March 16, 2025

Fleeting Freedom


Fleeting Freedom
There and back again... The Russian Life files

Vladislav Postnikov's 14-day jail sentence was set to end on March 14. However, shortly after he tasted freedom, he was arrested once again.

On March 1, Postnikov, who is the editor-in-chief of a local web newspaper in Yekaterinburg, was initially detained under charges of distributing "extremist symbols." The court cited a pair of Telegram posts. In one, Postnikov poses with a member of Alexey Navalny's team, who wears a jacket with a red exclamation point on a white background, a symbol of Navalny's anticorruption organization. The posts were published in 2020 and 2022.

When Postnikov was released on March 14, however, he was soon back in jail for the second time in a month. Authorities cited another Telegram post, this one from 2021, in which Postnikov discussed fake videos attributed to Navalny. It also included the exclamation point symbol.

Postnikov reportedly suspects that the authorities arrested him because he was due to deliver a lecture on Ural identity the same day.

Posstnikov's ordeal matches reports from elsewhere in Russia, as Moscow cracks down on dissent amid the ongoing full-scale war in Ukraine. His newspaper, Vechernie Vedemosti, was fined repeatedly in 2022 and 2023 for covering anti-war protests

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The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
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