Lyudmila Nikolaevna Vasilyeva

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A persistent woman (2)

On February 16, 2024, the day Alexei Navalny's death was announced, the then 82-year-old Lyudmila Nikolaevna Vasilyeva (°1941) gathered with hundreds of Saint Petersburg residents on Nevsky Prospect and at the Solovetsky Stone. «Enough blood, enough hate», she shouted..

Lyudmila Vasilyeva is a fierce participant in the protests in Saint-Petersburg and a child of the siege of Leningrad during World War II. She was arrested several times in the city centre during anti-war demonstrations in 2022.

In the 1990s, she was a member of Yuri Tomeorovich Gaidar's right-wing liberal Democratic Choice for Russia party, which played a major role in the country's liberalisation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, resulting in Putin's Russia having a thriving economy. «But Putin ruined everything by exploiting the young reformers: Now he constantly brings up the 'nineties.' But he himself was a gangster in the nineties».

She often attended demonstrations: for Alexei Navalny. In 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, she held up a sign that read «No to fratricidal wars». It turned out she was seen on TV at that demonstration. So her colleagues began to convince her that there would be no war. She soon left the research institute in protest, after working there for 46 years. At the time, her salary as a first-category engineer was already that of a member of parliament: 1,600,000 rubles - then 35,375 euros a year, a very high salary in Russia. She left because of Ukraine and did not want to work for a large state-owned company.

Unlike Yelena Andreevna Osipova Lyudmila Vasilyeva actively seeks confrontation. She takes to the streets and proclaims her opposition to the war. She writes letters and hands out copies in the subway. She addresses police officers and security services officers with exhortations like: «Don't carry out criminal orders. Imagine what would happen if you joined us in full uniform on the square. The whole world would applaud you».

In September 2024, she ran in the gubernatorial elections in her - and Putin's - city of Saint Petersburg with the slogan «For Peace», even though she knew very well that she didn't stand a chance.Nevertheless, she tried to be allowed to run, arguing: «This campaign is a rare legal opportunity to show that many Russians disagree with the Kremlin's policies. Other ways to express your opinion, such as demonstrations or other forms of public protest, have become very risky and often end in fines or even prison sentences». The winner of the election was the incumbent governor Aleksander Dmitriyevitsj Beglov of United Russia, Putin's party .