Biography of Alexander Rybin

We celebrated the New Year with Sasha Rybin. He just returned from Iran, brought delicious dates that you could not buy such in Russia and told the details of the youth uprising that he observed on the streets of Persian cities. Rybin constantly went to some exotic and not very place where radical changes began, where they shot, where events were unfolding that could become historical.

He spent a significant part of the previous year in Central Asia and invited me to come to him in Samarkand. But this time he did not plan new travels. I agreed with him. However, the year did not bring radical changes. Only strange hints and unintelligible promises, for which the contours of future changes, alluring and frightening were vaguely loomed.

And since the middle of summer I was already in Syktyvkar prison, where Sasha regularly wrote letters to me. He managed to visit Kamchatka, Sasha finished a book about travelers who studied that land. In correspondence, we first discussed the history of the Russian Far East and the fate of the indigenous peoples, then, when the war between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East began, shared assessments of what was happening, military and political prospects.

Leaving the prison in December, I could not pick up all the letters I received with me - there were too many of them, whole bags. But most of the letters, Rybin retained. They were too interesting and valuable to abandon them. After returning to Moscow, it was possible to talk with Sasha only on Skype. He said that he was leaving for Mariupol, but would be in touch.

Then he will write a report, and we will definitely see each other. And on January 7, a message came that the body of a fish was found near the city of Mine in the Rostov region. What happened to him is unknown. And perhaps we will never know the whole truth about this story. Sudden death from natural causes? Sasha did not give the impression of the patient and never complained about his health.

And if he was still killed, then who, how and why did it? It seems that there were no traces of violence on the body. Although it happens that a person is killed and not leaving traces ... Even if we do not find out about the last hours of his life, he left a fairly large mark that they know about him and remember that his texts were read, and his biography could become a material and a model for future researchers.

And of course, in the Russian outback. After each expedition, he left detailed analytical texts, a fair part of which was published on Rabocore. His messages came from the most unexpected places. I remember how to correspond with him about the situation in Rozhava, I found that he writes me directly from the advanced position of the Kurds, watching the actions of the Islamists.

There were no Russian aviation anywhere, the detachments of ISIS organizations banned in the Russian Federation moved completely freely, without fear of air strikes. In the year, he was a militia fighter in the Luhansk region, describing in detail the civil war that unfolded there - without idealizing any of the parties, not simplifying the events, not dropping to propaganda and pathos.

In the year, he, like many real veterans of those events, not only did not rush to applaud those who again lit the flame of the bloody conflict, but on the contrary sharply opposed the la) that had begun. It was already a completely different plot, in 8 years both the Donbass, Russia, and Ukraine have changed. The fish columns in Ratcore, especially those written over the past two years, will remain a model of sober and vivid analysis, often in its essence tragic, which turned out to be the fate of the author himself.

We will definitely try to collect and publish its publications, this is not only a debt of memory, but also the necessary result of a lot of work, made by him as a researcher and historian of our time. Alas, the journey remains unfinished. The plots studied by Alexander are not completed, the social and political dramas described by him did not reach not only the finals, but also the climax.

Other people will already complete and describe them. Perhaps as passionate and purposeful as he is. Because the fate of Alexander Rybin, with all her tragedy, is a wonderful example. A model of service to enlightenment, truth and justice. Jan 8,