Activist Nikita Baryshnikov dies at Shies
Nikita Baryshnikov, a 29-year-old activist and defender of Shies, was found dead on September 10. He came to Shies with a group of activists. At the station, the group stretched for 50 m, Baryshnikov disappeared from sight, but his colleagues thought that he had simply gone away, and therefore did not sound the alarm.
Nikita Baryshnikov was found by another group of activists — they saw his body face down in a ditch. Forensic analysis will establish the exact cause of death. According to other activists, Nikita did not have any diseases or complain about any health problems.
Baryshnikov was an active defender of Shies; in 2019, he became a defendant in a criminal case after a clash with PSC employees as the activists were dismantling the construction site’s fence. As a result, he was sentenced to 300 hours of compulsory community service for this. He met his future wife at the protests at Shies. They got married in 2020.
Protests against the construction of a landfill for the import of waste from Moscow at the Shies station (the border of Arkhangelsk Oblast and the Komi Republic) took more than a year and a half. Activists fixed a tent camp and organized a round-the-clock watch to prevent the object’s construction. At the same time, large-scale protests were held in several cities and towns of Arkhangelsk Oblast and the Komi Republic. As a result, the Technopark Company withdrew from building the object, having promised to reclaim the territory by the summer of 2021. According to activists, the last construction equipment left Shies on August 11, 2021.