RUDN students miraculously left the Moscow pre-trial detention center and even managed to defend themselves

They were kept in a detention center for 9 months for a crime that did not happen

An amazing story for today happened to two prisoners, foreign students, who spent almost a year in the capital’s pre-trial detention center. Young people (a girl – a citizen of Vietnam and a guy – a citizen of China) were released, and the case against them was dropped. Within a month, they were able to complete their theses and successfully defend themselves at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, where they studied. Moreover, the girl received a red diploma and a medal.

I told about the story of two students in love named Thi and Wenhao when I described life of foreigners in Moscow jails. In short: both came to Moscow to learn, in the hope of later applying their knowledge at home. During their stay in Moscow, they diligently learned to speak Russian, although it was given to both with great difficulty (you know, Vietnamese and Chinese are very different from our language).

During the coronavirus period, the guy went to his homeland and from there asked the girl to send him the badges, orders and medals that he collected in Russia (they were kept in his dorm room) by parcel. As it turned out, the Chinese citizen was fond of history, on various available sites he bought items that characterize the Soviet era and the war period.

But the parcel did not find the addressee. A vigilant customs officer at Sheremetyevo Airport scanned an international postal item from Moscow to China and found a box with 56 metal objects in the parcel.

A criminal case was opened against both foreigners under 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “smuggling of cultural property”. First, a girl was detained, and then, upon arrival, a guy.

It was difficult for them in the pre-trial detention center. The girl did not have the most necessary things, and when Otabek Dzhumabaev, an employee of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Moscow (he dealt with the rights of foreigners, because he used to work in embassies, knows many languages), found her in a desperate situation. Otabek, who knows six languages, helped her understand the Internal Regulations, and most importantly, write a letter to her parents.

When the author of these lines met the girl in SIZO No. 6 (she was with a check as a member of the PMC of Moscow), she was struck by her small stature and thinness. The girl did not speak Russian well. But she expressed her gratitude to the boss Evgeny Dobrov for free shampoo, warm socks and other necessary things. From her story, one could understand that she had one semester left before graduation, that her thesis was almost ready. She was worried that now she would not be able to graduate from RUDN University.

The students spent 9 months in the SIZO. And then it turned out that the medals and badges did not represent a special cultural value, their cost was estimated at 40 thousand rubles. Both were released from the pre-trial detention center on bail at the end of last year. And in March 2023, the criminal case was closed.

And the first thing that both students did was to go to RUDN University to recover. And for the remaining month, the girl managed to complete her diploma, which she successfully defended.