Photo credit, Adam Kalinin
Adam Kalinin lived in the Russian desert for nearly four months to avoid being called up to fight in Ukraine.
When Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of Russian men in September last year, it took Adam Kalinin – not his real name – a week to decide that the best thing to do was to move to the forest.
The computer scientist was once morest the war from the start, being fined and spending two weeks in detention for sticking a poster saying “No to war” on the wall of his apartment building.
So when Russia said it was calling in 300,000 troops to help turn the tide in a war it was losing, Kalinin didn’t want to risk being sent to the front lines to kill Ukrainians.
But, unlike hundreds of thousands of others, he did not want to leave the country.
Three things kept him in Russia: friends, financial constraints and an uneasiness regarding giving up what he knows.
“Leaving would have been a difficult step out of my comfort zone,” Kalinin, in his thirties, told the BBC. “It’s not really comfortable here either but nevertheless, psychologically it would be really difficult to leave.”
So he made the unusual decision to say goodbye to his wife and head to the forest, where he’s been living in a tent for almost four months.
It uses an antenna attached to a tree to access the internet and solar panels for power.
He has endured temperatures as low as -11C (12F) and lives on the food regularly brought to him by his wife.
Living off the grid, he says, is the best way he can think of to avoid being called out. If the authorities cannot deliver a summons to him in person, he cannot be forced to go to war.
“If they are physically unable to take me by the hands and lead me to the enrollment office, that is a 99% defense once morest mobilization or other harassment.”
In some ways, Kalinin continues her life as before. He still works eight hours a day at the same job, even though all winter – with limited daylight – he doesn’t have enough solar power to work full days and so makes up for his hours on weekends. .
Some of his colleagues are now in Kazakhstan, having also left Russia following the mobilization began, but his internet connection via a long-range antenna attached to a pin is reliable enough that communication is not a problem.
He is also a lover of the outdoors, spending most of his vacations camping in southern Russia with his wife. When he made the decision to settle permanently in the wild, he already had much of the equipment he needed.
Photo credit, Adam Kalinin
Kalinin says he doesn’t know how long he will stay in the forest.
His wife, who visited Kalinin camp for a few days in the New Year, plays a big role in his survival. She brings supplies every three weeks to a drop-off point where they can briefly see each other in person. He then takes the supplies to a safe place which he visits every few days to stock up. He cooks using a makeshift wood stove.
“I have oats, buckwheat, tea, coffee, sugar. Not enough fresh fruit and vegetables of course, but that’s not too bad,” he says.
Kalinin’s new house is a large tent of the type used for ice fishing. When he arrived in the forest, he set up two camps five minutes apart; one with internet access where he worked, the other in a more sheltered place where he slept.
As winter approached and the weather grew colder, he brought the two camps together to live and work under one canvas.
Recently, the temperature dropped to -11°C, colder than he had expected. But now that the days are getting longer once more and the snow is starting to melt, he plans to stay where he is.
Although Kalinin did not receive a call himself, he says the situation is constantly changing and he fears receiving a summons in the future. Officially, IT workers like Kalinin are exempt from the project, but there are numerous reports in Russia of similar exemptions being ignored.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the mobilization on September 21, shortly following Ukraine’s lightning counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region in which it recaptured thousands of square kilometers of territory from Russian troops.
He said the mobilization was necessary to defend Russia once morest the West. But many in the country protested and there were chaotic scenes on Russia’s borders as hundreds of thousands fled.
The call had a profound effect on Russia. Until then, many Russians were able to continue their lives much as before the war. Admittedly, some Western brands have disappeared and the sanctions have made financial transactions more difficult, but the direct impact on society has mostly been limited.
The mobilization brought war to the doorsteps of many Russian families. As a result, sons, fathers and brothers were deployed to the front line at short notice, often with poor equipment and minimal training. If the conflict seemed distant before, it was now impossible to ignore.
Yet public acts of protest are rare in Russia – something that has been criticized in Ukraine and the West. But Kalinin says people are rightly afraid of what might happen to them.
“We have a totalitarian state that has become so powerful. Over the past six months, laws have been passed at an incredible rate. If a person speaks out once morest the war now, the state will pursue it.”
Photo credit, Adam Kalinin
An ice fishing tent is Kalinin’s work and sleep space.
Kalinin’s life in the forest has earned her a certain level of popularity online, with 17,000 people following her almost daily updates on Telegram. He posts videos and photos of his environment, his daily life and the organization of his camp. The woodcut is very present.
Kalinin claims not to miss much of her previous life. He describes himself as an introvert who doesn’t mind being alone, although he misses his wife and would like to see her more often. However, he stresses that his current situation is still preferable to being sent to the front line or to prison.
“I’ve changed so much that the kind of things I might have missed have faded into the background,” he says. “Things that seemed important before no longer have their power. There are people in a much worse situation than us.”
Photo credit, Adam Kalinin
The snow begins to melt as the days get longer, says Kalinin
