Alexei Pichugin’s mother wrote an open letter to Patriarch Cyril
4 October, 2020
The Yukos security division staffer Alexei Pichugin’s mother wrote an open letter to Patriarch Cyril. Pichugin, the former Yukos security division staffer, was sentenced to life in prison. In her letter, the 82-year old woman says she is on the brink of despair. She asks the Patriarch to show mercy to her son, noting he did not commit the crimes ascribed to him, that he’s been a hostage for 17 years and is behind bars in inhuman conditions, all along keeping his faith in God. Alexei Pichugin’s mother notes he’s asked the head of state for pardon three times already, but every time his requests were denied at the regional commissions’ level. Alla Pichugina doesn’t know if Vladimir Putin in fact read these pardon requests. She asks the Patriarch just one thing – to pass her son’s pardon request on to the President.
Novaya Gazeta published the letter in full:
Your Holiness!
I very much hope you will graciously hear me out. I am writing out of bitter motherly despair and am thus taking the liberty of turning to you.
I am the mom of Alexei Pichugin, sentenced to life in prison on charges of committing murders which (I am absolutely convinced of it) he didn’t commit. At the time of his arrest, he headed the internal economic security department at Yukos, and basically this is all he is “guilty” of.
Alexei has been in prison for 17 years now, with the last several years in Orenburg Region at a prison camp called The Black Dolphin, for those serving life.
He is a true believer, a real Christian. To him, faith and God are not just empty words, nor are Christ’s Ten Commandments. Alexei gets a lot of mail from believers who are pure of heart. He even gets mail from clergy who don’t believe he is guilty.
During preliminary investigation, when Alexei was in Moscow, he asked the investigators numerous times for permission to meet with his spiritual leader, father Ioann, who performed Alexei’s wedding ceremony and baptized his son at the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity on Sparrow Hills.
While at Black Dolphin, Alexei asked Russian Federation President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin to pardon him three times, but all three times received a denial signed by Orenburg Region governor, and neither Alexei nor I know whether his pardon requests actually reached the Russian President…
I am 82 years old. My spiritual and physical strength declines more and more every year, and, most importantly, I am losing hope. Every year, I realize I can do nothing for my own child. Nothing. You also had a mother and I am sure she loved you boundlessly and selflessly. And I think she would understand me: the most horrible thing in the world is when your child is in peril and you can’t help him in any way. My child has been in peril for 17 years now. He’s not a child of course – he is a very courageous man, strong in spirit, who didn’t break and didn’t lose his identity despite the hell he’s living in. But still… I am always restless because of the horror that engulfs me whenever I think of how it is for Alexei to live another day in prison knowing he is innocent, losing hope like I am, overcoming pain and fear, and finding hope again… If only you knew how much Alexei needs us, his near and dears!
But a man can’t be held forever responsible for working at Yukos. This entry on his resume became a black mark. And in essence Alexei became a hostage, the only Yukos employee still in prison. Alas, he simply chose a path of honesty, to the great dismay of his family and his own misfortune.
As a mother, I of course accepted that choice, although every minute it strikes my heart like a knife.
Your Grace! Please grant me your benevolence; I ask you for extraordinary mercy – please tell the President about my son’s hard lot, his tragic fate. Ask him to pardon Alexei. I will repeat myself: I have no one else to turn to aside from you. I have exhausted all other ways and means. And many respected people are prepared to vouch for Alexei, including church people.
Praying, being with family, his children and grandchildren is all my son wants to do when free. He has people he can take care of, to whom he can devote the rest of his life. Alexei is 58. There is so much he could do for the good of the country while he has his health and energy… And he wants a chance to do that. He wants to work here, in his motherland, for the motherland. Nothing else.
I ask you to grant my son the chance to be useful to his family and maybe somehow useful to the Fatherland!
Your Holiness! I live only because I hope. I hope for mercifulness.
With feelings of reverence and devotion I once again ask you to forgive my request – it’s dictated by the tragedy that our family has been submerged in for the 18th year now. I count on your mercifulness.
Servant of God
Alla
Sources: Novaya gazeta
