Surreal scenes inside Russia’s battle against the pandemic

Pavel Azarov, Audiology Department head.

On Victory Day, Russia’s annual May commemoration of Germany’s 1945 World War II surrender to the Soviet Union, people and military parades typically fill Moscow’s Red Square. This year’s 75th anniversary events were supposed to have been especially showy but the pandemic quarantine left the square nearly empty of citizens. As military planes roared overhead, the only onlookers were journalists and a few determined patriots who declared themselves uncowed by stay-at-home orders.

 

After self-isolation orders lifted in Moscow, the Victory Day parade finally filled streets and sidewalks on June 24, six weeks later than originally scheduled. The celebratory show of military personnel and equipment surged past onlookers like these, providing Russians a day of patriotic flourish amid ongoing pandemic anxiety and economic crisis. By the end of the following week, voters had approved constitutional changes that could keep President Vladimir Putin in office until 2036.

Claudia Ignatova, 80, surveys her new surroundings in a charity hostel on the outskirts of Moscow. The story she tells is a familiar one in Russia: During the Soviet Union era, she says, she worked as an engineer and kept her own apartment. But a relative betrayed her by seizing the apartment and throwing her out, Ignatova says. As part of a spring push to house homeless people during the pandemic, she was invited to move into this hostel.

Nikolay Fedulov, nurse.

Inside Moscow's Hospital No. 52, a patient recovering from COVID-19 breathes in the oxygen that is helping him try to return to health.

Obstetrician-gynecologist Olga Polikarpova, 24 hours into her shift.