Illustration: Ksenia Vlasova
The material about the Irkutsk activist, the former coordinator of Navalny's headquarters (the organization is recognized as extremist, banned in the Russian Federation) Zakhar Sarapulov, who was included in the register of terrorists and extremists and against whom two criminal cases were initiated, was first published by the People of Baikal «. The publication is part of the association of independent media «Syndicat-100». Novaya Gazeta is a member of the Syndicate. We publish the material of «People of Baikal» in order to expand its audience.
At six in the morning on December 28, 2021, there was a loud knock on the door of the Sarapulovs. «Open up, police! — shouted one of the visitors and added: — If the owner does not immediately open the door, they will start sawing it out. Zakhar Sarapulov, 29, was alone in the apartment he shares with his mother. He jumped out of bed, put on his jeans, opened the door. And a few seconds later he was lying face down on the floor.
About an hour later, Zakhar's mother Larisa Sarapulova returned home from night duty as a watchman. In the entrance next to the door of her apartment, she saw a layer of paint peeling off the ceiling.
“I immediately realized that they came to us,” says 56-year-old Sarapulova. “The door was opened to me by a masked man with a machine gun. He said: “Your house is being searched.”
Through the open door, I saw that my handbags were scattered on the floor, their contents turned outward. Everything around was turned upside down. They slammed the door in front of my nose, they didn’t talk.”
The search in the apartment lasted more than four hours. Officers took away a laptop and three phones. In the Investigative Committee, where Zakhar was brought for interrogation, he was kept all day. Investigators charged Sarapulov with being a member of an extremist community. For this, he faces up to six years in prison. Zakhar was released late in the evening. But before the trial, he cannot pick up a phone, go online and even send letters through post offices. Zakhar is also forbidden to talk to anyone other than his mother, father, grandmother, investigator and lawyer. Moreover, he can not communicate with journalists. The story of Zakhar Sarapulov «People of Baikal» is presented as it was told by Zakhar's parents, his teachers, colleagues and associates, friends and acquaintances from his hometown of Cheremkhovo, the Buryat ulus Khoito-Gol, Irkutsk, Moscow, as well as Vilnius, Buenos Aires and Lisbon.
“I was afraid that I would grow up to be a bookworm”
Zakhar grew up in the small mining town of Cheremkhovo, 120 kilometers from Irkutsk. In the 1990s, my parents were engaged in trade: first they opened a bread stall, then a grocery store. “We worked like everyone else then: early in the morning you leave, late in the evening you come. But I was calm for my son. She knew that Zakhar did not go anywhere, he was sitting at home and reading books. As a child, Zakhar was little on the street. I lured him out in one way — I promised that we would go to a bookstore on a walk and buy books, ”says Larisa Sarapulova. Zakhar's father Boris says: he was afraid that the child would grow up to be a «bookworm» and a recluse.
12-year-old Zakhar was fascinated by books and films about Cuban revolutionaries and Fidel Castro. Inspired by the ideas of young people who were willing to risk their lives for the freedom of their country. Zakhar even wrote a letter to Fidel Castro, told about himself and congratulated the Cuban on his birthday. Two months later, an envelope with many foreign stamps arrived at the post office in Cheremkhovo. The letter was in Spanish. In his city, Zakhar did not find a person who could translate the paper. Then the boy began to learn Spanish on his own. As a result, he was able to read the letter, in which the press service of the Cuban government wrote that they were pleased with his letter and thanked Zakhar for his interest in Cuba. After 15 years, during a search in the Sarapulovs' house, the very books about revolutionaries that Zakhar read as a child became material evidence: employees of the Investigative Committee took them off the shelves and rewrote the titles.
In the 11th grade, Zakhar won the All-Russian Olympiad in History and could enter any university in the country without exams. He chose Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov.
“A man-sun, a man-altruist, a reader, a thinker,” is how, seven years after Zakhar graduated from the university, recalls his teacher, Candidate of Historical Sciences Elena Larina.
She taught ethnology at Zakhar’s the first three courses. After the third, together with Zakhar and other students, she went to field practice in the Kurgan region.
“We collected material about the rituals and traditions of the Kazakhs living in the villages. Zakhar interviewed very professionally, he was interested. Although, it would seem that he cares about the way of this people. After all, he was from another department — modern and recent history, studied Cuba. But Zakhar has a wide range of interests. He takes great pictures and draws great. Zakhar is an open person, he can establish communication with any person — an adult, a child. I took my little son on the expedition, Zakhar constantly played chess with him, they were interested together. Kaif! After this trip, we communicated as good friends. Zakhar came to our country house. Sometimes I called my students to visit pilaf. We talked together, discussed the books we read.”
Zakhar studied, taught Spanish at the same time and worked as a translator for a Cuban news agency. Then in the Moscow office of the Venezuelan channel Telesur, which broadcasts to Latin American countries. At the same time, Zakhar learned Portuguese and English. In 2014, he graduated with honors from the specialty. He dedicated his thesis to the leader of Cuban students in the 1920s, Julio Antonio Mella. Mella united the youth of the island in the fight against the dictator Machado and his corrupt regime, but was killed at the age of 26.
Illustration: Ksenia Vlasova
Zakhar found and translated most of the materials for his thesis work into Russian while working in the archives of the Institute of the History of Cuba in Havana. He went there with recommendations from Moscow State University teachers and Cuban journalists. The money for the flight to Cuba and back Zakhar was given by his father and older brother.
In Moscow, Zakhar was invited to diplomatic receptions at embassies, mainly in Latin America, first as a translator, then as a guest.
“I said: Zakhar, dress decently! You can’t go to the embassy in a T-shirt and jeans, as you always go.”
He answered me that now they no longer look at who came in what. After Zakhar returned from Cuba, he partly fulfilled his childhood dream — he shook hands with Fidel Castro. The Cuban leader himself, who was almost 90, retired. At a diplomatic reception, Sarapulov met his son, also Fidel Castro, who was deputy president of the Cuban Academy of Sciences.
Sarapulov's classmate Nikita Inozemtsev calls Zakhar an idealist and romantic. When other graduates chose whether to go into science or earn money, he urged his peers to go to remote villages and teach history in schools. “Zakhar said that we need to raise the level of education in the Siberian outback, we need to look for talented guys. Someone was going to, but in the end no one went.”
Help an ordinary Argentinean
In the summer of 2014, after graduating from university, Zakhar and his father were returning from a hike to Bosan Peak. This is a peak with a height of 2225 meters in the western Khamar-Daban (a mountain range in Buryatia). The journey to Bosan with an overnight stay took 2.5 days. We decided to go back without stopping. “It was as if someone was pushing us in the back, we did not stay for the night, we decided to move on. We left the trail late at night. The way back took a day. And that same night, a hurricane with a downpour began in the mountains. If we had stayed on the pass, we could have been washed away, ”Boris Sarapulov recalls the adventure. Another surprise awaited the travelers when they descended to the plain.
As soon as the connection was established, Zahar received messages about missed calls. He dialed the number and learned that his friend from Argentina, director Franco Pellegrino, had arrived in Irkutsk. He was robbed and needed urgent help. «People of Baikal» contacted Franco, now he lives in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires.
“Imagine: I am an Argentinean, ended up in Siberia,” Franco says. And I don't speak Russian. I had about two thousand dollars with me. And suddenly I don't have that money anymore. You know, it was a tough moment, just shit. I felt so bad that when we arrived at Zakhar's home, we drank some vodka. Actually, I don't drink vodka, but at that moment it was a wonderful drink! And Zakhar gave me a glass, since then I always take it with me. Zakhar helped me write a statement to the police, we spent two or three days at the police station. The police found the thief. It was the man with whom I was hitchhiking from Chita, he drove me and while I was sleeping, he took my money. We were able to return them three days later. If not for Zakhar, I don’t know what I would do in a foreign country and without money.
Zakhar is one of the kindest people I have ever met. He helped me, even though I was not his friend or buddy.”
In Russia, the Argentine lived for six months, studied Russian culture. Traveled from Vladivostok to Moscow, St. Petersburg and Murmansk. After that, he visited 15 countries, lived in Germany, Mexico. “Russia is a very good country,” Franco adds.
“The whole university laughed at him”
Few people expected that after Moscow State University Zakhar would leave to work as a teacher in the village. And he went to school in the Khoyto-Gol ulus, which is about eight hours by bus from the capital of Buryatia, Ulan-Ude. At a school with 30 students, Sarapulov taught history and law.
“In one of the campaigns at the foot of the Sayan Mountains, we saw a village,” says Boris Sarapulov, how Zakhar chose the Khoyto-Gol ulus. — «Here I would stay to live,» said Zakhar. He was then fascinated by the ideas of populism.
We went to the store, found out if there is a school in the village. We were given the director's phone number. When we called her, she couldn't believe that a Moscow State University graduate wanted to work for them.”
In addition to lessons, Sarapulov taught children photography, led an elective in Spanish, and prepared for exams. “Zakhar Borisovich immediately found a common language with the children. He is a kind, sympathetic, benevolent, sociable person, — as a characterization, Ekaterina Dymsheeva, head teacher of the Khoytogol school, lists the positive qualities of her former subordinate. “He showed himself only on the good side.”
Not everyone then understood Zakhar's decision to raise the village alone. “The whole of Moscow, the whole university, laughed at him. That he went to the Buryat ulus with a red diploma with a salary of 11 thousand rubles, ”says Zakhar’s mother Larisa. He lived in a house with stove heating, which the school rented for him. I took the puppy Mulya.
The teachers in the village survived by planting large gardens and raising pigs and cows. In one of his Facebook posts, Zakhar writes how upset he was by what he saw next to him: “For the most part, the population was drunk for a long time, jobs could be counted on the fingers of two hands. Corruption hit the school itself through and through: teachers, due to various tricks, lost almost half of their salaries.
Zakhar urged teachers to seek the due payments. But people were afraid of losing even the jobs they had. None of the teachers began to demand recalculation. “Zakhar Borisovich urged us not to put up. Well, we are the older generation: apparently, the “sovietness” sits in us, we did not fight,” says the oldest teacher of the Khoytogol school, Lyubov Buyantuyeva. — I loved Zakhara very much, invited him to my home, tried to treat him with something tasty. And he loved his students very much. I even managed to feed the kids at school with my own money. In the village people live hard, not all children have money for lunches. The teachers ran to a nearby store for buns, only we ourselves drank tea with these buns, and Zakhar Borisovich fed the students.
Boris Sarapulov barely recognized his son when he came to visit him. “Zakhar was thin, and Mulya was thin. I sat without money, on a starvation ration. And after all, he didn’t complain, he didn’t say that help was needed, ”Zakhar’s father recalls.
Before the elections in September 2014, teachers were ordered to go door to door and campaign for United Russia candidates. Zakhar tried to organize a teachers' strike, but his colleagues did not want to protest.
This was the last straw. After working for three months, Zakhar quit school, took the dog to his father in Cheremkhovo and left for Kamchatka. There he became a volunteer, then an inspector of the Kronotsky Reserve. He was fond of mountain tourism and animal watching, so he decided to devote a year of his life to wildlife conservation.
“I’m still terribly ashamed in front of my children that I didn’t finish their education and didn’t send them from school to universities,” Zakhar wrote on his Facebook page. Khoytogol teachers recall that after his departure, students wrote letters to him.
In Kamchatka, Sarapulov worked in the hollow of the Uzon volcano, lived in a house among thermal springs. There he studied the ways animals and birds migrate, counted their numbers, and protected them from poachers.
Illustration: Ksenia Vlasova
“The time spent away from civilization, I still consider the best and most useful in my life . Thanks to this work, many animals, including those listed in the Red Book, were saved from the bullets of hunters. Poachers are mostly wealthy officials and businessmen who find a way to have fun in hunting. I have been a vegetarian and animal rights activist for many years: any murder is disgusting for me, and killing for pleasure is generally beyond my understanding,” Zakhar wrote on Facebook.