MOSCOW At the Sakharov Center in Moscow, the atmosphere is ape. The human rights organization will lose its premises, where it has operated for more than thirty years.
– You shouldn’t be surprised by this. When you look at what is happening in the country and the world now, the behavior of those in power is completely understandable and natural. In this situation, those in power cannot allow independent public opinion and independent non-governmental organizations, Chairman of the Board of the Sakharov Center Vyacheslav Bahmin says.
– That’s why they started with the most visible organizations and try to prevent their activities.
The Sakharov Center has hosted a nuclear physicist, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a dissident Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) intellectual heritage. Sakharov believed that peace, progress and human rights are interdependent. None of them can be achieved without the other two.
The city of Moscow has now terminated the lease agreement that allowed the center to operate in the premises for free.
The reason is the Sakharov Center’s status as a foreign agent. In December, a law change came into effect, according to which the public authorities may not support foreign agents, and free facilities were considered such support.
The grip of those in power to rein in civil society has tightened even more since the president Vladimir Putin last year declared a “military special operation” or war against Ukraine.
In the past, traditional human rights organizations Memorial and the Moscow Helsinki Group have received the decision to terminate.
The Sakharov Center has also been fined five million rubles. The center does not have the funds to pay the fine, because it receives its funding from targeted grants, which cannot be directed to a purpose other than that agreed in the grant agreement.
– All this pushes the organization to the point that it is time to stop operations. It is difficult and even impossible to work in such toxic conditions, says Bahmin.
He considers that the human rights organization cannot fully fulfill its mission in the current situation. It is simply impossible.
– You can’t pretend that nothing happens in the country and that human rights organizations work as before. That’s not true, they can’t work like that.
Bahmin was one of the founders of the center together with Andrei Sakharov’s wife, a human rights activist Jelena Bonner’s (1923–2011) with. The center still has time to organize an exhibition in honor of the centenary of Bonner’s birth.
The Sakharov Center has functioned as a place where other organizations have been able to organize their events. There haven’t been many such facilities in Moscow for human rights organizations and the opposition.
The center will therefore have to stop its operations in two buildings and an apartment that houses the archive of Sakharov and his family and the home museum.
– I hope that the center’s values will be remembered by many, says Bahmin.
Those in power monopolize history
The Sakharov Center is one of the organizations that have preserved the memory of political persecutions in the Soviet Union. It is a part of history that does not want to fit into the current official picture of history.
– Now those in power have a monopoly on historical truth and historical memory. Only the state bodies know what kind of history is correct. Any non-state attempt to study history and present it in a different way cannot be allowed. Everyone must think about history in the same way, says Bahmin.
According to him, those in power want a history with only victories and reasons for pride.
For example, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact concluded by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany is now presented as the right solution.
– We are living in a time of rewriting history, says Bahmin.
He refers to the “catechism” of the Stalinist era: History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): A Short Course.
– Now we want a short history of Russia, written by government history specialists, says Bahmin.
Those in power who rose from the ranks of the security services do not trust anyone and are suspicious of everything foreign. History must also correspond to the world view of these people.
Putin uses the memory of World War II
President Vladimir Putin’s administration has harnessed the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
Putin paints a picture of World War II that suits the needs of the war in Ukraine.
– Fascism was crushed by the forces of a large coalition of states. Now that has also been taken under a new scrutiny, says Bahmin.
– Now it is already being said that only the Soviet Union fought against fascism and everyone else indirectly supported Germany.
Bahmin considers the struggle against the official historical image of those in power to be difficult, even impossible, in today’s conditions.
– It is impossible to stand against such a huge and numerous oppressive apparatus. Almost every day it is reported that this or that person has been sentenced to prison.
He reminds that those in power are in the hands of the central mass media, which the majority of the population watches.
– That does not mean that nothing should be done. That’s a different matter.
Bahmin reminds us that there was a similar situation in the Soviet Union: Even then it was understood that nothing could be done and that the Soviet Union was eternal.
– Still, there were people who couldn’t keep quiet, couldn’t do nothing.
That is why he believes that even in modern Russia there are people who have the courage and determination to express their objections to what is happening in the country and the world.
Archives will be preserved – is there a demand for the information?
The Sakharov Center’s permanent exhibition has presented both the persecutions and human destinies of the Soviet Union, as well as everyday life in the Soviet Union.
Now it is unclear where the new premises will be found.
– It is history that is slowly being forgotten and that is especially being tried to be forgotten, says Bahmin.
Bahmin believes that the archives and exhibits maintained by the Sakharov Center can be preserved. More than 90 percent of the archive has already been digitized.
The question is, will the general public be interested in getting to know them.
Bahmin thinks that people don’t like to get to know the dark side of history: it would break the safe and harmonious worldview that has been built by the power of propaganda over the decades.
– It is pleasant to live in the created world. Everyone supports you. You behave in a way that is acceptable to those in power. So you are on the side of those on whom your life depends, says Bahmin.
– Reassessing it all is terribly painful, and no one wants to know that. People try to close themselves off from the truth.
The democracy that was brought down from above flowed to the ground
The hopes for democracy that were cherished in the late 1980s and early 90s now seem to have run into the sand in Russia.
The problem was that at that time democracy was given from above, and the citizens were not ready for it, Vyacheslav Bahmin estimated.
– For democracy to be sustainable, people have to achieve it themselves, so that they understand that it is important and that you cannot live without it, says Bahmin.
In Russia, citizens had no opportunities to learn the benefits of democracy in practice, because the years after the Soviet Union were so difficult economically. The perception of democracy became negative.
– Are there forces that could create the conditions for a long-lasting transition from authoritarianism to democracy… that’s a big question, Bahmin thinks.