Updated: March 28, 2024
Name: Smirnov Eduard Olegovich
Date of Birth: August 11, 1988
Current status: accused
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (1)
Time spent in prison: 1 day in a temporary detention facility

Biography

On July 16 and 17, 2019, mass searches were carried out in the homes of believers in several settlements of the Nizhny Novgorod region. A total of 35 searches were conducted, and at least 11 people are involved in the criminal case. One of them is Eduard Smirnov. What is known about this man?

Eduard was born in 1988 in the village of Kanevskaya, Krasnodar Territory. He received a secondary special education as a software technician. He worked as a web designer for 10 years.

Eduard's mother tried to raise her son in accordance with the high moral standards of the Bible. Later, the Bible became a reference book for him, and he became convinced that acquaintance with it at a young age is of great benefit.

He met his future wife Veronika in Saransk, where he moved to live. In 2014, Eduard and Veronica got married. The wife works in the field of beauty. After the wedding, the newlyweds moved to Nizhny Novgorod. Together they are fond of the culture of other peoples, expanding their horizons. Eduard is studying the Tatar language.

Eduard's relatives are perplexed by what happened. They do not understand why a law-abiding citizen is classified as a criminal just because he reads the Bible and lives in harmony with it. They consider it absurd to write down as extremists a person who cannot offend even with a word.

Case History

In July 2019, Nizhny Novgorod security forces broke into 35 houses of peaceful believers with searches, several criminal cases were initiated, in particular against pensioner Galina Abrosimova, web designer Eduard Smirnov and cook Denis Tsarev. Oleg Makerov, senior investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Nizhny Novgorod region, accused them of organizing extremist activities. Tsarev spent 2 days in the temporary detention facility. The case of Tsarev and Smirnov was separated into separate proceedings from the case of Abrosimova.