I stood up to Putin

It was summer of 2006 and Russia was hosting G8 Forum. The official part with heads of states and governments took place in a small resort village outside of Saint Petersburg. The “public consultations” part, so-called Civil G8 was taking place in Moscow. It was supposed to be more open to the civil society organisations. Back then I was employed by one of the major international environmental NGOs, working of its office in Moscow. Because of that position I got on the list of participants of the Civil G8.

On the day of the event a rumour spread that President Putin would be making his appearance at the forum. The security measures were heightened. All of us were thoroughly searched when entering the venue of the Civil G8. Our bags were opened and their contents examined and we had to pass through metal detectors. There was no chance of bringing in any props for a spontaneous protest action.

Still, creativity won the day. A plain black T-shirt with no logos, political messages (or as much as a cartoon character) on it underneath my formal white shirt didn’t raise any suspicions of the security. Five other attendees of the forums were wearing similar T-shirts underneath their suits. During the first break for coffee, when Putin’s appearance had already been officially confirmed, we sneaked into a bathroom and used rolls of toilet paper to put big white letters on our T-shirts. Put together, the letters read «НЕТ АЭС» (Russian for “NO NUKES”).

We got back into the plenary hall and took a row of seats (naturally, in the order of letters in our little message) close enough to the speakers’ podium, pretty much front and centre. Soon president Putin entered the stage and the chairperson of the forum left the floor to him. Not even five minutes into his speech Putin mentioned nuclear energy in favourable light. It was our cue.

We took off our jackets / blouses / shirts, exposing the white T-shirts with white letters underneath them. We climbed our chairs. We stood up tall and proud. Silence fell. All TV- and photo cameras turned in our direction. After a few second of confusion and hesitance the secret service agents made their way to our row and started pushing us off the chairs. I mentally prepared for some rough handling and possibly spending the rest of the day (week? month? even longer?) in prison.

“No, wait, let them stand”, the President interrupted. “Let the entire world see how uncivilised can the antinuclear protesters behave in our country”. So we climbed back and stood for the entire duration of Putin’s speech, some twenty minutes. All that time I was staring into the man’s face, trying to telepathically convey all the words and feelings that didn’t fit on our six T-shirts.

The rest of the event was pretty anticlimactic. Putin left, we sat down. We were followed by the secret service agents for the rest of that day (outside of the forum too). My parents, relatives and friends called me and asked if it really was me on the news. The second question invariably was: “Are you in jail now?”.

I still managed to get arrested, two weeks later, in Saint Petersburg. But that’s a story for another day…