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The Alexei Navalny staff in St. Petersburg is centrally located, just a short walk from the famous St. Isaac’s Cathedral. A large street level studio with glass windows facing the street, furnished with giant poufs and a small stage. It belongs to the few Navalny staff in Russia who have never been evicted.
– The police have been here several times, we have had house searches, our employees have been arrested. But so far we haven’t had to move. That’s fine, says Irina Fatjanova dryly.
So that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned in late August, staff in St. Petersburg have received a new influx of volunteers.
– More than two hundred people signed up as election observers, most of them after Alexei was poisoned. People stand and take pictures outside of our staff. Almost every day, someone looks and wants to say that the person in question supports Navalny and hopes that he will recover, says Fatjanova.
Alexei Navalny surrounded by his family in the Berlin hospital where he was being treated after being poisoned. You are now registered.
Photo: Navalnyjs instagram / AP
While Navalny was in bed, people called the staff incessantly and wanted to know how he was doing.
– All the rumors that Navalny is supported by the Kremlin, which seems to be receiving special treatment and only receives shorter prison sentences, have become a disgrace. I hear much more often now that people say that this poisoning was the last straw, there is a limit. Especially by people who are otherwise always careful to point out that they don’t like Navalny.
Alexei Navalny he has been discharged from the Berlin hospital and will return to Russia as soon as the treatment is completed. On Instagram he thanks the pilots who made an emergency landing on the plane in Omsk and the medical personnel who gave him the atropine antidote.
“Without these people, I would have continued my journey in a black garbage bag,” Navalny writes.
Alexei Navalny on September 23 in Berlin, after being discharged from the hospital.
Photo: Navalnyjs instagram / AP
As the opposition leader hovered between life and death, Fatjanova says that she did not allow herself to think that he would not survive.
– The only thing I thought was that he would manage. He is in good physical shape, runs regularly and is a fighter by nature. People in power are constantly doing things like this, they want to distract us, throw us off balance. It is our daily life. I knew it would be like this when I started working for Navalny last year.
At the same time, Fatjanova says, “it is not a robot.” Poisoning is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.
The Navalny staff works in the short documentary format. Here Irina Fatjanova with cameramen and editors Dmitry Galtsinov and Aleksandr Gonzurevsky on staff in St. Petersburg.
Photo: Aleksandr Belenkij
– He was terribly mentally tedious until he finally flew to Berlin for treatment. But he had no choice but to go back to being himself, to return to Russia and continue working, for me he did not exist.
Fatjanova’s staff continued the play. Last year, Navalny launched the “vote smart” campaign, which asks voters to vote for Putin’s United Russia opponent who has the best chance of being elected. In Moscow it was a success: United Russia lost almost half of its terms.
In this year’s municipal and regional elections, Navalny’s candidates have been elected to the municipalities of Novosibirsk and Tomsk, the cities that Navalny visited on the same trip that he was poisoned.
However, the “Vote Smart” tactic did not work in the Leningrad district gubernatorial elections, for which Fatjanova is responsible. (The district around St. Petersburg retains its old Soviet name.) There was no competent opponent for the acting governor, Alexander Drozdenko.
The work continues. Now we are preparing for the Duma elections and for the municipal elections in St. Petersburg next year, says Irina Fatjanova.
Photo: Aleksandr Belenkij
The two opposing candidates they were loyal to those in power and also refused to allow Navalny volunteers to observe the electoral process. Each candidate has the right to register a certain number of election observers. Navalny’s staff offered the two rival candidates several hundred observers, but turned down a large number of them.
Staff provided information on incumbent Governor Drozdenko, who happened to have luxury properties in Nice. Despite this, there was no second round. However, adversity is something Irina Fatjanova is used to.
– Now we are preparing for the Duma elections and the municipal elections in St. Petersburg next year. We have a year to ourselves, and in fact it is quite a short time to find good candidates, develop tactics and do electoral work. We only recruit candidates who really have a chance to be chosen, we are not interested in extras. It is very possible that the Kremlin will advance the elections to make the situation more difficult for us, says Fatjanova.
The staff in St. Petersburg consists of seven employees; In addition to Fatjanova, two cameramen, a reporter, an investigative journalist and a lawyer work here. Most of Navalny’s staff in Russia work on the same principle. On the one hand, they participate in elections, on the other hand, they investigate local corruption and reveal the secret properties of local authorities, which are almost without exception in the EU and the United States.
For journalistsIt’s not very easy to get close to Navalny. He is notoriously reluctant to grant interviews and DN requests to visit staff in Moscow are ignored. But Irina Fatjanova says that the organization itself is flat. Everyone knows what to do and Navalny is a person who attracts skills.
– Many of Navalny’s employees have left prestigious, high-paying jobs to work for him. I think they experience it the same way I do. They make this choice because they are so tired of the current system, says Irina Fatjanova, Alexei Navalny’s chief of staff in St. Petersburg.
Photo: Aleksandr Belenkij
– No one needs to give us any information. That is our great advantage over Putin’s machinery. There, people do only what they are told. But our work is structured in such a way that even if Alexei cannot participate, he will continue in any case. We expect to be harassed by the authorities, for the police to knock on the door, to be disturbed in every way imaginable. They are trying to disorient us, that is their main objective, says Irina Fatjanova.
Have you been afraid of what might happen to you after Navalny was poisoned?
– On the contrary. It just pissed me off. Do you think you can scare me? I will work even harder. And I know several others who feel this way: they have become morally strong because of this.
According to Fatjanova, it is about a sense of justice.
– The interesting thing is that many I know who used to pride themselves on being apolitical have stopped saying things like “I don’t participate in politics.” They have realized that in today’s Russia there is no choice. You can’t stay outside.
She herself is prepared for get into trouble sooner or later. The Russian authorities have a large toolbox to harass and destroy the lives of opposition figures.
– Many of Navalny’s employees have left prestigious, high-paying jobs to work for him. I think they experience it the same way I do. They make this choice because they are so tired of the current system. The risk of having your bank account blocked or arrested feels less of a problem than lack of freedom. Freedom is better than freedom. I’m not afraid, it’s just the way I experience it.
Irina Fatjanova is Alexei Navalny’s chief of staff in St. Petersburg. As Navalny moved between life and death, she did not allow herself the idea that she would not survive. “But I am not a robot. The relief when he flew to Berlin was enormous.”
Photo: Aleksandr Belenkij
When the interview It’s over, Russian freelance photographer Aleksandr Belenkij tells Fatjanova that the demonstrations in Belarus are not encouraging from the point of view of the Russian opposition.
– Look how the Belarusians fight! But that has not led to a change of power.
Note that this is a question that Fatjanova has been asked before.
– Do you think you can bring about a change of power by going out on the street a couple of times? This is not how it works. Yo have to go ahead. One or two demonstrations do not bring down those in power. This is a long battle.
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