Detention Centre No. 1, Petrozavodsk

5 December 20218 December 2021 / editors (JC)

photo Darya Poryadinova, SOTA TV This is where Yury DMITRIEV has been held, apart from outings to the courthouse, since June 2018. During his first trial the measure of restraint was eased during the last six months from custody at Detention Centre 1 to an agreement not to leave Petrozavodsk. If he is convicted next … Continue reading Detention Centre No. 1, Petrozavodsk

Trial to end on 14 or 15 December

4 December 20214 December 2021 / editors (JC)

When hearings resume on 13 December the defence (represented by Victor Anufriev and Roman Masalyov) will make its closing statement. Yury Dmitriev will then address the court and also pronounce his Last Words at this trial. Word from Moscow is that the trial may finish as early as Tuesday 14 December. Dmitriev as a free … Continue reading Trial to end on 14 or 15 December

Prosecution demands 15 years

3 December 20214 December 2021 / editors (JC)

In its closing statement the prosecution at Yury DMITRIEV's third trial on the same charges in the past five years has demanded that his term of imprisonment in a strict-regime penal colony be increased. "Free Yury Dmitriev!" This familiar poster now carries another demand: "Hands off Memorial!" It wants him to serve a total of … Continue reading Prosecution demands 15 years

Those who did not return

27 November 202118 August 2025 / editors (JC)

“I would like to recall them all by name, but they’ve taken the list, there’s no way to find out” Anna Akhmatova wrote Requiem, from which this famous couplet is taken, over almost thirty years (1935-1961). In Russia the poem could not be published in full until 1987. Nikolai Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova and their son Lev (1915) … Continue reading Those who did not return

“Judges” and Executioners [2]

20 November 202118 August 2025 / editors (JC)

In February 2021 after a visit to Petrozavodsk reporters eagerly repeated [Postscript] a suggestion of DMITRIEV’s 88-year-old acquaintance Alexander Selyutsky that the historian might have upset a local relative or descendant of the “Judges” or Executioners of 1937-1938: “He not only came across those who were arrested: the executioners were also named in those documents.” … Continue reading “Judges” and Executioners [2]