When the homeland became more dangerous than the foreign land: three stories of people who fled from Russia from the persecution of the authorities

“I left my SIM card at home.” Stories of people who were able to leave Russia despite persecution, reports Snob.

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Gulagu.net informant Sergei Savelyev, who removed the torture archive from Russia, was evacuated through Africa to France.

In addition to him, over the past 10 years, more than 100 people were forced to leave the country.

Three of them told how they observed conspiracy, how a Russian citizen can understand that it is time to evacuate, and what documents will help to obtain political asylum.

Boris Baty

He took part in the "March of Dissent" and organized actions in his Rostov-on-Don.

They quickly became interested in him - before the shares, he almost always noticed surveillance.

Unknown persons cut his tires, several times they called and said that they knew where he lived.

A local journalist told how a law enforcement officer came to her and demanded to publish an article that Boris allegedly had a non-traditional sexual orientation. From time to time, before the rallies, he was detained and an administrative arrest was ordered.

“One day in November 2014—at about 7 a.m.—they started banging on my door. Who can knock so early? Yes, and normal people call before coming. So I pretended that I wasn’t at home - so I could gain time and think about how to respond to the knock,” says Boris. -They pounded on the door for about three hours. Then, apparently, they got tired and left.”

A few days later he was driving through Rostov.

Most likely, his location was calculated by a signal from a mobile phone, and when he stopped, two officers of the Center for Combating Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whom Boris knew by sight, approached the car.

They immediately presented a screenshot with his commentary on LiveJournal. And they offered to sign a paper that it was he who left the comment.

“They said this is bullshit, and the fine will only be a thousand rubles.” But I referred to Article 51 of the Constitution and refused to sign. Then they took out a second screenshot: “But this is more serious,” they immediately posted. (That is, if I signed the first screen, then the second one would automatically be attributed to me). The commentary in LiveJournal concerned the imprisonment of journalist Sergei Reznik, but it coincided that he was taken into custody on the birthday of my late father,” says Boris.

“I was very angry and overdid it a little in my comment (after the publication, a case was opened under articles of “extremism” and “insulting a government official”). I was under a lot of stress waiting for a criminal case to be filed against me. Before May 9, they called me from the Investigative Committee and demanded that I urgently appear for questioning as a witness regarding comments (they specifically do this before the holidays so that you are on your nerves and ruin your whole weekend). But my lawyer from Agora, Oleg Agafonov, managed to persuade them to postpone the interrogation until a weekday,” recalls Boris.

Then they were already imprisoned for posts on the Internet, although not as often as now. There was nothing against him, because he was a witness. But he realized that prison could await him.

This was the second criminal case against Boris (the first was in 2007 for installing an unlicensed program on a PC) - and he knew perfectly well what was going to happen soon.

“We had to leave, although there were cases when activists were detained at the Rostov-on-Don airport. So I left my phone at home turned on along with my SIM card, and a friend took me to Krasnodar by car. It was safer to fly out from there, I thought, because the security forces there report to other regional commanders, and their concerns are different from the concerns of the Rostov police,” he says.

He didn't have a visa. He was looking for a transit point and chose Turkey: “This country is relatively civilized, and you don’t need a visa.”

Back in Rostov-on-Don, he booked an inexpensive hotel in the center of Istanbul. He only had a small gym bag with him: a change of underwear, a thin rain jacket and a few shirts. So he lived in Istanbul for five weeks.

During this time, they again came to his home in Rostov with a search.

The siloviki thought he was hiding somewhere in Russia.

“He won’t get out of the country,” they told my wife during the search. In Istanbul, I already used a Turkish SIM card,” recalls Boris.

The plan was as follows: fly from Istanbul to some Latin American country with a simple visa regime, but at the same time with a transfer in Germany. He planned to ask for asylum there, but if something went wrong and he was not allowed to go to Germany, he would fly further to Mexico.

Mexico was the best fit - Russians could live there on an electronic visa, which can be printed out after filling out a questionnaire on the Internet.

In addition, he could go there to the American border and surrender to the police, asking for political asylum. As a result, he took a flight through Frankfurt am Main. There he got off the plane, and about 15 police officers met him at the exit of the “pipe.”

“I smiled at them relaxed and told them I was flying to Mexico. I was allowed into the transit zone. I called my wife, consulted by telephone with a human rights activist I knew, stood in line at the border service and said that I was asking for political asylum. The service officer began to look for a German visa in my passport, but I said that there was none,” he says.

Then he was taken to the police station, interrogated, described things, searched (from the forbidden, he initially had only a Swiss knife, but it was taken away at the Turkish airport). Then he was taken to the airport prison in the transit zone.

“It’s difficult to call this place a prison - they confiscated my phone, apologizing that you can’t take photographs in prison, there was excellent plumbing, good food, satellite TV worked, you could play tennis and basketball. They gave me a phone card to call Russia. And five days later there was an interview with the police and a translator - they tried to find out if I was connected with politics. Already in the middle of the interview, they told me that I would go to a camp for migrants, that is, they would let me into Germany,” says Boris.

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“The territory of the camp is guarded, you can go out, but there are controls, for example, you cannot bring in alcohol. I went through two more camps, and then they put me in a hostel, where it was simpler - there was no control over contributions, they gave me about 320 euros a month to live on, which is more than I previously received from two jobs in Rostov. But I saved. Because I had not yet received refugee status and assumed that I would need money to go somewhere else. I waited about a year and a half for a new interview with the migration service; During this time, I acquired some furniture, bought a TV and a bicycle,” says Boris.

In September 2016, he was finally invited for an interview. It lasted about six hours.
“It was very difficult psychologically to withstand it, after it I could barely sit on the bench and came to my senses,” the “fugitive” recalls.

Six months later, he was given political asylum, but he did not tell anyone about it, because his family remained in Russia. Boris was afraid that they might do something to her.

When he realized that he could only get to Germany, he was not happy: “Both of my grandfathers died in World War II. But then, talking with the Germans, I realized that these are completely different people - responsive, kind, ready to help. Who am I to them? I arrived and went on welfare. However, I have never encountered a bad attitude towards myself.”

A recognized political emigrant can bring his family to Germany, which he used.

“For three and a half months, the three of us lived in a 13-meter room, and then I was lucky - I rented an apartment, which is very difficult for a person on welfare to do. The Germans do not want to rent out real estate to people on social benefits. But one family from Ukraine came into our situation,” recalls Boris.

Refugees in Germany are legally allowed to work three months after arrival.

But without obtaining refugee status, employers hardly find employment. Another complication is that there are no free German courses for Russians. Therefore, at first he went to free courses at the church, but learning German in German is very difficult.

He did not understand anything, knew before arrival and was horrified when someone spoke to him in German.

“An acquaintance told me about a Russian-speaking teacher in a neighboring town. She allowed me to study for free, after which I passed the exam at level B1 (a language level that allows you to communicate freely in German without using professional terms),” says Boris.

After receiving asylum, they begin to pay a little more money (like a refugee) and provide professional guidance. At first, he delivered free newspapers - for this they paid about 9,5 euros per hour.

“This is such a walk for money,” says Boris.

But he received the recognition of his diploma in automation and electronics at the Engineering Chamber and passed the B2 exam (a language level that assumes free communication by profession).

Then he began to email offers to large companies to become their employees. The norm is that you are mostly denied. But at the end of 2018, he was called for an interview and was hired as an engineer at the FAIR scientific institute, which studies elementary particles, including in the field of nuclear physics.

Boris believes that if he had not left, he would have been imprisoned for three or four years in Russia.

“I know that many participants in the protest movement in Russia have now “gone to the kitchens.” And in general, I think they did the right thing. If I were young, I wouldn't be afraid to go to jail. But when everything happened, I was already over 50, and this is a completely different outlook on life. I understood that a Russian prison was an excellent chance to shorten my life, for example, to contract tuberculosis there. If I were imprisoned, the press would write about me for a week or two, and then they would forget. I will go out sick, but somehow I still need to feed my family. Now I have a refugee passport, which allows me to travel around the world, except Russia. But I don't regret the choice. Do you miss the birch trees? There are plenty of birch trees here too,” summed up Boris

Pavel Elizarov

“We were friends with Boris Nemtsov and were with him at the rally on May 6, 2012 on Bolotnaya Square. When he and Alexei Navalny were detained, the police caused a stampede; Stones and pieces of asphalt were thrown at her from the protesters. I tried to convince people that this should not be done. But people were already too excited. It was not possible to convince them,” says Pavel.

And when the Swamp Business appeared, he was vacationing abroad - from afar it was not clear to him what this business was, what consequences it might have.

From there it seemed to him that this is a successful movement and they will achieve changes in the future. He returned to Moscow. I continued to go to protest actions.

“But just at this time there was a strong “smell of frying.” I lived at different addresses in Moscow. Moreover, the security forces began to walk along them when I was moving off them. I received subpoenas from investigators in the Bolotnaya case, and a police car was parked at my registration address every day. I assumed that I could become the accused,” says Pavel.

Friends tried to persuade him to leave, and he did not think for long - he realized that as an IT specialist he could be useful for the opposition and abroad.

Pavel says that he decided to leave through Belarus to Ukraine, then there was still no border and there were no common bases - even if he was wanted in Russia, this information did not immediately reach the local police.

“Even now, information does not arrive immediately - people still leave along this route. And then a friend took me by car to Belarus. The next morning I left her by train to Ukraine. I chose Ukraine because I had a foreign passport, but did not have a Schengen visa. In addition, Ukraine was the closest foreign country, and in general I did not plan to leave for a long time - I wanted to see from there what would happen in Russia. And three months later - in September - I left for Africa,” said Pavel.

Photo: Shutterstock

He chose Mozambique.

He decided that if he left Russia, then he needed to learn something new, travel to exotic countries, and just then they found gas in Mozambique, European companies came to him, many startups appeared and it was possible to find work.

He started a small company there that created websites.

It was not difficult for him to socialize - very friendly and friendly people live in Mozambique. He studied Portuguese.

“Of course, there is corruption there, but it concerns business only when it has already developed - then they are forced to bring into the company a co-manager from the party in power or someone close to it. But my startup and I were very far from this,” says Pavel.

There was a problem in Mozambique: a visa was not needed to enter, but a residence permit was required to work. A year later, he was told that he needed to obtain a work visa, which is issued only in Russia.

“The alternative was to give a bribe. The local intermediary with the authorities asked for a thousand euros for a residence permit for a year, but I fundamentally do not accept bribes,” says Pavel.

After refusing to give money, he began to look towards the European Union, because there is a decent standard of living.

Plus, just then, the EU foreign policy department issued a statement that it supports those who are persecuted in the Bolotnaya case.

And from all countries, he chose Portugal, because he studied the language, because it is warmer there than in other European countries, and good conditions for refugees.

Even in contrast to Spain: in Portugal, for example, those who seek asylum do not have their passport taken away, as in a neighboring country.

They are given a temporary residence permit with which they can travel even outside Europe. In addition, while the decision on asylum is being made, it is possible to work in Portugal.

To begin with, he received a tourist visa (according to the Dublin agreement, he must apply for asylum in the very country that issued the visa to me). On the very first day, he went to the migration service and asked for it.

In response, the migration service asked him about the route he took when he left Russia. In his asylum application, he attached his photographs from Bolotnaya Square, summons to the IC, certificates from the emergency room (after the forceful arrest by the police).

In addition, he had letters from Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny and Ilya Yashin, who supported him. But only six months later he was invited for an interview, where he told the story of his persecution, after which it was decided that he was a political refugee.

First, he chose Porto for living, where it is much cheaper than in the capital: he rented an apartment for 250 euros.

“Now for this money you can only rent a room. I sent out my resume, went to interviews, told them that I was a political emigrant, this aroused sympathy - the Portuguese are freedom-loving people and can hardly imagine that someone can be put in prison for a peaceful rally,” says Pavel.

He continues his opposition activities in Portugal. He works with various funds and, if possible, helps his friends from Russia with websites.

“I did not persuade my friends, including Boris Nemtsov, to leave the country. Firstly, they did not bring him in for the Bolotnaya Case, and it was useless to persuade him, because he repeated that he would not go anywhere,” he recalls.

Pavel says that in general, his professional career in Russia was interrupted, in this sense he became poorer.

But now he has a new career in Portugal. He thinks that it is risky to go home, because now, in order to persecute someone, there is no need for a reason.

Daniil Konstantinov

“In the 2011s, I joined Russian nationalists, and in 23 I participated in the “Stop Feeding the Caucasus” program (on April XNUMX, a concerted rally was held in the center of Moscow, and in the fall of the same year, an entire propaganda campaign was carried out under this slogan). Then I took part in the “Russian March”, and in December, together with the nationalists, I joined the general civil protests against the results of the State Duma elections,” says Daniil.

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On December 5, 2011, after the rally at Chistye Prudy, people went towards the Lubyanka and the Central Election Commission. Later, the crowd was divided, and people, breaking into different columns, began to spread around the city. One of these columns was led by Daniel.

He was detained and taken to the Tverskoy police station.

“There I was taken out of the cell and introduced to a gentleman who said: I am the one who took Vladimir Linderman to Latvia (Linderman, if anyone doesn’t remember, is Eduard Limonov’s former deputy for the NBP, who was expelled to Latvia as a result of some special operation). This gentleman showed me a certificate in which it was written that he works in the Main Directorate for Combating Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He said that he was involved with Russian nationalists. And I, they say, need to cooperate with the authorities: “After you serve time here, we must start communicating,” he said. I replied that I do not support such forms of cooperation, to which he replied that the activity that I am engaged in leads to only two things in Russia - to prison or to death,” says Daniil.

As a result, he was fined in court, and he was released.

This man no longer appeared in his life, but instead a criminal case appeared against Daniel on charges of murder.

On March 1, 2012, he was informed about this by an acquaintance who was summoned to Center “E”.
And on December 22, he was already arrested after the storming of his apartment.

“This event looked very strange. In the morning, my wife came up to me and said that the Tajik janitor was asking me to move the car. At first I was going to go outside, but then I thought: how could the janitor know my car if I wasn’t registered there? This was doubtful. I began to think. However, five minutes later they started banging on our door and shouting: “Open up!” If you just open the door to the cops, they might start beating you. So I said that I would open it later, and began calling relatives, politicians, journalists and lawyers - these actions could protect me in case of arrest. First they broke down the door to the vestibule. And when they started to break down the second door, I myself offered to open it for them,” recalls Daniil.

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The search began. Nobody explained what he was on.

Daniel was not even shown the employees' IDs. They did not show a single document in the case at all. Then he was taken to the investigation department. There was a proposal for cooperation.

“And after my refusal, they brought into the office some guy in a leather jacket (it seemed to me that he was on drugs), who, under the strict guidance of the opera men present in the room, allegedly identified me as the killer of his friend. After that I was sent into custody, I spent two years and seven months in a pre-trial detention center. Later, I learned that the witness who allegedly identified me as the killer had committed ten burglaries and received a suspended sentence for this,” says Daniil.

In 2013, there was a trial. Daniel took a very active position in the case, a lot was written about him. As a result, the murder charges against him were rejected and found guilty of hooliganism, but in honor of the anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution, he was amnestied in the courtroom.

This was a signal for him to leave Russia - wishes to leave the country were conveyed to him through his acquaintances: “Now I don’t want to name names, but someday I will do it, and you will be amazed at the high level at which my issue was resolved.”

“All this time, I and my family were being ostentatiously watched. We had to decide where to go. Because I learned from my own experience what opportunities the intelligence services have to fabricate criminal cases. Therefore, the second time I decided not to test their strength - people told me that I needed to leave quickly, in about a week, and I did not have an American or European visa,” recalls Daniil.

He decided that if he just got out of prison, where he was sitting without sun, light and fresh air, then why not go to a resort country and have a little rest.

He chose Thailand. But there he was also followed.

“And they did it very clumsily. Imagine that every day the same person comes to the restaurant (always empty) where you have dinner, who invariably takes himself a beer or juice, sits down next to him and puts a handbag in front of him, which may contain a voice recorder or camera. And so he sits. What is this if not surveillance? This is a style of outdoor surveillance that I saw back in Russia. And since Thailand is not a very safe country, where they can plant drugs or do some other dirty trick, I decided that I needed to leave it,” says Daniil.

He considered Argentina, but it was “very far away and risky.”

Human rights activists also offered him the United States, but he thought that it was also far away - having moved there, he risked never seeing his parents, who find it difficult to move across the ocean.

They also offered Sweden. But then left-liberal discourse prevailed in it - and it seemed to Daniel that he did not suit them with his nationalist background.

“I chose Lithuania. Lithuania is a conservative country.

They are quite loyal to nationalists, in addition, there were human rights activists in Lithuania who helped me get a visa. This country is close to Russia, so relatives can quickly arrive.

Lithuania is largely a Russian-speaking country, which makes it easier to adapt to a new place. There was also a long joint history between Lithuania and Russia. This also attracted me,” said Daniil.

He flew there via Georgia (this route is connected with the peculiarities of the work of human rights defenders who helped him, about which he cannot spread publicly).

For some time he thought about what to do next - he would not want to be tied to one country. He did not rule out that I would come to Russia.

But it turned out that an appeal was filed against the decision of the Russian court, which amnestied him, that is, Moscow was planning to revive the case. Daniel was alarmed by this, and I asked for asylum.

At first, his family helped him.

“Besides, I’m a lawyer and I still have some earnings. This was enough to live on. I tried myself in various low-paying jobs in Lithuania, and eventually began working in the structure of the Free Russia forum,” says Daniil.

“It seems to me that our government has a general approach to the “political” - it lies in the fact that if something does not suit you, the doors to exit are always open - they do not interfere with leaving Russia,” Daniil summed up.

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