The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

Maybe the most important thing that had happened to Masha since she became an activist was that she had fallen in love. Sergey was somewhere out there today, documenting the carnage. It went well into the night, when police continued to chase people down side streets. More than six hundred were detained, more than fifty hospitalized, though many more had been injured.⁶ The day never ended, in fact. Most people were released, and some continued to protest the following day, all over the center of town. Riot police detained people merely for wearing white ribbons. Groups of police in bulletproof vests and helmets chased groups who seemed merely to be strolling through the town, loaded them onto buses, took them to police stations, released them three hours later without booking, and started all over again. Nemtsov was detained while drinking coffee at a sidewalk cafe; riot police turned over tables in the process.⁷ Masha spent the day riding around on a kick scooter. She read the Constitution to riot police, got detained, gave interviews, got detained. Meanwhile, in the Kremlin, Putin was inaugurated for his official third presidential term.

masha was in love. The cat-and-mouse game with the police continued for another couple of weeks. For a few days, people even set up an Occupy-style camp (though without the tents, because that would be illegal), and then that was broken up. And Masha was still in love. She took Sasha to her mother-in-law, who had a dacha a couple of hours outside Moscow, and then she and Sergey went on their first trip together. He was photographing the European Cup, which was held in Ukraine and Poland that year. Masha liked Donetsk, the eastern Ukrainian city where a new stadium had been built for the tournament⁸ and the airport had been refurbished.⁹ The city looked like a glossy-magazine version of Europe. Masha had a seat in the fan zone. She had never imagined that she would find soccer mesmerizing, but she did. She told Sergey that she could physically feel the release of testosterone all around her. It was an awesome trip.

masha flew back from Poland on June 10, because she was scheduled to attend the summer session of the Moscow School for Political Studies, a gathering of like-minded journalists and social scientists held just outside the city. Masha's phone rang at eight-fifteen on June 11. It was Nemtsov's assistant.

"Everyone's apartment is being searched," she said. Police had come to Navalny's, Udaltsov's, Yashin's, and other activists' apartments. They had come to Nemtsov's, too, but he was out of town.— Masha had an excruciating hangover. She had told Aishat, the nanny, not to open the door if anyone rang the bell—even though Sasha was at his grandmother's dacha for the summer, Aishat, who had fled Baku in 1990, when her husband was killed in the pogroms there, always stayed the summer with her employer. Aishat was not picking up. Masha lay on the bed, waves of sleep and nausea floating over her.

Her phone rang again. She did not recognize the number.

"Hello, Maria Nikolaevna. This is Captain Timofei Vladimirovich Grachev from Head Investigative Directorate. You are suspected of inciting, organizing, and participating in a riot. A subpoena has been left at your place of residence, with Baku native Aishat." He pronounced the nanny's patronymic and last name: "Who appears to be residing there without proper registration."

"Go fuck yourself," said Masha, and hung up.

Aishat still was not answering. Masha lay on the bed some more, then sat up and called the investigator back.

"Look, I haven't seen any subpoena. I'll think about whether I want to talk to you after the weekend." It was the Monday of a long holiday weekend—the next workday was two days away.

It was past noon by the time Aishat picked up. She said she was very sorry: she knew she was not supposed to open the door, but the police were banging on it with something heavy and she thought they might break it down. She was very sorry, but she was quitting. Masha said she was very sorry too and would pay Aishat three months' severance.

Masha was most concerned that the police had found her stash of pot. As it turned out, they had not taken it. Nor had they taken any of a number of financial documents that would have been sufficient to slap together a case against her. What they did take: fifteen white ribbons, a bag of black round buttons with pink triangles—activists had started wearing them to signify their opposition to the proposed "propaganda of homosexuality" amendment—a copy of Nemtsov's Putin: An Accounting, and an old laptop where Masha stored Sasha's study aids and all the photographs she had taken of him since birth. They took printed photographs too: Masha's pregnancy, Masha's marriage, and every single photo of Tatiana that Masha had.