An entire era has come to an end. We mourn. There are no words🖤
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On December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in Paris, establishing fundamental rights for every individual: the right to life, liberty, and personal security; protection from torture and arbitrary detention; freedom of thought, conscience, and expression; and the right to participate in government. The document became a global standard and remains a cornerstone for human rights protection worldwide.
Even 80 years later, human rights continue to be violated. In modern Russia, there are ongoing restrictions on freedom of speech, arbitrary arrests, and pressure on activists, journalists, and civil society organizations. International human rights groups regularly report such violations, emphasizing the importance of upholding the principles enshrined in the Declaration.
History offers lessons on the importance of these norms. For example, Ukrainian dissident Vyacheslav Chornovil, while exiled in the Yakut ASSR, sent a letter to the Prosecutor General of the USSR in 1978, on the 30th anniversary of the Declaration, demanding that prisoners be allowed access to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which had been ratified by the USSR. During a search, authorities confiscated his notebook containing these documents, telling him that “possessing the Declaration is not allowed.”
On the 80th anniversary of the Declaration, its principles remain crucial: freedom, equality, and the protection of human rights are essential for a just society, and the examples of past human rights defenders remind us that defending these rights requires courage and persistence.
On 5 December 2025, Perm opposition politician and former member of the Legislative Assembly of Perm Krai Konstantin Okunev spent his 57th birthday in a pre-trial detention center. His arrest on charges of “justifying terrorism” raises serious concerns about its legitimacy and is widely viewed by human rights defenders as politically motivated.
Okunev was detained on 29 October and placed in Perm’s Detention Center No. 1 (SIZO-1) by a ruling of the Leninsky District Court, which ordered that he remain in custody until 28 December. The case was opened under Article 205.2(2) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation — according to investigators, the grounds for prosecution were statements published on his Telegram channel.
Konstantin Okunev has long been one of the most prominent figures in Perm’s opposition. He served in the Perm City Duma and the regional Legislative Assembly, openly criticized federal and regional authorities, condemned political repression and restrictions on civil liberties, and consistently supported civic initiatives and independent activists. For his position, he faced pressure many times, including fines, administrative cases, and public attacks. The current criminal prosecution is the most severe pressure campaign against him to date.
Shortly before his birthday, the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) added Okunev to its registry of “terrorists and extremists,” further worsening his situation and imposing additional restrictions — including the blocking of financial transactions — even before a court verdict.
The team of the virtual museum “Perm-36” expresses solidarity and support for Konstantin Okunev. For a person held in isolation, words of support are especially meaningful, especially on such days. We encourage everyone to send him a letter or a postcard.
Address for letters: 614000, Perm, Klimenko St. 24, Detention Center No. 1 (SIZO-1),
Konstantin Nikolaevich Okunev, born 05.12.1968.
Write to political prisoners — it truly matters to them, and it is safe for those who write.
On 10 November 2025, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Yuly Markovich Daniel was marked — a dissident, writer, translator, and one of the most significant authors whose works and personal fate became an essential part of the history of the Soviet and post-Soviet human rights movement.
For many, it was precisely his literary words that became a moral anchor. In his novella Moscow Speaks, Daniel wrote:
You must not allow yourself to be intimidated. You must take responsibility for yourself — and through this, you are responsible for others.
This phrase, devoid of pathos, became his own definition of civic courage — quiet, human, yet unbreakable.
Writing under the pseudonym Nikolai Arzhak, he created stories where irony coexisted with deep ethical meaning. In 1966, these very works became the basis for the first open political trial of the late USSR — the Sinyavsky–Daniel case. A court meant to prove that a work of fiction could be a “crime” instead turned the writer into one of the symbols of resistance to unfreedom.
Daniel endured five years in a strict-regime labor camp while preserving his dignity and his capacity for kindness. After his release, he continued to translate, write, and work — without loud declarations, simply by remaining true to himself.
The centenary of Yuly Daniel is more than a date on the literary calendar. It is a reminder of the power of honest words, the price of truth, and the fact that human responsibility always begins with a personal choice — the very one he wrote about.
A major feature dedicated to Yuly Daniel has been published by Novaya Gazeta: “Moscow Says Nothing.”
On November 3 Valery Borshchev — a human rights defender, public figure, Soviet dissident, and journalist, as well as the author of the law on public oversight of places of detention — passed away at the age of 82.
Valery Borshchev was born on December 1, 1943, in the village of Chernyanoye, Tambov Region. He graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University. After meeting Andrei Sakharov in 1975, he became actively involved in human rights work, for which he was banned from practicing journalism. Thanks to the support of Valery Zolotukhin and Vladimir Vysotsky, Borshchev found work at the Taganka Theatre, where he served as a carpenter, painter, and firefighter.
In 1982, he was severely beaten because of his human rights activities, and in 1985, the KGB classified his work as “anti-Soviet propaganda.”
From December 1994, Borshchev was part of Sergei Kovalev’s group, which operated directly in the conflict zone in Chechnya. During the First Chechen War, he helped evacuate women and children from combat areas, according to the Moscow Helsinki Group.
In June 1995, during the Budyonnovsk hostage crisis, he volunteered to take the place of a hostage.
Borshchev co-authored the law on public monitoring of detention facilities, which later led to the creation of Moscow’s Public Monitoring Commission — an institution he went on to lead.
He was a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group and became its co-chair in January 2019.
In recent years, Valery Vasilyevich suffered from serious illness.
May his memory live on.
Read more about Valery Borshchev in Radio Svoboda’s article “A True Hero.”
On November 3, 1937, in the Sandarmokh forest, the Bolsheviks physically exterminated almost the entire elite of the Ukrainian intelligentsia — writers, poets, playwrights, artists, sculptors, scholars, directors, and historians.
This mass execution became a symbol of the “Executed Renaissance” — a generation of Ukrainian cultural figures destroyed for their love of their country and language.
The “guilt” of most of them lay only in the fact that they created in the Ukrainian language and embodied the Ukrainian national spirit.
Among those executed were Les Kurbas, Mykola Zerov, Mykola Kulish, Valerian Pidmohylnyi, Pavlo Fylypovych, Myroslav Irchan, Marko Voronyi, and many other outstanding representatives of the Ukrainian intellectual elite.
In a single day — November 3, 1937 — more than one hundred Ukrainians were executed in Sandarmokh.
Over the course of four days, 1,111 prisoners from the Solovki Islands were killed.
According to approximate estimates, during the existence of the Solovki camps (then special NKVD prisons), about 50,000 people perished — among them thousands of Ukrainians who became victims of Stalin’s terror.
Sandarmokh is a place where the earth keeps the memory of people murdered for their language, culture, and dignity.
Sandarmokh is a crime with no statute of limitations.
In Perm, a young street performer, Yekaterina Romanova, was detained for organizing a solidarity concert in support of the members of the St. Petersburg band “Stoptime.” According to the Telegram channel Perm 36.6, a local pro-war activist filed a complaint against her, claiming that the concert, held on October 22, made him miss his bus.
Following her detention, police charged Romanova under Article 20.2.2 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses — for “organizing a mass gathering of citizens in a public place that disrupted public order.” Her court hearing was scheduled for November 1, but defense lawyer Aleksei Ogloblin requested to be summoned to court, and the session was postponed.
Yekaterina Romanova
The Stoptime group gained recognition for performing songs by musicians labeled “foreign agents” in Russia. Since mid-October, its members — vocalist Diana Loginova (Naoko), guitarist Alexander Orlov, and drummer Vladislav Leontyev — have faced administrative cases for “unauthorized protests” and “discrediting the army.” They have been fined and repeatedly placed under administrative arrest.
After the arrests, street musicians across Russia began performing songs in Stoptime’s support, while bloggers and artists published solidarity videos online.
Photo: Perm 36.6
Russia’s financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring is adding between 250 and 350 people every month to its official register of “terrorists and extremists”. According to an investigation by Novaya Gazeta Europe, the list now includes 18,771 individuals.
In recent weeks, new additions have included blogger Ilya Varlamov, culinary historian Pavel Syutkin, and opposition politicians Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza. Every tenth person added to the list is reportedly a minor, and one in five is a Ukrainian citizen.
The registry has been expanding at an accelerating pace. Around 1,400 people were added in 2022, compared to 3,200 in 2024. In the first ten months of 2025 alone, more than 3,000 names were added — an average of 319 per month, roughly double the rate seen in the early years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Human rights advocates warn of new patterns: since summer 2025, minors have accounted for 10% of all new entries, while the number of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians placed on the list has also grown steadily since 2023.
Experts link the surge to tighter legislation and broader powers granted to Rosfinmonitoring, which now includes not only those convicted but also suspects under investigation.
Today, there are more people in the registry than have ever been sentenced under terrorism and extremism articles,” Novaya Gazeta Europe notes.
Being listed carries severe consequences — frozen bank accounts, restrictions on employment and social rights, and a near-total exclusion from normal public life. Removal is rare and usually occurs only after a conviction is expunged.
In 2025, by mid-October, 559 people were removed from the list, while 3,031 were added, according to the publication.
Read the full report here: Novaya Gazeta Europe
Illustration: Rystic
From November 3 to 5, 2025, an international conference titled “Readings in Memory of Anatoly Marchenko” will take place in Milan. The event will bring together historians, human-rights researchers, and literary scholars to examine the life and legacy of Anatoly Marchenko — one of the most prominent Soviet dissidents, who died in prison in 1986 after a prolonged hunger strike.
Marchenko’s uncompromising stand against political repression and his writings about Soviet labor camps made him a symbol of moral resistance. His 1968 open letter on the plight of political prisoners declared:
Our civic duty, the duty of our human conscience — is to stop crimes against humanity. The crime begins not with the smoking chimneys of crematoria, nor with ships bound for Magadan — it begins with civic indifference.
Posthumously, in 1988, Marchenko received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament. A year later, his works — My Testimony, From Tarusa to Chuna, and Live Like Everyone — were officially published in the USSR for the first time.
Despite his historical significance, Marchenko’s civic and literary heritage remains under-studied. The upcoming Milan conference aims to change that.
Key themes will include:
- Marchenko’s biography and archival research;
- His texts as documentary testimony and part of Russian literature;
- Translations and Western reception of his works;
- Marchenko and the Soviet dissident movement;
- The relevance of Marchenko’s moral witness to contemporary human-rights debates.
Working languages: Russian, English, Italian.
For inquiries: [email protected]
Programme and registration details:
🔗 Anatoly Marchenko International Conference — Milan (3–5 Nov 2025)
In St. Petersburg, an 18-year-old music college student, Diana Loginova (stage name “Naoko”), has been detained and sentenced to 13 days of administrative arrest after performing the song “Swan Lake Cooperative” by Noize MC — a track recently banned in Russia as “extremist”.
Loginova performed on a busy street with her band Stoptime, drawing a crowd that police say blocked access to a metro station — leading to charges of organising an unsanctioned public event. The crowd videos, shared online, featured the young singer and audience chanting lyrics including:
I want to watch the ballet, let the swans dance. Let the old man shake in fear for his lake.
The song references the dacha cooperative Ozero, known to be linked with President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, and the ballet Swan Lake—which has historically been used on Soviet and Russian TV to signal regime change. Russian courts banned the track in May 2025, saying it contained “propaganda for violent change of the constitutional order”.
Two musicians from Stoptime also received administrative penalties. After serving her term, Loginova is expected to face additional administrative charges under Russia’s “discrediting the armed forces” law, which could lead to criminal liability if she re-offends.
Human rights experts say the case may mark a broader trend of cultural repression — where even street performances and youth music are subject to state control. The arrest underscores how public art is increasingly treated as a form of dissent in Russia’s current climate.
The virtual museum “Perm-36” expressed solidarity with Diana Loginova and other persecuted musicians, emphasizing that freedom of artistic expression must not become a punishable act. We believe that art and honesty should never be crimes. And yes — let the swans dance again.
Source: Reuters — Russian street musician is jailed for 13 days after she played banned song.
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