Sasha’s Birthday Letter

On my birthday, I usually remember the most incredible experiences of my life :) Each year, their number grows. Even though this year I’m celebrating my birthday behind bars, I still decided to remember the biggest and most tremendous things that have happened to me over 32 years. This year, I’ve chosen these:

1

Twice, I learned to walk again after two hip fractures that happened within a few months. Anyone who learned to walk again even once in their life knows how difficult it is.

2

I managed to go into remission during treatment of my bipolar affective disorder. From age 19 till 29, I put a lot of effort, time, and resources into trying to achieve a relative balance of my mental state. Because of the six-months stress of incarceration, I will have to take drugs again, but it’s not as hard as having bipolar treated for the first time and make all the progress I’ve made already.

3

A Book about Depression. A comic book I drew for my friends almost accidentally in order to explain my state—a comic book that unexpectedly went viral and resonated in the hearts of tens of thousands of people. Translated into three languages, published in hardcover and paperback, awaiting a reprint in a few months (thanks to my friends Alex Belozyorov and mental health activist Masha Pushkina). In an instant, this comic book made me “an artist well-known in St Petersburg” and a mental health activist, even though I never looked for that fame. It was esteemed by psychologists and psychiatrists; it helped many people understand their condition and make a step in the direction of caring for their mental health.

4

My work in a real anthropology field trip with the Pragmema project. I saw the wild beauty of the Arkhangelsk region, and filmed the most elderly locals of the Beloshchelye village tell their stories. Daily routine, history, rituals, folk rhymes, and songs! I saw an abandoned village. Filmed from a flying biplane. Walked with a guide through a deep forest where bears and other wild animals lived.

5

My work in journalism. I believe it to be a huge and socially important job, which in Russia is connected with big risks and dangers. I happened to film video pieces for Paperpaper.ru, a bit for TVRain, Novaya Gazeta, and RIA Novosti, and also sold some material to foreign and famous Russian journalists.

6

I graduated from St Petersburg State University summa cum laude. I got into the University as an adult already, after studying at the Theater Academy. I made it into the state-funded program but still had to work a lot while there. I also had to study well enough to get the academic excellence scholarship to pay off the time I spent on school. Smolny—the liberal arts and sciences department—was a wonderful adventure of my life. I am happy I still made it in time before the oxygen was cut for this free-choice program. Smolny was like Hogwarts. During the graduation ceremony, I cried tears of happiness, while standing there in my cap and gown. I had dreamed about it, and the road to that moment was terribly difficult: I almost quit school in my junior year because of depression.

7

Met the love of my life and spent almost six years with her. For a person who has multiple psychological traumas and a mental disorder, being in a relationship is a huge achievement, and when your second half also has a mental health condition, the existence of this relationship becomes an enormous feat for both of you. A lot of hardships have fallen on our life together: depressions, crises, extreme poverty, deaths of the closest relatives, and my sudden arrest. It’s been difficult, but we still are deeply in love, and find support and sustenance in each other. We dream of getting married when I get out. And we met each other online :)

8

Spent a night in a deep forest. I chose the spot from satellite pictures and made my way there basically from memory, because at that point in life I did not own a smartphone. I put up a tent on my own on the bank of a wild forest river. It was scary at night, but with the sunset I felt infinite peace and calm: as if the whole forest were my home.

9

Learned construction and power tools skills while working on my Gavanskaya Street art project. I completed renovations in an unfinished room: put drywall sheets on the ceiling with the help of my friends, plastered and painted everything, made a coffee table, installed an anchor bolt into the concrete to make a swing that can support up to 80 kg [177 lbs], finished the power outlets and switches, and connected the wiring to the power panel in the building. And there was light! Together with my girlfriend Sonya, I also made and hung a huge ceiling shelf which can hold my or her weight. During the whole renovation process, I lived in the same room where I worked, so the experience of the post-renovation cleaning was also interesting.

10

Took part in the restoration of the Knyaz-Vladimirsky Cathedral by the Sportivnaya metro station. Every time I pass by it I feel very proud to have contributed to its restoration. I took part in cleaning and sanding of the stucco molding above the entrance, and sanded one of the tall towers while standing on unsteady scaffolding… and even helped with painting a little.

11

Free Random Jam. I created a whole platform for free artistic expression. Because I believe that anyone can play music: regardless of gender, age, physical or mental disabilities, having a good ear, or sense of rhythm, or even minimal musical experience. Without exaggeration… anyone. And everything depends on how seriously they are listened to. To my events, I invited both professional concert musicians and those who were playing an instrument for the first time. It was a space free from toxic criticism or professional advice. A space where anyone could play anything in any way they wanted to without the risk of hearing, “Hey, not so loud, you’re not playing it right and aren’t hitting the notes at all.” A place where any woman could make it to the mixing desk and explore any electronic instrument on her own without hearing men shouting, “Don’t touch it, you’ll break it. I’ll do it myself!” Anyone could sing, tell, play, or read anything into an open mic, and be heard. Within the atmosphere of mutual respect, warmth, and acceptance, sooner or later, beautiful music was born. And it was a miracle, because there were no hierarchies among us.

There was no conductor or someone who’d tell you, “Come on everyone, let’s get playing in G-major quickly. Let’s all be quiet and listen to each other.” Everyone just found this common path to harmony on their own because they freely chose to. We jammed in all kinds of places, from private apartments to Griboedov night club; in the woods, on the gulf shore, in the Puppet Museum, in a library, at Rosa’s House of Culture, at the Ganesha Temple, at the assisted living apartment Perspectives for people with multiple mental and physical disorders (oh yes, I believe that absolutely anyone can play, and we played with the people staying in the apartment). I talked to the venues, brought dozens of instruments there (sometimes within a couple of days), lots of cables, a mixing desk, and some snacks to have with tea. I plugged everything in and waited for the invited guests. And played for about five to six hours, improvising with each and every one who wanted to join in, thoroughly recorded everything, then listened to the recording, mixed down a track, and shared it with the participants. I consider the Free Random Jam to be my main creative achievement.

12

My anti-war performance Detention in Jail. I never got a badge of honor as an activist. I did not engage in politics, did not organize protests, pickets, or even spectacular political performances. But here I am. A chance and fateful coincidence made me “a prisoner of consciousness” and one of the five “lucky ones” in St Petersburg who were criminally charged under the most ridiculous article on earth, which punishes people for their opinion and love of peace with a chance to be serve from five to ten years in prison. [Sasha and many others have been charged with article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the execution by the state organs of the Russian Federation of their legal powers.] The odds of ending up in this position were one in a million, but I’ve gotten used to big things happening to me already. For these past five months, every day of my life has been a choice: to plead guilty and receive “a special procedure”, getting home in the shortest time possible—or not to make a deal with my conscience and stay in jail, and maybe even serve prison time for my decency and stubbornness.

And my achievement is choosing the latter every day. It’s like crawling into a cage on the Red Square, or nailing yourself to the cobblestone—only my performance will never be stopped by the police or any other state organs. They are the ones financing and sponsoring my epic and scandalous incarceration :) And the crueler the repressions machine tries to grind me down, the bigger the effect, the public exposure, and the scale of my creative will that will emerge through this act, and the more successful my performance about peace and freedom of speech will be. It is a story about true love, betrayal, sympathetic citizens, and weak-spirited cogs in the system. So far, everything is going according to the plan: judges, investigators, wardens, and prosecutors obey my creative intention. Stay tuned! :)

13

Relaunch of my musical career. As a child and a young adult, I dreamed about becoming a musician the most. I experienced lots of failures on this path, even though I’ve been playing music since I was four and have plenty of experience: my musical projects fell apart for the most improbable reasons, I was rejected, people didn’t believe in me, other musicians asserted themselves at my expense by criticizing my music or my skills, saying my format wasn’t right, not giving me the minimal benefit of the doubt and not believing that I was able to at least set the instruments up myself. Also, my chance and loud fame as an artist, which I never looked for, got in the way of my trying to make a name for myself in music. I took it quite hard and for many years was afraid to perform and promote my music. But at 27, I decided that despite all the failures I encountered on this path, I’ll become a musical artist anyway. I rehearsed and practiced for many hours a day, learned a dozen new instruments and programs. My projects kept crumbling, but I organized events and continued to compose and record my songs and music, ignoring the toxic criticism, plain rudeness, and advice. Only when I would come with a load of instruments, set everything up myself, figured out what to do with an unfamiliar mixing desk and pre-amp, and improvised for hours on without any prepared material or memorized parts, musicians around would show glimpses of respect that some people get for free. I, on the other hand, broke a wall with my head, and I’m proud of it. A year ago, I managed to debut on the experimental electronic stage of the Sisto Festival, and I started to get gigs; after almost 20 years of failures and misunderstanding, my musical career was finally taking off, but I got arrested in April, and for six months already I’ve been in a place where ABSOLUTELY ALL musical instruments and electronic devices are forbidden (including headphones, pickups, cables…) You can’t own even an ocarina, or a mouth harp, or a harmonica :( So the main thing I do in my life has again been put on hold now, and I’m losing precious hours of practice and set performance dates. Nonetheless, I’m happy with what I’ve been able to achieve before 32, and I hope that someday in my life I’ll get to the point where I can work on this and nothing else.

September 13, 2022

Translated from Russian

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