Letter from Friends House, Moscow

Dear Friends,

Christmas greetings from Friends House Moscow. Here is a link to our latest newsletter, now available on our website:

Newsletter Winter 2023 - Friends House Moscow

To read it, click on the "DOWNLOAD" button. From here you can save a copy, or print it, or just read it online.

As you will see, we are currently operating in several countries: Russia, Ukraine, Estonia and Armenia. We support work for alternatives to violence, help for orphan children and young adults, and help for refugee children and their parents.

We also conduct Quaker outreach, online and in print, in the Russian language. This work, of course, is for Russian speakers everywhere regardless of which country they live in.

More about Aleksandra - and "Write to Russia"

As mentioned in the newsletter, Aleksandra (Sasha) Skochilenko is a very brave Russian lady who replaced five price tags, in a local supermarket. with pieces of paper urging shoppers to end the war against Ukraine, and resist television propaganda.

As a result, on 16 November 2023 a court in St Petersburg sentenced her to seven years in a penal colony - on charges of 'spreading information known to be false about the Russian army'.

Sasha features in a new project called "Write to Russia" ( www.rightsinrussia.org/write-to-russia/ ). The project encourages English speaking/writing people to write letters of support to Russian political prisoners. As the Federal Penitentiary System does not allow letters written in any foreign languages to prisoners, the Rights in Russia project can do the translation into Russian.

For more information about the project, and how the process will work, please see the link above. Please consider sharing news about this with your friends and with your local Meeting, if any.

For more details about Sasha's case, and how to write to her, see this link: www.rightsinrussia.org/write-to-russia-2/ . Amnesty International has designated Sasha as a prisoner of conscience, and Memorial has designated her as a political prisoner. You can read her speech to the court here: www.rightsinrussia.org/skochilenko/ .

Wishing Sasha, and all of our readers, peace and wellbeing at Christmas and in 2024,

Mary Morris

For Friends House Moscow