October 10, 2022

Dangerous 10-year-olds


Dangerous 10-year-olds
Mental Calculation ~ At S.A. Rachinsky Public School. Bogdanov-Belsky (1895)

Moscow police have detained a 10-year-old girl after the director of the school where she studies told the Ministry of Internal Affairs that the fifth grader was using an avatar with yellow and blue colors [the colors of the Ukrainian flag] in a chat with classmates. The girl's mother informed the human rights group OVD-Info about the situation. OVD-Info has not disclosed the name of the mother and child.

According to the mother, at the end of September she was summoned to the "School in Nekrasovka" to discuss why her daughter was missing "Conversations on Important Things" - the new patriotic classes that began this school year. At the meeting, the woman was questioned about her daughter's avatar, and was told that another classmate's parent had complained that her child had posted a survey about war and peace in the chat.

On September 29, the school principal wrote to the Department of Internal Affairs for the Nekrasovka district. In her letter, quoted by OVD-Info, she commented on the girl's academic performance, and also asked MVD to "examine the living conditions of the family and establish cause-and-effect relationships for such a child's behavior, her civic attitude." The director also asked the police to "alter the educational position" of the mother.

The mother said that, at around 10 a.m. on October 5, the police detained the girl while she was at school. While the woman was on her way to get her daughter, a police officer and a juvenile inspector asked the fifth-grader if her mother worked, what she did, and how the family spent their free time. Then the police took the girl to the offices of Ministry of Internal Affairs, and her mother was brought there separately. “In front of the crying child, security forces rudely led the mother to the [school] exit,” OVD-Info wrote.

The mother and daughter were questioned by police, along with guardianship authorities, for three hours at the offices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In particular, they were interested in why the girl had chosen an avatar with this particular combination of colors. Employees of the Center for Combating Extremism also read the messaging and email correspondence on the woman's phone. As a result, the police drew up a protocol stating that they had brought the minor to the station and took down her explanations.

Protocol of investigation, a legal document
The investigation protocol.

After some time, the police visited the family's home and, without presenting a warrant or any required documents, began to examine the correspondence and search history on the mother's phone and laptop, and also "rummaged through the bed linens," the mother said. Recently, the juvenile inspector told the mother that they were going to put her family on a watch list.

Source: Meduza

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955