Find Dadina: How Anastasia Zotova was looking for a husband in prisons
Ildar Dadin, civil activist from Zheleznodorozhny near Moscow, became the first convicted for repeated violations of the rules of the rally. Last October, Dadin spoke about torture in the Karelian colony, where he was sent to serve his sentence. After the scandal, the activist was transferred to another colony, and his wife Anastasia Zotova could not find him for more than a month. We publish her monologue about their relationship, search and plans for the future.
On Alexei Navalny they can start a business, on Mikhail Khodorkovsky they can, but Dadin nobody knows. We decided that the police simply scared him to leave the country.
I met with Ildar on August 4, 2014, I remember, because it was my neighbor's birthday. In the summer, I graduated from the School of Human Rights, and we with those who studied there decided to arrange pickets in support of the civil society of Belarus. We tried to coordinate the picket, but we were not allowed to do it, so we arranged a single, not requiring coordination. Then I organized something for the first time in my life.
A policeman came up to us, and I argued with him, trying to explain that we were holding single pickets as it should be according to the law. He said that he didn’t care and they would send us to the detention center. In addition to our company, there were other people at the pickets who read about the action and decided to join - Ildar was among them. Then he told me what he thought about me: why argue with the police, it makes no sense, you just have to say that they are accomplices of the regime - he likes to say that. And I did not remember him that time.
We met for the second time in September, when I, as a journalist, went on a picket against the war in Ukraine. There came people with St. George ribbons - they go to all the actions and shout about the fifth column and the enemies of the people. Among them, there is one so tall, and I see that he comes up to Ildar (and he is 175 cm tall) and says: "Now I’m stuffing your face." And Ildar answers him: "Well, try." It made an impression on me - he was two heads lower, but he was not scared and calmly responded so, proudly even.
Then I went to Ildar, and he said: "We have already seen each other." We added each other on Facebook, he also said that I have very beautiful eyes. I told him that I was a journalist, and he promised to call me for actions that I went to myself. I would say it is love at second sight. Probably the initiator of the relationship was me, because I liked him even then, in September. But he thought that I was meeting with another, and I tried to somehow attract his attention and did not understand why he was not taking any steps. Having exhausted all possible hints, I called him to visit, and he arrived.
By the time when a criminal case was filed against Ildar, we met for two months, but did not tell anyone about it. I do not like it when everyone knows about it. Ildar said that it could harm me, because I am a journalist, and people can say that I am not impartial if I meet with an activist.
In December, he was detained several times, and every time I went to the ATS, as a fighting girlfriend, to take him away. One of these days, he left the office and said that he was threatened and prosecuted in a criminal case - I thought it was some kind of nonsense. Then the threats repeated: they said that they would start a case if he did not leave the country. At the January holidays, we discussed that it might be worthwhile to leave, but we decided that nothing bad would happen. After all, Ildar is a simple guy, not a public figure, it is clear that they can start a business on Alexei Navalny, on Mikhail Khodorkovsky they can, but Dadin nobody knows. We decided that the police simply scared him to leave. We didn’t want to leave - I have a graduate school, a dissertation, a job, friends, and where are we going? Who is waiting for us?
I remember how at midnight I knocked on the isolator door and shouted: "Where can I transfer the transfer?" I was told that only on Monday. It seemed like a crazy dream
Before the national assembly in support of Oleg and Alexei Navalny (January 15, 2015. - Note ed.), I asked Ildar, maybe it's not worth going. He was at the previous protest action, I asked him to remove all the badges and run away if he noticed that the police were coming at him. Then they did not detain him, and I thought that the police lied and no one was hunting for Ildar.
January 15, he still decided to go. At that moment I was sitting at work and watching the news: there were reports that provocateurs were gathering at the gathering, once again I suggested to Ildar to stay at home. But he went, he didn’t respond to my messages for a while - it turned out that he was detained and taken to the police station, I went there at 12 at night after work. I was told at the Department of Internal Affairs that Ildar was left for the night, and when asked when they were released, they replied that there was a court in the morning. All night I stood under the doors of the Meshchansky OVD. In court, Ildar was given 15 days (for "disobedience to the lawful demands of a policeman." - Note ed.), and I calmed down that there was no business.
Ildar should have been released on January 30, but the time was constantly changing: first they said that in the morning, then at six in the evening. In the afternoon, Ildar called and said that he was being taken to court again. I did not go to work, I went there. They didn't let me into the building, I screamed, asked me to be let in. On that day, we learned that the criminal case against Ildar was brought (the charge under Article 212.1 of the Criminal Code "Repeated violation of the procedure for holding meetings." - Note ed.).
It seemed that all this is not real. I remember that we are pursuing a police car and driving around the Garden Ring in circles, then I stand at the investigative department and wait where they take him, then we follow this machine to the isolator. I remember how at midnight I knocked on the isolator door and shouted: "Where can I transfer the transfer?" I was told that only on Monday. It seemed like a crazy dream.
Then there was the court to elect a preventive measure. Ildar was sent under house arrest. It was also very strange: he was simply released from the courthouse, without an electronic bracelet. The bailiffs said that they were too lazy because of the traffic jams to go to Zheleznodorozhny, where Ildar was registered, and that he himself had to go there by train. It turns out, Ildar could then go not home, but anywhere, and no one would ever find him. But he is an honest man, so I went home and put on this bracelet.
All the time Ildar was under house arrest, I did not believe that they could put him in prison. I thought that they would hold on like that for a year, then they would give me that year that they had spent and let them go. In the extreme case there will be a suspended sentence. I joked that I have the perfect husband - sitting at home and meeting me in the evening with borscht. I worked on the second shift and went home to Ildar on the last train, there was no transport in Zheleznodorozhny at that time, so I took a taxi or walked with packages of food, because Ildar could not leave the house. But that was the only difficulty.
Ildar, of course, was not easy in the four walls. At first everything was fine, we watched movies, read books. But in the tenth month of house arrest, he became nervous, began to break down, said that I needed another man who works, earns money well. Once again, he said: "I will break your life, we must break up," it was even funny. I answered him: "Well, let's part, but nothing will change, I still will not stop coming to you." So we made it up.
When Ildar was imprisoned and I announced the wedding, my mother said that I was marrying the enemy of the people and I was no longer her daughter.
We immediately agreed that if house arrest was replaced with a real one, we would get married so that they would give us a date. He agreed. After the sentence, when he was given three years of real life, I immediately began to collect documents so that we would be allowed to get married. We exchanged rings, very simple, with iron ones, even before Ildar was brought in, it was very nice. It was not even an engagement - just a gesture expressing affection. There was no official offer.
Before the wedding, I wrote a Facebook post asking if someone had a wedding dress or something like that. One girl gave me her, in which she got married - it was elegant, with a veil. That day I left the house in a white jacket, but my acquaintances brought a white fur coat to the SIZO, and I was like a noblewoman. I never imagined such a wedding. In general, marriage is a legal formality for me. I thought that if I were to get married, I would come to the registry office just in a t-shirt and skirt, sign it and that's it. But before the wedding, all my friends told me that it would be better to let everything be according to the rules, with a beautiful white dress and a car with flowers and balloons. At the SIZO we drank children's champagne, it turned out almost for real. Parents were not there - when Ildar comes out, we will celebrate with them.
Getting permission for the wedding took me two months. It was not clear where to start, where to go, to the registrar office, to the court or to the pre-trial detention center, Google didn’t really suggest anything either. I figured it out, but it still didn’t work without overlaps: I didn’t know, for example, that an application for the marriage, so that it was registered, cannot be passed through a lawyer — only through the office, no one explains it! Then it turned out that Ildar's passport was lost. From the court and the detention center answered that they do not have it. I called human rights activist Lev Ponomarev, we called the head of the SCHR Mikhail Fedotov together with him, and only with his help found a passport in court and sent him to the detention center.
The day before the wedding, they called from the registry office and said that I did not have enough permission to enter the SIZO - that is, permission to marry was not enough. I went there, sobbing so that they would give me a piece of paper - they usually issue permits during the week. I was given it, but still not what the registry office requested; I again went to the judge, she replied that she would not give any other. All the morning of the wedding, I was afraid that they simply would not let me, because I have the wrong document.
In the SIZO, after we were painted and we exchanged rings (I immediately took the ring of Ildar, because the prisoners cannot wear rings), they gave us two minutes. I do not remember what we were talking about, we were not alone, we were in the corridor of the FSIN, we just hugged and kissed, because we hadn’t seen each other for three months.
Even during Ildar's house arrest, I asked my mother if we would marry if Ildar could be registered in our apartment so that I would not go so far every day. Moreover, Ildar lived with his mother, father, sister, her young man, brother, his wife and children. I told my mother that I love Ildar and I want to marry him, he just has certain problems. Mom replied that I was crazy. All the time Ildar was under house arrest, my mother demanded that I leave him, otherwise she would stop communicating with me. When Ildar was imprisoned and I reported on the wedding, my mother said that I was marrying the enemy of the people and I am no longer her daughter. When I wanted to congratulate my grandmother on my birthday, my mother forbade me to come.
Ildar was convoyed to the colony at the end of August, but I only found out about this in September — I wrote letters to him, but they returned with the note “the addressee is gone.” After a statement to the SIZO with a request to inform me where he had been taken, I turned to human rights defenders for help. Then Ildar received a letter from Vologda, I called the Vologda ONK, human rights activists went to the detention center, and they were told that my husband had been transferred to Karelia. I started calling the Karelian colonies with the question of whether you had Dadin, and he was found in IK-7. It is surprising that they told me, they usually respond with something like: "Come here with a marriage certificate, then we will answer you." I went to him in October. I asked for a short date, they told me that he was in a punishment cell, he was not allowed to.
Ildar wrote: "Publish this letter", - while in the same letter it was said that he was threatened and if he complained, he would be killed
I went to the local bar association to find a lawyer who could visit him in the colony. One woman agreed and even went to him, but Ildar said that she was very much waiting for her lawyer Alexei Liptser. When he arrived, Ildar handed him a letter of torture. The lawyer called me and said that everything was bad, Ildar was beaten there. He sent me a part of the letter in very poor quality, I was able to make out the words “I’m unlikely to live more than a week,” “I was beaten by several people.” At that moment I thought that, apparently, I would soon become a widow. Friends took me from work, and as we drove the subway, I screamed all the way. I didn’t really understand what to do, Ildar wrote: “Publish this letter”, - while in the same letter it was said that he was threatened and if he complained, he would be killed.
I asked a lawyer not to tell anyone about this, but it turned out that he had already spoken to a journalist. I begged not to publish the letter, but I was told that it will be published in the morning. Then it became clear that attention should be drawn to the letter - just so that Ildar would not be killed. I contacted Ilya Azar from Medusa and my friend Echo of Moscow, and in the morning I started calling all politicians and human rights activists whose numbers I knew. I started with Tatiana Moskalkova (Human Rights Commissioner. - Note ed.), said to her: "Hello, I am Ildar Dadin's wife, they threaten to kill my husband." I was very scared. She immediately said that she would go to Ildar. The day after the letter was published, I received messages from relatives of two people who are in the same IK-7, who confirmed that they were torturing people there. Now we know about 60 prisoners who were in three Karelian colonies who told about violence.
About the fact that Ildar was stifled in the Department of Internal Affairs, I learned from journalists, and not from him. When he was in Moscow in the SIZO, there were severe frosts, but he replied that everything was fine. When I gave warm clothes and thermal underwear just in case, he said: "What a happiness, it was so cold that I slept in a jacket and hat." And so with everything. In early December last year, I learned that Ildar was being transferred to another colony: his lawyer friend arrived in Segezha, but did not find him there. They called me from Vologda - it was a prisoner who was traveling with my husband in the same carriage, he said that Ildar gave him my number and asked me to convey that everything was all right with him. I wrote to human rights activists in Vologda, but when they came to the detention center, Ildar was no longer there, he was taken further to Kirov. A prisoner also called me from there, said that Dadin had been in Kirov for three days, and then he was taken somewhere east. While the calls came in, it seemed to me that everything was fine and we would just find out where Ildar was a few days late.
Further calls stopped. I began to think that they were taking him all alone, so that there would be no more calls, that he would not communicate with anyone in his “Stolypin” (a special car for transportation of people under investigation and convicts. - Note ed.). And then it became more and more strange, because mobile phones, although prohibited, actually exist everywhere, and at least one prisoner could call me during that time. In addition, the Kirov human rights activists went to the detention center, and they were denied information about Dadin.
A week passed, two, I called Valery Maksimenko, deputy director of the Federal Penitentiary Service, and asked where Ildar was, because during that time it was possible to get to Vladivostok and back. He replied that it was always long and Ildar was in perfect order. We called Maksimenko several times and every time he said that everything was fine. When thirty days passed, I felt as scary as at the very beginning. They could do anything to Ildar — shoot them and say that he tried to escape, or attacked the guard, or committed suicide.
The only thing that was encouraging was that the European Court of Human Rights ordered Russia to inform where Dadin was located until January 9th. And so it happened: on January 8, we were told that Ildar in IK-5 in the Altai Territory, he was given the opportunity to call me. If he had not called himself, I would not have believed anyone else. A lawyer had already managed to go to him, it turned out that Ildar had been in Tyumen most of the time, that is, he wasn’t taken, but simply kept there in an insulator, fed and even some vitamins were pricked. Now he seems to be all right. But in the near future a long meeting will not give, said the head of the colony.
When Ildar is free, I will put him in a suitcase, because he will certainly be against it, and we will leave.
