Hello!

I’m Maksim Polyakov, a correspondent for the online magazine “7x7.” Russian citizens are using army symbols, propaganda slogans, and Putin’s name not just to support the war in Ukraine. They have found ways to stage protests safely and address their personal issues by leveraging war-related symbols. For instance, some tried to protect their homes from demolition, while others aimed to stop tree-cutting in a park. In this letter, I will share more about these cases, their outcomes, and the authorities' reactions.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

First Instances

1. Kiosk owners in Novosibirsk were among the first to use military symbols for their own benefit. The City Hall decided to demolish 393 "non-stationary objects" ahead of the 2023 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships. In response, vendors displayed banners featuring the letters Z and V on their kiosks, hoping the authorities would avoid targeting the war symbols. “Who would demolish a Z these days? That would equal discrediting the army,” independent Novosibirsk deputy Svetlana Kaverzina wrote with irony. Despite this, some kiosks were demolished, and due to the war, the championship was relocated to Canada.
2. In July 2022, Krasnoyarsk entrepreneur Marcel Khachaturyan covered his café with Z-banners. A month earlier, a court had ordered him to demolish the building, as it was situated near a cultural heritage site — the St. Nicholas Steamboat. Khachaturyan argued that he had legally leased the land until 2054 and was entitled to build the café there. However, the Z-banners did not help, and the building was torn down. Later, a construction trailer appeared opposite the site, and in 2023, workers began building a wooden church on the spot.
3. In August 2022, a wall of a deteriorating building in Omsk collapsed. Five days later, residents of a similar dormitory-style building, noticing a crack in its wall, demanded repairs. They wrote the pro-war slogan “We Don’t Abandon Our Own” on a fence near the building, painted the letter Z, and hung campaign posters for the upcoming September elections. Following the protest, a court ordered officials to repair the building. After the walls were fixed, workers began repairing the roof. However, they removed the roofing just before heavy rains, leading to flooding in several apartments.
4. In August 2022, a resident of Arkhangelsk proposed renaming Sovetskaya Street to Putin Street on the website of the 29.RU media outlet. The comment was part of a discussion regarding the road junction near the Kuznechevsky Bridge, where authorities planned to build a roundabout. However, local residents believed it would lead to traffic jams and suggested widening and strengthening the street instead. According to the commenter, naming the street after Putin would surely help officials make the right decision.
5. Residents of Yekaterinburg used Putin's portrait to protect a relic forest in the Shirokaya Rechka district. In September 2022, they placed Putin's images on trees slated for felling. However, in March 2023, the developer, with permission from the City Hall, partially cut down the forest. Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Investigative Committee, ordered a review of the situation. Subsequently, representatives of the developer and local residents met to reach a compromise. The developer promised to cut down 25-30% of the trees and turn part of the forest into a park.

Even More War Symbols

1. In April 2023, residents of a multi-story building on Lizyukov Street in Voronezh hung a banner on the facade reading “Our house is against replaZed elevators.” The regional authorities were supposed to update elevators in buildings older than 25 years, but the ones in the building on Lizyukov Street hadn’t been replaced in 40 years. The project cost 31 million rubles, but residents refused to let workers install new elevators, asking them to fix the pipes and deal with the flooding in the basement instead. They feared ending up in debt to the city, as they had only raised 13 million rubles for major repairs. In July 2023, workers returned to replace the elevators, but a local woman, armed with a crossbow, threatened to shoot them in the legs if they touched anything. According to "Vesti Voronezh," the police detained the woman, and the Common Fund for Major Repairs postponed the work due to protests from the residents.
2. In January 2023, activists staged a picket with a banner reading "Markov and AZarov Deserve Doctors’ Salaries." They aimed to draw the attention of Mayor Sergey Markov and Governor Dmitry Azarov to the underfunding of medical facilities in Novokuibyshevsk, Samara Oblast. The activists also launched a fundraising campaign to repair the city’s maternity hospital and the children’s rehabilitation center "Firefly," as reported by Samara deputy Mikhail Abdalkin on social media. Gennady Kotelnikov, Chairman of the Samara Provincial Duma, complained about a "discrediting" photo from the picket, referring to the fact that Governor Azarov's last name was written with a Latin Z amidst Cyrillic letters. As a result, deputy Abdalkin was questioned by the police. In September 2023, Sergey Markov, the mayor of Novokuibyshevsk, resigned.
3. In March 2023, the Kaluga TV channel Nika TV aired a one-minute video calling for 4 million rubles to fund surgery in Germany for a severely ill boy named Vanya Kostrov. The 11-year-old needed a new artificial heart valve. For the video, Vanya was dressed in military uniform, and the authors noted that he “enjoys writing poetry on military topics” and “cares about other children and soldiers.” Thanks to donations, Vanya’s parents were able to raise the required amount, and the surgery was successful.

As we can see, neither portraits of Putin, nor war symbols or slogans, can solve all the problems Russians face. Citizens remain at the mercy of officials and politicians who make decisions that benefit themselves, regardless of Z and V letters or the president's images.

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