Dangerous Protests
In January 2021, after Alexei Navalny returned to Russia, protests demanding his release took place across the country. The Tula Navalny protests in 2021 were declared “unauthorized” in advance, and taking part could bring both administrative penalties and consequences in everyday life. This episode is about what a protest looked like in a small regional city — and what it meant to work as a journalist in an atmosphere of pressure, threats, and the constant risk of detention.
Tula, January 2021
Photo series: “Protests in Support of Alexei Navalny” — photographs by Angelika Minaeva from the January 23 and January 31, 2021 protests in Tula.
On January 17, 2021, Alexei Navalny, the personal enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, returned to Russia. He had spent several months undergoing treatment in Germany after being poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent. He was detained at passport control immediately after landing.
The next day, Navalny released a video calling on his supporters to take to the streets on January 23 and demand his release. Protests took place that day in cities across Russia and abroad. A second wave followed on January 31.
Protests also took place in my hometown of Tula.
The Tula regional government and police had already been intimidating residents and journalists, warning them against taking part. City officials refused to authorize the protest.
Under Russian law, citizens are required to notify local authorities in advance of the location, time, subject, and organizers of a public gathering. Formally, this is supposed to prevent disruption to city infrastructure.
In practice, it allows officials to push protesters as far from the city center as possible — or simply prohibit the event altogether.
The authorities also used COVID restrictions. On January 11, Tula Region Governor Alexei Dyumin extended a ban on public, entertainment, and recreational events through January 28. After Navalny called for protests, the restriction provided an additional legal basis for pressuring participants.
The protest in support of Navalny was destined to be “unauthorized.”
And taking part could have both legal and everyday consequences.
By everyday consequences, I mean losing your job, losing your place in a university dormitory, or being expelled from university.
The legal consequence was an administrative fine for participating in an unauthorized public gathering.
On January 23, about 150 people came to the protest in Tula.
Roughly the same number of police officers came to detain them.
Behind the police line — helmets, body armor, batons — an entire pack of FSB officers peeked around the corner of a building on Fyodor Smirnov Street.
I call them the gebnya.
From their hiding place, they watched what was happening in the Square in Memory of Victims of Political Repression like generals observing a battle.
The protesters had not chosen the square by accident. Most opposition gatherings in Tula had been held there.
People came without signs, slogans, or chants.
They simply stood there in silence and looked at the police.
The police looked back.
A snowplow drove continuously in circles between the two groups, breaking up the crowd. It kept going even after its blade began scraping against paving stones that had already been cleared.
Never in any other winter had that pavement been cleaned so thoroughly.
I was afraid to go to the protest.
Even as a reporter.
But I couldn’t ignore an event like this in Tula either.
I prepared according to all the new Russian rules for journalists covering protests: a large badge marked PRESS, my press credentials, and my passport.
I understood that none of it might save me from detention.
But I hoped that enough Tula officials knew me by sight. Perhaps that would help me avoid being arrested — or manhandled.
That was precisely why I refused to send any of the young women from my newsroom to cover the protest.
Only Yulianna tagged along. Voluntarily.
She had worked for me for a little over a year, loved excitement, and was sleeping with a married FSB officer.
Theoretically, she had nothing to worry about.
My carefully prepared documents proved useful the moment I stepped into the square, which had been cordoned off by the police.
The very first lieutenant I encountered found my press credentials suspicious.
My polite smile as I handed him my documents clearly irritated him.
He turned the press card over in his hands, glanced at my badge, and concluded that both looked too new to be genuine.
He suggested I come with him somewhere so they could “sort it out.”
I understood immediately what his job was.
Don’t let me film what was happening.
There were no grounds to detain me. But by the time we finished “sorting things out,” the protest would be over. I would see nothing and write nothing.
A classic Russian police technique.
Most Tula journalists had stayed home that day. So the few members of the press who did show up were easy targets.
I was saved from this “investigation” by Sergei Yartsev, head of the press office of the Tula regional police department. He knew me well through work and told the lieutenant to leave me alone.
I had met Sergei about three years earlier.
The occasion was a routine crime-and-accident story: a traffic collision at the intersection of Lenin Avenue and Zhavoronkova Street, directly across from Tula police headquarters.
It wasn’t the first accident at that intersection that month, so the author of the story, my talented reporter Svetlana Khairutdinova, gave it the headline:
“Another Accident at Tula’s Cursed Intersection.”
The phone rang in the newsroom.
“This is Sergei Yartsev calling from the cursed intersection. Why do you have to call us names like that?” I heard him say.
We had worked together ever since.
Freed from the police officer’s attention, I went to work.
Over the hum of the snowplow endlessly circling the center of the square, a voice from a loudspeaker repeated its warnings:
“Dear citizens! In accordance with the decree of the Governor of Tula Region, public, entertainment, and recreational events are prohibited in the region through January 28. Under Federal Law No. 54, a public event may not be held in a location where there is a threat to the safety of its participants. A citizen against whom administrative proceedings have been initiated may be subjected to administrative detention for up to 48 hours.”
People did not leave.
Two lines of police officers in helmets and carrying batons moved deeper into the square.
Protesters were taken one by one and escorted by the arms toward the buses. Two police officers accompanied each detainee.
The disembodied voice continued repeating its warnings.
I filmed everything.
Later, Kremlin propagandists talked endlessly about schoolchildren supposedly mobilized for the protests through TikTok by Navalny’s organization.
I did not see a single schoolchild in Tula.
Back at the newsroom, I reviewed my footage.
Here the police are leading away a man of about twenty-five. He tries to free one hand to adjust his glasses, but they won’t let him.
Here comes another, a little over thirty. Big, bearded. This one is escorted by three officers. Their batons are ready.
Then two more groups of three: two police officers and one detainee in each. Everyone is calm.
As if they are taking part in a ritual rehearsed long ago, with rules everyone already knows.
Another shot.
A woman of about fifty is standing beside the detainee bus. A colorful scarf. A knitted hat with a pom-pom.
Her small figure is almost lost among five tall police officers in body armor.
She doesn’t want to get on the bus. She asks why she is being detained.
No one answers her.
The same response to every question:
“Ma’am, come with us. Otherwise we will be forced to use physical force.”
On January 31, it all happened again.
Video from the scene: “A Second Unauthorized Protest Takes Place in Tula” — video by Moskovsky Komsomolets in Tula, January 31, 2021.
“Miss, you’re not allowed to take pictures here! Step away from the bus,” I heard an irritated male voice behind me.
I turned around.
A medical mask covered the man’s face. The brim of a black leather cap hid the upper part of it. Snowflakes rested on the fur collar of his coat — the same kind that had collected on my knitted hat.
“I’m sorry, I’m working,” I replied, showing him my badge: PRESS. MK IN TULA.
“You’re interfering with police work.”
“Not at all,” I objected. “Inside that bus are Vladimir Dorokhov, head of the regional branch of the Yabloko party, and Mikhail Shestakov, head of Tula’s Golos movement for fair elections. I’m reporting on an important political event. Apart from you, me, and that lieutenant over there, there’s nobody here. I’m not interfering with anyone.”
The man did not introduce himself.
But I knew perfectly well who he was.
Vasily Khudyk, chief of police for the city of Tula.
He stood beside me while I photographed Dorokhov smiling uncertainly from inside the bus.
“All right. Get her out of here,” Khudyk finally snapped and walked away.
The junior lieutenant received the order, looked at me, and hesitated.
I understand. Your job is shit, I sympathized silently.
He lifted his cap, rubbed his forehead, and reluctantly started toward me.
His uniform was obviously too large for him. It hung from his body as though from a coat hanger. His Adam’s apple moved nervously up and down his thin neck.
I quickly took a few more shots.
Time to run, I thought.
“Angelika! Angelika Vladimirovna! You’re here again!”
Anton Ageev was making his way toward me through the crowd of police officers, waving his arms.
The lieutenant immediately backed away and disappeared.
“Anton Valeryevich, of course I’m here! I’m working. As always. Just like you,” I said, genuinely delighted to see him.
No battle with the police today.
Anton was Tula Region’s Minister of Internal Policy. We had drunk more than a few cups of tea together and eaten kilograms of candy and cookies.
But more about that later.
It was bitterly cold now.
My hands barely worked. I warmed them one at a time in my pockets.
Fingerless gloves usually saved me: the hand stays warm, the fingers stay useful.
This time, even they weren’t enough.
“Are you freezing? Want to come to our bus? I’ve got tea in a thermos. And sandwiches,” Anton offered.
“No, no. I’m actually trying to avoid getting put on a bus today,” I joked.
“Are you going to write a story about the protest?” he asked, rubbing his hands together.
As usual, he was dressed entirely wrong for the weather: a thin leather jacket over a suit, a tie, polished dress shoes, and a cap that covered little more than the top of his head.
His ears beneath it were red and miserable.
Just looking at him made me feel colder.
“I am, Anton,” I sighed.
“Maybe you’ll show me the story before you publish it?” he asked cautiously, narrowing his eyes.
“Are you starting this again? We had an agreement…”
“All right. Then don’t forget to say that the protest was unauthorized. And that not many people showed up. And that the police were polite and didn’t beat anyone,” he muttered resentfully.
“Deal,” I replied.
It was true. At least in Tula.
Dorokhov and Shestakov were taken away on their “chartered” bus.
I lost track of Shestakov that evening.
Dorokhov, however, ended up in Tula’s Privokzalny District Court. He was charged with violating the rules governing participation in a public demonstration.
“I was charged under Part 5 of Article 20.2 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses. It’s the mildest provision in the arsenal of the repressive machine,” Vladimir Dorokhov said afterward.
“Even though the police report contains false information contradicted by my own video, the judge refused to admit it into evidence. After that, I refused to take part in this cheap performance and left the hearing. I’ll find out the decision later. The maximum penalty is a fine of up to 20,000 rubles or 40 hours of compulsory labor. My only hope is the European Court of Human Rights.”
For another perspective on the same protests — what young people in Tula thought about them and why they took to the streets — see “They Don’t Hear Us!”