Elena Osipova

Elena Osipova is an 80-year-old artist and activist who has participated in protests and opposition demonstrations in Saint Petersburg since 2002. She became locally famous for attending every protest with large, beautifully crafted posters that she drew for each occasion.

At some point, people started calling her “ulya’s moral compass”.

Over the years, Elena has protested against injustice, war, corruption and state violence. She has been arrested and fined many times for her activism. At one point, the police stopped taking her to the station, instead they disrupted her protests by driving her away from the demolition areas and then letting her go. Elena suspects they don’t imprison her because of her poor health and because they have witnessed her protest for a numerous of years. This is an exceptionally rare of a person openly engaging in street protests since 2022 and not being detained.

Since the start of the war on Ukraine, Elena has been drawing anti-war posters and holding one-person protests on the streets. She has been followed and attacked multiple times, with many individiuals tearing her poster (apart)from her hands.

in 2023, Elena suffered a stroke. However, as soon as she had recovered, she took to the streets again on “Russia day” a national celebration of state sovereignty, carrying a banner that read, “Russia needs rehabilitation from a sincere disease.”

“I am going to continue protesting for as long as I am physically able to. I don’t know how much time I have left. I want to educate those who don’t understand what’s going on. Since graduating from the Academy of Arts, I have worked as a teacher all my life. Perhaps that’s also why I’m taking action. In 2002, I stopped staying silent. My main belief is that the worst and most horrendous things happen when people stay silent.”

Elena Osipova.