‘Daddy, will you come back when Putin turns good?’ Anti-Kremlin activists describe life after emigrating from Russia
Political emigration in Russia has become increasingly common. Most recently, former State Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov left the country after two days in jail. He has suggested that police planned to pursue a felony case against him if he remained in Russia. More and more independent politicians, activists, and journalists are fleeing to evade arrest or worse. Meduza spoke to a handful of these émigrés about the new exodus and how they are adapting to life abroad.
Sergey Bespalov
Former coordinator of Alexey Navalny’s campaign office in Irkutsk
In November 2018, before Sergey Bespalov was ever an émigré living in Lithuania, he was a tourist who visited Lithuania to see his friend, Mikhail Maglov, a journalist who fled Russia for political reasons.
“It’s a pretty funny story,” Bespalov told Meduza, describing how he’d talked to Maglov about the privatization of forests around the world — a hobby interest he’d picked up during multiple stints in jail for violations of Russia’s laws on public protests. As soon as he arrived in Lithuania, Maglov took him to a human rights office, where lawyers had already drawn up an asylum request. They were all dumbfounded when Bespalov explained that he’d only come to learn about forest privatization. “Are you an idiot or something? We thought you were just afraid to say the real purpose of your visit over the telephone,” they told him. But he insisted.
Bespalov would be back, however, this time as a refugee. In April 2020, he had an altercation with an ultra-rightwing activist that led to felony assault charges. Bespalov denies any wrongdoing, but a judge in Irkutsk later sentenced him to more than 2.5 years under “custodial restraint,” banning him from public events, subjecting him to a curfew, and forcing him to obtain permission to leave the city. The next day, he boarded a plane for Istanbul and then grabbed a flight to Lithuania. When Meduza spoke to him, he was traveling in Bulgaria. Bespalov says he has no plans to return home, but the 46-year-old can expect to go to prison if he ever does.
Back in Irkutsk, Bespalov left behind a wife and four children, including two sons, ages eight and 10. His wife isn’t following him to Lithuania with the kids. “Her parents are pretty elderly and they need help,” he told Meduza. If she loses her job at Russian Railways, however, maybe then she’ll join her husband in exile. “She would have no alternative then,” he says. On the phone, their youngest son asks him, “Daddy, will you come back when Putin turns good?” Bespalov says he doesn’t know how to answer.
Ahead of parliamentary elections this fall, Bespalov is collaborating with Russian activists in other countries to mobilize voters at Russia’s embassies. “The world has become so global that volunteers from Navalny’s office in Irkutsk staged protests in Hamburg and Haifa,” he says. Bespalov expects his savings to run out sometime in September, after the elections. When that happens, he plans to find a job in construction or driving a taxi. “Emigration is like starting over from scratch. I’m not much different from a Tajik who shows up in Moscow,” he told Meduza.
Still, Bespalov says he’d rather be home, making a difference. “I’ve got this feeling that I’m wasting time here that I could spend being useful in my own country,” he says. “Russia needs Russians most of all.”
Vladimir Milov
Navalny associate, former deputy energy minister
When large crowds of Navalny’s supporters turned out for protests across Russia earlier this year, on January 23 and 31, Vladimir Milov stayed home. All around him, police were arresting other prominent members of the Navalny movement. “There was an eerie political silence when there was no one [left] to lead the opposition,” Milov told Meduza. “[But] I realized there was no point in joining the chain of arrests. There’s much to do and I need to keep working.”
Milov credits Navalny with building the online infrastructure needed to continue opposition activism remotely. “This isn’t your 1970s emigration,” he explains, “Now it doesn’t matter where you’re working from.” Milov says he’s now busier than ever, hosting a politics show on the Navalny Live YouTube channel, advising colleagues around the world about sanctions, and preparing materials for the SmartVote strategic voting initiative. When he’s not managing all these responsibilities, Milov says he has been trying to work with Russia’s growing diaspora to help other émigrés adapt to life abroad.
What would it take for Vladimir Milov to return home? “One of the key demands for Putin is the creation of conditions so the opposition can work normally without fear of being arrested. I’m afraid that won’t be anytime soon,” he told Meduza.
Evgeny Musin
“Termless Protest” activist
Musin left Russia in September 2020 after two months of intense campaigning against recent constitutional amendments that make it possible for Vladimir Putin to seek another two presidential terms. He told Meduza that he believes Russian society isn’t yet ready psychologically to defend itself against the Putin regime, which he says resembles a form of “neo-serfdom.”
Going home isn’t an option until “the Putin mafia” is out of power or near collapse, says Musin, who argues that Russia’s president is no longer capable of dialing back his authoritarian tendencies. Convinced that Putin’s presidency is teetering, Evgeny Musin nevertheless expresses “annoyance” that his fellow oppositionists have not hastened the end. “They failed to find and develop those common points with society in order to activate the masses for legal stress protests,” he says.
Oleg Khomutinnikov
Lipetsk Regional Council deputy, former “Open Russia” federal council member
“They beat us. This is a defeat, and we need to admit it, like after the last out in a ballgame,” Khomutinnikov told Meduza. He speaks from experience: in late May, police dispersed a conference he attended that was supposed to bring together independent lawmakers from around the country. Shortly thereafter, he says he was warned that officials would concoct felony charges if he dared to run for a seat in the State Duma. On May 27, Khomutinnikov met with other leaders of the Open Russia group and decided to dissolve the organization to spare its members further criminal persecution. The next day, he and his entire family “just picked up and left.” It was just in time — Dmitry Gudkov and Andrey Pivovarov were soon in handcuffs.
“The authorities are the most vulnerable during election season, and that’s why they try extra hard to hold on, bracing themselves and avoiding any unforeseen scenarios,” explains Khomutinnikov. Despite recent dramatic events, however, he still believes Russia’s future lies beyond the elections: “What’s happening now doesn’t really change things. The country’s future isn’t in the current crackdown.”
Like the other émigrés who spoke to Meduza, Khomutinnikov says he has no plans to assimilate in exile and hopes to continue his activism from afar. For now, he has savings to tide him over, and he can even sell the real estate he still owns back in Russia if his financial situation becomes dire. Though he thinks about finding a new job abroad, his current focus remains on sustaining the anti-Putin opposition. “There’s a new wave now of people leaving [Russia], and we need to understand how we can work together,” he says.
Interviews by Alexandra Sivtsova
Abridged summary by Kevin Rothrock