A film about the dirtiest operations of the KGB and its successors

This is my city, Saint-Petersburg. I have lived here for more than twenty years. My street, my home — everything that was once my life. It is a beautiful city. It breathes memories, as always. But sometimes its breath feels icy.

My name is Katya Arenina, I am a journalist for Proekt. A few months ago, I began working on a historical film centered on the events of the 1980s, the turbulent period of perestroika.

At that time, the already declining Soviet government eased the pressure on its citizens, who showed that they were capable of vigorous protest. One of the centers of the anti-Soviet movement was the city where I was born, Leningrad.

Democracy in Leningrad began with historic reservation and environmental movements. Even those initiatives, which were far removed from politics, carried serious risks. In 1990, Nina Zueva, an activist with the Leningrad Green Party, was investigating illegal logging. After one of the protests, she was detained by the police, and a few days later, she was reported to have committed suicide in her cell. Her friends didn’t believe she killed herself, but the investigation never got anywhere.

One of those who searched for the already dead Zueva in the woods was a young Leningrad resident, one of the founders of the Green Party, Vladimir Gushchin. A year later, according to contemporary newspaper reports, an attempt was made on his life.

I became interested in the fate of this man. Many of those who participated in social movements at that time are still well known, but Gushchin seems to have disappeared without a trace. When I started my work, I spoke to many of those who tried to change the country for the better in those years. I asked about Gushchin among others. At first, everyone spoke of him with respect.

That was until one of my sources told me how an acquaintance of his had survived a horrific experience of sexual violence, in which Gushchin was allegedly involved. At the time, I didn’t realize that I was about to uncover an incredibly dark, frightening, and very complicated story involving politics, the secret services, rape, and even death.

Saint-Petersburg

Evgeny*, Gushchin’s former acquaintance
I became interested in ecology in 1987 and joined Greenhipp, an organization of green hippies. We tried to stop illegal logging, tracked down poachers, and plugged pipes that were being used to dump sewage into lakes. Basically, we were a green patrol. That’s where I met Gushchin, who was the leader of Greenhipp at the time. He was above average height, wore glasses, and didn’t look like a hippie at all, even though he hung out with them. He rarely showed emotion and listened more than he spoke. He could come across as very self-confident, even snobbish. He was very serious about protecting nature: he came up with the idea of flooding the authorities with inquiries.

He was officially the deputy head of the Leningrad branch of the All-Russian Society for Nature Protection. They occupied the second floor of a Lutheran church on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street, and Gushchin was the absolute master of this church for many years.

It was always a lot of fun there, you could always come and spend the night, and half the city knew about this scene. All the hippies and punks would come there.

Elena*, Gushchin’s former friend
We met in the late 1980s. Volodya would often hang out at Saigon on Nevsky Prospekt, where hippies and other nonconformists gathered. At that time, there was a wonderful organization called Youth Institute in St. Petersburg that worked with street kids. Gushchin worked there and tried to get these troubled teenagers involved in the green movement. I asked him why, and he replied that it was necessary to work with them, not fight them. He became known as someone deeply involved in the alternative scene, ranging from skinheads to goths. His entire life revolved around this community. He never married or had children.

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I barely managed to find Gushchin. He was reluctant to talk, saying that he had forgotten a lot. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I even thought that maybe he didn’t want to reminisce about his turbulent youth on purpose. After all, in today’s Russia, such memories can get you in trouble. In the 1980s and 1990s, he participated in protests , according to the photos from his Facebook account × and wrote articles for independent media but then he seemingly disappeared. Was it an accident? I got a tip from someone who knew Gushchin well at the start of his career — his former colleague at the Youth Institute.

Saint Petersburg, 1995

Kirill*, Gushchin’s former colleague
In the 90s, we had a group of social workers. We worked first with the Komsomol, then with the Youth Committee of the St. Petersburg Mayor’s Office. In 1995, it created the «Center for Work with Teenagers and Youth,» and I brought Gushchin in. He seemed like an honest, civil person to me. But very soon he began to lie, to manipulate these vulnerable teenagers, to weave intrigues. In particular, we worked with some very troubled kids, like skinheads. It’s a monstrous phenomenon, but the fault lies with the adults. We needed to cut these kids off from them and start working with them. But he reported them to the authorities. And then he reported me. It was absurd. I was totally stunned, it was so different from what we were doing.

Andrei*, former skinhead
I did time myself at a young age. But then I went to the Youth Institute and started helping out there. I decided to explain to others that they shouldn’t live like me. And Gushchin started to hurt me with his articles. He was throwing a wrench in my work. He included me in each and every manual on extremists and informals that he wrote for the Interior Ministry. He had this lever of social pressure.

Kirill*, Gushchin’s former colleague
In the 1990s, us social workers had a conflict with the mayor’s office. Everything there was super bureaucratic, and we were part of this movement for freedom in education. In the end, all 26 of us quit. Except for Gushchin. He didn’t care, he just wanted to keep his job. He wrote reports for the city council, and I read them after I left — they were the ravings of a madman, blatant lies. He made up youth communities that didn’t even exist. He was just a narcissist who revelled in his own fantasies and the lack of control over him.

Katya Arenina
Why do you think he was doing all this?

Kirill*, Gushchin’s former colleague
Power. The most primitive, simplest, most vulgar kind of power. Because one of the most vulnerable groups is marginalized youth. They are alone, with no one to turn to for protection, no one likes them, going to the police is embarrassing and pointless for them. So pedophiles and con artists had a huge field to play in.

How did Gushchin go from opposition rallies to working for the mayor’s office and the Interior Ministry? Did he abandon his values, or did he believe that the regime could give him more? I found his long-forgotten online diary. It turned out that Gushchin had continued working for the St. Petersburg mayor’s office in the same position until very recently. His workplace changed names many times and became known as the «Contact Center» state-funded center in the mid-2000s. One of the people Gushchin mentioned in his LiveJournal was Sergei Barkan, a former employee of the center. His VK page made it clear that he was a dog trainer, loved his hometown, and wrote a lot about his son. At first, Sergei responded eagerly, but then all communication stopped — he refused to talk.

I haven’t been back to my school for many years now. But I still remember my mixed feelings that made me want to run away. Back then, at age 15, I thought that adults knew what was right. And that if I didn’t know what was going on, I just wasn’t smart enough and had to pretend everything was okay and not say anything.

Katya Arenina
I haven’t been back to my school for many years now. But I still remember my mixed feelings that made me want to run away. Back then, at age 15, I thought that adults knew what was right. And that if I didn’t know what was going on, I just wasn’t smart enough and had to pretend everything was okay and not say anything.

* * *

Many of Gushchin’s acquaintances, whom he mentioned in his LiveJournal, were either already dead or — like Barkan — refused to talk. But suddenly I got a call back from Gushchin’s former colleague. He said there was something else I should know about.

Kirill*, Gushchin’s former colleague
One day, I discovered a whole set of videotapes belonging to him. It was male pornography. In our office. Several other teachers saw it too. Basic teaching ethics completely rejects such discoveries. Of course, he tried to play it smart, saying that he needed it to study the enemy, as he put it. What enemy?

That phrase about the «enemy» kept running through my head, raising new questions. One of my sources gave me the contact details of someone who had known Gushchin since the 1980s. I wrote to him without any particular expectations, but soon received not only an agreement to talk, but also a promise to share something important.

Vladislav Terekhin, Gushchin’s acquaintance
Gushchin was definitely a mousy person, playing both sides of the fence. Sometimes it was interesting to listen to his stories; of course, 80 percent of it was lies, but 20 percent was true.

Like many others, I started out as a black marketeer. By the age of 15, I could easily buy tickets to the Mariinsky Theater, I had no problems with food, I could freely go to Smolny to eat, and I knew practically the entire city elite. It was all thanks to communication.

I met Gushchin in 1988, after an environmental conference organized by Lena Zelinskaya. I was one of the founders of the Green Party. As head of the Moskovsky District Environmental Protection Inspectorate, I managed to register the first party in the Soviet Union. Gushchin later left the party and worked at the Center for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency  — this is another name of the same «Contact Centre» under the city administration × . He wrote the book Children of the Streets.

In 1996, my new interlocutor Vladislav Terekhin worked on the election campaign of Anatoly Sobchak, the first mayor of St. Petersburg.

At that time, Sobchak was running for re-election as the city’s head, but lost. Sobchak’s campaign was officially headed by the mayor’s protégé and right-hand man, Vladimir Putin, then an official in the St. Petersburg city administration , Putin was the official head of the campaign headquarters, but in reality, the campaign was primarily run by other people, including Sobchak’s wife, Lyudmila Narusova × . That was the first time in my investigation that I found myself within arm’s reach of Russia’s ruler.

Katya Arenina
What was Gushchin doing during Sobchak’s campaign?

Vladislav Terekhin
In 1995−1996, I gave him a job working on the elections. Yes, we were involved in monitoring, and there were a lot of orders.

Katya Arenina
Have you ever met Putin?

Vladislav Terekhin
I will not answer that question. I will not. Let’s not go there. Why should we? I respect Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Our great president is doing everything right, he is the father of the nation.

Terekhin said that he now works as a lawyer and is raising an adult son.

This conversation left me with a strange impression. It seemed to me that Terekhin was not telling me everything… I decided to find Gushchin’s book Children of the Streets, which my interlocutor had mentioned. But I couldn’t find it either online or in libraries. Instead, I found a manual by Gushchin on working with the youth subcultures. Apparently, it was one of the manuals Gushchin wrote for the Interior Ministry.

I read this brochure hoping to find some clues. The main thing I realized was that Gushchin was very passionate about youth movements. So much so that in an interview on St. Petersburg television he defended some goths  — A popular subculture in Russia during the 2000s and early 2010s, whose followers were drawn to dark music, clothing, and worldview — × who had allegedly killed their female friend with inexplicable fervor.

I remembered a strange detail that caught my eye when I was looking for Gushchin’s phone number. At the time, I didn’t think much of it at that time. In addition to his main email address, another address was linked to his phone number , as indicated by leaked database records × . The same address was listed on a website about St. Petersburg goths. The site administrator called himself Shermann and claimed to be a journalist for one of St. Petersburg’s news outlets. But time and again, he referred to Gushchin’s articles and lectures . For example, he published articles that were not publicly available or wrote that, thanks to his journalistic work, he would be able to attend Gushchin’s closed lecture × . It became clear that Gushchin and Shermann were one and the same person.

On the website, Gushchin was constantly talking with teens that happened by the end of 2000s × . I messaged some of them.

Maksim*
He often showed up at our parties and took a lot of pictures of the guys. Some even joked that he had built up quite a collection. I heard that he could make advances, but to be honest, I never noticed anything like that.

Andrey*
He used to hang out at the gatherings of nonconformists that I frequented. Many people only talked to him because he was a strange old guy who shared his alcohol with others.

Ruslan*
Vladimir was a photographer at one of the anime discos. He told me that he sometimes goes on photo shoots in the countryside. There were various rumors about him, but I couldn’t find any confirmation of them.

Another guy wrote to me that he didn’t remember Gushchin very well, but had heard that he was connected to some dark story.

Oleg*
He used to go to all kinds of parties where teenagers hung out, always bringing his camera. A few years later, there was some kind of terrible incident. I think someone from the group died, and Gushchin was somehow involved. But I don’t know the details, and I don’t want to get involved.

Katya Arenina
Could you tell me the name of this person?

He never replied. I tried to find references to this incident in social media groups, but they had all been abandoned long ago. It turned out, however, that Gushchin was also well known in another world — among Leningrad democrats, the very people who fought against the Soviet regime in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And they knew him from a very unpleasant side…

New York

Roman*, Leningrad journalist
In the late 1980s, I used to attend all the democratic rallies. There, I met Gushchin, who was a member of the Green Party. Somehow, they had been given the green light to operate almost legally. We would all get beaten up and detained for a day. But they were allowed to hold events with foreigners at the Leningrad Palace of Youth, the stronghold of the Komsomol and the KGB. People like Gushchin were sent there by the Chekists to control the green youth from within.

That was unexpected. Could Gushchin really have been connected to the KGB? If so, why did he get himself into that? And was it his own choice? Sometimes investigations require not only persistence, but also a bit of luck. Roman, Leningrad journalist happened to have the book I had been looking for for so long — Children of the Streets. It revealed new names and events surrounding Gushchin. At first, the stories about troubled teenagers and trips to the countryside seemed harmless, but they gradually turned into something dark and frightening. Gushchin described youth subcultures as criminal groups and talked about «recruiting teenagers» and methods of infiltrating their communities.

Kirill*, Gushchin’s former colleague
Participant observation is an extreme measure, unsuitable for a youth group. It’s something the police might do to infiltrate gangs. But Gushchin liked to play these pseudo-military games. He said that he was part of these groups, that they could be broken up, that their leaders could be framed and eliminated. Unfortunately, I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time

The book contained some truly horrific passages. Gushchin wrote about St. Petersburg street children who prostituted themselves, and even hinted that he slept with the teenagers he was supposed to be looking after. Most importantly, Gushchin implied that he collaborated with the KGB and was a secret agent for the state security services. «The operation was monitored by the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU. The program was supervised by the KGB.» According to the book, all this was devised by the Chekists to get young people interested in ecology — that is, to redirect their protest into a form acceptable to the system.

Vladimir*, Gushchin’s former acquaintance
Gushchin and his friend once claimed that their office had been shot at by unknown assailants, saying there were bullet holes in the glass. Two Komsomolskaya Pravda reporters arrived to investigate. But all they found were cracks, the kind you get on glass from excessive stress. They said, «What makes you think it was a shooting? There should be a bullet then.» Basically, they were trying to make themselves look like they were being persecuted. The Deep Drilling Committee always infiltrated all these youth groups — hippies, metalheads, rock clubs. They covered a wide spectrum.

Those times, like ours, were filled with paranoia and hunting for moles. The collapse of the USSR didn’t fix this problem—most of the KGB archives stayed secret, and the secret service itself, under new names, kept doing pretty much the same thing. We still don’t know the names of those who worked for the secret services. This made the direct confession of one of the likely agents all the more shocking. But I remembered the words of Gushchin’s former boss: «He used to make a lot of things up.» Terekhin also mentioned this.

Vladislav Terekhin, Gushchin’s acquaintance
Gushchin considered himself the most knowledgeable. That is, he pretended to be aware of all the events taking place in the public life of the city.

Katya Arenina
Did he really work for the KGB?

Vladislav Terekhin
Nothing of the sort, those are just myths.

Katya Arenina
Are you saying that Gushchin made this up?

Vladislav Terekhin
I haven’t seen a single member of the KGB in the Green Party.

Evgeny*, Gushchin’s former acquaintance
I believe that Gushchin may have been recruited by the KGB. Once, I saw him meeting with a person whom I took to be his handler. He looked very typical-one of those gloomy guys from Liteyny Prospekt , where the Leningrad KGB headquarters, the so-called «Big House,» was located × . Now, this building houses the St. Petersburg FSB office. They all look the same: gray suit, shirt, tie, polished shoes, a briefcase, and an expression like it was made of copy-paste. They met in a café that was rumored to be the place where those guys from Liteyny set up their meetings. I think he was receiving money from them specifically for monitoring these informal, especially dangerous communities. But I don’t know anyone personally harmed by Gushchin. We wouldn’t be friends if I ever heard any really dirty stories about him.

I also asked another of Gushchin’s acquaintances, Sergei Barkan, about it.

Katya Arenina
Sergei, hello, this is Katya, the journalist who contacted you earlier. I would like to ask you a few questions about your colleague Vladimir Gushchin. The thing is, we discovered…

Sergei Barkan
I’m sorry, Katerina, please stop trying to find out anything more about my colleague. Sorry, but our conversation ends here.

My other source, Roman, Leningrad journalist, who was acquainted with Gushchin in the 1980s, was absolutely convinced that he worked for the KGB.

Saint Petersburg, 1994

Roman*, Leningrad journalist
I had an acquaintance with whom I worked at a newspaper in St. Petersburg. He has since passed away, and out of respect for his memory, I would ask that you refrain from revealing his name . Proekt does know the name of the journalist in question × . Well, around 1994−1995, Gushchin started frequenting our editorial office. I decided to check out who he was visiting and found out that he had been trying to find my colleague for several days. Finally, he found him and they had a long conversation, after which my colleague was all red, almost hysterical. I asked him what happened, he said: «I’ll tell you later.» The next day Gushchin came again. I asked him: «Just tell me what’s wrong, what can I do to help?». And then he confessed that this Gushchin was blackmailing him. I told him right away that we should put an end to this. We had a friend in the office who had a hunting rifle, a Saiga. The next day, when Gushchin came, we took him aside and told him that if he ever approached my colleague again, we would deal with him. He was terrified, ran away and never came back.

The same story was later told to me by two other people. One heard it from a journalist, the other from Gushchin’s entourage.

Saint Petersburg, 1994

Roman*
My colleague later told me what this was all about. In the very early 90s, two people approached him and offered him a drink in a beer bar near Kazansky Railway Station, where the rallies were held. One was Gushchin, and the other was called something like Khazen or Khazan. They had a drink, talked, and then they invited him to an apartment on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street, then called Zhelyabova Street. He said he doesn’t remember anything after that, he blacked out immediately. And when he woke up, the two men said that he had been raped and that they had taken some photographs of him. And they demanded that he should give them any information that he learned as a journalist about the Democrats and fulfill their orders in the newspapers. That is, they were to give him information and he was to publish it. So, Gushchin demanded that he publish some story. He refused and Gushchin threatened that he would send these photos to all his colleagues.

Katya Arenina
Was it an isolated incident?

Roman*
I don’t think so. They even told this journalist they had more people like him.

The raped journalist had been on Gushchin’s hook for several years. Shortly after this story, he died of a sudden illness. He was not even thirty years old.

The story grew with new mysteries and none of them had an answer at the time. The possible death of a goth teenager, Gushchin’s interest in minors, his connection with the security services and the mayor’s office. The identity of Khazan, the man involved in the violence and blackmail, was no less intriguing to me. At that time I didn’t know yet that it was he who would give the investigation a new twist, and everything I had found out up to then was just the tip of the iceberg.

* * *

Gushchin’s past was becoming part of my present. But the solution was still a long way off. His acquaintances were refusing to talk, stopping to answer calls, deleting messages from our chats.

I actually already had many of the answers in my hands. They were hidden in Gushchin’s book. In it, I unexpectedly came across a name I had heard before — Khazan. Gushchin first wrote about him when describing the teenage groups of St. Petersburg. In particular, what he called «the gay youth community.» The book said that the Komsomol provided Gushchin with data on a certain Khazan, whom the authorities had been keeping an eye on since the mid-1980s. This is an important point. The Komsomol activists, who formed the assistant police brigades at that time, were full of secret KGB and MVD officers. It was these people who introduced Gushchin to Khazan. As Gushchin wrote, there were groups of homosexual teens operating in the vicinity of Moskovsky Railway Station. The most famous of them was «Mr. Khazan’s group of minors,» about thirty people, including children engaged in prostitution. But I did not know who Khazan himself was.

Katya Arenina
My school occupied a very old building in the center of St. Petersburg, dating back to imperial times. In one of the classrooms there was an old hatch in the floor. My classmates and I knew that older students would sometimes go in there, but I never looked in. I think everyone has a place in their memory where they hide things they’d rather not talk about. But keeping quiet about such things is dangerous.

* * *

They called him Khazan, he used to hang out with us. I didn’t really know who he was. They said he was an aide to some MP, but then he abruptly disappeared.

I heard he did time for molestation, something to do with kidnapping a child.

He would hang out with Gushchin, his older companion would bring him along. He had a big nose. A natural manipulator. I don’t remember his real name.

He used to work for the authorities against the opposition and attend all the rallies, especially the LGBT ones. But I don’t want to talk about it. As you know, it won’t change anything in these times.

I asked dozens of people about Hazan — but no one knew his real name. No one had a picture of him. He remained a shadow in other people’s stories, a figure without a face. The book was the only remaining clue. In one of the chapters, Gushchin described how he tried, as he put it, to work with Khazan.

What does the phrase «effective methods of working with extremists» mean? Was it really something like the story about recruiting the journalist — i.e. rape and blackmail?

I started asking my sources about the Baltika-88 conference that Gushchin had mentioned. One of them recalled that a few years ago he had seen a document in the archives of the Lithuanian KGB that mentioned this conference. It also explicitly described how the secret service was planting agents within dissident organizations. He didn’t remember the details, but, according to him, this document could be of great help in my investigation.

So I found it.

Vilnius

In the 1980s, the KGB used to publish a top secret journal where officers shared their professional experience. In 1988, the journal «Sbornik KGB» published an article by officers of the Leningrad KGB Directorate, a unique testimony of how the secret service spied on dissidents. Listen to these words — there is almost complete similarity in the rhetoric of the Soviet security services and the current Russian authorities.

The article stated that the KGB sought to plant agents in dissident organizations or recruit their leaders. For this purpose, the committee sent two undercover agents to the dissident organization «Council for Cultural Ecology». The code names of these agents were «Petrov» and «Shura».

The task of «Petrov» and «Shura» was to discredit the two protest leaders whom the KGB considered the most radical — they were given the code names «Filin» and «Zelenaya».

I wondered: could Gushchin and Khazan have been the agents who had infiltrated the opposition? «Shura» or «Petrov»? And who were the «Filin» and «Zelenaya» they were spying on?

Evgeny*, Gushchin’s former acquaintance
Khazan always hung out with the Green Party and felt perfectly at home there, just like other KGB snitches. Twice I saw him come to Gushchin with people in uniform, and they talked there. Once, he even showed me documents that he could have obtained only on Liteyny prospekt- they included the actual interrogation of our acquaintance by the KGB. After the collapse of the USSR, Khazan got a fake ticket inspector’s license somewhere and formed a criminal gang. They would raid buses and trolleybuses, catching fare dodgers, intimidating them and extorting money. And at the same time they were always coming to the Green Party events. The party office was no longer in the church, but in the House of Public Organizations on Izmailovsky Prospekt.

Vitaliy*, former guard of the House of Public Organizations
I crossed paths with him in 1995−1996, because I had been unemployed for two years since 1994 and was working part-time as a security guard on Izmailovsky Prospekt. On one of my shifts, he broke into the Green Party premises through a window. They were catching tram fare dodgers in the evenings. That’s when I found out what he was doing with them.

Katya Arenina
What was he doing with them?

Vitaliy*
Forcing to have sex with him. He would bring them to these greens’ premises, not through the front door, as it was after midnight, but through the window.

Evgeny*
I think he’s a maniac. He gets pleasure from physical violence, from bullying and tormenting people. His calling is to terrorize others by any means necessary.

Vitaliy*
He was in charge of gathering info on civic organizations. He had a room with listening devices, I saw it myself. The police didn’t want to arrest him, so I had to ask Cherkesov for help, and only with his help did they detain him for trespassing. Later, it turned out that he was cooperating with them as an informant. When I went to give my statement, I gathered from the conversations that he was working for them off the books. Cherkesov knew this for sure; he probably had this information recorded.

Yuliy Rybakov, dissident, former political prisoner
Viktor Cherkesov was one of the senior officials of the Leningrad branch of the KGB, actively fighting against dissidents and perestroika movements. I was one of the founders of the Leningrad branch of the Democratic Union  — A dissident organization founded in 1988 by Soviet human rights activists aimed to change the social system in the USSR × . Cherkesov initiated criminal proceedings against us. It was the last criminal case in the history of the USSR under Article 70, «Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.» The Investigative Department issued a warrant to search the homes of members of the Democratic Union. Such a search was carried out at my home, the home of Alexander Skobov, who is now behind bars Soviet and Russian dissident, human rights activist, and political prisoner Alexander Skobov, who faced arrests and punitive psychiatry in the USSR, was sentenced in present-day Russia to 16 years in prison on charges of participating in a terrorist organization and justifying terrorism for his publications × , and the homes of a dozen other people.

Cherkesov was a colleague and friend of Vladimir Putin. They served together in the Leningrad KGB.

Later, Putin made Cherkesov deputy director of the FSB and even offered him to head the entire special service , the information on the latter was provided to Proekt by sources × .

For years, Putin tried to prove that he was only involved in foreign intelligence while working for the KGB. But there is more and more evidence that he and Cherkesov were both employees of the Leningrad KGB’s 5th Directorate For example, a document in which a certain Lieutenant Putin is listed among the KGB officers who conducted a search of dissident Oleg Volkov, who was convicted in the same case about anti-Soviet inscriptions on St. Petersburg monuments as Rybakov. Other evidence includes a book by one of Putin’s former colleagues and publications by foreign journalists × . The one that spied on dissidents and planted agents in their organizations. One such group, the Council for Cultural Ecology, where the KGB planted agents «Petrov» and «Shura,» included Yuliy Rybakov.

Yuliy Rybakov, dissident, former political prisoner
The KGB was well aware of who I was, so they decided to remove me from the group. To achieve this, as I accidentally discovered many years later, agents were planted in it.

Katya Arenina
Do you know who they were?

Юлий Рыбаков
Of course not, especially since it’s been so long.

Katya Arenina
I know that the KGB was spying on people nicknamed «Filin» and «Zelenaya.» Do you know who they might be?

Yuliy Rybakov
As I accidentally discovered many years later, I was nicknamed «Filin» by them, and Elena Zelinskaya , а Soviet and Russian journalist, participant in the democratic movements of the Perestroika era × was nicknamed «Zelenaya.»

St. Petersburg is a surprisingly small city. Sometimes it seems that all paths cross there. Vladimir Putin worked in the mayor’s office, where Vladimir Gushchin also began his career. At the same time, Putin’s friend and Cherkesov’s deputy saved agent Khazan from arrest.

Roman*, Leningrad journalist
Khazan had a recruitment point in a café in the Oktyabrskaya Hotel. He would invite people like minor officials there to recruit them. He didn’t use violence, just psychological pressure, or he would collect reports. Gushchin hung out there too. And someone from the secret services too — first the KGB, then the FSB, the counterterrorism department. As a journalist, I heard about this from several people who had been there. One of my sources — who, by the way, is still an MP in St. Petersburg — was forced to get certain people jobs in the state service.

Katya Arenina
Were they blackmailed?

Roman*
Yes. They could find out, for example, that an official had violated something or had some kind of privilege. And then they would immediately hook him.

Katya Arenina
Could they blackmail people because of their sexual orientation?

Roman*
It’s quite possible. Gushchin and Khazan regularly visited the spot in Katya’s Garden, where Soviet gays gathered. They were joined by a friend nicknamed Babka Larina, who would later report to the KGB on who visited Katya’s Garden, who was an active gay, and who was new to the scene.

Petr Voskresensky, human rights activist and LGBT activist
In the late Soviet period, there was Article 121 for «sodomy» . The legal persecution of homosexuals in Russia was abolished soon after the emergence of the USSR and returned under Joseph Stalin. The article was repealed only after the collapse of the USSR × . However, this did not prevent a certain level of social activity among queer people. The well-known Ostrovsky Square, the so-called Katya’s Garden, has been a gathering place for LGBT people since Soviet times.

The season opened with a ceremony on March 8, International Women’s Day, when a blue ribbon was stretched across the garden fence. A bottle of champagne was smashed on the pedestal of the monument to Catherine the Great, signaling the start of the season. Not only gay men came to Katya’s Garden, but also women and trans people. It was a place where you could go for help. Of course, the people who gathered in Katya’s garden – Catherine Square in the very center of Leningrad/St. Petersburg, on Nevsky Prospekt, not far from the Gostiny Dvor metro station – × were under police and KGB surveillance, they were followed, raided, their names were recorded and apparently entered into the relevant documents. Since the archives are still not fully accessible to human rights activists and historians, it is, of course, difficult to research this period.

Gennady*, member of the Leningrad gay community
Slava, known as Babka Larina, was a well-known figure; I believe almost everyone knew him, as he interacted with practically all of us. He was essentially the supervisor of Katya’s Garden. You could approach him and ask, «How are things in the garden today? Are there any interesting characters?» He was always surrounded by an entourage of young people. Naturally, it wasn’t just us who knew him, but also the KGB.

Leningrad, 1989

Roman*, Leningrad journalist
Khazan and Gushchin also attended rallies at Kazan Cathedral, where they targeted democrats to coerce them into working for the authorities. This was right next to Katya’s Garden. They sought victims both there and elsewhere. They invited protesters to have a beer and then, as in the case of my journalist friend, took them to an apartment on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street. Since 1988, the Democratic Union had been organizing unauthorized rallies. We had our own kind of Hyde Park near Kazan Cathedral. They would constantly chase us away. Cherkesov was in charge of that. Khazan would attend those rallies, talk to young people about democracy, and then lure them to the apartment.

In 1991, Soviet troops entered Lithuania. Our activists in St. Petersburg created the Civil Resistance Movement (DGS). They transported medicines to Vilnius and organized protests. All this attracted the hostile interest of the KGB. Soon, the TV program Vremya aired a story about how the KGB had detained some scoundrels from the DGS who were transporting weapons from Leningrad to Vilnius . Proekt was unable to find this segment — even in the archives of the State Television and Radio Fund, not all broadcasts from that time have been preserved × . They showed two young men who had attended rallies at the Kazan Cathedral. They were forced to repent for their actions on camera. And then Khazan walked around town bragging that it was all his doing. I think the same thing happened to these young people — he lured them to the apartment for a beer and then framed them…

Babka Larina would offer to take souvenir photos, pretending to be a fashion photographer. These photos would then end up in the hands of the KGB. Several of my acquaintances went with him, and soon they were summoned to the KGB in an attempt to recruit them.

The real name of the individual known as Babka Larina was Vyacheslav Larin. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he continued to play the same role — introducing gay men in St. Petersburg to each other, and possibly to the secret services. At least, that was the belief within the St. Petersburg gay community, where Larin knew everyone by sight , Proekt was told by two sources well acquainted with this community. According to one of them, such suspicions were regularly shared in the late 1990s among participants of the St. Petersburg club scene. During those years, Larin worked as a face control at well-known St. Petersburg gay bars and knew all their visitors well, including those who hid their orientation in everyday life. According to the second source, Larin was placed there by FSB officers so that he would pass information about the visitors of these places to them × .

The story of Babka Larina led me to a crucial discovery, a place where all our characters converged — Gushchin, Khazan, the journalist who fell victim to blackmail, and dozens, perhaps hundreds, of St. Petersburg gay men who had suffered at the hands of the secret services.

Petr Voskresensky, human rights activist and LGBT activistProfessor Kukharsky was a classic Soviet intellectual. He lived in his own apartment, was a wealthy man, and organized meetings for queer people. This, of course, attracted the attention of the relevant authorities.

Alexander Kukharsky, founder of Krylya («Wings»), the first officially registered LGBT organization in Russia. In the 1980s, Alexander Kukharsky taught physics at the Herzen Institute. At the same time, he became one of the prominent figures of the St. Petersburg gay community. He was acquainted with Babka Larina , Proekt was told by a person who had seen them together more than once × .

Gennady*, member of the Leningrad gay community
He had a salon, as everyone called it, the Kucharsky salon. An apartment in the center, a nice one, large, old, with expensive furniture. He kept young boys there, he had a lot of them, and he ran an organization called Krylya.

American journalist David Tuller, who spent several months among Russian gays and lesbians in the 90s, described Kukharsky’s lifestyle in detail:

«Kucharski showed no restraint in discussing his colossal sexual exploits. One day he grabbed a box and started showing me his private collection of hundreds of slides of naked men. This collection formed the basis of the pornography production charges brought against him by the local prosecutor»

Olga Krause, a member of Krylya in the early 90s
The first and last president of the Krylya association. Kukharsky maintained a brothel with minors: they collected street children there. He rejoiced when the age of consent in Russia was lowered to 14. After his revelations about such «charitable» work, I simply resigned from the Krylya association.

Four sources told Proekt that Kukharsky was involved in pedophilia , — This is former «Krylya» member Olga Krause; two acquaintances of Olga Zhuk, the founder of one of Russia’s first LGBT organizations, the «Tchaikovsky Fund,» who heard this from her; a Leningrad homosexual who encountered Kucharsky in the 1980s-90s; and a person from the circle of Vladimir Gushchin, who had visited Kucharsky’s home × .

The criminal case against Kukharsky had no major consequences — he was not imprisoned, but received a suspended sentence , was described in the film about LGBT people in Soviet Russia, «Other Shores» × . But his collection of slides with Leningrad gays ended up in the hands of the Chekists , as follows from Tullers book × . After the verdict, the professor continued to assemble homosexuals in his apartment. Some of those I spoke to suspect that Kukharsky, like Larin, was recruited by the security services and used for their own purposes . Such suspicions were held by Olga Zhuk from the «Tchaikovsky Fund,» as well as by two people well acquainted with the Leningrad gay community × . Both of them died a few years ago, so it is no longer possible to ask them any questions . Larin died in 2020 from pneumonia, Kucharsky died in 2023 from coronavirus × .

Evgeny*, Gushchin’s former acquaintance
I was at a Krylya meeting once. It was an apartment on Zhelyabova Street — now Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street. Opposite the church where the Green Party was. Gushchin and Khazan frequented it, as a friend told me, he went there often. Clonidine was common there, some young men, even children, were regularly dragged there and drugged with clonidine — it makes your blood pressure drop and you pass out.

Katya Arenina
Have you heard of any clonidine parties in this apartment?

Gennady, member of the Leningrad gay community
There were some rumors about it. If he was under KGB protection, he could afford such a thing.

Everything matched — it was the same apartment where Khazan and Gushchin had tried to recruit the St. Petersburg journalist.

Evgeny*, Gushchin’s former acquaintance
A friend of mine told me a story about a guy who was drugged with clonidine and blackmailed by Khazan. I don’t know all the details, but I assume that it happened there . According to this source, there was also a possibility that it happened at Vladimir Gushchin’s home × . And that they might have taken a picture of him with a penis in his mouth or something like that. I know that he was a journalist and in the morning they made him write a paper that he would pledge to cooperate with the KGB . According to this source, Gushchin, who was present in the apartment at the time, did not directly participate in the violence but also did not intervene. Later, this did not prevent him from blackmailing the journalist × .

This painted a gruesome picture — Gushchin and his accomplice Khazan, in the company of other KGB agents, were drugging, raping, and then blackmailing people in the very center of St. Petersburg, in an apartment frequented by dozens or hundreds of young men, even children, as it was said… I couldn’t get it out of my head — after all, Gushchin worked as a teacher, he dealt with street teens every day.

Vienna

Petr*, former employee of the Contact Center
I used to work with Gushchin at the Contact Center in the beginning of 2000s ×  — we would go to camps where they sent kids who had police records. Skinheads, teenagers from dysfunctional families. The work was very difficult, they were all extremely aggressive. The authorities tried to control them, but they didn’t really control the streets. Contact began to work with them and passed information to the law enforcement.

Andrey, former skinhead
Because of my past, they would often drag me to the police for questioning, and Gushchin would sit there and tell them what to ask me. I remember their center had «Social Patrol» cars and the guys who ended up there were beaten. This was done by Gushchin and his group.

Petr*, former employee of the Contact Center
Gushchin was always in touch with the FSB, even though he complained about them. He wanted something in return. The Interior Ministry could give him a commendation, but the FSB were stingy with awards. And they worked very closely with the 18th Department of the Organized Crime Unit (UBOP), the predecessor of Center E Center E — the Interior Ministry’s department for countering extremism, established in 2008, engaged in surveillance and criminal prosecution of the opposition × , and Gushchin always celebrated Police Day as his holiday.

One of Gushchin’s manuals said that UBOP operatives had once ordered him to conduct a study on the prevalence of homosexuality among skinheads. It was frightening to think how the security forces could use the results.

Petr*, former employee of the Contact Center
Gushchin and Barkan could supply the enforcers with exclusive information. They were the bosses of this system, always playing good cop-bad cop. Gushchin was the good cop, and Barkan was the bad cop. If you don’t talk, Barkan will deal with you.

Sergey Barkan is an employee of the Contact Center whom I tried to ask about Gushchin earlier. At the time, he struck me as a modest, polite person who simply did not want to talk about a colleague behind his back. The original image of Barkan in my head collapsed in an instant.

Petr*, former employee of the Contact Center
Gushchin called his department «the Gestapo.» They had a bus labeled «Social Patrol» where detainees had to sit on a bottle with their pants off. It was Barkan’s signature move. And Gushchin liked the fact that there was a dude who could have skinheads sit on a bottle, he liked that they were afraid of them.

Anton, former Barkan’s acquaintance
I’ve seen him a few times, he used to go to LARP  — Fans of historical role-playing games and reenactment × gatherings in the early noughties. Scary man. We heard he used to be a customs operative. But he himself said he was from the FSB. There was also a theory that he served in Chechnya. If true, that would explain a lot. At some point, someone found out that he had been tried for arms sales and fraud involving harm to a person. He got a 5.5 year suspended sentence. And he was immediately hired to work with children.

Petr*, former employee of the Contact Center
He could hit you in the liver so you fall to the floor. He had two methods, the liver punch or the bottle. He told me about it proudly. Sometimes he would use other skinheads as witnesses — one would sit the bottle, the would get beaten, and the third one would talk right away. In the end, everyone was ready to cooperate. Once Barkan brought a teenager to the center itself, at Frunze Street 4, and had him sit on a bottle in the toilet. Usually it was all done in the car. Gushchin started telling him not to do that here. They were sitting together in office 16, and the toilet was next door. So the policemen started joking that the toilet was office 16b.

Vladislav Terekhin, Gushchin’s acquaintance
I thought it was foolish, just foolish, and that violence and such things, which everyone knew about, would do no good. I know a lot about Gushchin. If there was no Gushchin, there would be no Barkan either. He brought Barkan there. Everyone else too. In 1989 or 1990, Guschin brought Barkan into my cooperative. There’s a lot of personal stuff involved. I know a lot of personal secrets.

Katya Arenina
Barkan was really young back then, right?

Vladislav Terekhin
Yes.

Katya Arenina
Was he even 18?

Vladislav Terekhin
He was. You can figure the rest out yourself. There’s a lot of personal stuff involved. I know a lot of personal secrets.

I found testimonies of people who had been in the hands of Barkan and Gushchin in old articles. Here is the story of a former National Bolshevik.

Sergei Chekunov, in the 2000s, a member of the St. Petersburg National Bolshevik Party (NBP)
I was taken in for questioning, and there were operatives from the 18th Department of the Organized Crime Unit who demanded to know who was the organizer of the rally. Soon they were joined by Sergey Barkan, an employee of the St. Petersburg administration. I refused to answer, so they started torturing me. They made me strip down to my underwear. It was Barkan who tortured me most of the time. He started pulling out my hair, squeezing out my eyes with his fingers. He pulled my head back and hit my throat with his hand. Four times they would put a sack over my head, spread my arms apart and hit me in the ribs. When convulsions started, they would take the bag off my head and say «let’s cooperate, you’ll be our informant»… Barkan threatened to beat me to death. He said, «We could have drowned you in the bay in older times.»

The name Barkan was also mentioned on a long abandoned website. Along with another name familiar to me.

The stylistics and word choice on this site were very reminiscent of Gushchin’s books.

Petr*, former employee of the Contact Center
That’s certainly Gushchin’s style, «Gestapo» is what he called Barkan’s department. Notice that Gushchin himself is never mentioned. He could do that to show that they were to be feared. He liked that very much.

Katya Arenina
Have you ever known a man nicknamed Khazan?

Petr*, former employee of the Contact Center
Yes, Gushchin used to bring him to the center, saying that he was his acquaintance running for governor. He kept saying, «Gushchin has a lot of boys here, I’m jealous». Gushchin sometimes used him to gain the trust of the lowlifes.

Beatings and bottle rapes — not only in the detention cell, but right in the office of one of the departments of the St. Petersburg City Hall. The true colors of Gushchin, Khazan, and Barkan were gradually becoming clear to me. But that was hardly the end of it.

* * *

Suddenly, I got a message from another man. He used to hang out with a group of alternative teens.

Grigory*
Some of my old acquaintances wrote to me that you are gathering information about a certain Vladimir. I can help on condition of anonymity and if no photos are posted in which I appear.

I was born in 2000. In 2013, I started attending alternative gatherings, where there were some emo guys hanging out. Vladimir was there, and he invited us for a photo shoot. He paid for everything, including transportation and alcohol, and brought his own props. When I was invited for the first time, they showed me references of the style in which we would be photographed, and those photos were normal. However, with each subsequent photoshoot, they got weirder and weirder.

He gave me the contacts of a few other guys who used to attend these gatherings.

Vlad*
I met him many years ago. Gushchin said he worked in the city administration. He would lure teenagers to his place under the pretext of spending the night and drinking. The scenario was always the same. They would meet in the Udelny Park near the metro station at 3 p.m. and go drinking until late at night. He would lure the minors who stayed behind to his place for free alcohol and a place to sleep. Rumors circulated that he only took boys and never let girls in. Years later, I understand why. They were usually children from dysfunctional families or under psychiatric care.

Alexandra*
I don’t really want to remember those creepy meetings. Vladimir was an unpleasant person, I avoided him. I know there was one older guy who visited him. But he was strange, kind of stupid, with quirks. There were rumors about their intimate relationship.

Grigory*
Have you seen these photos before?

Katya Arenina
No. Are they stored somewhere?

Grigory*
Yes, on his VK page. He has a different surname there

The archive that opened up to me was terrifying. On the VK page that Gushchin had created under the name Vladimir Maksimov, there were thousands, even tens of thousands of photos dating from the early 2000s until 2022. There were photo shoots of half-naked and even completely naked boys in nature. Some of them clearly did not look 18, let alone 16. Some photos were seemingly taken in Gushchin’s own apartment — there were books on youth subcultures in the bookcase, and three young men in their underwear appeared to be staying the night.

Kirill*, Gushchin’s former colleague
He had a pathological interest in boys. He was very interested in homosexuality and constantly talked about it.

Evgeny*, Gushchin’s former acquaintance
As a social worker, he had quite a few boys under his care. He would choose those with whom he could form close relationships. When they outgrew the age that interested him, he would find new ones.

Katya Arenina
Perhaps you’ve heard about the guy who died after one of the gatherings? He used to hang out with Gushchin.

Grigory*
Yes, Gushchin often had him stay over, around 2014−2016. The guy was a bit different from everyone else (developmentally challenged) and had a bunch of health issues. He was like a child mentally. And he liked to drink. So they drank there, and then everything happened as we feared.

Maksim*
As far as I remember, he died because he went swimming drunk at one of the gatherings and drowned. I know that he used to stay overnight at Gushchin’s place, but he never talked about what happened there, and no one was particularly interested.

This young man we will not disclose the name of the deceased young man out of respect for his family and friends × passed away in 2017 — he fell into a river while out with friends and drowned. When he first appeared in Gushchin’s photographs, he was 20 years old, and several individuals who knew him claimed that he had mental health issues . His father told Proekt that the young man did not have a diagnosis, but he was registered at a neuropsychiatric dispensary × . Gushchin was 55 at the time.

I wondered for a long time whether I had the right to talk about this. Revealing someone’s sexual orientation is more than just an invasion of privacy; it is an act of violence in itself. But this was not just about sex. Gushchin was someone who participated in violence and blackmail, who encouraged torture and beatings, and who, according to the recollections of several people, got young men drunk in order to lure them into sexual relations. It’s hard to talk about such things, but it’s even harder to remain silent.

Evgeny*, Gushchin’s former acquaintance
He has a bunch of photos at home, a whole archive. All his lovers and those who stayed at his place are naked there. The whole photo is of a penis, and if you look closely, you can see a face in the background. Of course, he’s not going to post that on the internet.

The sexual molestation of minors has always been a criminal offense, both in the USSR and in Russia. But Gushchin’s activities, photo shoots, and meetings with boys were never investigated. On the contrary, until very recently, he worked for the mayor’s office and was considered an expert on youth issues (!. According to data from Pension Fund, Gushchin was still receiving a salary at the Kontakt Center in 2024#). There is no need to explain why he was treated with such leniency. He is a secret agent of the special services, which, as in Soviet times, are once again putting gay people in prison. For the system, Gushchin is one of their own, and he can do whatever he wants.

This photograph shows Gushchin, Elena Zelinskaya, Yuliy Rybakov, and several other individuals in March 1987, with the caption: «Leaders of Leningrad public organizations announce the creation of the Council for Cultural Ecology.» This was the very organization where the KGB sent agents «Shura» and «Petrov» to monitor «Filin» and «Zelenaya».

I decided to show this photo to Rybakov.

Yuliy Rybakov
Yes, that’s probably me, Zelinskaya is on the right. Gushchin was among those who were actively involved in developing this movement, I remember him. There was such a person.

Gushchin soon followed Rybakov and Zelinskaya to their new organization Epicenter — the KGB collection said «Shura» went there as well. Everything I had learned about Gushchin by this point indicated that this agent, who was spying on dissidents on the orders of the KGB, was him . Gushchin, like «Shura,» participated in the activities of the «Council for the Ecology of Culture» immediately after its creation, in March 1987. Like «Shura,» he soon left for Epicenter” And, like «Shura,» he was involved in environmental issues. The article also stated that «Shura» communicated with French television correspondent Karine Pertuis. «Proekt» contacted her, but she could not recall either meeting Gushchin or anyone else who might have been this agent. However, at that time Pertuis was filming a documentary about activists from the «Rescue Group» — Gushchin was well acquainted with them and, having learned from them about the correspondent’s visit, could simply have reported on his interaction with her × .

Katya Arenina
Our geography teacher was young, about thirty. He played «What? Where? When?» and started giving us training sessions after school. I went there too. It was fun. And then he started texting me. First about the game. Then about my classmates. He complained that no one was taking the game seriously. Then he made jokes. Dirty, inappropriate ones. He commented on the girls, their looks. And after one training session, he invited me to talk to him in a café. Alone.

* * *

The identity of Khazan was still a mystery to me. A manipulator, provocateur, blackmailer, and Gushchin’s accomplice in dirty deeds — all this added up to a frightening image. But there was one detail I had almost forgotten: Khazan had been spotted at protest rallies. Given everything else, it seemed insignificant. But sometimes minor details prove to be the key to solving a mystery.

Ilya Gantvarg, activist, presenter
When Alexei Navalny’s presidential campaign began in 2017, he opened a headquarters in St. Petersburg, and I went there to volunteer. That’s where I met Dmitry Myakshin. He came to the headquarters very often and volunteered there too. I was 18 in 2017, and as far as I remember, Myakshin was a little younger than me. There was a rally, and Myakshin fell on a police officer. A criminal case was opened against him, and it became quite a high-profile story.

Konstantin, Dmitry Myakshin’s friend
Of course, he should have left immediately, but he didn’t realize it. His passport was not confiscated during the search. He went to the German consulate with this passport and was issued a visa. He wanted to call a Blablacar and go to Belarus and from there to Germany. But the car didn’t arrive, everything fell apart, he decided to stay. And then I learned from the news that he had joined the United Russia Young Guard.

Myakshin’s interview
I realized that these were not really my views. I saw that Navalny was lying in some places, there was more hysteria than action. Activists marched at rallies, but did nothing useful. I decided to join the ranks of United Russia and the Young Guard.

In the winter of 2018, Myakshin was Navalny’s headquarters. And by April, he was calling himself a United Russia supporter and posting selfies with MP Vitaly Milonov, one of the main anti-gay activists.

Myakshin’s friends are sure that this change of views was an act. He wrote to a friend:

Myakshin in messages with friend
If I didn’t have a girlfriend and a family, I would say that I don’t regret being at the rally and acting as I did, and that everyone should be brave and fight for their freedom of speech.

Someone presented Myakshin with a choice — prison or betrayal. And perhaps it was the man I had been looking for for so long. I once again contacted the source who once saw Khazan at St. Petersburg opposition rallies.

I think he was on St Isaac’s Square in 2012 during Occupy St Isaac. He was also in a BBC movie, I think it was about gays, they filmed it in 2014. He was chasing the presenter.

That was the last piece of the puzzle.

I’ve found the movie. In the movie, journalist Reggie Yates talks about the hard life of LGBT people in Putin’s Russia. Vitaliy Milonov, a well-known St. Petersburg politician and member of the State Duma, plays a crucial role in the persecution of gays. He is a typical hypocrite. He once built his career among democrats, but, smelling new trends, he became a radical Putinist. Milonov appears in the movie at the most tense moment — here he is surrounded by aides breaking into a queer festival, which was filmed by Yates. Here he’s arguing with homosexuals. And then…

I was simply stunned. Next to Milonov was Vladislav Terekhin. The man who was helping my investigation.

Everything I knew about Hazan suddenly had a face. Every account of his victims, every word in Gushchin’s book now had a name and a voice — a voice I had heard more than once.

Vladislav Terekhin
There’s a certain game, right? And each of us is guided by our own considerations in this game.

It all fit. Khazan worked for Sobchak during the elections, and Terekhin worked there as well, both were involved in St. Petersburg politics, both, as it turned out, had done time.

Everyone called him Vlad Lecter, he was always following us… He was taking pictures at the rallies and trying to get acquainted with the participants.

Gossiper, snitch, he liked to pretend to be a hero of the invisible front… Very intrusive, very sticky, slimy, he messaged me, offered all sorts of meetings.

A dangerous man, obviously with an unhealthy psyche… He was always surrounded by some boys… All the time with young boys… He never came alone. Always with some young men. If you’re over 18, you’re of no interest to him.

I seem to have opened a can of worms.

Ilya Gantvarg, activist, presenter
To drink beer, to go to the sauna. He actively invited people to join him, to become his mentee.

Natasha Voznesenskaya, activist
He boasted that he was kind of connected to some agencies, pretended to sympathize with us.

Nikolay*, Saint-Petersburg activist
Once I was on a picket and a guy ran up to me and threw eggs at me. And Terekhin told me later that he had directed the guy and that he had been paid for it.

Alexey Bolgarov, Saint-Petersburg activist
There was this NOD, the National Liberation Movement, and they would troll our rallies. Vlad would come, but he never indicated that he had anything to do with it. Once the NOD guys crossed an unacceptable line in their trolling and we all got detained together. I was the first to be released, and I saw Vlad standing there with a part of the NOD guys. He said he was waiting for his people. So, it all became clear.

Ariel, activist
I was detained at one of the rallies. After that Vlad Lektor wrote to me that he informed my institute, SPbSU, that I am an LGBT activist. According to him, if I didn’t want me and my family to have any trouble, I needed to cooperate with him and come to the sauna. After that I was summoned to the ethics committee at St. Petersburg State University and the police came to my mom’s house. He tried to pressure me to cooperate, telling me how they could take me to the woods and I would be in big trouble.

Vladislav Shipitsyn, activist
He openly said right away that he was working for the FSB. Around 2019, a young man I know, who was then a participant in the Indefinite Protest… There was a rally at Gostiny Dvor, and he came to me in a completely deranged state. Either drunk or on something, I had never seen him in such a state before or since. He said he was with Terekhin. They were sitting in a cafe, Terekhin kept ordering vodka. He could not remember whether Terekhin spiked his drink, or what questions he asked. He said that Terekhin tried to recruit him, to make him an informant.

There was no doubt anymore. I could barely restrain myself from writing him everything I thought. Terekhin was the one coercing fare dodgers into sex. Terekhin and Guschin had been following the democrats since the 80s. They drugged people and blackmailed them for the KGB. It was Terekhin together with Gushchin and Barkan who spied on teenagers for the FSB.

Alexey*, journalist
You join the movement, get caught on photos, Terekhin texts you and invites you to a sauna, gets you drunk, perhaps even gives you sleeping pills, takes photos in indecent poses and publishes them on his VK page.

Terekhin, like Gushchin, posted literally tens of thousands of photos on his page. With State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev, Boris Nemtsov, Dmitry Bykov. It seems that he has been at every opposition rally and picket of the last 10 years.

In many photos Terekhin is surrounded by very young boys, probably minors. In some of these pictures, MP Vitaliy Milonov is also present.

Dmitriy*, Saint-Petersburg activist
When the law on LGBT propaganda among minors was passed, I went with a friend to the Mayakovsky library for an event featuring Milonov. Vlad approached us there and offered to take a picture. He was Milonov’s main event organizer at the time, his closest comrade. He took pictures of him, guarded him, walked by his side at a procession. After that, he found me on VK and started sending strange photos from the bathhouse. He even recruited boys by simply approaching them on the street like: «Who are you? I’m Vladik. Let’s go for a drink.» Nine out of ten would refuse, the tenth would go. Then he’d call them to the sauna. He recruits everyone to be his friend, and then he uses them as he sees fit. He called these boys «My Gay Guard».

I was scrolling through photos from Terekhin’s page. And suddenly… I saw pictures of half-naked guys, clearly in an altered state.

It turned out that Terekhin not only keeps photos of naked boys on his page, but also sends them to third parties , One of the former St. Petersburg activists acquainted with Terekhin told Proekt about this on condition of anonymity. He said that Terekhin had repeatedly sent him such photos without his consent × . Here is a picture of the same young man I saw earlier with Terekhin and Milonov. He’s unconscious, naked.

Ariel, activist
This man was an acquaintance of mine, a member of our political organization, but then he stopped coming to the rallies. At the same time, he started cooperating with Vlad Terekhin. I assume that Telekhin had dirt on him.

Viktor*
I can guess how these photos were made. I didn’t have much experience with alcohol at the time, apparently I drank too much that day.

Katya Arenina
So you think he undressed you and took pictures?

Viktor*
Yeah, it was summer, I was in shorts and a t-shirt, not much to take off. I don’t remember what happened.

Khazan sent the same photo to a certain «Oleg E.» , A screenshot of this chat was sent by Terekhin himself to the same activist, who then passed it on to Proekt under conditions of anonymity × .

This is Oleg Shaidullin, head of the St. Petersburg branch of Center E, now St. Petersburg State University’s deputy vice-rector for security. He may have been one of those who coordinated Terekhin’s actions. But Shaidullin was not eager to help the guy in the photo . Shaidullin did not respond to Proekt’s questions × .

Viktor*
Terekhin suggested that I go to Milonov. If I had refused, he would have refused to help me further fight off my administrative case for participating in rallies.

This is insane. A mass molester of young boys. A rapist. A secret service agent. Next to a United Russia MP and an advocate of traditional family values. Every time, I thought: that’s it, that’s the end of this. But no.

Petr Ivanov, journalist
I met him at a rally in 2018, Vlad Lecter came up to me and started talking. Then he suddenly texted me and sent me photos — he apparently followed me and took them. I was 15 or 16 at the time. I was in 9th grade. He texted me, «Let’s have a beer». I said, «I’m under 18.» he said, «What does it matter, I’ll buy you one.» He said, «Where do you study?» «At school.» «Let me prepare you for the exams.» And he sent me pictures of him with some guy, supposedly his friend or his son, training for the exams.

Dmitriy*, Saint-Petersburg activist
He met Pasha Rybka — he told me that he talked to Pasha on the trolleybus and fell in love. Pasha was very insecure and timid at first. He was 17 at the time. But Vlad helped him get into university, then get a job in a bar association. And in just six months he became such a confident guy.

Katya Arenina
So, he’s not his son?

Dmitriy*
Well, that’s how it is

Katya Arenina
Are you aware that Terekhin introduces you as his son?

Pavel Rybka
I don’t know, maybe he’s just joking around. Maybe he wishes I was his son, but I’m not

Katya Arenina
Are you aware that he’s sending people pictures, claiming they’re of you? Pictures of your genitals?

Pavel Rybka
I’ve never heard that. Honestly, it’s the first time I hear about this. It’s just crazy. I should talk to Vladislav.

Katya Arenina
Vitaly Valentinovich, hello. My name is Ekaterina, I’m a journalist with Proekt. We are preparing a story about a man named Vladislav Terekhin. Several people have told us that he used to be your assistant.

Vitaly Milonov, State Duma deputy
He was never my assistant.

Katya Arenina
We have seen many photographs of you together. He was often seen accompanying you at various public events.

Vitaly Milonov
Everyone has known Vladislav Terekhin since at least 1991. Well, at least I have. He often appears at public events, but I have no idea what he does.

Katya Arenina
So, you’re saying he has no connection to you whatsoever?

Vitaly Milonov
Absolutely none.

Katya Arenina
He invited me for coffee, and then he asked me to come back to the school, saying he had something to show me. We walked down the hall, he tried to kiss me in the hallway, then on the stairs, I turned my head away and he kissed me on the cheek. I ran away.

* * *

Maksim Leonov, journalist
There was a hangout at the Agency for Investigative Journalism. Vlad Terekhin found his way into it. We worked on the elections to the Legislative Assembly, he joined our team. Our rivals would withdraw after calls during which compromising information was shared. Terekhin would find this info. He’s not a good talker, I don’t understand how he managed to seduce boys. He’s cunning, very cunning.

Maksim called an old acquaintance in front of me. Terekhin himself admitted that in the 90s he blackmailed the very journalist whom he and Gushchin had gotten drunk in Kukharsky’s apartment.

Maksim Leonov
You and Gushchin drugged and framed him…

Vladislav Terekhin — Hazan
In short, in Soviet times, when he was a student, I recruited him. I got him in touch with the KGB. He also told them that I had dirt on him. Everything there was fine, wonderful. He shouldn’t have signed any papers, expressing his sincere desire to cooperate with them.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Vladislav Terekhin — Hazan
They helped him make the grade, it wasn’t a problem. There were no particular pictures, he was drunk under a blanket, that’s all. And then he came up with the story that he was raped there and forced to cooperate with the KGB.

Valery*, former Terekhin’s acquaintance
He told me about a naval officer he and someone else set up. He was gay, too. They got him drunk, fucked him, recorded it and gave it to the military school command. That was back in the ’90s.Он рассказывал про морского офицера, которого они с кем-то подставили. Тот тоже голубой был. Они его напоили, трахнулись, записали это и предоставили командованию училища. Это в 90-х еще.

Maksim Leonov, journalist
There was also a member of the first Legislative Assembly. He said he was ordered to do it. Never said by whom. He talked about set-ups, told a lot of other stories. About people who interfered with someone somewhere, were witnesses or election candidates.

Alexey Bolgarov, Saint-Petersburg activist
Levashov appeared out of nowhere in 1989 like a jack-in-the-box. He was the youngest member of the congress. Then he was elected to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. He was gay, and perhaps it was the gay community of the time that pushed him into the parliament.

In 1996, Levashev’s assistant Terekhin got involved in one story. Two young men — 18-year-old Nikolai Spirov and 16-year-old Alexei Chekhov — gave testimony that mentioned his buddy. Terekhin decided to force the teenagers to recant their words.

Terekhin and Levashev had more than just a working relationship. Terekhin brought the kidnapped teenager to his lover’s house. Spirov, the other teenager, also went with them.

«Levashev stroked his genitals and twisted his arms behind his back,» the policemen wrote in their reports. When the abduction and what happened in the apartment became known to the authorities, Chekhov’s family began to receive anonymous threats. What happened to the second witness, Spirov, is even scarier.

Spirov first testified against Terekhin, but then recanted. Then the investigator scheduled a new interrogation. The young man did not show up for it. Nikolai hanged himself with a scarf in the attic. Normally, he always had his watch, passport and keys on him. He left it all at home , Proekt was unable to contact the relatives of Chekhov and Spirov × .

Without the main witness, the trial was not very successful . First, Terekhin and Levashov were convicted, among other things, under the article for attempted sodomy involving a minor. The defendants appealed the verdict, and by that time the article had been removed from the criminal code × . As a result, Terekhin was convicted only under the articles on kidnapping and coercion to give false testimony. Levashev was pardoned. Terekhin, either because of red tape or by agreement with the investigation, spent his entire five-year sentence in an isolation cell. As soon as Khazan was released, he joined United Russia. The authorities were not deterred by this man’s dark past.

And Chekhov, like his friend Spirov, is already dead — a few years later he died of a head injury , as indicated by leaked database records × .

I clicked through all of Terekhin’s pictures, over 30,000 of them. At one point I noticed a familiar face. It was Dmitry Myakshin, the guy who had defected from Navalny’s headquarters to United Russia.

Natasha Voznesenskaya, activist
I wasn’t acquainted with Myakshin, but there was a point where he was always following Lecter, either with these boys or alone.

Ilya Gantvarg, activist, presenter
There were rumors that Lector was allegedly going somewhere with Myakshin, slipping something into his beer and taking some compromising pictures of him. And then something happened.

Maksim Ivantsov, activist
They said that Dima himself complained that he was dragged into a sauna. He did not remember anything, but at some point he found himself in this sauna with a penis in his mouth and he was blackmailed with this photo by Vlad Terekhin, who threatened him with a criminal case.

These pictures were used to explain Myakshin’s sudden change of heart . Proekt was unable to find the actual photographs or anyone who had personally seen them. Among the sources of stories about them was St. Petersburg lawyer Arkady Chaplygin, who had maintained a relationship with Terekhin since the 1990s, according to accounts from activists as well as Chaplygin’s messages in activist chats (available to Proekt). He could have heard this story from Terekhin himself. Chaplygin died in 2020 × . He tried to join the United Russia Youth Guard, but was rejected there. As a result, he ended up in a small pro-government movement called Generation Z, and took part in dirty political actions.

The same evening of the picket, intimate videos of Myakshin were posted anonymously on the Internet. It turned out that he was a webcam model and Terekhin found out about it. He had sent these videos to his acquaintances a few hours before they were published.

So, Khazan was probably blackmailing the young man even on the day of the picket — and eventually published the dirt. After that Myakshin broke up with his girlfriend, started drinking a lot and using drugs. He began to meet men on the Internet and spend the night with them for a fix.

One time he wrote to his girlfriend that he had met a new man and they were going to get drugs together. A few days later they started looking for the guy, and a month later they found his body in a morgue near St. Petersburg , more details about Myakshin’s death is provided by MBKh Media × .

Olga*, Myakhin’s friend
I know that the day Dima died, he was with his «daddy.» Dima texted me that day before he went to the apartment to «party».

No one knows what happened — he either felt unwell, got lost and died, or he died in the apartment of the man he was spending time with. The name of the «daddy» remained unknown, the law enforcers did not initiate a criminal case on the fact of death.

There are a lot of seemingly accidental and tragic deaths in this story. Myakshin died. The journalist who was blackmailed by Terekhin and Gushchin died. The young man who was probably molested by Gushchin drowned. Both witnesses who testified against Terekhin died.

Vladislav Terekhin — Khazan
Hello.

Katya Arenina
Good afternoon, Vladislav Nikolaevich. We’d like to ask you some final questions before we publish our story, regarding several facts that concern you — your alleged work with the KGB, incidents of violence, and the use of clofelin.

Vladislav Terekhin — Khazan
These are all provocations by Western intelligence agencies. You are looking at the most honest person.

Katya Arenina
A person who photographs young men in a state of intoxication. Why do you tell everyone that Pavel Rybka is your son and distribute his intimate photos? You met him when he was still a minor.

Vladislav Terekhin — Khazan
I have never sent anything to anyone. Some strange screenshots — well, you made them, you fabricated them.

Katya Arenina
You have an opportunity to address the viewers of the film. Would you like to use it?

Vladislav Terekhin — Khazan
A sweet, pretty girl has gotten herself involved in games that lead nowhere good.

Katya Arenina
Are you the person known as Khazan?

Vladislav Terekhin — Khazan
I am.

The names of the agencies change, as do the signs on the buildings and the uniforms of the employees; the KGB becomes the FSB, the militia become the police, but the essence remains the same. They recruit, blackmail and breed informers and provocateurs and break people. In Russia, the regime does not change, but its victims do.

That same evening, after our conversation, Terekhin started sending me messages with threats. One after another.

Vladislav Terekhin
Well, the order to kill people like you has already been given.

Vladislav Terekhin
Yesterday, I beat up a dwarf — I took out my anger on a little person. What do you think a maniac like me will do to you in Russia after your film comes out? I’m already gathering some guys. Any suggestions on what creative thing I should do to you?

Vladislav Terekhin
Prison. That’s exactly where Katya Arenina will end up. We’ll put you on display in a museum. The Museum of State Security Agencies. Pasha, say hi to Katya. Hello, Katya.

And you know, that’s when I got a strange feeling. I realized I was no longer afraid of him. Because I could feel how afraid he was.

In conversations with a Proekt correspondent, Terekhin denies that he used violence and blackmail against anyone. According to him, both criminal cases against him were trumped up. Terekhin claims that he has never cooperated with law enforcement agencies. He also claims that the young people whose intimate photos he sent out were of legal age at the time they met him.

Vladimir Gushchin and Sergey Barkan refused to answer Proekt’s questions.

* * *

Gushchin survived a stroke and a heart attack. He still receives a salary at the Contact Center , according to data from the pension fund, available to Proekt × . Sergei Barkan, who tortured teenagers, resigned in 2006 and new law enforcers were hired in his place , Gushchin wrote in his LiveJournal × . In 2020, he stuck an awl in the neck of a girl on the street , according to St. Petersburg news media × . She survived and the criminal case was terminated on reconciliation of the parties , reported the press service of the St. Petersburg courts × . Vladislav Terekhin is still surrounded by young people, he works at a St. Petersburg university as a student recruitment agent. , At the St. Petersburg University of Management Technologies and Economics, as follows from leaked government data on Russians’ incomes, many of the young people around him are currently studying or have studied there × . There are virtually no more street protests in Russia.

Evgeny*, Gushchin’s former acquaintance
Gushchin had been deathly afraid of going to prison all his life, he knew he could be locked up, because every gay man in Russia knows that. I think that fear was the main thing in his life.

* * *

If you choose to be silent, your pain and fear will never end. When I was fifteen, my high school teacher Mikhail Skipsky started inviting me to cafes, texting me, making me resit exams. He was thirty. One day he promised to show me a trapdoor in the floor of one of the school classrooms. There he started trying to hug me, kiss me on the lips. I ran away. Years later, it turned out that he had locked another female student in the classroom and forced her to give him a blowjob. Another girl said that he tried to get his hands inside her underwear. She was 13. There are dozens like us. Every story like this has something you’re ashamed of. And you know that’s what you’re gonna get blamed for. That’s the basis for years of silence. But my story belongs to me alone, even the parts I’m ashamed of. Skipsky continued to work with children, he still plays «What? Where? When?» on Channel One. But I’m not afraid anymore.

This is my city, my street, my home. I will definitely come back here.

Editing — Roman Badanin
Fact checking — Alexey Korostelev

Acknowledgments:
To OVD-Info, which provided data on the number of criminally prosecuted homosexuals, and journalist Galya Sova.

To the libertarian project «Tea Club,» which published an investigation about Terekhin and Barkan in April 2021.

Transparency International — Russia.