“You just eat tea leaves and drink them with water” On January 31, riot police detained Sports.ru deputy commercial director Sonya Sheveleva near the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center, where she came with friends
“You just eat tea leaves and drink them with water”
On January 31, riot police detained Sports.ru's deputy commercial director Sonya Sheveleva near the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center, where she and her friends came to a rally in support of Navalny. The Lublin District Court sentenced her to 8 days of arrest under the article on violating the procedure for holding rallies. His Sheveleva was serving in the Temporary Detention Center for Foreign Citizens (TsVSIG) in Sakharovo, along with hundreds of other detainees. Especially for Cold she tells how it was.
I was detained on January 31 at Matrosskaya Tishina at exactly three o'clock in the afternoon. I consciously went to the rally and I'm not ashamed of it. I believe that it is my constitutional right to express my opinion and disagreement with the existing socio-political system peacefully and calmly.
On that day, my friends and I left late, reached Matrosskaya Tishina and joined the crowd of protesters. When we were opposite the pre-trial detention center, we wanted to cross the road – there was already a feeling of pressure from the cosmonauts, but we did not have time. They took us into the ring and started yelling at us to disperse. We tried to disperse, but they took us away. First they took my friend, then me, and our third friend followed us – she understood that she would be detained anyway, otherwise we would at least be together.
We spent 50 minutes in the paddy wagon, after which we were unloaded into the internal courtyard of the police department in the Maryino district and very slowly, without explaining anything, they began to take our passports for registration. We were kept on the street until about seven in the evening. It was cold. From the third time we persuaded the police to let us go to the toilet. At the same time, the policeman who guarded us on the street was quite humane, I now call such people “sympathizers” to myself. He allowed us to order Kitchen in the area. Ryder, of course, went nuts when he drove up – we shouted to him from behind the fence: Here, here. We ordered two sandwiches, ate one each, and then gave three more to the people in the assembly hall. There was no water or food from the police at all.
When we were taken inside, notably frozen, our phones and all personal belongings were immediately taken away from us. We said that we have the right to call. To this we were told that we had seen enough American films and that we were not allowed to make any calls. The police gave me a paper to sign that my rights were explained to me, but, of course, no one explained anything to me. When I asked them to explain, they told me: Read the paper. Thank God, I managed to refresh my knowledge about the 51st article of the Constitution and tried to use this right as much as possible. They did not press hard – the only thing was that I was photographed against the wall.
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You just eat tea leaves and wash them down with water – Kholod magazine
“You just eat tea leaves and drink them with water” On January 31, riot police detained Sports.ru deputy commercial director Sonya Sheveleva near the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center, where she came with friends
“You just eat tea leaves and drink them with water”
On January 31, riot police detained Sports.ru's deputy commercial director Sonya Sheveleva near the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center, where she and her friends came to a rally in support of Navalny. The Lublin District Court sentenced her to 8 days of arrest under the article on violating the procedure for holding rallies. His Sheveleva was serving in the Temporary Detention Center for Foreign Citizens (TsVSIG) in Sakharovo, along with hundreds of other detainees. Especially for Cold she tells how it was.
I was detained on January 31 at Matrosskaya Tishina at exactly three o'clock in the afternoon. I consciously went to the rally and I'm not ashamed of it. I believe that it is my constitutional right to express my opinion and disagreement with the existing socio-political system peacefully and calmly.
On that day, my friends and I left late, reached Matrosskaya Tishina and joined the crowd of protesters. When we were opposite the pre-trial detention center, we wanted to cross the road – there was already a feeling of pressure from the cosmonauts, but we did not have time. They took us into the ring and started yelling at us to disperse. We tried to disperse, but they took us away. First they took my friend, then me, and our third friend followed us – she understood that she would be detained anyway, otherwise we would at least be together.
We spent 50 minutes in the paddy wagon, after which we were unloaded into the internal courtyard of the police department in the Maryino district and very slowly, without explaining anything, they began to take our passports for registration. We were kept on the street until about seven in the evening. It was cold. From the third time we persuaded the police to let us go to the toilet. At the same time, the policeman who guarded us on the street was quite humane, I now call such people “sympathizers” to myself. He allowed us to order Kitchen in the area. Ryder, of course, went nuts when he drove up – we shouted to him from behind the fence: Here, here. We ordered two sandwiches, ate one each, and then gave three more to the people in the assembly hall. There was no water or food from the police at all.
When we were taken inside, notably frozen, our phones and all personal belongings were immediately taken away from us. We said that we have the right to call. To this we were told that we had seen enough American films and that we were not allowed to make any calls. The police gave me a paper to sign that my rights were explained to me, but, of course, no one explained anything to me. When I asked them to explain, they told me: Read the paper. Thank God, I managed to refresh my knowledge about the 51st article of the Constitution and tried to use this right as much as possible. They did not press hard – the only thing was that I was photographed against the wall.Copies of the protocols were not given to me, although they promised to do it right away. There are two protocols – the delivery protocol and the detention protocol. The delivery protocol is important in that it contains the time, from which the day is further calculated, what time you should leave. This delivery protocol had a completely wrong time – it was delivered at 15:50, and it was written 19:10, while in my court order the time was 20:10.We were kept in the assembly hall for several hours. Nobody told us the time. Someone was summoned for interrogation and returned, someone was released because they had a Moscow residence permit. I refused to give my Moscow address, which is probably why they didn't let me go. At about 10 pm, the police came and took all the girls, we went downstairs, and we were told that we were staying overnight in the police department.
In our police department, they immediately announced the “Fortress” plan – neither human rights activists nor friends could get to us. Our names were not given to them, they were not told whether we were there or not. They learned that we were there from people with a residence permit leaving the police station.
We were assigned to cells. There were three girls in our cell, and two more in the next cell. There were four guys. And only the three of us, by some miracle, got small mattresses, on which we settled down on the bunk. We were locked in a cell, given a dry ration, which consisted of buckwheat with imitation stew and biscuits, and poured tea into plastic cups. We refused buckwheat with meat, because neither I nor my girlfriend eat meat. We ate a biscuit, drank this tea. My stomach hurt that day, I said that it could get very sick at night, and asked if they had a first aid kit, to which I was told that in which case they would call an ambulance. Due to the fact that I said that the stomach could hurt, they poured boiled water into a bottle from under the “Shishkin Forest”, 200 milliliters. The guys in the next cell were not given any mattresses, no water, nothing.
The cops and the National Guard were constantly going to the toilet along the corridor and, as if on purpose, opened a larger door so that we could hear how they defecate
Naturally, there was no talk of any dream, because the upper light was constantly burning there and the light bulb was shining right in the face. We tried to close ourselves with medical masks, but it did not help much. In addition, cops and Rosgvardists constantly went to the toilet along the corridor and as if specially opened the door more so that we heard how they defecate. There was still a man, it seemed to me that with mental problems. They called him the king. I am afraid that they beat him, because all night he made some terrible sounds. At five in the morning they woke us up and led us to sign the detention protocol, asked: “Well, they paid you at least?” I did not answer, because it was absolutely useless to talk with the police: they were sure that we were enemies of the people and American spies. The detention protocol was also drawn up absolutely delusional – it was written in it that we interfered with the passage of transport, the passage of people, shouted the slogans “We are power”, “Putin resigned”, “Lesha, go out” and “freedom of power”, although no one is nothing of anything He did not shout.
Then we were taken to sleep-for about an hour and a half we lay on these bunks, and at 9 am we were taken to the Lublin District Court. We were given things, and at that moment we were able to contact friends.
Most of all, I was struck by all this that the system did not spare strangers, it applies to her so -so. The people who detained us did not sleep all night, tightened these protocols, did not eat especially – I saw that they periodically wore bags from KFC, but is that food? Some were called from the weekend.
In court we spent the whole day – from nine in the morning to ten in the evening. Of course, the speeches that we will be fed and drink was not going on. Thanks to the volunteers from the OVD-Info (declared a foreign agent. – approx. Cold) And our friends who came to the court and managed to give us food and water. In court there was already a lawyer from the Apology of Protest, with whom we were able to discuss what to do and what to say in what situation. Almost immediately it was clear that we would be imprisoned, but it was not clear how much.In total, on that day, there were two sentences with fines in our court: one – to a male doctor who works with seriously ill people, the second – to a seriously ill person. At the same time, as it turned out later, two people with epilepsy who were with us in Sakharovo were still given 8-10 days.
I received eight days under Part 6.1 of Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (“Participation in an unauthorized meeting, rally, demonstration, march or picket that interfered with the functioning of vital facilities, transport or social infrastructure”) with the wording that this would restore social justice. The resolution says that I admitted my guilt, although I simply said that I was going to the rally, I did not deny it. Of course, no policemen were called to detain me. I told the court that I was ready to pay the maximum fine, but I ask you to let me go, because – it's true – I have one dog at home.
Sonya Sheveleva. Photo: personal archive
After the trial, we were brought back to the OVD, and our belongings were taken away again, including laces and hair ties. Again, they didn’t let me make any call, I only managed to write to the lawyer with whom we spoke and send him a court order. I also managed to write out on hand, while I had a pen, the phones of friends. We were put in a paddy wagon, in which people from another police department were already sitting, at the same time they had things and phones with them, and we were taken to the third police department. We waited a long time for people to be taken out of there. My friend and I were transferred to another paddy wagon, which was arranged differently – there was a cage, and men were kept in this cage, there was no place to sit, half were standing, and we were put on a bench in front of this cage. We waited quite a long time until the paddy wagons were filled with people.
In the middle of the road we learned that we were going to Sakharovo. What it is, we were not particularly explained, and we no longer had phones to google. We arrived there at about five in the morning on February 2. Among the policemen who delivered us, there was one sympathizer.When we arrived and realized that we could not see personal things and we would not be able to tell friends that everything was relatively okay with us and where we were, he let us call a friend.
When we arrived, a wonderful woman entered the paddy wagon and said, “Boys, girls, well, how are you here, probably want to sleep?” She offered to put personal belongings in one cell, and take us to sleep and get checked out in the morning. We agreed – by that moment we wanted to sleep, it was very cold because of the open doors of the paddy wagons. We were given our things, but only so that we could take them to the cell in garbage bags, which then broke and people could not find their things when they were released. After we were taken to another building, the head of this institution, Aleksey Lagoda, came out to us, yelled at us and said: “Think about your mothers, what are you doing in general, you need to study, pigali schoolgirls.” He looked at me and my girlfriend and said: “It’s clear, these are political ones.”
Detained in Moscow on January 31 in a paddy wagon. Photo courtesy of Sonya Sheveleva
We were given mattresses, blankets and pillows – they looked like they had been stored there since 1937, although, as I read later, this center is a fairly new place (The center was opened in 2014 in the premises of an abandoned military unit. — Approx. Cold). We dragged them to the fourth floor. To be honest, my hands hurt afterwards from this exercise. Our cell was disgusting, as if there had been a flood in it before – plaster fell from half of the ceiling, there was mold on the wall. At the time, I tried not to think about it. It was terribly hot in the cell, they heated it to the fullest. The window was closed, the feeder was closed – a window in the door. Apparently, when the employees of the TsVSIG were told that they would bring us now, they turned on the batteries. The cell was 12 of my paces long and about 10 wide, there were two bunk racks, the window was under the ceiling and without a handle (the handle had to be taken separately), and it opened half a book. There was not a toilet, but a bucket, enclosed by a wall through which everything was visible, and a sink.From the furniture there was a table with two benches under the window, two buckets, a basin and a scoop.
We didn't have toilet paper for the first three days, which was a bit of an inconvenience for us. I had my period, so my stomach hurt at the police station. It was possible to ask for hygiene products, but they probably would not have been brought. I use a menstrual cup so I didn't need pads. This is such a great life hack and a good advertisement for menstrual cups. A very handy thing when you are detained for an incomprehensible amount of time.
On the morning of February 2, breakfast was brought to us, and this was the first time they poured boiling water and gave us water. Prior to that, we were given water on January 31 at 10 pm. If not for our friends and volunteers, I would hardly be able to talk about this, but I would be lying somewhere, dehydrated. When boiling water is poured into an aluminum mug, it is impossible to drink it at first, because it burns the lips, and then it quickly cools down. The system with tea there is also cool, because tea leaves are poured into a plate, you try to stir it in this boiling water, of course, nothing happens, and you just eat tea leaves and drink them with water.
My moment of despair came, I thought: “Well, that’s it, I’m finished”
On February 2, our friends arrived in Sakharovo to make a broadcast, but they didn’t have time – there was a hell of a queue, and at 8 pm they finished receiving broadcasts according to the schedule. I wear lenses, I was afraid to take them off because I have rather poor eyesight and without lenses I am completely disoriented. I spent three days in disposable lenses and slept in them. On the second day, I was already in semi-despair – I understood that they would not survive another night. On February 2, at 10 pm, our cellmate was taken to get a parcel, and so we got water and toilet paper. On February 3rd, we were able to call our friend who said there was a transmission, but they told us there was no transmission, and then my moment of despair came, I thought: “Well, that’s it, I’m finished.”
I got lenses at night from 3 to 4 February. At half past one in the night we were woken up and taken to pick up a parcel – they process them for a very long time due to the large number of people.Usually, Sakharov contains 100 people, respectively, the number of staff was designed for 100 people, and 800 people were brought there first, and then almost a thousand. Therefore, the staff could not cope with such a stream, they did not have any instructions.
On February 2 or 3, representatives of the PMC came, and with them they promised us soap, toilet paper, and toothbrushes, and even slippers, and reduce water to the shower. Everyone promised, and we did not see this until February 4. On February 4, once again came a member of the PMC Marina Litvinovich, and with her a little offended employee TsVSIG said that everything is fine with us, and now, please, you have water. They gave us a bottled water, then we learned that it was purchased with the money of volunteers. They gave toothbrushes, tooth powder and toilet paper. If we did not have the transfer of the first girl, we would have been sitting without toilet paper until that time. All that I was able to bring to the camera is hygienic lipstick. There were also medical masks with us, which we used as masks for sleeping.When they brought the editor -in -chief Mediazons by Sergey Smirnov (Both the publication and personally Smirnov were declared the media – “foreign agents”. – approx. Cold
