In court, Anatoly Berezikov repeated that he was afraid of “disappearing”. Two weeks later, on June 14, 2023, he was found dead in his prison in Rostov-on-Don, in southwestern Russia.
Anatoly Berezikov is, officially, the first Russian opponent of the conflict in Ukraine to die in detention since the offensive of February 24, 2022. The circumstances of his death are obscure. Reason given by the authorities: suicide.
But his supporters, themselves persecuted by the security services, reject this version. They claim that he suffered torture, recurrent in the Russian justice system, which may have led to his death.
“People can be suppressed without trial or investigation. They can abduct you, imprison you, search you, intimidate you, torture you and kill you,” Tatiana Sporycheva, a human rights activist who helped Anatoly Berezikov, told AFP.
In Rostov-on-Don, this 40-year-old man with a beard and long blond hair had a reputation as a cheerful nonconformist, passionate about experimental music and firmly anti-Putin.
Like him, thousands of anonymous people who expressed their opposition to the conflict suffered in Russia the repression of power made of threats, violence, thousands of fines and prison sentences.
Born in 1983 in Biïnsk, in the Siberian region of Altai, Anatoli Berezikov settled in the 2010s in Rostov-on-Don, where he frequents the alternative cultural scene.
“He worked as a tattoo artist and piercer, made tattoo machines and sold them,” said a friend, without giving her name.
Using his talent for electronics, he also builds analog synthesizers for “noise music” experiments.
“He was a technician who fell from the sky,” said Valentin Sokhorev, 52, a musician friend.
Berezikov hunts everywhere for parts for his crafts. In a photo from 2019, he is seen in shorts, shirtless, on a snowy flea market. Her usual outfit, winter and summer. In Rostov, he travels by bicycle, always shirtless.
At the same time, he campaigns and manifests for the anti-corruption movement of Alexeï Navalny, banned in 2021.
Logically, he opposes the attack on Ukraine. He claimed to have posted posters of the Ukrainian project “I want to live”, which helps Russian soldiers to become prisoners on the front.
On May 11, 2023, the police arrested him. He successively served three short prison terms for alleged offences, a technique frequently used against opponents before the launch of serious legal proceedings.
During his detention, according to his lawyers, he was beaten and tortured with electric shocks.
Activist Tatiana Sporycheva sees him in court on May 31. She shoots a video showing him exhausted. “He had lost a lot of weight,” she notes: “He kept saying They’re going to take me away, I’m going to disappear and no one will find me.”
On June 14, Anatoly Berezikov died in custody, officially after hanging himself in his cell. But no medical expertise has been made public.
An investigation has been opened into potential abuse that led to “suicide”. But activist Tatiana Sporycheva and lawyer Irina Gak, who were also inquiring about his death, recently had to leave Russia after being threatened by the security services.
A lawyer from the Russian human rights NGO “Pervy Otdel” took over, on condition of anonymity. Anatoly Berezikov’s family, for security reasons, does not speak to the press.
Musician Valentin Sokhorev, who considered himself “almost” like Anatoli Berezikov’s big brother, says he tried for a long time to dissuade him from being an activist.
“I told him, mate, don’t do that. If you wiggle your ass bare in front of a hornet’s nest, be ready for them to sting you very hard. So don’t get up. But that, he did not perceive, he did not understand the danger,” said Valentin Sokhorev.
“He was valiant but crazy,” he slices.
He himself had seen, during the murderous constitutional crisis of 1993 in Russia, tanks firing on the seat of Parliament in Moscow. Disgusted, Valentin Sokhorev then lost interest in politics.
“I understood that in this country, the one who is right is the one who has tanks. Since 1996, I no longer vote”, indicates this gruff man. He lives in the village of Davydkovo, near Moscow, where he cultivates a vegetable garden.
Under the porch of his house, surrounded by his four dogs and the smell of plants after the rain, Valentin Sokhorev plugs into an amplifier one of the synthesizers made by Anatoly Berezikov.
The instrument produces shrill electric sounds. According to Valentin Sokhorev, some people feel a “sense of peace” when listening to this storm of noises. This was the case of Anatoli Berezikov.
09/08/2023 13:58:58 – Davydkovo (Russia) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
