“Find Seda”: friends of a Chechen girl ask to protect her from her family

The escape

Seda Suleymanova was born in a small village near Grozny in 1997. Her father died in a column of Chechen refugees fired by Russian troops, the girl grew up with her mother, three older sisters and a brother. After graduating from high school, she went to medical school, but then began working as a barista at a local coffee shop. The age was approaching when she needed to be married off – according to local traditions. And then Seda decided to change her life: to become free and live by her own rules.

– She left her family because she wanted to live like a modern person in a modern city. Specifically in St. Petersburg, I dreamed about it since childhood,” Seda’s close friend Elena Patyaeva told MK. “She didn’t want to be forced into marriage, she didn’t want to be forced, to wear a hijab. How did you leave? I found human rights activists on the Internet and sent a request for help. They studied her situation and helped. I met her already here in St. Petersburg. She and I rented an apartment together for some time. I’ve known her for a little over a year, but during this time she has already become a close friend to me, and there were many situations in which she helped me out.

We contacted the person who helped Seda move to the Northern capital. Here’s what he said:

“We corresponded with this girl for a long time and learned her whole story. Yes, the situation was very serious, and we decided to help her. We cannot say how they were taken out of the Chechen Republic. They took her to St. Petersburg, where she really wanted to live. At first, they provided her with a safe shelter, an apartment where other refugees lived. Nobody knows this address. She had no right to tell anyone about this apartment or communicate with anyone – for her own safety. Seda lived there, without going outside, for about three months. When we saw that no one was watching her, we helped her with her work. All this happened in 2022. Seda herself, by the way, thought that no one would look for her anymore, because her family was poor, not influential, not famous.

Life in St. Petersburg

Soon the girl got a job as a barista in one of the city cafes and found herself a place to live.

“That’s how we met,” Elena continues. – I told my friends that I needed a roommate because it was too expensive to rent an apartment alone. And someone told me: there is a girl who is also looking for housing. I understood that she was not Russian, judging by Saida’s name, but I didn’t know any details about her. We talked, liked each other, and decided that we would rent an apartment together. And then she told everything about herself.

– What do you know about her family?

– I only know from her words. She said that she loved her mother very much and, accordingly, her mother seemed to love her too. She also said about her older brother that he loves her. The brother was in the role of head of the family, because there was no father. But at the same time she said: if they catch me, they will kill me. She loved freedom and independence too much for the life that was there in Chechnya. She was not allowed to do anything that would deviate from some traditional norms. She had to wear a headscarf, she had to go home immediately after work, she was not allowed to communicate with anyone. And she wanted to live like us, roughly speaking. She said that she had pen pals and wanted to go to a Russian city.

– So, after all, they wanted to force her into marriage?

– Yes. As Seda admitted to me, she was not satisfied that she had to live in a subordinate position, like Chechen women. Marry the one she wants, not the one she is forced to marry.

Then the girl calmly began working in a St. Petersburg coffee shop; she was immediately hired there because she already had experience. I got a salary card in my name. Apparently, this map was used to find her for the first time. Maybe she managed to work in this coffee shop for a couple of weeks. The first time her cousin found her. The scene of their meeting was caught on a CCTV camera. There is this recording – how he talks to her, how he says that they found her through law enforcement agencies, demands that she tell her address, and so on. But she managed to escape from him.

Escape-2

According to Seda’s friend, a regular visitor to the cafe helped the girl escape from her relative.

– This visitor came up while her cousin was talking to her. He didn’t want to start a family squabble in front of strangers, so he went outside. – the girl recalls. “Seda immediately turned to this guy for help and said that they wanted to kidnap her. She understood everything at once! The man told her to get into his car, she ran out of the cafe through the back door, but did not get into the car. I just threw the SIM card out of the phone. And then she just ran around the city wherever she looked. This happened literally a year ago, on February 9, 2023. Then Seda asked some passers-by for help, someone gave her a phone and from someone else’s phone she was able to contact the people who initially helped her.

And I was supposed to pick her up after work that evening. I was just learning to drive a car; for me, every extra trip was beneficial. And we agreed that I would come to the city center, where her coffee shop was, and pick her up. I arrive, but she’s not there! Phone calls cannot be made. I was just in shock, I started looking for her, I walked down the street, around the neighborhood. I waited for some time and realized that something had obviously happened. She was gone for two days afterwards. I was about to go to the police to file a report. But in the end, Seda, through her intercessors, came to me…

– They hid her again?

– Yes, they let me talk to her, I was convinced that it was her, her voice. They said that they needed to give her things, that Seda was in a safe haven. I handed over my things and couldn’t see her for some time. But somehow we still kept in touch with her. A few months later, she finally decided to voluntarily leave the care of this organization and decided to stay in Russia.

At that time, human rights activists suggested that Seda leave the country for safety reasons.

– But Seda flatly refused. She said that she did not want to leave Russia, this is her home, her country,” says human rights activist Alexandra. – On the one hand, she, of course, wanted safety, but on the other hand, the girl, when she fled from Chechnya, had no thought of fleeing the country. And she already had love here.

Russian love

While working in a cafe, Seda Suleymanova met Stas on the Internet. They started dating.

“She thought that it was unlikely that her family would have enough money to continue the search,” Elena recalls. – At that time they had already communicated with the groom, but not yet close. At first they talked remotely, without even seeing each other. Then, naturally, we saw each other, and the relationship very quickly grew into a serious one. Both felt something, as they told me, some kind of spark. But she couldn’t return to work, she was afraid.

Soon the lovers decided to live together. Seda admitted to the guy that she was a fugitive from Chechnya. She honestly told everything, not excluding that as soon as he finds out her difficult background, he will leave her. 31-year-old Stas worked as an engineer at a state-owned defense enterprise. Having learned the whole story of his girlfriend, the young man proposed marriage to her and introduced her to her parents, who accepted the girl with all kindness. And the lovers submitted an application to the registry office.

“Stas was serious,” says Elena. “And, knowing her situation, realizing that she couldn’t just go to work, I found her a part-time job. Seda is very independent in character and did not want him to support her. She started fostering dogs and did a very good job with it. Was happy! She was paid good money for this work. She was very attached to the dogs, treated them like humans, not just feeding them and walking them, but taught them some tricks and played with them. She also had a lot of photographs with these dogs. She talked a lot about them. She tried to live on her own money. They had a good harmonious relationship. And at the end of the summer they submitted an application to the registry office and began to wait their turn.

The groom hoped that Seda’s family would be happy about her happiness. It seemed to him that sooner or later the girl’s relatives would soften and everything would be fine.

“Seda, of course, was not confident that her family would be able to accept all this, but, nevertheless, she relaxed,” Elena sighs. – I remember our communication in the last weeks of summer. She no longer thought that she would be kidnapped. She used to share her fears and stress with me. And here she admitted: she fell in love with a man who protects her, helps her, she lives in his apartment, everything is fine with them. She was happy! And she decided to tell her mother about everything. Seda began to contact her, but not from her phone, but from some fraudulent accounts, so that she could not be identified. She hoped that her parents, even if they did not accept the groom, would no longer try to bring her back. But in the end, she was found very quickly – precisely after she announced that she was getting married.

Kidnapping

– How did they find her?

– We can only guess about this. Maybe, according to an application to the registry office, maybe something else. She did not tell her mother anything that could help her be identified. So she was found through some connections in law enforcement. There was such a moment: she was accused of allegedly stealing money. By the way, they do this to bring their daughters back to Chechnya. First, a statement is submitted: a theft has allegedly been committed, and the suspect, according to our information, is, for example, in St. Petersburg. Accordingly, the St. Petersburg police are given an order – so-and-so committed a theft here in Chechnya, so hand it over to us. They hand her over, bring the “thief” to Chechnya, and then immediately hand her over to her relatives. And the case is immediately closed. There she is not allowed to meet with a lawyer, and in fact, they tell human rights activists that there is no criminal case, she is only being treated as a witness and everything is fine with her.

First they found Stas, who was forced to return home, took away his phone so that he could not warn her, then they forced him to stand in front of the door peephole so that she would see him and open the door. Seda opened it, St. Petersburg police detained her and handed her over to relatives from Chechnya. All this happened on August 23 last year.

Thus, nothing has been known about the fate of Seda Suleymanova for more than 150 days.

Stas was the first to raise the alarm, and then human rights activists. They contacted the Human Rights Ombudsman of the Chechen Republic, Mansur Saltaev, who subsequently posted the video on the Internet. It shows him sitting with Suleymanova. Saltaev himself claims that the girl returned home voluntarily.

– She sits silently, clutching her head. From this video, all that follows is that she is alive, but in what condition she is, one can only speculate,” Seda’s friend continues. – And no more news. We submitted an application to the Investigative Committee and the prosecutor’s office demanding an urgent verification of this information. But the law enforcement agencies of Chechnya told us that citizen Suleymanova voluntarily left St. Petersburg. Simply mystical!

MK journalists tried to contact and talk with the Human Rights Ombudsman of the Chechen Republic, Mansur Saltaev, but in vain. His work number is not available.