Irina is a bright, intelligent woman with an innate sense of her own self-worth; people are immediately drawn to her. She is open and friendly; she would make a good teacher or psychologist. It’s a shame that readers can’t see her: Irina is a very good storyteller. I am starting to dream about a series of video interviews.

Irina Buglak reminded me of a journalist I know from Brussels, and even more so of a colleague from a German university. Where did she get this European type of personality and communication style? The result of good education? Irina has two diplomas, with honors. The Primorye mindset? The Far East values freedom more than inland Russia. A civilized religiosity? Jehovah’s Witnesses are open to all cultures.

You can’t ask about that directly without causing embarrassment. And there’s probably no simple answer, either. Let’s talk about her case.

Everyone knows the Witnesses

– Irina, thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. I understand that it’s not easy for you to talk about the persecution during your trial.

Let’s start at the very beginning. How did you feel in 2017 about the ban of 395 legal entities of Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout the country? Were you expecting arrests? Were you preparing to go underground?

– We were all following the trial then. Of course, we were upset that they took the Branch, that they took away Kingdom Halls, that there would be no conventions and no literature; but we were sure that the ban would only affect legal entities, that they wouldn’t touch ordinary worshippers, and that the Bible is still the Bible everywhere. For some reason we were sure of that, and we were calm. We didn’t expect such terrible consequences.

– Do you remember who was the first Witness to be imprisoned in Russia after the 2017 ban?

– Of course I remember: the first one in 2017 was Dennis Christensen,¹Dennis Christensen, a 48-year-old Danish citizen, was arrested in the city of Oryol on May 25, 2017, and sentenced to six years in prison (Article 282.2(1) of the RF CrC). On June 23, 2020, the Lgovskiy District Court of the Kursk Region ruled to commute the sentence of Dennis Christensen, who by then had already served three years of the six. He should have been released, but the prosecutor in his appeal demanded that the court ruling be overturned. but he was arrested at a Kingdom Hall, and we were just meeting in private homes, so again we assumed that it wouldn’t affect us.

– You were arrested in Partizansk on April 19, 2019. What happened?

– We had gathered that day for the Memorial of the death of Jesus Christ. The officer conducting the search said right away that they needed the organizer. At first, he wanted to take the hostess of the apartment, just because she had invited people over, but since she was over 80 years old and could barely walk, they decided to leave her alone. So, they picked me, although there was no organizer as such.

– And you were sent to the detention center right away?

– First, they took me to a TDF (temporary detention facility). I thought that in the morning I would be released: I’ll get a good night’s sleep and go home. But that’s not what happened. In the morning, they took me to court, where my custody was extended. Then I was sent to a detention center in Ussuriysk, 200 kilometers away from Partizansk. They held me there for half a year. There is no detention center in our town.

Six months later, I was released and put under house arrest for three and a half months, and then under a recognizance agreement. The trial lasted until February 2021, when it reached a dead end, and the judge returned the case to the prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor’s office was not pleased, of course, and now I’m being tried again.²A new trial began in October 2021. The prosecutor requested a 6 year, 5 month suspended sentence for Irina Buglak. In June 2023, the court gave her a suspended sentence of 2 years and 6 months.

– Will they take revenge?

– Yes, I think so. It’s human nature.

– It’s an unbelievable story and a very difficult ordeal. Can you tell us about the detention facility: were the cells crowded, what were the conditions, and most importantly, what were the people like?

– There were two or three people in the cells – four at most. The conditions were bad – the cells were so damp that toadstools would grow overnight. You pull them out, and the next morning there would be new ones.

– A metaphor for the country: you uproot the repression, but it keeps reappearing. How did they treat you? Did people understand why you were arrested? How did you answer the question, “What are you in for?”

– Of course, everybody wants to know what you’re in for. That question comes up right away. When they found out why I was there, some people would ask, “Is that The Watchtower?” Everyone, of course, was astonished, outraged – from the officers on duty to the inmates, because everyone knows the Witnesses. I didn’t meet anyone there who didn’t know the Witnesses: some had a neighbor who was a Witness, some had relatives who were Witnesses, or classmates, or colleagues. Some simply had Witnesses call at their home. And everyone was astonished: “but you are such good, kind people; why are you even here?” I would reply, it’s a misunderstanding, a misconception.

– Did you come across any negative stereotypes about the Witnesses there, any hostility?

– No. The guards on duty – not the bosses – but the ordinary people, also sympathized with me; they would ask, “What are you doing here among murderers and drug addicts?”

There are a lot of drug addicts in pretrial detention. I saw girls who were still going through withdrawal even two months after their arrest. It was only there that I came to understand how powerful that addiction is. Drug addicts would love to slip out of that noose, but it’s complicated. During transit, I had a conversation with one young man who said that in all bad things you should look for something good. He told me that he understood why and for what purpose he had ended up in prison: there he had broken free from his drug addiction and could now start a new life.

I landed on another planet

– The detention center is a big shock. You encountered a different circle of people. How were you able to wrap your mind around that environment; were you able to find a common language? Was it difficult? Do you still keep in touch with your cellmates?

– I would even say that I landed on another planet – that’s how great the difference is between the outside world and prison. Of course, there are people there too. You can tell right away who the repentant ones are – they are truly sorry for what they’ve done. It’s harder to communicate with those who, instead of repenting, try to blame others – “it’s their fault that I’m like this!”

In general, people there are open with each other, they easily engage in conversation. We didn’t have phones or a TV, only the radio sometimes worked. We’re in the cell together for 24 hours; they take us out for a walk for an hour, but also all together. We had lots of good conversations. I still correspond with Tanya, a girl who was sentenced to eight years in prison for drugs; she had already served four. She says that it’s her own fault that she got involved with a guy who was a dealer. She writes that three years is long enough to realize your mistakes; after that you develop a negative attitude toward the camp and the people. We support her as best we can: we write and encourage her.

But they can’t take away your heart

– Well done. I know that you have a mother, a son…?

– A mother, a husband, a son and a daughter. I missed my family very much; I cried a lot. I found comfort knowing that God is with me. Now I understand even better what God is to us – he is a member of our family; he is our Father. In the TDF, in the detention center, they can take everything away from you – your Bible, your possessions, but they can’t take away your heart, and they can’t take away your relationship with God. No matter where you are, God is always with you. This was comforting of course; it gave me the steadfastness and the strength not to be broken. After all there’s a prophecy of Christ, you will be persecuted for my word. So that came true.

– Did your fellow inmates sense your fortitude, your inner strength? Did they try to lean on you? Ask for advice?

– Before being assigned to a cell, prisoners are examined by a psychologist.

– There’s a psychologist in the pretrial detention facility? What does he do?

– He is basically there to detect suicidal tendencies. If two people have this tendency, they won’t be put in the same cell. There was a girl who took the test with me, a drug addict, who ticked all the boxes on the questionnaire without looking, and zoned out, totally indifferent to the world. She said, I don’t care what happens in half an hour, or tomorrow… Apparently, the psychologist realized that this girl and I would “complement each other,” that it would be good for her to talk to me, that I could lift her spirits; and she put us in the same cell.

Sisters sent me lots of letters, postcards, songs, and various encouraging stories, including Bible accounts. We read them together and answered the letters together. Her life also took on some meaning and her joy was awakened.

Forty letters a day

– That’s wonderful! And how many letters did you receive in the detention center?

– I don’t remember the exact number, but I received about forty letters a day.

– Wow! From all over the world?

– Yes.

– They don’t allow letters in foreign languages, right?

– That’s why they sent a lot of drawings from different countries. They wrote in broken Russian using Google Translate, with funny mistakes: “We know you’re married and that your wife loves you.” We laughed about that for a long time.

– Google Translate jokes.

– Later my husband Yevgeniy laughed a lot about that.

– Forty a day – is that about 7,000 letters in six months?

– Less than 7,000, because in the first two months they didn’t give me my mail. I don’t know the exact number; I didn’t count them. I made some scrapbooks of the most interesting ones.

He crossed out “Jehovah” and wrote “Christ” above it.

– The censors let God’s name “Jehovah” pass through in letters to me. But Tanya, whom we write to in the colony, has a cellmate, Lena, to whom we also began to write. In the first letter from Lena to our girls, the colony censor crossed out the name “Jehovah” and wrote “Christ” above it.

– No way! Brilliant censors. Prison theology or camp catechesis has sprung up in our country. Hilarious.

– But this shows that they are reading our letters; they are learning, they are thinking about God’s name. Of course, we were shocked. It was funny also because censors are not supposed to make corrections; censors just cross things out, but this one made a correction.

– He could have written Allah or Buddha, but in his ignorance, he was sure he was turning people back to the name approved by the state.

– That only happened once. The following letters came with the name Jehovah.

– This incident reminds me of Leo Tolstoy questioning his peasants about the Holy Trinity; they answered that it was Christ, the Mother of God, and St. Nicholas.

– When they searched my apartment, they took away all religious literature and anything that mentioned God’s name Jehovah. In the pretrial detention center, I took a Synodal Translation of the Bible from the library. When the duty officer came into the cell and saw the Bible on the table, she yelled: “Take that Bible off the table!” I told her it was from the prison library. “That’s what you’re charged with!” They have no idea that the Bible could be permitted; that God’s name could be permitted. They don’t know anything.

– The investigator didn’t understand the religious aspects of the case either?

The investigator promised me a visit from my loved ones if I would stop referring to Article 51 of the Constitution and give at least some sort of testimony. I opened my Bible and wrote down a passage about the Last Supper as my testimony. Since they arrested me at the Memorial, I decided I’d write about the Memorial for them. The investigator read it and said to my lawyer, “Maybe she shouldn’t be doing this? She’s signing her own sentence. She’s incriminating herself.” My lawyer and I said, “That’s a quote from the Bible!”

– They are persecuting you as they did in Soviet times, when everything religious was forbidden.

– It reminds me more of the Middle Ages when laypeople were forbidden to read the Bible.

I was asked to take a lie detector test. Since you won’t testify, you must have something to hide. Prove your honesty on the lie detector. I asked the head of the detention center: “What is extremism, in your opinion? What do you want to discover?” She had no answer. “How am I going to take a polygraph test if you don’t know what you are testing for? Are you going to torture me? Burn me at the stake?”

Solidarity

– How did your family react to the arrest and the trial?

– They were very worried. This injustice brought us closer together. Before the arrest, my husband had a neutral attitude toward my religious life, but now he defends me. He recently spoke very well in court, using legal arguments and referring to the Supreme Court plenum decision of October 28, 2021. The state prosecutor asked, “Do you know all this from what your wife has told you?” My husband replied, “I don’t need to speak with her about these topics – I found it all on the Internet.” My husband knows the legal side of the case better than I do. I listened to him with great joy.

The article that I am charged with – Article 282.2(1) of the RF CrC – is about inciting ethnic, religious and other kinds of hatred, so my husband went on to tell the court how I helped elderly women with disabilities and how those elderly Orthodox women came to the investigator and defended me. But the investigator did not include their statement in the case file. I listened and sobbed.

– And your mother?

– My mother went to the investigator every day and said, “Straighten this out; close this case; my daughter is not a criminal.” But they told her that all mothers say that; they all stand up for their children. It drove my mother to hysterics. She wrote many letters to various authorities. But of course, it was pointless to write.

– So, your mother didn’t just cry, but she went and she wrote. Your husband went to court. Well done. Active support: they didn’t lose their bearings; they went into battle for you.

– They both say that a person who lives according to the Bible and loves God and his neighbor can’t be an extremist. Those two things are total opposites!

– And your colleagues?

– Recently a woman I work with was asked in court if I had spoken against the constitutional order and the security of the state. She laughed: “Are you serious? That’s why you’re in court? You’ve never even mentioned politics or the Constitution.” And my husband said, “How can she be against the constitutional order when Article 28 of the Constitution protects her?”

– Your husband is a witness for the defense? 

– No, he’s a witness for the prosecution. All my relatives are listed as witnesses for the prosecution because they confirmed that I’m one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Of course, I don’t hide that either. And they defend me.

– It’s a paradox: your relatives are defending you on the side of the prosecution. And how are the children?

– The children are bearing up bravely. My son – he was 20 at the time – came to court to support me. As soon as he came into the hall and saw me on the screen, he said in front of the entire audience: “I love you, Mama! We are waiting for you!” All with tears in his eyes.

The family supports one another, and they get support from friends, friends’ parents, and others.

– Do people approach them on the street?

– On the street, and they come to our home. Don’t worry, they say, it will get sorted out; everything will be all right.

– Do they get support from Jehovah’s Witnesses, or from other people?

– Both. My mother and daughter went door to door and collected signatures for my defense. It’s in the case file.

– Were there any legitimate witnesses for the prosecution?

– There were, but they also didn’t say anything bad about me. There was an interesting moment in court when donations were mentioned. I asked the witness for the prosecution if the Witnesses had helped her. I knew that our fellow believers had repaired her broken-down porch and fence. She answered honestly; she said that they helped her, that they were good people.

Maybe they are disturbing your community, but they’re not disturbing ours!

– What was the reaction at your workplace?

– I work at a boarding school for special education needs. I feel very sorry for the children. I keep in touch with some of them after they graduate. At first, I worked there as an accountant, then as a librarian and night assistant to the teacher. They removed the position of librarian just to get rid of me, because I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The problems at work started long before the criminal case. I was bringing in the brochures of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the school principal made a mountain out of a molehill and reprimanded me. I went to court to have the reprimand overturned because I hadn’t done anything illegal. I didn’t bring the literature for the children; I brought it for the adults. I won the case, and they cancelled my reprimand. The principal said in court, “They’re disturbing our community.” And the judge answered, “Maybe they are disturbing your community, but they’re not disturbing ours!”

– What a wonderful judge. And you would make a good teacher.

– Thank you! That phrase came up during the new trial, when they read passages from my folder of maxims. That made me very happy.

When they put me in the detention center, they fired me from my job. I sent a complaint to the court from the detention center, and they reinstated me.

– That’s good news. May justice be done in your criminal case as well. I wish you freedom – and more freedom. You have a very lively, bright spirit. It was a great pleasure to speak with you. Thank you!

– And I’m very glad there are people like you. Thank you!

December 26, 2021

• 1
  Dennis Christensen, a 48-year-old Danish citizen, was arrested in the city of Oryol on May 25, 2017, and sentenced to six years in prison (Article 282.2(1) of the RF CrC). On June 23, 2020, the Lgovskiy District Court of the Kursk Region ruled to commute the sentence of Dennis Christensen, who by then had already served three years of the six. He should have been released, but the prosecutor in his appeal demanded that the court ruling be overturned. ↩︎
• 2
  A new trial began in October 2021. The prosecutor requested a 6 year, 5 month suspended sentence for Irina Buglak. In June 2023, the court gave her a suspended sentence of 2 years and 6 months. ↩︎