YURY DMITRIEV was due to be released from the Petrozavodsk Detention Centre on Sunday, 28 January 2018. Unexpectedly, he arrived home early on Saturday. Anna Yarovaya went to visit him immediately, to learn the details of his release and his plans for the future.
Continue readingMonth: January 2018
Yury Dmitriev is home
(photo, Anna Artyemeva)
Psychiatric examination completed, results not known
The Serbsky Institute in Moscow has completed its assessment of Yury Dmitriev and on 19 January 2018 he was transferred to the city’s Butyrka Prison, says his defence attorney Victor Anufriev.
The official results of the investigation of Dmitriev’s psychological, sexual and psychiatric condition are not known. His attorney says that the assessment has not yet been signed and it would be improper to draw any conclusions. Continue reading
“Society must become more humane”, Alexander Arkhangelsky to President Putin
On 21 December literary critic ALEXANDER ARKHANGELSKY spoke, at a meeting of the Council on Culture and Art with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, about the pressure being put on cultural figures and the need to humanise Russian culture and society.
“If such things take place at the federal level, in the glare of publicity, it’s not surprising that in places further from our national media the same kind of thing is happening. It is now one year that Yury Dmitriev, an outstanding historian, the author of classic works about Solovki, has been kept in detention, awaiting a verdict in his trial.
“The court – and this is a rare instance – rejected the results of the expert assessment that seemed to confirm his guilt. The case materials were again sent not to State institutions for expert evaluation, however, but to semi-private companies – a second time, let me emphasise.”
Happier Times
Yury Dmitriev‘s beloved Alsatian Vedma (Witch) died a while back. He himself, as we know, has spent over a year in the Petrozavodsk Detention Centre. During that time he and his foster daughter have not seen one another.
Among the dozens of New Year’s greetings sent to Katerina Klodt via the Russian supporters’ page on Facebook, one simply remembered and named a person at the centre of this whole dreadful case:
“Dearest Katya! May God restore your family to you, and may Papa and Natasha return home …”
footage from Jessica Gorter‘s 2017 film “Red Soul” (De Rode Ziel) of Dmitriev, Witch and Natasha.
Yury Dmitriev was arrested at his apartment in Petrozavodsk on Friday, 13 December 2016, while his wife was at the hospital and Natasha was at school. Natasha was picked up by the Child Protection Agency and today lives with her natural grandmother.
The Dmitriev Affair 