No one said it outright, when the authorities came for the house search and took the lawyer Ivan Pavlov's document.
But they left a certain object there on the desk: his international passport.
- They had left the passport demonstratively on the table and in this way they pushed me to the international airport, he himself tells SVT.
He went to the airport with a one-way ticket to neighboring Georgia's capital Tbilisi.
He has said that the police shadowed him all the way to the plane.
Accused of treason
Pavlov is one of Russia's most well-known lawyers for activists, journalists and others who end up in the hands of the Russian authorities.
Earlier this year, he defended the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny's organization, before it was branded an extremist, but it was in the case of a journalist accused of treason that he himself became a criminal suspect.
When we meet in his home, he does not yet know that only a few days later he will be accused of treason in Russia, something he himself said he hoped was "a mistake".
He does not know if he will be able to return.
- I do not plan very far ahead, I would say at most a year, says Pavlov.
Depressing atmosphere
Georgia has many benefits for the growing number of Russians seeking refuge here.
A pleasant climate, a high degree of Russian language, simple visa rules, low cost of living - and very bad relations with Russia.
Maria Kuznetsova from the blacklisted Open Russia movement describes that she came here this spring for fear of political retaliation.
- Yes, that was it.
Moscow has a very depressing atmosphere.
They are monitored and people are arrested in the subway, she says.
"Foreign agents"
The Russian opposition is in practice a very small threat to the government of President Vladimir Putin.
However, Russian authorities consider many of them to be enemies or suspected criminals and many have been branded as "foreign agents".
The people SVT talks to agree that Russia is actively welcoming critics out of the country, but the question is how long Georgia will welcome them.
- We will see - right now we are here because it is safe, says Nikolaj Levsjits, political activist who left three years ago and now helps Russians in Georgia.