Interview with Dasha from Otkrytoe Prostranstvo [Open Space]

Otkrytoe Prostranstvo (OP) is a place where anyone can do work or organize their own event for free. One condition: to be tolerant. We talked to Daria Soboleva, sociologist and OP on duty.

How did you get to where you are now? How did your work with foreign agents begin?

Well, they weren't, of course, foreign agents back then.

I graduated with a degree in sociology, specifically in the peculiarities of lobbying in Russia, from the Sociology Department of Moscow State University in 2001. After that I could not follow the independent media for about a year, because I understood that every news report was in someone's interests. That is, you look, and in the news this was lobbied by the oil workers, and this by the gas workers, and this by the military, and this by someone else.

Like a lot of people who went to work in their professions, I went to work in market research. I had two of my fellow students go straight into non-profit organizations.

For me the big shock at the time was Nord-Ost [850 were taken hostage in theater in 2002], and then Beslan [1100 were taken hostage in school in 2004]. I was working at MTS [mobile operator] at the time. I remember there was an order to shoot children: and they were shot to kill the terrorists. It was scary.

The second shock was when two days later, if I am not mistaken, Putin made an address to the nation. Honestly, that was the last time I believed in anything, because - I thought, here he is now repenting, but instead he banned the governor's election.

And for a couple of years I thought about where to go. I had two choices: either journalism or the human rights sector. I wasn't intimidated by a pay cut because with the knowledge I got at university you can't just sit still and pursue a career in business.

I went to Memorial, and there I wandered from project to project: both at the international Memorial, and at the Human Rights Center, worked in civil assistance for a year. I joined this project by chance - but I do not believe in chance.

What do you do here?

We do various things. When Sasha ( Sasha Krylenkova, the founder of the OP) came up with the idea of the OP ten years ago, there was no large enough venue in St. Petersburg, where you could meet on a permanent basis and for free - usually it was some kind of volunteer project, after all. Here in Moscow, we have developed a co-working room, a place for meetings and events.

The idea is that the OP is a place for meetings and psychological support for activists. For more than a year already a project of psychological help has been working, which is used not only by activists but also by human rights defenders - we are under stress all the time. Even before this event started, it was fun, too.

For Sasha and me, the liquidation of Memorial is a personal tragedy. Even though it's a legal liquidation, it looks like "permanent" at the moment. So we thought long and hard and decided to open, even though it might not be safe.

Have you had or do you have any fears right now in light of everything that's going on?

I calmed down two days after the Memorial's search. On Thursday (March 3) Katrin Nenasheva was arrested. On March 4, there was a search at Memorial; Sasha and I made the decision to close down, and on Saturday, the signed "fake news" law came into force. We closed our doors not because we were afraid - though I personally was panicking - but because we were also waiting to be searched. We were in shock from the war and could not assess the risks to ourselves and, more importantly, the risks to those who were coming. For two weeks we thought about it and decided to open up after all.

I made the decision not to erase the anti-war posts that I wrote on Facebook and Instagram - it was a terrible decision, I was scared shitless.

I don't expect a search at my place, but I've been wary for quite some time. As soon as they started harassing the Memorial (2016-17), you get used to the idea, even though it makes you very anxious. After the war started on February 24, I haven't been sleeping well - I don't know if it will go away if the hostilities end.

When all this happened, I realized that going out to demonstrations was useless: they pulled people out, put them in prison - it didn't help at all. And it's very frustrating that, if you believe the Levada Center and the VTsIOM research, some part of the people actually support what's going on.

I have decided for myself that I can help by continuing to work here as an on-duty person. I'll be the person to talk to, laugh with, and just hang out with - that's what support means for me. I have resources for that, and I'm willing to share that energy. The feedback is there - when we opened, there's hugs all the time, "It's good that you're open, and we have a place to come".

If they come here with a search, start arresting people, will you stay in Russia or will you leave temporarily?

The problem is that right now I don't want to leave. I really like the project and the people I work with. With all the horrors and scares that are going on, I like it here. I feel like I can give some help and come up with some projects. We are, strange as it sounds, planning something.

I don't have the feeling yet that it's going to be very bad. We'll have to watch. I don't think they have a repressive resource; and then, I don't see the point, because there are very few of us. Those who are actively against the war and against what's going on in principle, in the country 5-10%.

I wouldn't want to leave. If they come here with searches - it doesn't scare me. If they come and search me and threaten me with criminal charges, I will decide - I don't want to go to jail, I don't see the point in it.