From the editor: Blogger Natasha Konstantinova on the real coronavirus situation in Russia
Natasha Konstantinova is a 32-year-old blogger who lives in the historical centre of St. Petersburg with her parents and her seven-year-old daughter. Her mother is retired and her father is a teacher at a college. She moved back in with them after losing her job at the start of the pandemic. Natasha told me about her own family’s experiences with Covid and how Russia is struggling to cope with the virus thanks to government incompetence or indifference.
Natasha at a protest in support of Navalny on January 23, from her Instagram
Natasha tested positive for Covid on December 27, 2020 at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport when she was returning from a trip to Turkey. “I didn’t feel well in Turkey already,” she says. “I had severe back pain and fatigure, but I thought it’s because of travelling. These symptoms didn’t disappear after I returned home though. But I didn’t have any other symptoms, and neither did anyone in my family.”
She uploaded her test result as required to the government’s gosuslugi.ru website and self-isolated voluntarily for two weeks because no one was enforcing self-isolation. “No one contacted me, doctors also didn’t do visits at that time, they were only consulting by phone,” she says. “So I didn’t see any point in calling the doctor, because I knew there is no treatment for Covid unless you have severe symptoms. And I didn’t have any.”
At the time when she tested positive Natasha was already in a clinical trial of China’s Convidecia coronavirus vaccine. She isn’t sure, but believes she had the placebo because she didn’t experience any side effects. Later her father, who has diabetes, received two doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. “We applied online, he got his place in a queue and then after around three weeks he was vaccinated. There were shortages of doses in my city in January so it was very hard to get vaccinated,” she says.
Natasha is confident that Sputnik is a safe and effective vaccine, but has doubts about Russia’s other vaccines. “I see what people who were vaccinated write and share. And it looks like they are not as effective as Sputnik. EpiVacCorona showed only 70 percent of people get antibodies,” she says.
It isn’t always easy to get a Covid test even in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, according to Natasha. People wait up to two weeks for a test or end up not getting tested at all, she says. “My best friends who live in the next street to me got tested immediately when they lost their taste and smell. But my close friends in the suburbs weren’t tested at all. They all became sick on the New Year (six of them) and the doctor diagnosed and consulted with them by phone. They had to call a private clinic to come and test all of them.”
There are no apps or online booking of tests and getting a free test is quite a bureaucratic procedure, Natasha says. It’s easy to get tested in private clinics, but many people can’t afford that. There is no contact-tracing system: “Russians are generally tired of this coronavirus story, so they don’t care. They are mostly angry that the government didn’t support us during the hardest times and left regions to deal with the situation alone.”
The situation in Moscow is much better than in many of Russia’s regions. Dagestan had one of the worst death tolls at the start of the pandemic, with many deaths being attributed to “pneumonia”. “The example of the tragedy that has happened in Dagestan shows so much what’s happening in the regions and reveals all the problems in the healthcare sector,” Natasha says. “When I was in the Pskov region in the summer and in Karachay-Cherkessia in November I figured out that an ambulance doesn’t even come to people. People are left alone to deal with the disease. Of course they have issues in Moscow, but at least you won’t die there because there aren’t enough healthcare staff or places at hospitals and you can get the vaccine.”
Despite a low level of vaccination compared with many other countries, life is almost back to normal in St. Petersburg, and there was never a real lockdown. People have been visiting each other since last summer, Natasha says, although she avoids visiting old or vulnerable people. “The pandemic revealed all our problems in the healthcare sector,” she says. “People finally saw the results of the Kremlin’s healthcare optimisation. My friend and her aunt who are doctors were sent to deal with sick people without any protection. The funniest part is that when she got coronavirus, even she waited for one week to be tested. Many healthcare professionals are dead now. And the problem is that they can’t complain, because they believe they are going to be banned from the profession.”
Russia should have ensured that healthcare workers had everything they needed before sending aid to other countries, Natasha says: “I still remember how Moscow sent 300,000 doses of the Sputnik vaccine to Argentina when my city was requesting these 300,000 for our healthcare workers and teachers. But it's not surprising for me. It's kind of a Russian thing to show off and to win geopolitical points - as well as getting a market share - instead of caring for their own people.”
Additionally the government should have provided real financial support to businesses and individuals such as herself, Natasha thinks. “During the whole pandemic as a single mom, I got 10,000 roubles ($130) twice and then 5,000 roubles ($65) as support from my government,” she says. “I know families who lost their jobs and lost places to live - renting a place here is 15,000 roubles ($195) a month minimum for a studio), and people couldn’t even afford food. Many of my friends didn’t even get these payments, because some of them have loans and mortgages, so when the government transferred these payments for their kids, the banks took them immediately.”
This week the value of the rouble declined to 77 to the dollar and 91 to the euro as the Kremlin’s rhetoric on Ukraine became more belligerent and Russian troops were deployed near the border. “Prices are increasing every day here, life is becoming more expensive and salaries are not increasing,” Natasha says. “Of course, people are angry, they saw that the government left them alone to deal with the pandemic. Plenty lost their businesses and their jobs, and instead of having a dialogue with people, the government decided to push more money to police equipment and imprison everyone who speaks out. And by doing this they just increase the protest mood more, because you can't hide the violence and the majority of people don't approve of it, even if they don't agree with the protesters. Yes, many people are afraid to protest, because of different reasons - afraid to be beaten, to lose their jobs, to be imprisoned, etc. But I think we will see the whole power of protest in September 2021, when there are going to be legislative elections in Russia.”
Natasha Konstantinova’s social media links can be seen at https://taplink.cc/natashasrussia, and her video from the January 31 protest in St. Petersburg is here.
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Russia threatens Ukraine with annihilation
Russia has been massively escalating its military presence near the Ukrainian border in the past week, raising fears that Vladimir Putin is preparing for an attack that would distract from domestic problems and pose a challenge to Joe Biden, who recently called him a killer. Russia has also conducted large-scale military exercises and boosted its forces in occupied Crimea. State TV hosts such as Dmitri Kiselev have engaged in warlike rhetoric and deputy head of the presidential administration Dmitri Kozak has said it will be “the beginning of the end of Ukraine” if Russia has to defend “its people” in Donbass. The Kremlin claims Ukraine is threatening Donbass together with its Western allies, and Volodymyr Zelensky has called on NATO to expedite its membership. The alliance has not been willing to accept Ukraine as a member because it would mean becoming involved in the conflict with Russia. At least six Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in Donbass in the past week.
Navalny in prison sick ward
Alexei Navalny has been transferred to the sick ward of the IK-2 prison in Pokrov, Vladimir Oblast, after developing symptoms of a respiratory illness, a high temperature and a cough. An initial test for coronavirus came back negative, according to prison authorities. Previously Navalny said that three other prisoners in his section had been hospitalised with tuberculosis. He has also accused guards of putting sweets in his pockets and cooking chicken in front of him to try to make him give up his hunger strike. An MRI conducted recently showed that Navalny has two herniated discs, which are causing back pain and numbness in his hands and legs.
Before being taken to the sick ward Navalny was visited by Maria Butina – jailed in the US as a foreign agent in 2019 after infiltrating the National Rifle Association - with an RT camera crew. Navalny refused to appear on camera but was heard calling Butina a liar as she mocked his claim that conditions in the prison were torturous. She asked him if he had seen the conditions in Russian regional hotels.
On April 6 the head of the Alliance of Doctors, Dr. Anastasia Vasilieva, came to the prison with other doctors and supporters of Navalny to demand that he be allowed to see a doctor. She requested a meeting with prison officials but was refused, and told that the prison governor was away on leave. After waiting outside for a few hours many of the activists and accompanying journalists were detained, including Vasilieva herself and Matthew Chance from CNN. Most were later released and Vasilieva was only just able to return home by 8 pm, which she must do under the restrictions imposed ahead of a trial she is facing for supporting protests in January. Five were given jail sentences for “interfering with the work of the prison and obstructing the road.” They were members of the Alliance of Doctors Artem Boriskin, Alexander Generalov and Valeria Merkulova, who were jailed for eight days; Navalny’s former coordinator in Kemerovo, Kseniya Pakhomova, who was jailed for nine days; and activist Kristina Ramires, who was jailed for 10 days. Vasilieva is due to appear in court on April 12.
Navalny’s brother Oleg, his aide Lyubov Sobol, activist Lyusya Shteyn and Moscow city councillor Konstanin Yankauskas have had their pre-trial house arrest changed to curfews similar to the restrictions on Vasilieva in the same case. Other defendants including Pussy Riot’s Maria Alekhina and Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh have been ordered to remain under house arrest.
The Free Navalny website now has more than 400,000 people registered to participate in protests that will be triggered when the number reaches 500,000. Meanwhile, Moscow taxi driver Valery Yevsin has been sentenced to two years in prison for participating in the protest in support of Navalny on January 23. He was accused of shoving a metal barrier at a police officer, who was not injured. Also in Moscow activist Matvey Alexandrov from the group Sotsalternativa was detained after serving a 40-day jail sentence for his activities in support of Navalny and told he could be charged under article 212.1 of the criminal code, which allows a prison sentence of up to five years for participating in multiple protests. Alexandrov is the nephew of high-profile lawyer Maria Eysmont who represents defendants in political cases.
Former Khabarovsk Krai governor Sergei Furgal has been transferred to the hospital in Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina jail with coronavirus. His lawyer has asked for his release before trial on murder charges because he has a pre-existing lung condition. Furgal was arrested in July last year and accused of involvement in the murders of businessmen 2004 and 2005. Since then people in Khabarovsk have been protesting, claiming that Putin removed him because he was not from the ruling United Russia party.
Kadyrov opponent found dead
The former mayor of Argun, Chechnya, Ibragim Temirbayev, has been found dead in a car that went over a precipice outside Grozny. Temirbayev, who was mayor for 15 years, was arrested in August 2019 and tortured in a secret prison after wiretapped phone calls revealed that he had criticised Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Temirbayev himself had been linked to reports of the torture and imprisonment of LGBT people, and said that he was loyal to Putin.
Russia’s Sputnik agency leaves UK
Russia has abruptly shut down its Sputnik news agency in the UK, which had offices in Edinburgh and London, and says it will move its English-language service to Moscow and Washington. The UK government has been increasingly concerned about Russia as a threat since the novichok attack on Salisbury in March 2018 which targeted Sergei and Yulia Skripal but also killed local woman Dawn Sturgess. An inquiry into the death of Sturgess is due to examine the Russian state’s role in the events.
Killing of Dagestani shepherd boys ruled unlawful
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the killing of two teenage shepherds in Dagestan in August 2016 by police was unlawful, in the case of Gasangusenov v. Russia. The applicant Murtazaali Gasangusenov’s two sons were killed as a result of the unjustified use of lethal force and no effective investigation was conducted into their killing, the ECHR said in its ruling. Gasangusen (born in 1997) and Nabi Gasangusenov (born in 1999) were shot by law-enforcement officers who were allegedly hunting for illegal armed groups that had committed terrorist attacks. Police claimed that the boys had shot at the officers, who returned fire. The applicant said his sons had been killed intentionally by order of the head of the local police station, who wanted to show his men were successful at fighting terrorists. The ECHR ordered Russia to pay the applicant 120,000 euros in damages.