This reads like a story from the distant year of 1930.

A rural art teacher used to draw moustaches, horns and beards on local officials in the newspaper Zavety Ilyicha, sometimes writing “devil” across their foreheads.

And he had even been forced to subscribe to that newspaper — people would literally block his way in the school corridor and demand money.

In other words, he had to pay out of his own pocket for a publication that was, to borrow Bulgakov’s language, class-wise repugnant to him.

Almost like Heart of a Dog: not only are you forced to accept an ideology you despise — you are also expected to pay for it.

The teacher’s name was Daniil Klyuka.

According to him, his colleagues usually used the newspaper to put under their shoes. He, meanwhile, actually read it — and drew in it in his spare time.

If a government official appeared on a page, Klyuka might add a moustache, horns or write “devil” across his forehead.

When the war began and the newspaper filled with articles justifying it, Klyuka continued his “artistic activity.”

One day, he forgot to take the newspaper home.

His colleagues found it.

And took it where such things are taken.

Klyuka was summoned for a conversation and then fired. He was called a “Nazi,” a “fascist,” and told that he had “filth in his head.”

He thought that would be the end of it.

But the school reported him to the FSB.

Some time later, the school principal called Klyuka and asked him to come in — supposedly to sort out some paperwork.

He came.

He managed to walk about a hundred metres from the school.

And then — the classic routine.

Face down in the snow. A bag over his head. An unknown basement.

Klyuka himself later wrote only this about what happened there:

“I won’t tell you what happened there. I’ll leave out the details.”

Perhaps the only thing that distinguishes this story from the classics of the 1930s is its modern detail.

Investigators found transfers on Klyuka’s phone that he had sent to his brother in Luhansk. Klyuka said the money had been intended for charity.

But according to him, the FSB demanded that he admit the money had been intended for “Azov” — for weapons and military equipment.

A smartphone instead of an address book. Cryptocurrency instead of hidden cash. “Azov” instead of yet another “counter-revolutionary organisation.”

The mechanism remains the same.

Klyuka pleaded not guilty.

The court sentenced the art teacher to 20 years in prison.

No.

This is not a story from 1930.

This is 2022–2023.

And this is not the NKVD.

This is the FSB.

A man is forced to pay for a propaganda newspaper. He draws caricatures in it. His colleagues discover them and report him. He is fired, called a “fascist,” and information about him is passed to the security services.

Then come surveillance, a face pressed into the snow, a bag over the head, a basement, demands for a confession.

And at the end — 20 years.

But perhaps the most frightening thing here is not even the state itself.

It is what has happened to people.

Those whose profession should require them to teach children dignity, justice and decency proved capable of handing over their own colleague to a system where a bag is first pulled over his head and then he is sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Even to me, someone who knows modern Russia well, it sometimes seems that the country has fallen back into the 1930s.

Or perhaps it never truly left them.

Forgive me, but I no longer want to develop this subject any further.

Every letter in this story says more than any comparison could.

And I would like to end it with a drawing by Daniil Klyuka himself.

Perhaps he is not the most talented artist. But one thing seems perfectly clear: he was born at the wrong time and in the wrong place.

Source: Telegram channel “Politzek-Info”
https://t.me/politzekinfo/6020
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