‘It was the first election where I could vote — and didn’t know the result in advance.’ Meet Russian-born Berlin politician Elizaveta Kapinos.

Voting in elections for Berlin’s House of Representatives (the city parliament) and district councils ended on September 20. The vote decided who will govern Germany’s capital for the next five years. Among the winners was Elizaveta Kapinos, a Russian woman who moved to Germany in 2020. She was ninth on the Greens’ party list in Tempelhof-Schöneberg, where the party won 14 district council seats. Meduza spoke with Kapinos about her childhood in Kamchatka, her political career in Berlin, and working with Alternative for Germany (AfD).

‘Berliners aren’t as optimistic about the future anymore’

— Congratulations on winning a seat! How do you feel?

— Thank you. I’m feeling a lot of things right now. On the one hand, an intense election campaign is over, and I feel like I can relax. On the other, everything is just beginning. The joy of winning outweighs my thoughts about the work ahead, though I know it’s only beginning, but I can still take a little time to rest.

— Were you surprised by the election results and how the Greens did?

— We were following the [pre-election] polls, but the Left Party did better than we expected. Congratulations to them on their victory — and especially to their candidate for mayor, Elif [Eralp]. They ran an excellent campaign. Of course, we [the Greens] wanted a result like that, too. But I think we did really well, despite the growing popularity of AfD and similar parties. A full 15% of Berliners voted for us.

In Tempelhof-Schöneberg, where I ran for the district council, we received the most votes and won 14 seats. For the past five years, the district has been headed by someone from our party. So the Greens’ election result shows that people in our district were happy with what we were doing and want us to continue.

— You were born in Kamchatka, and now you’re about to represent residents of Berlin’s Tempelhof-Schöneberg district. That’s quite an unusual journey. What do you remember about your childhood?

— It really is a long way to Berlin. I think of myself as a Kamchatka native first, and I have very warm memories of it. I was born in a small town, then moved to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, where I lived until I was 15. Growing up somewhere with an ocean and volcanoes had a big influence on me. Kamchatka has a special energy that gives those of us born there a boost. Of course, I have childhood memories that other children from Russia don’t. For example, my friends and I would talk about flying “to the mainland” — that’s what people in Kamchatka call the rest of Russia. I had classmates who had never left the peninsula because the only way to leave is by plane. It makes you feel like you live in a separate, magical land.

One of the things I miss in Berlin now is snow. Kamchatka isn’t as cold as many people think, but because we were close to the ocean, we got enormous amounts of snow. I remember sometimes not being able to leave for school — so much snow had fallen overnight that we had to wait for someone to clear the snow from outside the door.

— How did you end up in Berlin?

— First, I moved to Moscow to study. When I finished school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I was interested in subjects that brought together society, languages, and history. I enrolled in the international relations program at the Higher School of Economics because Kamchatka didn’t have any suitable programs at the time.

I first came to Berlin on an exchange in 2018 because I was studying German at university. On that very first visit, I fell in love with the city and decided this was where I wanted to live. After graduating, I enrolled in a master’s program in political science at the Free University of Berlin, and I stayed.

— What made you fall in love with the city?

— Berlin is unlike other German cities. That’s probably why I like it. I first came here in September: people were still sitting in parks, rainbow flags hung from balconies, and there was graffiti supporting refugees on the walls. It was paradise for a student with progressive views. I also found myself in a lively student community — students at our university were constantly organizing protests, performances, fairs, and concerts, and I got swept up in it.

Hi, I’m Katya.

I’ve been running Meduza’s crowdfunding since 2021. Today, supporting Meduza is a crime in Russia. You can be sent to prison just for donating. We’re still able to do our work thanks to thousands of our Russian readers who now live abroad. But even they’re no longer safe. 

Imagine you’ve left Russia, but then your mom becomes seriously ill. It could be your last chance to see her, so of course you go home. At the border, you’re interrogated. Officers hack into your phone and search for any trace that you’ve donated to Meduza.

The Kremlin is counting on that fear, and it’s working. People are afraid to donate. I’m afraid for our supporters, because any one of them could end up in prison. And I’m afraid for Meduza. Without crowdfunding, we simply can’t continue. So if you live outside Russia and don’t have to worry that donating to Meduza could keep you from going home to your family, I’m asking for your help. Please support our work.

— It’s been eight years since your first visit. How has Berlin changed in that time?

— It’s not just the city that’s changed — I have, too. I’m no longer a student who only sees the good in everything around her. Moving to another country has its phases: after the initial overwhelming joy comes a difficult period, and then things level out — your feelings about the city settle down, and you become more objective. I don’t feel the same euphoria about Berlin anymore, but I still love it very much. Berlin is still the open, progressive city it was before. But people here are more afraid of the future now than they were eight years ago.

There have been a lot of crises over those years that have changed the capital and the way people live. The cost of living in Berlin has risen noticeably, and that has a big effect on its residents. Unlike other capitals, Berlin isn’t the richest city in its country. A lot of artists, dancers, people in theater, and nonprofit workers live here. Their work doesn’t pay very well, but it shapes the city’s character.

You can see the price increases even with döner kebabs. When I first arrived, a döner cost €3–€3.50; now it’s €7–€7.50. Everything is getting more expensive, including rent. A lot of people say Berlin has gotten dirtier over the years. I don’t think so — there was always trash in the city. I don’t want to get pessimistic and say that “everything used to be better.” But Berliners aren’t as optimistic about the future anymore — people have a lot of fears and worries now.

— How do those worries affect the direction the city is taking? And who its residents vote for?

— The election results show that most Berliners vote for progressive policies, despite all the crises. A lot of parties on the right appeal to nostalgia — they talk about how bad everything has gotten and how to go back to the past. They’re always against something — curbside barriers, for example, or bike lanes — and I’m not sure what kind of future they’re actually proposing. By contrast, I like that the progressive parties that together won a majority [in the state election] offer a concrete vision of the future. And I’m glad Berliners want to move in that direction, so there’s definitely hope. We live in a world of multiple, overlapping crises. It’s easy to feel like you’re at the mercy of events. And the best way to fight that feeling is to take action yourself and see the effect of what you do. That’s why I decided to become a district council member.

— Tell me more about that. When and why did you decide to go into politics? Did you want to do it when you lived in Russia?

— For a long time when I lived in Russia, politics seemed like a closed world that you couldn’t just walk into. I didn’t grow up thinking I’d become a politician. But I did get actively involved in Russian politics as a student through women’s rights activism — that was what the first rally I ever attended, in Sokolniki Park, was about.

When I moved to Germany, I started following local politics closely. But it didn’t occur to me that I could hold elected office here. Partly because, in Russia, I simply didn’t know anyone who had become a politician or run for office. I remember very clearly the moment [in November 2024] when I decided to join a party. I was on a work trip and went for a beer with colleagues after a long event. People in the pub looked worried — [former German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz was about to give a speech. We pulled up a livestream on a phone, and Scholz announced that the coalition was breaking up.

My colleagues and I started discussing what was happening, and I realized Germany was heading in a direction I didn’t want. Something clicked: I wanted to help shape events myself through the party system, even if my contribution was small. That day, I decided to join a party.

— Why did you choose the Greens? Did you consider other parties?

— There were parties I definitely didn’t like: AfD, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and the Christian Social Union (CSU) — I don’t share their views. Among the remaining parties, the Greens stood out for several reasons.

First, they had the clearest idea of where they wanted to go. I liked being able to work toward an inspiring vision of the future rather than just complain about how bad everything was. Second, protecting the climate matters to me. We can spend a long time discussing tax rates or whether to take housing away from companies and redistribute it to residents. But if we lose our planet, none of those conversations will matter.

The Greens also have a great approach to how climate change affects people. The party recognizes that climate change hits people with low incomes, people in poor health, and older people hardest. That matters to me, too.

Third, it was important to me that the Greens had always supported Ukraine. The Left Party [Die Linke] has historically had a complicated position on this issue because of its overall approach to international relations.

— How does joining a party work in Germany? Is it difficult?

— It turned out to be easier than I thought. First, you can attend any Greens event even if you aren’t a party member. When I found that out, I went to a party meeting to select candidates for the Bundestag [Germany’s federal parliament].

I saw the candidates, listened to their speeches, and stayed until the results were announced — it was all very interesting. There was a nice atmosphere — people were polite and relaxed. They’d set up a potluck buffet, and everyone had brought something: some people made salads, others baked pastries. The organizers had also set aside a space where you could leave your children. For example, if a mother with three children comes to vote, she can leave them with a babysitter during the event.

When I saw all that, I thought, “Great! I want to be part of this, too.” Then I just filled out an application online and paid the membership dues. With the Greens, your dues are proportional to your salary — at least 1% of your after-tax pay, and you can pay more if you want. But nobody asks you for proof of income — you enter how much you earn on the form yourself.

The main thing is that you can join the party without German citizenship. A lot of people in my district branch don’t have a German passport, and I joined before I got mine in spring 2025. By law, only German citizens can vote to select candidates within a party. But the Greens get around that restriction: first, all party members vote, including those without citizenship, and then there’s a final vote among members who are citizens — they “confirm” the results of the first vote.

— How important is the Greens’ support for migrants to you? You didn’t mention it when you listed your reasons for joining the party.

— When I joined, I didn’t yet know how important this issue was to the Greens. We should work on our public image so that people outside the party understand that.

The Greens want to give people who don’t have a voice in politics a chance to be heard. That’s why the party has one of the highest proportions of members who were born outside Germany or have at least one parent born in another country — what’s known as a Migrationshintergrund, or migration background. I feel very willkommen — welcome, in the literal sense of the word. It’s as though the party is actually saying “Welcome!” to you, even if you don’t have a German passport.

The Greens have a lot of elected representatives at different levels who aren’t native Germans, and it’s also the only party with more women than men in its Bundestag delegation. The party doesn’t just want to give underrepresented groups a voice in politics — it has real ways to make that happen. And I’m living proof.

‘It’s easier to talk to me about your problems than to your average Herr Müller’

— Why did you decide to run in this year’s election?

— During the pandemic, when I had a lot of free time, I came across a program called Diversify online. It aims to help people who are underrepresented in German politics gain political experience. I was accepted into the program and invited to choose a mentor from any party. I approached Marianne Burkert-Eulitz, a Greens member of Berlin’s city parliament, and she agreed. There was no formal structure to the “mentoring” — we just met in cafés and talked about different things. Marianne kept encouraging me to get involved in politics: she invited me to events, introduced me to people, and explained how the party worked. Thanks to her, I stopped thinking politics was only for Germans and decided to run for office. It was Marianne who helped me with the speech I gave at our district’s internal party election.

The party was very supportive, and [after the internal party election] a lot of people told me how glad they were that someone whose first language isn’t German and whose surname isn’t German wanted to represent the Greens. A lot of people in Berlin don’t have German citizenship — around 25%. And first-generation migrants — people who moved to the country themselves — are very poorly represented in Germany’s government institutions.

— You ran in Tempelhof-Schöneberg. What kind of district is it? How long have you lived there?

— I’ve lived in Tempelhof-Schöneberg since I first came to Berlin. So, given how much of my life I’ve spent here, I consider myself a local. Our district is one of Berlin’s largest, with the population of a small city. It’s very diverse and stretches south from central Berlin. The central part of the district, Schöneberg, is known for its hip bars and restaurants. Nollendorfkiez is a neighborhood famous for its queer venues and rich queer culture. There’s also Kurfürstenstraße, where there are problems with drug addiction and prostitution.

I live in Tempelhof, which strikes a nice balance: it isn’t as gentrified as many other neighborhoods, and it has architecture from every period. There are the famous older apartment buildings known as Altbau, Nazi-era architecture, and West German prefabricated apartment blocks. South of Tempelhof are houses with gardens, where [well-off] families with cars live.

All kinds of Berliners live in Tempelhof-Schöneberg. Working in politics in a district like that isn’t easy — it’s hard to appeal to everyone. But you have to look at residents’ different interests and ways of life and try to take everyone into account.

— If I understand correctly, you didn’t have a platform of your own. But the Greens have a platform for each district, which you’ll be putting into practice. Which parts of it matter most to you?

— I wouldn’t say I don’t have my own agenda. Of course, I’ll be implementing the Greens’ platform, but there are areas that interest me most.

Women’s rights and the rights of vulnerable groups — those who suffer most from rising prices in the city or from climate change — remain especially important to me. For example, I really want us to be able to increase the number of spaces in women’s shelters in our district. Those shelters previously had their funding cut.

During crises, violence against women and queer people increases. In Germany, and even in Berlin, it’s at historically high levels. Through my political work, I want to support the places and people who help survivors of violence.

I also care about buildings, because that’s the field I work in. A lot of buildings in our district aren’t energy-efficient, and that needs to change. We’ll see what we can do at the district level. It’s important to me that our district be environmentally friendly and accessible to everyone. Since we aren’t managing to slow climate change, we need to adapt. For example, we need to plant more trees, because being outside in sweltering heat without any trees is unbearable. This summer in Berlin was very hot — it was especially hard on older people and people with children. After all, women picking their children up from daycare often have to be outside in that heat.

— How did you prepare for the election?

— The main way we campaign is by talking to people on the street. We set up somewhere busy in the district, hand out flyers, tell people about the candidates, and just talk to them. Another way to reach voters is canvassing door to door. For this election, we canvassed 42,000 apartments. I can’t even imagine how many steps our party members took, considering how few elevators there are in Berlin. Personally, I canvassed 50 apartments an hour.

Another important part of the campaign is posters. If you’ve been to Berlin before any election, you’ll have noticed that every pole in the city is covered with posters from several parties. This year, I put up posters myself — it’s a real acrobatic feat: you have to climb a tall ladder and carefully thread special cords through the poster to attach it to the pole. You can only start putting up posters at noon on Sunday [August 2]. I think Berliners find it funny to see supporters of different parties pouring out from every direction at midday and competing to see who can claim a lamppost first.

As the election gets closer, the schedule gets busier. My day often went like this: I’d get up at seven in the morning, go hand out flyers, then head to work. After work, I’d canvass apartments, then go to bed and do it all again the next day. But it’s great — you meet a lot of people in the district who are really interested and want to make an informed choice.

— How did Germans feel about you essentially asking them to vote for a candidate from Russia?

— I didn’t get any negative comments about that. People are pretty neutral about it [being from Russia] these days. Some could hear from the way I spoke that German wasn’t my first language and asked me about my background. A lot of people admired my courage — they were happy to see someone from outside Germany getting involved in politics.

— You moved to Germany as an adult. How does that affect the problems you notice in the city?

— On some issues, we [migrants] have a fresh perspective because we have something to compare Germany with. Sometimes the comparison favors Germany, sometimes it doesn’t. I think migrants sometimes notice things Germans don’t see because they’re used to them. For example, public spaces here aren’t as well lit. My friends from Moscow often told me they sometimes felt unsafe at night in Berlin. But the poor lighting is often because of rules to protect birds and animals, which the Moscow authorities didn’t worry about much.

Migrants also have expertise in areas Germans have no experience with. For example, Germans don’t go to immigration offices, and a lot of people think those offices have been so bad precisely because native-born Germans don’t use them. If they did, they’d raise hell right away. Language courses, getting qualifications recognized, and so on — Germans don’t face these problems, so the perspectives of people with immigrant backgrounds matter here. People often don’t talk about problems in these areas because they don’t know how to seek help or whom to contact.

Even though I won’t be able to influence the immigration authority directly, I hope somebody will find it easier to talk to me about their problems than to your average Herr Müller.

— What powers do district council members actually have?

— Unlike the city parliament, district councils don’t pass laws. They can make demands of the district administration, propose improvements, and oversee its work. Council members can request information from the administration, oversee its work, review budgets, and help set the district’s priorities.

Berlin has a problem: a lot of things fall under both city and district authority. Take a road or a school, for example — authority over it is shared by the city and the district. That often leads to responsibility being passed back and forth [between the city parliament and the district council], because nobody knows exactly whose job it is.

Districts definitely have responsibility for local transportation policy. The simplest example is a question like “Where will the new bike lane go?” But districts also decide where roads and parking spaces go and how they’re laid out. Revenue from parking goes into the district budget, not the budget for all of Berlin. The district is also responsible for the condition of buildings and can approve or reject construction plans, and so on.

— What will you do first in your new role?

— We’ll keep working on the issues our party’s previous council group left unfinished, because politics doesn’t stop when an election is over. One issue carried over from the previous council that matters to me is the plan to build a Jugendzentrum [a center for children and young people] in our district. For a long time, the center didn’t have a permanent building. A decision was finally made to build one, but a conflict arose between the organization responsible and local residents. Residents don’t like the prospect of having a center next door that hosts rock concerts for young people in the evenings.

I can understand residents who are worried about possible noise. At the same time, I think building the center is a very important project, because there are hardly any places left in the city where young people can spend time with their peers. I want to find a compromise so the center finally gets a space, and residents don’t feel the decision was made without their say.

— Turning to another difficult issue: proposals to develop Tempelhof Field in your district have drawn attention even from people who don’t live in Berlin. Where do you stand, and how can you influence the former airfield’s future?

— Let me explain the context first. After the airport closed, the Berlin authorities held a referendum [in 2014], and residents voted to leave the field as it was. In recent years, there’s been a lot of support for building on the field, including from the CDU. If not all of it, then at least “around the edges.” The Greens oppose those plans. That’s an unpopular position, including among Russian speakers, so it’s important to me to explain in detail why I think this way.

First, there’s the democratic argument: people decided in a referendum not to build on the field. It’s a unique space that, according to studies, serves as our city’s lungs.

Second, it’s simply a wonderful place: people rollerblade and cycle, and you can barbecue and garden there. The former airport building hosts concerts, operas, and circus festivals. An ecosystem of its own has developed there, with animals, insects, and plants.

At the same time, there’s none of the infrastructure needed for housing beneath the field — things like sewers or power lines. So building housing would mean digging up the field and installing all that infrastructure from scratch. That means the apartments wouldn’t be cheap. And really, there’s no way to build cheaply on the field — imagine how good the view from the window would be.

Developing Tempelhof Field won’t solve Berlin’s affordable housing problem, because that housing won’t be ready anytime soon, and it won’t be affordable. The district council also doesn’t have much influence over this situation. Although the field is in our district, Berlin’s city government decides whether it can be developed. All we can do is try to influence Berlin’s parliament through the district leadership and persuade its members to keep respecting the referendum results.

‘My German peers don’t realize that democracy is fragile’

— What did running for office give you? How did it change your sense of yourself and your relationship with the city?

— It gave me a sense of agency. I started to feel that I could make a difference, and the feeling of helplessness eased. Climate catastrophe, economic crisis, the rise of the right — all those things worry me. As right-wing parties become more popular in Germany, there’s more and more anti-migrant and even dehumanizing rhetoric. That’s partly why I decided to go into politics. As someone from Russia, I’d seen where those attitudes lead, and I was afraid something similar could happen in my new home. Maybe if I hadn’t won a district council seat, my answer would be less positive. But even the process itself — talking to people with different opinions, working with volunteers — is very inspiring and a wonderful antidote to hopelessness.

— AfD has been getting strong results across Germany — even your district council will have seven of its members. How do you see your future work together?

— It’s hard for me to imagine a situation where we’d vote the same way. I doubt we’ll agree on anything or work on anything together — that sounds like pure fantasy. But parliamentary work doesn’t depend on everyone agreeing. It depends on coalitions of several parties.

The distribution of votes means AfD will even be able to appoint a municipal official roughly equivalent to a minister — a Stadtrat — this year. That’s another challenge for us, and it’s important for us, the progressive parties and politicians on the left, to work together. If we’re divided by conflicts, we won’t be able to achieve our goals, and even more people will say, “Let’s vote for some party at the opposite end of the spectrum as a protest — maybe they’ll shake things up.”

That’s a very dangerous trend. A lot of people don’t realize they’re playing with fire. People who grew up under authoritarian regimes understand the danger better. Historically, authoritarian forces first come to power democratically, then dismantle the system piece by piece, and after that, you can’t remove them anymore. A lot of people say, “If AfD doesn’t do anything good, we’ll just elect another party next time.” As a Russian, I tell them, “Guys, in five years, you might not have that chance anymore.”

— Russia held its State Duma elections at the same time as Berlin’s elections. Were you following them? What do you think of the result?

— Of course I follow events in Russia — I care about what’s happening in the country. I also think what’s happening in Russia holds a lot of lessons for Germany and other European countries. I often tell my German friends, “While you still have the chance, do something — through government institutions, activism, demonstrations.” I’m afraid people my age who grew up in Germany don’t realize that democracy is fragile. They think, “The sky is blue, the grass is green, democracy exists and always will.” But when you look at Russia, you realize that isn’t true. Of course, the election result in Russia didn’t surprise me. I like to tell my German friends that the Berlin elections were the first ones where I could vote and didn’t know the result in advance. That’s a new experience for me.