Upsala-Circus is a social circus project for children and teenagers in difficult life circumstances. It was founded in 2000 in St. Petersburg by director Larisa Afanasyeva together with her German colleague Astrid Schorn. After the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Larisa, together with part of the team, left Russia and moved to Germany. For four years now, Upsala-Circus has been working in Zeitz, a small town in Saxony-Anhalt. It is here that the far-right party «Alternative for Germany» (AfD), which is gaining popularity thanks to anti-migrant slogans, is currently leading in the regional elections.

#AlternativeforGermany #AfD #Bauhaus #WarinUkraine #Germany #childrenandteenagers #interview #migrants #socialproject #ultraright #circus #emigration

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Der deutsche Verteidigungsunternehmer Stefan Thumann erklärte in einem Exklusivinterview, dass die Sabotageoperationen, die er Moskau zuschreibt, ein «Kriegsakt» seien und dass sich Deutschland und Russland im Kriegszustand befänden. Seine Worte fielen vor dem Hintergrund der Vorbereitung Berlins auf Vorwürfe gegen Moskau im Fall eines versuchten Drohnenangriffs in Leipzig und auf neue Sanktionen.

#business #militaryindustrialcomplex #WarinUkraine #Germany #interview #Russia

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The founder of the «Iskra» association, Gera Ugryumova, has been fighting discrimination against Russians in exile since September 2023. Before that, in order to obtain political asylum in Italy, she spent a year and a half processing documents for residence in the European Union — and for some time lived in shelters without an identity document or a bank account. Now the 24-year-old human rights activist, together with her team, helps compatriots in similar situations, and «Iskra» works only thanks to donations from private individuals. Right now, Gera is pushing European authorities to amend a regulation that prevents thousands of Russians in exile from opening bank accounts in European banks.

#advocacy #bureaucracy #WarinUkraine #HeraUgryumova #discrimination #EuropeanParliament #EuropeanUnion #interview #humanrights #sanctions #Emigration

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Today marks the 155th anniversary of the birth of the great French writer Marcel Proust. On this day, literary scholar Armen Zakaryan (YouTube channel «Armen and Fyodor») is publishing, with the Parisian publishing house Éditions Tourgueneff, the book «Conversations About Marcel Proust’s Novel ‘In Search of Lost Time.’» The closest analogue to this work is Vladimir Nabokov’s «Lectures on Foreign Literature»: they are even more interesting to read than the books Nabokov was telling American students about. Zakharyan’s guide to the universe of Proust also grew out of a series of his video lectures. They were prepared for publication by producer Roma Liberov, for whom they served as «great consolation in those dark years into which, like cold murky water, we all stepped». We spoke with Armen Zakharyan about what Proustian prose can console us with today.

#ArmenZakharyan #VladimirNabokov #Dreyfusaffair #interview #bookclub #LeoTolstoy #literature #MarecoeProust #FirstWorldWar #Renaissance #MiddleAges #France #existentialcrisis #Emigration

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Kira, the main character of the novel Zungenbrecher, moves to Germany, learns German, works the night shift cleaning the kitchen of an expensive restaurant, falls in love with a girl, looks for her place in her new life, and tries to rebuild her relationship with her own past. The novel is structured like a kind of foreign-language textbook: the chapters are named after proficiency levels, and between them there are exercises for readers. At the heart of the novel is the personal experience of its author Karina Papp — a translator and writer with Hungarian roots, born in Riga and educated in St. Petersburg. Later, this multilayered identity was joined by emigration to Germany, queer experience, and the events of recent years — Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, volunteer work, and attempts to redefine her relationship to the Russian language, her country of origin, and her own place in the world. She wrote her first novel in German, a language that is not her mother tongue, and made a principled decision not to translate it into Russian herself — because her relationship with her native language after emigration and Russian aggression became one of the book’s central themes.

#autofiction #WarinUkraine #Germany #europe #Identity #interview #queer #parentsandchildren #Russia #modernliterature #feminism #experimentalprose #Emigration #language

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Nina Potarska is a Ukrainian sociologist and researcher in feminist political economy. She heads the Ukrainian Center for Social and Labor Research and is involved in the Global Women’s Alliance for Leadership in Security (WASL). Nina spent her childhood in Murmansk Oblast, from where Russian Air Force fighter jets now take off to carry out airstrikes on Kyiv. But Potarska does not agree with the widespread comparison between Ukraine after February 24 and Israel after October 7: she is in solidarity with Palestinians and criticizes Israel’s actions in Gaza. This spring, Nina joined the humanitarian flotilla «Sumud» — an international maritime initiative launched last year with the aim of breaking Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. She gave the first part of the interview at the beginning of the flotilla’s voyage, and the second part after she, along with other pro-Palestinian activists, was detained by Israeli security forces.

#bigtalk #war #warinGaza #WarinUkraine #Israel #interview #conflict #Palestine #GazaStrip #securityforces #Sumudflotilla

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Director Liza Stishova made a documentary for the Ost-West TV channel called «Germans in Russia,» featuring people who are currently moving from Germany to Russia in search of a better life. To understand their motivation, she delves into the history of German colonists from the time of Catherine the Great, talks to ethnic Germans who survived Stalin’s deportations, and investigates the biography of her own grandfather, who helped organize those deportations. We spoke with Liza about what her film’s protagonists are willing to ignore for their own comfort, and why they choose to live in Russia—a country that has just experienced a major wave of protest emigration.

#Germany #deportationofpeoplestotheUSSR #documentary #europe #interview #historicalmemory #LizaStishova #GermansinRussia #Putin #repressions #selfcensorship #Stalin #reliableprices #Emigration

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«I have three criminal cases, and the court appointed me as the head of an extremist organization, even though I’m an anarchist and against hierarchies,» Maria Alyokhina says with a smile, describing how she is currently being persecuted by Russian authorities. In 2023, the Icelandic parliament granted her citizenship, allowing her to travel freely around the world with her show. Riot Days (idea and creative producer — Alexander Cheparukhin) has been performed about 500 times on all continents and has won numerous awards, including all the main prizes of the Edinburgh Festival. Before the new European tour, which starts today in Paris, we spoke with one of the most famous members of Pussy Riot about Russian protest art after their punk prayer.

#PussyRiot #VladimirPutin #WarinUkraine #interview #Iceland #MariaAlyokhina #music #Punk #protest #repressions #Russia #art #Emigration

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Russian activists are not always safe even after emigrating. Persecution can continue beyond Russia’s borders—including at the hands of informal groups acting in line with Russian propaganda. This is what sex educator and LGBTQ+ activist Sasha Kazantseva faced in Lithuania: last summer, she began receiving threats, and people associated with a homophobic group targeting queer teens and activists came to her home. Since then, Kazantseva has been seeking a response from Lithuanian authorities so that such cases do not go unpunished. In an interview with «Most,» Sasha Kazantseva explains how this pressure works, why it’s not an isolated case, and what is happening to queer people from Russia—both inside the country and abroad.

#bigtalk #homophobia #discrimination #europe #interview #LGBT #Lithuania #violence #police #repressions #SashaKazantseva #And #ultraright #Emigration

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The documentary «Russian Winter,» filmed with clear sympathy for political émigrés from Russia, was screened at the Berlin Film Festival during days when residents of Ukrainian cities were suffering from the cold under Russian bombardment. But Austrian director Patrick Chiha did not change the title.

#antiwaremigrationfromRussia #berlinale #WarinUkraine #lifeinexile #interview #movie #criticism #festivals #Emigration

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In January 2026, the human rights organization Russian America for Democracy in Russia (RADR) succeeded in stopping the deportation of nine Russians from the US back to Russia. We spoke with RADR President Dmitry Valuev about how this works amid mass protests against President Trump’s anti-immigration policies.

#VladislavKrasnov #deportation #DmitryValuev #interview #Iran #migrationpolicy #populism #Russia #USA #Trump #Emigration

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Exactly 60 years ago, the USSR began the trial of writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, which marked the beginning of the Soviet dissident movement. One of the prosecution witnesses at this trial was the Orientalist Sergei Khmelnitsky — the father of historian of Soviet secret services and «Most» columnist Dmitry Khmelnitsky. Dmitry himself was 12 years old at the time. A couple of years later, Dmitry learned that his father had been a secret NKVD informant, whose denunciation in the late 1940s led to the arrest and imprisonment of two of his friends. After being released during the Khrushchev Thaw, they publicly exposed Sergei Khmelnitsky, and all his close friends turned away from him. Among them was Andrei Sinyavsky. However, few people know that the famous writer himself was recruited by the NKVD at the same time as Khmelnitsky and continued to cooperate with the KGB. Dmitry tells how it all happened in his forthcoming book «Khmelnitsky, Sinyavsky, and the KGB.»

#dissidents #denunciations #interview #historicalmemory #kgb #personalexperience #thaw #SinyavskyandDaniel #repressionsintheUSSR #parentsandchildren #specialservices #France #Emigration

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Unprecedented mass anti-government protests continue in Iran—something never before seen in the history of the Islamic Republic. While Donald Trump makes vague promises to help the protesters and progressive Western public opinion remains silent, the number of Iranians killed by the regime may already be in the hundreds. Reliable information about the situation in the country is scarce: in Iran, it’s «tradition» to shut down the internet in such cases. Iran expert, Telegram channel author, and writer of «All Iran» Nikita Smagin (the Russian Ministry of Justice considers him a foreign agent) explains why the Islamic Revolution has erupted in mass protest, what the ayatollahs fear, and what lessons the Kremlin might draw from the situation in this eastern country.

#bigtalk #state #dictatorship #interview #Iran #IslamicRevolutionof1979 #NikitaSmagin #society #Internetshutdown #protests #repressions #Russia #sanctions #USA #Khamenei #censorship

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Until the early 2020s, Abbas Gallyamov was integrated into the Russian power structure: he worked as a speechwriter for Vladimir Putin when he was prime minister, as a political consultant in regional elections, and as deputy head of the administration of the president of Bashkortostan. But after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Gallyamov left for Israel, was labeled a foreign agent by the Russian Ministry of Justice, and last year was sentenced in absentia to eight years for «discrediting the Russian army.» We spoke with Abbas about the changing world order after Trump’s election, the prospects of a Russian invasion of an EU neighbor, and how friends of Putin’s younger daughter are quietly preparing to take power into their own hands.

#AbbasGallyamov #authoritarianism #WarinUkraine #Hitler #EuropeanUnion #interview #resultsfor2025 #KaterinaTikhonova #Lithuania #Moldova #Mussolini #forecasts #Putin #Russia #Trump #WorldWarIII #futurology #Economy #Estonia

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Sociologist Lev Gudkov has been studying public attitudes in Russia since the time of Perestroika. In the late 1980s, he worked at the All-Union Center for the Study of Public Opinion, from which he left in the early 2000s along with Yuri Levada’s team. From 2006 to 2021, Gudkov headed the Levada Center—the largest independent organization conducting sociological surveys in Russia—and then became its scientific director. Both the Levada Center and Gudkov himself have been designated as foreign agents by the Russian Ministry of Justice. Drawing on years of sociological surveys of post-Soviet society and the historical experience of countries that went through fascism in the 20th century, we spoke with the renowned researcher about the most likely scenario for Russia’s future.

#future #WarinUkraine #state #degradation #democracy #dictatorship #europe #lifeintheUSSR #west #interview #LevadaCenter #society #afterPutin #forecast #reforms #Russia #socialsphere #sociology #futurology #Economy

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How can political émigrés who end up in American immigration jails be saved from extradition to Russia? What do FSB psychologists ask passengers on deportation flights during interrogations? And why don’t Western governments help Russian antiwar refugees? A wide-ranging conversation with Dmitry Valuev, president of the human rights organization Russian America for Democracy in Russia (RADR).

#refugees #bigtalk #WarinUkraine #state #deportation #interview #personalexperience #Bulk #opposition #rightandleft #Putin #USA #Trump #Emigration

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One of the main economic news stories this week for Russian citizens is the European Commission’s decision to include Russia in the list of high-risk jurisdictions. Officially, it is set to take effect at the beginning of January 2026. We speak with anti-corruption expert and founder of the NGO «Arktida,» Ilya Shumanov, about what problems to prepare for after the New Year holidays—and what his own plan is.

#bankingsystem #EuropeanUnion #west #IlyaShumanov #interview #corruption #personalexperience #moneylaundering #Russia #sanctions #finance #blacklist #Emigration

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Another round of conflict in the Middle East drags on: Israel is losing allies and facing new accusations. Can a new initiative from Donald Trump bring the country an honorable peace in this context? How justified are the criticisms leveled against the Jewish state—genocide, occupation, and colonization of Palestinian lands? And does the State of Palestine even exist, as Western countries have been recognizing it one after another recently? On the second anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, we try to understand this with Marianna Belenkaya, a journalist and Middle East expert, author of the Telegram channel «Falafelnaya.»

#October72023 #Analytics #antiSemitism #MiddleEast #war #DonaldTrump #Israel #interview #Palestine #rightandleft #GazaStrip #TonyBlair #Hamas

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The war in Ukraine and the related increase in military spending in Europe, inevitably accelerating inflation, are leading to anti-migrant sentiments and, consequently, to the growing popularity of the far-right in several European countries. In Germany, according to the latest August public opinion poll, the rating of the right-wing populist and pro-Russian party «Alternative for Germany» reached 26% (the ruling Christian Democratic Union is in second place with 24%). Meanwhile, Russian drones have started entering NATO countries. We discussed the situation in Europe with sociologist Igor Eidman (the Russian Ministry of Justice considers him a foreign agent).

#AlternativeforGermany #WarinUkraine #Germany #DonaldTrump #drones #interview #migrants #NATO #rightandleft #crime #provocations #forecast #Russia #USA #FriedrichMerz #Emigration

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Masha Moskalyova is a girl whose fate shocked even those familiar with political repression. After the 12-year-old drew an anti-war picture at school, she endured several FSB interrogations, searches, psychological pressure, long months in a shelter, separation from her father—who was imprisoned for a couple of anti-war posts on social media—and, finally, forced emigration. We spoke with Masha about what she went through and how her life is now.

#WarinUkraine #state #interview #personalexperience #society #protests #repressions #parentsandchildren #Russia #familyandschool #Emigration

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