‘I’ve dreamed of an avocado for two years,’ says the activist serving the longest sentence in Russia’s case against a banned youth movement

In April, a court in St. Petersburg handed down its verdict in the Vesna case. Vesna is a youth opposition movement that, in 2022, became one of the organizers of Russian protests against the war and mobilization. Six defendants received sentences ranging from six to 12 years. The longest sentence went to 28-year-old Anna Arkhipova of Novosibirsk, even though she had left Vesna before Russia designated the movement “extremist.”

Journalist Katerina Gordeeva devoted a special episode of her show Skazhi Gordeevoy (“Tell Gordeeva”) to Anna Arkhipova. Gordeeva spoke with Anna herself; with her mother, Anastasia Arkhipova; and with her friend Elena Krut, a human rights activist who met Anna during the investigation, took her under her wing, and even moved to another city to follow her. Meduza has selected the key quotes from the interview.

Anastasia Arkhipova

• “I’ve been taking antidepressants since April 12. Not because I’m coping badly, but because I started waking up at night gasping for breath. It’s the feeling of being in some other reality. And my daughter is in another reality.”
• “There was no way to predict this [criminal case]. She didn’t do anything I would consider wrong. It was normal in our country back then. Then things changed, and she got caught up in it.”
• “About six months passed, and one of the investigators said, ‘We understand you didn’t do anything. If the people who are actually more guilty come back now, we’ll arrest them and let you go.’ And I realized this wasn’t about justice — that no matter which defense attorney we hired, however much money we paid, whatever we did, it had already been decided.”
• “Lena is her sister now — there’s no other way to put it. Few blood sisters are capable of what she did. She didn’t know Anya. She came to the trial and realized, ‘This is my girl; I’m taking her under my wing.’ And she has stayed with her. They complement each other, even psychologically.”

Elena Krut

• “I used to hold more radical views. She instilled in me faith in people. She instilled in me love for people. […] They’re all people. Just like police officers, just like contract soldiers. They don’t sign those contracts because life is good. I know what unemployment is. I know what it’s like to have 500 rubles and nothing to eat.”
• “[The Vesna case came about] because [the movement’s members] who left the country are assholes. ‘Let’s get people out into the streets.’ […] I think they finally pushed it too far. Those who stayed in Russia were against it. Anya argued with them and said, ‘Come on, maybe soften the wording.’ But nobody listened to her, because there was a gulf between those who left and those who stayed.”
• “On the outside, Anya is very sweet and fragile. But inside she has the same backbone I do. She didn’t admit guilt during the investigation. I was like, ‘Wow, good for you.’ […] When she got 12 years, I came to see her and said, ‘Don’t give up. As your older sister, I forbid it. You can’t. Just remember that I’m out here and I have everything under control. And don’t you give up in there either.’”
• “[One month of Anya’s time in the pretrial detention center costs] about 40,000 rubles. Since 2023, we’ve spent two or three million rubles [on care packages]. Thank you to everyone who donated. At first I fed Anya out of my own pocket. [I do this] because, as it says in The Little Prince, we are responsible for those we have tamed.”
• “It’s the women [in prison] I ache for the most. Because there’s no one at the gates of a women’s penal colony. A woman will support a man. But there are only a handful of men who support women.”

Anna Arkhipova

• “I’ve been dreaming about avocados for two years now. In the Moscow pretrial detention center, getting care packages was much easier. The one in St. Petersburg has far more restrictions: avocados aren’t allowed. […] And forbidden fruit, as we know, is sweet. I didn’t love avocados before my arrest the way I love them now.”
• “Where I used to have moments of sadness, things have now shifted: I get flashes of positivity, while for most of the day I stay somewhere closer to neutral. With each passing year there’s more apathy, more helplessness. And I’m already in my fourth year behind bars.”
• “The most important thing is that I haven’t stopped believing, not for a day, not for a minute, that this whole story will end. And it will end before [my sentence] runs out. All of this will come to an end. You just have to wait it out. And it could happen at the most unexpected moment.”
• “I want to make the world better. I’ve thought a lot about what to do [after my release], and I would very much like to help prisoners, especially women, because women are held in much harder conditions. Now that I’ve been through this, I want to put it to good use [for someone].”