Abkhazia, Georgia, Russia, Aleksei Navalny, Human Rights
After organising a memorial service for the late Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny in Sukhumi (Sukhum), Russian national Valentin Karpin was reportedly handed over to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) after being detained by Abkhazia’s security services.
On 3 March, Karpin’s wife Darya Karpina wrote on Instagram that she was seeking help to find her husband, who had been missing for more than a day after an interaction with Abkhazia’s security services. Some time after, the post was deleted.
Later, Karpina discovered that her husband had turned up in the Russian city of Sochi, just north of Abkhazia, where he was being detained by the FSB.
Karpina said that her husband had been detained by Abkhazia’s security services after the family had organised a commemorative service for Navalny, in which Valentin, Darya, and their five children brought candles and flowers to the monument to the victims of political repression in the center of Sukhumi, and recorded a video in which they said a few warm words about Navalny.
Karpina said she learned of her husband’s whereabouts from his cellmate, who also said he had learned Karpin was released by Abkhazia’s security services after ‘resolving some issues’, but then was immediately detained by the FSB. She said there are no outstanding problems with Karpin in Abkhazia, and that she was raising money for a lawyer to help his legal battle in Sochi.
The Karpin family settled in Abkhazia more than 10 years ago. Currently, they have a long-term lease on the abandoned architectural monument, the Dal Villa, located on Mount Sukhumi. They live there, having personally restored it, and conduct tours explaining how to restore century-old architectural structures. Karpin earns a living by helping local residents do repairs and construction.
For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.
OC Media
