August 31, 2023

Poisoned Russian Journalist: "I Want To Live"


Poisoned Russian Journalist: "I Want To Live"
Elena Kostychenko at a Berlin hospital. Elena Kostyuchenko, Instagram.

On August 25, German authorities announced an investigation into the alleged poisoning of former Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Kostyuchenko. The writer was investigating war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine when she was poisoned on a German train in 2022.

The 36-year-old began her journalistic career as the independent Novaya Gazeta's youngest intern, at just 17. The Yaroslavl native quickly realized the dangers of being a Russian journalist when her colleague and personal idol Anna Politkovskaya, who was covering the Chechen war, was murdered on President Vladimir Putin's birthday in 2008. While at the publication, she was the first journalist to write about Pussy Riot, reported on the Zhanaozen Massacre in Kazakhstan, and uncovered Russian soldiers' presence in Donbas in 2014.

Shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kostyuchenko crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border and headed to the frontline with the help of Ukrainians. While documenting war crimes committed by Russian troops, the journalist found out that Novaya Gazeta had ceased publication due to pressure from Roskomnadzor. She continued working independently and headed to Mariupol. The trip had to be cut short when her former colleagues and Ukrainian intelligence services warned her there was a plot to kill her there. She was subsequently evacuated from Ukraine.

Despite the fact that she wanted to go home, returning to Russia was no longer an option for Kostyuchenko. She is a lesbian and was arrested and beaten multiple times for her LGBT rights activism. So she moved to Berlin.

Kostyuchenko began working for Meduza and planning a new trip to Ukraine. She exchanged messages via Facebook Messenger with the Ukrainian Embassy to book a visa appointment. In her text "I want to live. This is why I'm writing this text," the activist said she knew it wasn't the safest method of communication but thought, "I wasn't in Russia, I was in Germany." She agreed to go to the Ukrainian consulate in Munich. During her stay, she visited a friend and dined at a restaurant.

A friend accompanied her to the train station and told her she "smelled bad." On the train back to Berlin, she began sweating profusely. The stink began resembling that of "rotten fruit." Then came a headache. When she arrived in Berlin, she became disoriented. She thought she had caught COVID-19, yet that was three weeks prior. Ten days later, she went to see a doctor. The doctors became concerned with the changes in her symptoms but couldn't find an illness. In December, a medic suspected she might have been poisoned. Then the police became involved.

Kostyuchenko has not recovered her health fully and had to leave Meduza. Both Natalya Arno, president of the U.S-based Free Russia Foundation, and journalist Irina Babloyan were poisoned in Prague and Tbilisi, respectively, not long after Kostyuchenko.

You Might Also Like

Flagpole Ripper
  • April 13, 2023

Flagpole Ripper

A man was arrested for tearing down a Russian flag at a police department.
Dangerous Dreams
  • December 23, 2022

Dangerous Dreams

Russians are being fined for their dreams, "likes," and "silent support."
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

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.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955