Yegor Beloglazov, a poet and bard from Yekaterinburg, died on December 17 after a serious illness. He was 49. During his life, he openly spoke out against the war in Ukraine, wrote about Ukrainian children killed under shelling, and criticized the policies of the Russian Orthodox Church and Vladimir Putin personally. The material was first published by the Vetor project.
On the morning of April 1, officers from the FSB and the police arrived at the settlement of Sovkhozny on the outskirts of Yekaterinburg, where the Beloglazov family lived. They searched half of an old wooden house while Beloglazov, discharged from hospital the day before, lay in a bedroom connected to an oxygen concentrator. He had a second-degree disability status, had suffered from bronchial asthma since childhood, and his condition worsened after COVID.
The officers initially wanted to take him in for questioning, but abandoned that plan after realizing that an ordinary vehicle could not transport a critically ill person. They seized his phone and laptop, and a detective and a state-appointed lawyer were called to the house. It emerged that several criminal cases and one administrative case had been opened against him because of his posts on VKontakte and Facebook.
After the search, he was charged under articles on the rehabilitation of Nazism and offending believers’ feelings, and an administrative case was also opened over alleged “LGBT propaganda.” Even after coming under pressure from law enforcement, he did not delete his posts and continued to write about events. In one post, Beloglazov said that the only way he could strike back at what he called “Russian state fascism” was with words.
According to his wife, Vera, he understood that he was dying but was not prepared to stay silent. After the search, the family faced further problems: electricity was cut off and the bank cards of all adult family members were blocked. Everything in the house, including the breathing machine, depended on electricity, so the family had to move in temporarily with friends. Later, Yegor personally went to the office of Yekaterinburgenergosbyt and demanded that power be restored, saying he would otherwise die in the reception area.
Beloglazov worked throughout his life to support his family, but regarded poetry as his main calling. He and his wife had lived together for 32 years and had three sons. His poems were published in collections by Yekaterinburg authors and in the journal Ural, and he performed at the Sharmanka theater and the inclusive theater Ora. When his health worsened and he could no longer leave home for long, he began teaching humanities subjects to schoolchildren remotely. Even after his laptop was taken away, he kept working on his son’s computer.
“At least I am not afraid of myself. My only authority is my conscience. I am a free worker, a tutor, and a writer. I teach children to think properly and to look at all this clearly,” Beloglazov wrote on social media.
Vera said his disability pension was 14,000 rubles, and that money was being withheld to pay коммунal debts. On December 10 he was still teaching a lesson, the next day he was hospitalized, and on December 17 he died. Shortly before his death, Beloglazov wrote that a person “with nothing to lose” cannot be made afraid.