At the end of February 2023, 16-year-old gymnasium student Yegor Balazeikin smashed a Molotov cocktail against the wall of a military recruitment office in the Leningrad region. This is how the teenager decided to express his protest.
In the summer of 2022, Egor’s uncle died in Ukraine, who had gone on a special operation as a volunteer. After that, the young man became a convinced opponent of the SVO. The protest did not go unnoticed – Yegor was detained and taken into custody.
According to the investigation, Balazeikin tried to set fire at night to the military enlistment offices in St. Petersburg and Kirovsk, although nothing even ignited anywhere, and no property damage was established. In the course of the investigation, the charges against the gymnasium student were toughened: at first the article on arson was imputed, but then he was charged with attempted terrorist act. He himself denies that he intended to do anything serious.
In November 2023, the 1st Western District Military Court sentenced Balazeikin to six years in prison. At the same time, the trio of judges ignored the fact that the teenager has autoimmune hepatitis, the second stage of liver fibrosis, and ulcers in the intestines. Despite the diseases confirmed by doctors, the appeal instance refused to commute the sentence.
Now Yegor is in an Arkhangelsk educational colony. As his relatives reported in early August, he is under pressure. ‘Some employees of the colony in every possible way let Yegor understand that he is a terrorist, provoke him to talk about military actions, tell him about NATO and Bandera and do other nasty things,’ said representatives of the support group.
Balazeikin’s stage was not easy either. In the transit pre-trial detention centre in Vologda, where he had a long stopover, he was placed with other prisoners in a basement room. There the former Wagnerite threatened to kill a gymnasium student. Immediately after the stage Balazeikin was left without vital medication. In the conditions of imprisonment, his health deteriorated significantly. The staff of the Vologda pre-trial detention centre took away the entire six-month supply of medicines and did not send them further down the stage.
In mid-August we wrote a letter to Yegor and only now we have received a reply. He reluctantly recalls the ‘medieval’ stage and all the horrors he experienced during that time. He can’t tell us much in the letter – it’s censored. He looks at what is happening in a very mature way. Yegor wrote very precisely why it is necessary to write letters to political prisoners: ‘If it gets hard for me, I go to you – to letters, to people. I hold on and grow strong together with you.
Balazeikin Egor Danielevich Balazeikin, born in 2006.
- FKU Arkhangelsk VKU of the Arkhangelsk Region PFRES of Russia
– I would be happy to participate in the ‘Letters from the Bunkhouse’ column. If it is of interest and of any value to anyone… Stage. What can I say here? Honestly, I don’t want to dwell on this medievalism. The whole point of it as a stage is today’s Middle Ages. What were the difficulties? The usual ones. There was a fierce stuffiness from Peter to Vologda. Especially when the train stood at stations. The windows in the carriages were peculiar, because of the internal grilles they could not be opened, there was a strange story with the fans, again, nothing worked until the train moved. It wasn’t easy at all. I didn’t bother the staff in any way, realising it wasn’t up to them. I simply undressed, taking off everything possible (from the point of view of a cultured person), and lay down on the shelf.
The train started, the smell of sweat, dirt, some food, and all this with a touch of smoke (superminds still thought of smoking, dying of heat and expressing their discontent with an ordinary sentry) spread through the carriage along with the stuffiness.
Of course, everyone started to brew Doshirak and add tinned food to it.What else?Unsanitary, filthy, insolent rats (it was the insolence of behaviour, not their very presence that surprised me) in the Vologda pre-trial detention centre.Almost a week of living literally without a functioning toilet and sink.In general, now I just had a wonderful sense of how civilised SIZO-5 was.On the other hand, I never said otherwise.Yes, we had a lot of savagery there (real criminals are imprisoned in such places, you have to make allowances for that), but we always managed to get along with everyday life and natural fundamental needs.There were no problems at all.
Colony. A few words about first impressions. An absolute contrast to the transit in Vologda. I was met by cleanliness, calmness and order. There are a lot of rules, some of which are absolutely justified, others – not. The former, however, are still the majority. There are certain moments that are incredibly tense and are rather a reflection of everything that is happening in Russia now. I won’t talk about it now. I’ll see further, I’ll see, I’ll sort it out, so I won’t be wrong and I won’t be unsubstantiated.
So, how my day goes. Excluding personal hygiene and time to put myself in order to more or less tidy. And this is quite a lot, because you wash the robe yourself, clean your shoes yourself, for the badge you have to run a lot and often, so that after washing it was readable. Thanks for the fact that I learnt to sew a little (imagine, I couldn’t just sew a breastplate).
Now I’m able to hem my trousers too. I darned my socks today. This may seem like an incredibly boring domestic routine, but the fact is that it is not the strongest who survive, but the fittest who survive. And so what I learn in all this time will be my asset.
I’m going to put it into myself. Whether it is conditional sewing, sewing, repairing clothes, or in IR I will learn to cook (in terms of welding, not in terms of cooking). But even learning to cook or improving that skill. It’s unlikely that the canteen is doing something extraordinary that I don’t know how to do. This is already a big plus compared to the option of not learning anything, so I ask for a job all the time, but in response – complete ignoring.
The first thing to do is to exercise. Yesterday, for example, I ran 15 kilometres and did five sets of pull-ups and push-ups on the uneven bars, and the day before I had some exercise with iron. Then books. Now I am finishing reading ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by Ernest Hemingway, and after that I think I will read ‘The Green Hills of Africa’. From the last thing I read, I can single out the book ‘Heart Compass’ by American neurosurgeon James Doty. He wrote about his lifelong quest to find the connection between the brain and the human heart. And on a scientific level. Very interesting work, teaches you a lot of things. Including to open the heart – there is a lot of attention to this phenomenon. In my small library Balzac still lies with Brodsky. I have started to read the latter, but, honestly, it is difficult to read. The rest of the time I pay attention to the letters I receive.
Yegor Balazeikin in court. Photo: Aleksei Dushutin / Novaya Gazeta
How was I received in the colony? Well, it varies from person to person. You can’t hide from the human factor. There is rottenness, and there are those who were a huge surprise to me, the noble ones. Seriously, there are ‘noble souls’ here. They are not in their environment, they would be taught something decent, help them – they will be decent people, personalities, citizens. Not all of them, of course. Some seem utterly hopeless. James Doty wrote that you need to see yourself in people, then you will begin to understand them, respectively, you will be tolerant. In the end I fail with the first one: I can’t see myself in many people, no matter how hard I try. Many things are very sad. But then again, there is always light, in the darkness you rejoice in it much more often.
Conversations and relationships are also incredibly difficult. I cling to the people I get to feel human and personal with.
I’ll name one person. His name is Danya. Let almost no one realise what kind of person he is. I say thank you to him today. You are a human being. I want everyone who reads this to say the same.
People write to me all the time. A lot and a lot of great guys at that. Unique people… sometimes girls of 16-18 years old write to me, but also adults, solid, experienced, grandfathers, labourers, doctors, surgeons, housewives, students, politicians. I am very grateful to all of them and I try to answer them as much as I can. They write about various things that they consider important. About themselves, about books, about different countries and cities, about history, about their pets, about music, about their thoughts and experiences.
Of course, I feel inexpressible support. If I am having a hard time, I go to you – to letters, to people. I hold on and grow strong together with you. You know, I don’t regret anything. Not at all. I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I think it was stupid, childish and, to a certain extent, pointless. But it’s what I did. An act that says I’m against the NWO, against all of this…..
Source: novayagazeta.ru/
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