An 83-year-old veteran wanted to become governor of St. Petersburg with the cry of "city of peace"

Lyudmila Vasileva, 83, was supposed to collect 76 thousand signatures.He got 5,500.But he will continue his fight.

• From 6 to 8 September 2024, Russia will vote to renew, among other bodies, twenty regional governors, the Moscow Duma and the mayors of two cities.
• In St. Petersburg, an 83-year-old pensioner who survived the siege of Leningrad tried to run for governor.
• Despite her age, Lyudmila Vasileva is a fierce activist, and continues to protest openly despite fierce repression.

Lyudmila Vasileva is 83 years old.She survived thesiege of Leningrad in the Second World War.And since February 24, 2022 he has never stopped publicly protesting against the war in Ukraine.She was detained for her pacifist demonstrations Three times but then always released.And now that Russia is preparing to return to the polls (the regional governors will be elected at the beginning of September) Lyudmila Vasileva has decided to run for the position of governor of St. Petersburg, challenging Kremlin repression and pro-government candidate Alexander Beglov.With the slogan “St. Petersburg, city of peace”.

The Cry for Peace by Lyudmila Vasileva

“I've been screaming it for two years and I'll keep screaming it for as long as there's a need:no to war!”.Lyudmila Vasileva is the classic “babushka” (grandmother) snores bluntly, with initially rough manners that soften as the minutes pass.In video connection from St. Petersburg he tells LifeGate why he decided to run.“I've seen what happens to other non-Kremlin-aligned candidates:someone is branded as a foreign agent and therefore cut off, someone else is directly imprisoned – he says -.And since I am a veteran of St. Petersburg, a survivor of the siege of Leningrad, I hope they treat me differently."In Russia, in fact, people still have a lot of respect for veterans of the Second World War, especially for those who lived through the siege, and any reprisal against her could generate strong discontent.

Lyudmila Vasileva she was born two months before the start of the Great Patriotic War, just as the Russians refer to the Second World War (which for them began in 1941, ed.).He has no memories of the very long siege of Leningrad (1941-1944) in which the armed forces of Hitler they tried to conquer what is now St. Petersburg, causing the death of over 750 thousand people.But he knows what hunger and war are.This is why today he is fighting with all his strength to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine.

More than once she took to the streets holding up signs pacifists, and until now the status of "blokadnitsa", as those who resisted the siege of Leningrad are called, has always "protected" it from the repression of the police.He says that once, after the umpteenth time arrest, the police even showed up at her house to apologize to her.He let them in and they drank coffee together.

“What should I be afraid of?Maybe they are the ones who are afraid of me, who are afraid of touching me.Because I say things out loud.And severely!”, he says, letting out a laugh.

Lyudmila's is a titanic undertaking:together with his team (about thirty people, plus a group of volunteers) he was supposed to collect 76 thousand signatures from St. Petersburg residents in just two weeks and obtain the support of municipal deputies in 84 out of 111 constituencies.Practically an impossible mission.In fact, his match ended on Sunday 30 June with just 5,500 signatures. “But I had the support of Ekaterina Duntsova And Boris Nadezhdin:they came to visit me and they also signed for me,” he says, blinking his blue eyelids.And her eyes light up.Duntsova and Nadezhdin are the pacifist candidates they had tried to challenge Putin in the presidential elections in March 2024, but who had been excluded at the beginning of the competition.To support Nadezhdin, thousands of people queued, despite the cold, and those images went around the world.“We too have queues, certainly not as long as those in Nadezhdin, but you have to understand that St Petersburg is a smaller city”.

His story

The youngest of five siblings, Lyudmila started working at a very young age in a radio station and after graduating she was hired at the Krylov Institute (now the State Research Center), an institute specializing in maritime and naval research.Today Lyudmila has a son who lives abroad and many friends who visit her almost every day.He gets up early every morning, does gymnastics, feeds his two cats and then goes out.Before the invasion he often went to the theater.Now, however, since the independent directors and actors have all ended up in exile, he prefers to watch YouTube:at least there the censorship doesn't reach there for now.

His commitment to politics is not entirely new:in 1997 he participated in the first municipal elections in St. Petersburg.And in the late 1990s he supported the politician Egor Gaidar, joining the “Democratic Choice of Russia” party.“At the time we had a manifesto that said:'He who talks a lot does little'.Today my slogan is:'St. Petersburg, city of peace,'” says Lyudmila.

TO LifeGate He says he received the support of many young people, as well as the support of the entire "Sons of War" association, made up of now elderly people who experienced the drama of the Second World War.“They came to visit me and we toasted peace together.And we shouted 'no to war'.But we shouted it really loud!”, says Lyudmila.

Among the main points of her program, in addition to the reconciliation of her country with Ukraine and the rest of the world, Lyudmila says she wants to improve the lives of the inhabitants of St. Petersburg.“That is, by enforcing the human rights, allowing people to breathe clean air, and therefore intervening on problems environmental.And then we need to improve and develop public transport, create spaces for dialogue with people, to ask them what they dream of, what they want - he says -.Now people are afraid, they don't expose themselves.A woman came to us to sign her support for me and burst into tears.He thanked us because we are giving hope.Then a boy showed up:he gave us a drawing, made by him, with the words 'thank you because you are fighting for my future'.Today in Russia there is a lack of freedom.People are terrified, not only in St. Petersburg, but throughout the country."

The difficulties of running for office in Russia

But what does it mean to organize a signature collection to run for office today in Russia?“First of all, it was very difficult for us to find a location:we received more than twenty refusals – he says -.Then the authorities prohibited the local press from giving us space.Apart from a few rare exceptions, no one talks about us, people watch television and are only made aware of the candidacy of my competitor, Alexander Beglov.It is difficult for our voice to be heard."

He says he has overall positive impressions of the Russian opposition in exile.“It seems to me that Yulia Navalnaya (the widow of the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, killed in prison at the beginning of 2024) is doing a good job, for example by meeting with the leaders of Western countries to defend the interests of Russians, including those abroad.We must understand that people like you did not leave our country of their own free will:they were forced to do it.They sent the best people away."

To be realistic, the chances of Lyudmila Vasileva's name being included in the electoral lists were almost nil.The regulation makes it practically impossible for independent candidates to participate in elections.“But we will continue to do what we are doing now:fight for the end of the war.I believe that first of all our government should apologize and withdraw from theUkraine.And with the ceasefire, start negotiations.This war will end when one person, the same person who started it, will listen to his people.And the people don't want war.We need to tell people abroad that no one here wants war.Our city, St. Petersburg, was built by Europeans, by Italians, our blood has mixed with yours.We are Europeans and we have European values.And we will continue to scream that it's time to stop.Who knows, maybe everyone can hear us."