"Go to Paris dressed in nettles."
Why are poets persecuted in Russia?
Author: Andrey Filimonov
When the state begins to take an interest in poetry, poets almost inevitably run into problems. In 2024, two authors—Glikery Ulunov and Sofia Surkova—co-authored a text titled "Five Thousand Ideas for a Destructive Date." The title parodied clickbait headlines online. The text itself was written in the genre of "false instructions." This is an old literary device used by Grigory Oster in his "Bad Advice" (1990) and by Jonathan Swift in his "A Modest Proposal" (1729), a pamphlet on social inequality. The writer proposed a "rational" solution to poverty: let poor families sell their babies to rich people as food.
If Swift lived in Russia and published his "Proposal" today, he likely wouldn't escape criminal prosecution. The Russian law enforcement system is very protective of children, especially from harmful information. On this basis, the prosecutor's office and the Investigative Committee have already attempted to remove Oster's books from sale. What if children start following "Harmful Advice" to the letter and endanger their lives?
The poem "Five Thousand Ideas for a Destructive Date" was read by the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office with the utmost (and brutal) seriousness—as a suicide manual. As a result, Sofia was forced to leave the country immediately. Glikery Ulunov was arrested in August 2025, charged with "organizing activities aimed at inciting suicide" (Article 110.2 of the Russian Criminal Code). The minimum sentence under this article is five years' imprisonment.
The investigation commissioned an expert analysis, which easily found in the poem "a combination of linguistic and psychological signs of incitement to suicide and self-harm." The poet's chances of release seemed slim.
Glycerium Oulon — the literary pseudonym of Kirill Yakovlev (b. 1997), a renowned poet, literary critic, and contemporary culture scholar from St. Petersburg. Ulunov is a graduate of the European University at St. Petersburg and the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (Shaninka). He has published in independent literary publications and was one of the authors of the cultural project "Flags." In 2020, he was shortlisted for the Arkady Dragomoshchenko Prize.
In a conversation with a NeMoskva correspondent, Glikery Ulunov admitted that he had feared prison his entire life and had never even opened books about his prison experience. That's why he never read "The Gulag Archipelago" and "Kolyma Tales." Even without fiction, he knew that prisons were hell.
"When I first walked into my cell," says Glikeriy, "I thought I'd be criticized for my appearance or behavior. But it turned out my cellmates weren't very interested in that. Everyone there had their own concerns."
Hell lay elsewhere—not in the threat of violence, but in the depressing atmosphere of the prison regime, which evokes a sense of hopelessness and is far more effective at inducing suicidal thoughts than the darkest works of literature. Life in the cell is unbearably dreary, and being summoned to appear before an investigator triggers a panic attack.
“I was suffocating with fear, and my clothes were literally wet with sweat,” Glikeriy recalls.
Although Article 110.2, which he was charged with, implies the existence of some kind of “organization,” the poet turned out to be the only person involved in the case.
Ulunov's accomplice, co-author of the criminal poem, poet and prose writer Sofia Surkova, has fluttered out of the hands of the investigation.
"Dark Delirium"
She made the decision to leave Russia in just five minutes, after a short phone conversation. A man called, claiming to be from the Ministry of Internal Affairs' cybercrime department. It happened in mid-August 2025. The man on the line told Sofia that her bank card was allegedly involved in a cryptocurrency fraud case and asked her to come to the police station. It was a simple formality, he assured her, simply signing a document as a witness. "We know you're not a cybercriminal, but we need your signature for the report." For some reason, Sofia immediately guessed the man was lying. She lied back, promising to show up at the station the next morning. She packed her things and flew to Tbilisi the next day.
It never even occurred to her that she would be persecuted specifically for her poetry, even if it was published in a gender-sensitive magazine. Sofia was far more afraid that she would be prosecuted for collecting aid for Ukrainian refugees.
By that time, "5 Ideas" had been removed from the internet at the request of Roskomnadzor. Everyone thought the situation was over, and that no new problems would arise after the government agency's request was met. The idea that the game text would be declared "suicide propaganda" seemed, in Sofya's own words, "utter nonsense." But it turned out that this delusional version of this scenario was realized thanks to the joint efforts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, and the Investigative Committee.
A feeling of utter madness overwhelmed the girl on August 30th, when she read in the news that Glikery had been detained in St. Petersburg. He had a ticket to Austria, which the investigators apparently knew about. One of the investigators was the same man who had called Sofia Surkova.
The informer from a Russian song
The case of suicide propaganda began with a denunciation. Six months after its publication, "Five Thousand Ideas for a Destructive Date" caught the eye of a concerned citizen working at the Moscow theater "Russian Song." In fact, it's not really a theater, but rather a cabaret and restaurant where you can watch costumed song and dance shows à la Russe.
The text of the Ulunov/Surkova poem shocked the man so much that he filed a complaint with Roskomnadzor. Since the start of the war in Russia, this is how aesthetic conflicts and stylistic differences are usually resolved—not with a review or a letter to the newspaper, but with a denunciation and a demand that they "sort it out."
Speaking at the court hearing, the informant suggested that teenagers might begin doing what the authors of "Five Thousand Ideas" "urge." The text does indeed contain many imperative sentences. For example: "Go to Paris dressed in nettles." And it must be acknowledged that for someone with allergies, this could be dangerous.
The court found the witness's testimony convincing and ordered the poet's pretrial detention for two months, apparently to prevent him from fleeing abroad to continue his "destructive activities." The "pretrial detention" was then quietly extended several more times. Autumn passed, winter arrived, and spring arrived. Glikery Ulunov adjusted to captivity, kept a diary, and wrote tender letters to his girlfriend, Daria, who became his wife on New Year's Eve 2026. The wedding took place in a pretrial detention center.
"In the first days of my detention," Glikeriy recounts, "Dasha and my friends found me a lawyer, found me (there was a presumption that I was at Shpalernaya), and gave me things and food. It probably sounds trivial, but I've seen people whose families and friends couldn't figure out their situation for weeks or even months, and Dasha was able to make a delivery on the first day, as soon as it became possible. And then she managed to accomplish the difficult, or even the seemingly impossible, in the shortest possible time—it was a feat, even if we're just talking about mundane things. And then Dasha managed to arrange our wedding, became a public defender, found witnesses for the defense, worked with friends to research relevant materials from literary history, interrogated prosecution witnesses, and so on. In other words, Dasha was truly another defender."
She helped not only me but other prisoners as well. There was a terrifying incident when a boy from the cell, due to a misunderstanding with his parents and the completely unethical behavior of his lawyer, decided to sign a contract. Dasha managed to contact his parents, and they wrote him a letter stating that they didn't need funeral payments, but wanted their son. He immediately changed his mind. Fortunately, he's home now, and he seems to be out of danger," Ulunov said.
The poet's defense succeeded in demonstrating the absurdity of the charges. The prosecutor, however, failed to explain to the court how reading modern free verse could lead to death.
On June 5, 2026, the Kuibyshev Court of St. Petersburg ruled to dismiss the case and release Glikery Ulunov from custody.
Immediately after his release, the poet did what he hadn't managed to do before his arrest: he left Russia. More than a month has passed since then, but freedom still seems like a "meaningful hallucination" to him.
"I continue to feel 'derealized.' It's that feeling of 'either these nine months never happened, or what's happening now isn't really real.' I definitely need to relearn how to communicate. I still haven't written a thank you to all the people who helped me. And I'm completely clueless about writing poetry," Glikeriy admits.
Don't expect a new thaw
However, the story doesn't end there. The poem remains banned. The St. Petersburg prosecutor's office has appealed the court's decision to release Glikery. They believe such a dangerous man should be sentenced to at least five years. The criminal case against Sofia Surkova continues in her absence. The investigator hasn't given up hope of proving the poet's criminal intent.
"Persecution in Russia seems completely random right now," Sofia muses. "Some are jailed for 'likes,' while others are left untouched for criticizing the regime. But it's clear that the security forces are looking for 'thought crimes' online. Therefore, underground groups where people gather without any publicity on social media may be the most productive right now. But the risk of attracting attention for 'incorrect conversations' always remains, and anyone unwilling to go to jail for their views is best off leaving the country."
Glikery Ulunov, unlike Sophia, is more defeatist. He believes that intellectuals in Russia shouldn't wait for a new "thaw" or count on dialogue with the authorities. They should simply leave. Everyone, and as soon as possible.
Disclaimer: At Glikery Ulunov's request, we are not quoting the poem "Five Thousand Ideas for a Destructive Date." A St. Petersburg court is currently considering an appeal of the Kuibyshev District Court's ruling. The poet believes that the appearance of the text or fragments of it online could give the prosecution grounds to claim that "the criminal event is ongoing."
