“President, Change Course!”: Yelena Osipova, The 77-Year-Old on the Frontlines of Petersburg’s Anti-War Protests

“President, Change Course!”
Yelena Osipova, a 77-year-old artist, has been taking to the streets of St. Petersburg for twenty years with her painted placards on the day’s most burning issues

Some call her the city’s conscience, while others call her the city’s disgrace — just as some consider the “special operation” a humanitarian disaster, while others regard it a liberation campaign. But Yelena Andreyevna Osipova is more afraid of people who are indifferent than of her opponents.

There have never been major renovations in the late nineteenth-century residential building where Yelena Andreyevna lives. Her communal flat is chockablock with furniture that was purchased at least half a century ago. When her guests arrive, the artist takes out a new…