The best-known dissident of Yekaterinburg, former mayor and to this day probably the most popular citizen of the most important Russian industrial city, Yevgeny Roisman, welcomes us with a clear statement on his blue T-shirt: "Dark times do not last forever" (Tjomnye wremena ne nawsegda), is written on the well-trained chest of the 58-year-old writer, cultural historian, entrepreneur, whom, as he explains, circumstances have forced him to become a politician.

Kerstin Holm

Editor in the features section.

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    Roisman, who often appears on the liberal radio station Echo Moskwy, runs a YouTube channel and uses his charity fund and connections to help people in emergency situations, was sent to jail for nine days last month for taking part in solidarity rallies for Alexej Navalnyj. He was released after 24 hours, apparently to avoid a local wave of solidarity for him. In detention, however, he was imprisoned with other committed and completely innocent citizens, reports Roisman, including those whom he had once persuaded during lectures in schools to stay in the country in order to help improve conditions. Therefore he would have to speak differently today, says the patriot, who is hurt that the young and active are leaving their homeand who recommends university graduates to emigrate while they still can.

    Sweatshirt with the inscription "Freedom for Navalnyj"

    In Yekaterinburg there is a free spirit compared to other parts of the country.

    Also thanks to the Yeltsin Center, dedicated to Russia's first president, which is currently showing a historical exhibition on the Second World War with documents showing that Stalin left liberated Soviet prisoners of war to the State Security Service NKVD for use as they saw fit, also for suicide missions, and one Look at Andrei Sakharov, who would have turned 100 last month.

    The physicist and human rights activist warned in the late Soviet era of a civilizational decline as a result of consumer selfishness, one learns there, and called for a decentralization of power for Russia, because otherwise oppression and a crisis of confidence would be inevitable.

    The Yeltsin Center also recently hosted the “Words and Music of Freedom” forum, at which star liberal intellectuals, especially from Moscow, discussed with a student audience. He feared that this could have taken place for the last time, admits Roisman, who at the same time emphasizes that emigration is in principle out of the question for him. He will continue to try to slow down the slide of his country into a new "Third Reich", as it is particularly evident in dealing with dissidents.

    In “Words and Music of Freedom”, the publicist Nikolai Swanidze is asked by a young woman how she should deal with state propaganda, for example whether the medieval Prince Alexander Newski, who fought against Swedes and Germans but remained loyal to the Tatar khan, was strategic Foresight proved, as the official ideology claims. Svanidze doubts this, but explains to the questioner that the stabilization of Tatar rule at the time had a long-term impact on the administrative system in Russia. In view of the upcoming Duma elections, the political scientist Jekaterina Schulman warns that many election observers should be set up, especially in the cities. When the former Navalnyj chief of staff in Yekaterinburg, Alexei Gresko, who was in prison at the same time as Roisman, suggests thatSchulman agrees that the eligibility criterion of a candidate is to make his advocacy for the reintroduction of direct mayoral elections.

    Gresko, who had to serve thirty days in prison and had to completely change his life, nevertheless appeared at the forum wearing a sweatshirt with the inscription "Freedom for Navalnyj". His former employees are in wages and salaries, he reports. The family man, who speaks good German, looks good. He is convinced that the Putin system has no future prospects; it will collapse at some point. However, this system is extremely adaptive, so activists have recently been arrested not during but after demonstrations in order to avoid ugly images. And, according to Gresko, the West does not find an answer to his consistent ignoring of international treaties or the ruling of the European Human Rights Court demanding that Navalnyj be released.