Ksenia Smolyakova is a correspondent for the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL's Russian Service.
A well-known opposition activist in the Siberian city of Barnaul says he has left Russia after the authorities launched criminal investigations into allegations that he repeatedly violated the law on mass gatherings.
Activists are hopeful that a criminal investigation into a case in Tyumen Oblast will expose the dark world of punitive psychiatric "treatment" inside Russian prisons. "Many prisoners say they'd rather have 10 years added to their sentence than to have to spend one year in a prison psychiatric ward," activist Vladimir Osechkin told RFE/RL.
A group of former poachers in Russia's Altai region is helping activists monitor the endangered snow leopard by placing cameras in remote mountain locations where once they set deadly traps.
A computer-game publisher in the Siberian city of Barnaul is concerned about recent prosecutions on extremism charges of people who posted or liked memes on social media. They are fighting back, one computer game at a time.
