Mari pensioner and activist fined 400,000 roubles

The Yoshkar-Ola City Court fined Mari pensioner, poet and national activist Yuri Blagodarov 400,000 roubles (€4,000) for discrediting the Russian army and inciting hatred. The time limit for repayment of the fine was set at 40 months: each month the pensioner has to pay 10,000 roubles out of his 18,000 roubles pension. In addition, the court ordered Blagodarov to pay 66,000 roubles in legal costs. In accordance with the court’s decision, Mr Blagodanov will be returned the hard disk of his computer, which was confiscated during the search.

Yuri Blagodanov intends to appeal against the verdict, as he does not plead guilty. The state prosecutor, however, demanded that Blagodarov be sentenced to two and a half years in a lighter regime colony.

Social media posting

According to Blagodarov, his accusation of army discrimination stemmed from a comment he wrote under a poem he had written for his mothers and daughters on the social network VKontake: ‘By signing a treaty, by going to a foreign country to kill, you are violating the traditions of your ancestors. Our karts (priests) do not support a fratricidal war for the sake of expanding the sphere of influence of the Russian people. Respect for the Russian language should be fostered not through war and the surrender of land, but through the organisation of mutual cultural events and festivals.’

The court case, however, started when ‘vigilant citizens’, who were police assistants, found on the social network VKontakte in 2023 the group ‘Oš poro kugu Jumo vertš. A socio-political movement’ – a group of followers of the Mari nature belief, who respect the traditions of their ancestors and seek to restore the nation’s greatness.

The policemen noted Yuri Blagodarov’s comment under a photo of one of the residents of the Novo-Torolya region who had died in Ukraine: ‘Eternal memory to the hero. How long must we suffer. Slavic heroes die on one side and Slavic heroes on the other. Putin does not care at all. For him there are still few dead. He wants respect. Respect, however, relies on victory. This is how it puts our boys to ‘sleep’, those who could build a family; it lifts them up to the post so they can shout – I won. But it’s no longer a cry, it’s a rush of blood flowing like a river. Cheremisses (the old name for the Mari), come to your senses. No war.’

State reaction

The Criminalistics Centre of Mari El’s Ministry of the Interior carried out a linguistic examination of the message and concluded that it contains a negative assessment of the person named Putin, who is the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of the Russian Federation. At the same time, however, neutral lexicon was used, the experts found.

Already last October, Yuri Blagodarov was convicted of discrediting the army and fined 15,000 roubles (€150). The court took into account the accused’s age and his honest confession, as well as his promise not to discredit the army again. Since then, Blagodarov has been under the constant scrutiny of law enforcement agencies.

In February 2024, however, the Yoshkar-Ola Municipal Court again received civil cases brought by the prosecution against Blagodarov. This time under the section on incitement to hatred and degrading human dignity. According to this, the activist in VKontakt had promoted the peculiarity of the Mari people, denigrated the Mari who had converted to Christianity, calling them traitors. In addition, he wrote that Russia is worse than a prison of nations. In prison, people dream of freedom, but in Russia, people turn into patient beasts who do not need freedom.

Poem

Blagodarov again pleaded guilty but said he had no intention of inciting hatred. On 15 February, the city court sentenced the pensioner to 20 hours of community service. But in the same month, he published a poem ‘Yyvan – send me a message’ on VKontakte about a Hungarian soldier killed in the Ukrainian war:

Yyvan – send me a message

I long so,

Although I know…

You haven’t been among the living for ages.

Your soul by your side

Your ashes in foreign soil.

You were not taken with, retreat

The body burning in a tank crypt

And there was no way back.

This forest isn’t it. This fence isn’t it

There, the forest and fence are covered with crosses

Now, you are buried there.

(English translation: Patrick O’Rourke, based on the Estonian one by Jaak Prozes)

Blagodarov’s position

In Blagodarov’s opinion, the criminal case was initiated because he was not allowed to participate in the elections to the State Council of the Republic of Mari Republic or the Yoshkar-Ola City Council and that the criminal case was a political order.

The indictment shows that the prosecutor had gone to a lot of trouble to find witnesses. It also reveals that Blagodarov’s posts and activities were monitored by several FSB officials, as well as military intelligence officers. However, most of the witnesses had not seen Blagodarov’s postings, but some allegedly knew about them and condemned Blagodarov’s actions. The only witness for Blagodarov’s defence was Vladimir Kozlov, a figure in the Mari nationalist movement (Kozlov was the leader of the Mari people from 2004 to 2008), who also wished to give his testimony in Mari, but was refused. Kozlov said that since there was no alleged religious group mentioned above on the social network VKontakte, Yuri Blagodarov could not have incited hatred in any way.

Finally, the floor was given to Blagodarov, who admitted that he had indeed written the comments, but that he was not against the military operation, but for world peace. However, as regards the attitude of the Mari who had converted to Christianity and of the Mari who had adopted a double religion (syncretism), he called on them to return to the traditional Mari faith. He also noted that he had helped to buy humanitarian aid for those involved in military operations and regretted having done so.