a huge fine. I’m not afraid of either.
I felt that I was being followed, but I could not fully believe it. I saw some people under the windows of the apartment. The FSB detective who accompanied me today said that he personally followed me. And the investigator said that all the investigators of the Soviet District Department of Internal Affairs knew me. Apparently, they were all on duty here in shifts. By Tomsk standards, I have rather big social networks – more than a thousand people on VKontakte. And a lot of acquaintances from the most different, not contiguous circles.
– What particular posts on VKontakte did they find “discrediting“?
– While reading only the protocols, I have not yet got acquainted with the materials of the criminal case. As far as I understand, the texts of the Christian thinker Pavel Levushkan and the philosopher Nikolai Karpitsky, copied from Facebook and posted on my page on VKontakte, are incriminated, indicating the authorship of the texts.
Karpitsky is a philosopher who lived in Tomsk, who headed the Tomsk Anti-Fascist Committee, who now lives in Ukraine. He talks about necrophilic imperialism, about why Russians behave the way they do, both in war and in civilian life.
And additionally the comment “No to war!“, which I left on VKontakte under someone’s post.
“There is also my fault”
– Anna, why do you think there is no mass anti-war movement in Russia 9 months after the start of the war and even after the start of mobilization?
Because no one wants to be in jail.
But with the beginning of mobilization, the war touched even those who hoped to remain observers. I am familiar with a Tomsk family, where the husband works at Gazprom, and the wife teaches at the university. The husband made good money, the family traveled a lot around the world. But when the war broke out, they didn’t mind its official aims, and they weren’t surprised by propagandists’ claims that Putin was fighting NATO and Western gay parades. And then the summons came to my husband, and their point of view immediately changed. The husband fled abroad.
Speaking of emigration. You already have an administrator. You saw that you were being followed. Why didn’t you leave?
– I had obligations. I didn’t emigrate because of my relatives. My daughter has health problems. I have my mother here. Grandparents, who are already ninety years old. In the end, I have a loved one here.
– And even in the future you do not consider this option for you?
I’m considering it, of course. More precisely, I would like to travel around the world, immerse myself in a different culture for a long time, in a different language environment, live in a different climate. I am a very curious person. Before the war, I had such a plan: when the children would be grown up, I would fly! But we are not talking about an emigration, where you leave and burn all bridges behind you.
Who do you think is to blame for starting this war?
– First of all, Putin. He approves all decisions.
But he’s not the only one to blame. There is also my fault. I voted for Putin in the elections when he was first elected. The only time I voted for him. He seemed like a man who could do something good for the country. I was very naive, I didn’t know anything about Putin’s past.
The epiphany came when I noticed that the Russian reality was starting to resemble Clive Staples Lewis’ sci-fi novel The Foulest Might. In this novel there is such a character – Gray Shadow. He is nowhere and everywhere. And his proteges on the ground resemble him and poison the atmosphere. And there, as in Putin’s Russia, they endlessly repair what does not need to be repaired, they create a semblance of activity. The “rochade” and the “reset” seemed ridiculous and absurd. But I did not expect such a scale of demonism as we see it now. Like Stalin or Hitler, Putin is the demon who stole my country.
How long can this war go on and how will it end?
– I have three versions: reasonable, mystical and punk-optimistic. What do you want?
Let’s take all three in turn.
– The mind says that it is for a long time, for many years. Even if the fighting against Ukraine ends in the foreseeable future – within two years – in Russia itself, it is unlikely that everything will end quickly. But I don’t want to talk about the civil war.
The mystical point of view. This war is part of the ongoing struggle between Good and Evil, but now it has touched us personally.
And the punk one – “We will leave the zoo“, as Yegor Letov sang. The last time before the criminal case, I wanted to give up on everything and just believe that sooner or later we will stop being monkeys who wet each other. Let’s get out of the cages – each of our own – and become people.
– Do you see any sprouts that give hope that enlightenment is possible in Russia, a kind of purification?
– I do. Many of my friends say: “I will not leave anywhere. I will create here. This is my homeland, and I will not give it away to anyone.” Among them there are calm optimists who believe that “it will all pass,” and there are resolutely minded, ready to fight.
My friend supported Navalny and, fleeing the criminal case, left for California forever. And his friend, an American, on the contrary, came ten years ago from California to Altai, became a Russian farmer and is not going to leave Russia. I love the Russian language, Russian culture, but I am not a nationalist, I’m a globalist. I am for a world without borders and I hope that Russia will someday become part of this world.
– You took a Bible with you to the isolation ward. Do you consider yourself Orthodox? How do you feel about the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church supports the war?
– I practice integral spirituality, but I still take care of myself in the Orthodox Church and consider myself a Christian. The official position of the Russian Orthodox Church is a shame, all Orthodox churches have condemned it. Real Russian Orthodoxy and what it is associated with today is heaven and earth. What is the Christian conclusion? God is merciful. And to people who are mistaken, too. Another thing is that everyone suffers from their delusion, including those who are deluded themselves.
– All the independent media that reported on your detention wrote that you are a musician. What kind of music do you play?
– I graduated from music college as a violist and I play the viola. I teach violin. I’ve had a lot of bands in the past. Played rock, punk, folk, celtic. In addition, I played with an ensemble of violinists. I worked for a year in a symphony orchestra.
– Is there music that saves you today?
– Lately I have been listening to music very little, there has been an overload. But Bach always saves. Of the relatively recent discoveries – the St. Petersburg singer Sasha Sokolova, who, unfortunately, died of oncology. About her music I can say: “It’s about our time.”
– Do you admit that the court can pass you an acquittal?
– I don’t count on it… When I dozed off in the temporary detention cell, I thought: “It would be great to open your eyes in the morning and see the ocean – clean and transparent.” That’s how I believe in the fact that the court can pass a fair verdict – as in a pipe dream, as in a miracle.
I believe this war will end.
I admit the possibility of a miracle.