Super Belgorodian

Forwarded From Govorit NeMoskva

Super Belgorodian

In June 2022, Belgorod resident Ilya Kostyukov went out on his first solo protest. Not against the war and not for peace, but for trolleybuses. He stood in the city center with a sign: "There’s money for little tulips, but not for a trolleybus?"

After the second protest, an administrative case was drawn up against him. He managed to avoid a fine, but Ilya lost his job and was forced to drop out of college. That was the start of his activist biography, in which he went from defending city transport to helping political prisoners, conscripts, draftees, and military personnel.

Kostyukov lives in Belgorod, for which he feels, as he says, an "abnormal, inexplicable, and crazy" love. He has hardly ever left it and calls himself a "super Belgorodian." He still has no plans to leave, but each new day is becoming a test of endurance.

The fact that I still haven’t been jailed, I consider an achievement. But I started waking up every day with the thought that they’ll come down on me, Ilya admits. — When are they finally going to open a criminal case? How long can they keep dragging this out? Better to be locked up than to live in fear. Since 2022, all of this has been constantly bearing down on me, and the war keeps bearing down and bearing down too. My nerves are stretched to the absolute limit.

For several years, Ilya combined legal work with a cashier job at Dodo Pizza in order to make a living. Now he describes his income this way: "There’s enough for buckwheat." He is not prepared to take on knowingly hopeless cases and deceive people, and in his view that is the only way to earn good money practicing military law in present-day Russia.

The story of the Belgorod human rights defender who helps people fight back against military enlistment offices, lives in ожидание of a criminal case, and is planning to run for the State Duma to use his "last chance to say something" is in a publication by Pole zreniya.

nemoskvarecommends

Pole zreniya

Super Belgorodian - Pole zreniya

How a Belgorod human rights defender helps people fight back against military enlistment offices while himself living in ожидание of a criminal case and earning money at a pizzeria