He is known as the “Russian hobbit”. Once a big city lawyer in Moscow, Yury Alekseyev abandoned his career three years ago and headed 60 kilometres (40 miles) northeast. Picking a spot near the road and the woods, he dug an underground home that he shares with his faithful pet rabbit Petrushka.
“It’s become clear to me that I live in Moscow, rent a one-room apartment with concrete walls, in order to be able to live between these concrete walls I every day go to the office over the past several years and it looks like there is no perspective of a bright future in front of me. What I am doing at work is not interesting for me, so why do I need all of it,” Alekseyev asked, sitting in his underground house between piles of books.
After leaving his job, the next decision he had to make was what kind house he wanted to live it and where.
He decided to settle not too far away from Moscow – just above 100 km (62 miles) north of Moscow and turned a self-made dugout in his new home.
“I started thinking what kind of house should I make myself, there were some ideas, I thought them over but not for a long time and I’ve decided that I should build myself a dugout. From that moment on I took a shovel… because what does the man need to build a house in the ground? He needs to take a shovel, to choose a place where to make it. So I came, chose the place and started digging,” said Alekseyev, who doesn’t shy away from the comforts of civilization: he has a computer, a cell phone, an iPad, and thousands of followers on social media and through his blog. Not long ago, the 42-year-old built himself a steam bath, powered by electricity from solar panels. During the dark winter months he turns on a generator that runs off gasoline.
And he doesn’t live like a hermit. Almost every day he has a visitor.
Friends and strangers drop by to exchange books from his library of more than 4,500 titles, or just to see how he lives. Some bring food or fuel. Others pay his Internet bill.
Outside the house Alekseyev placed the large sign reading “Navalny” with letters painted on large round pieces of wood. He is a supporter of Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption activist who announced his decision to run for president in 2018.
“Putin with his criminal team has literally destroyed the alternative; he destroyed the option for political alternative. And in this situation Navalny symbolises this alternative. We simply have no choice. In Russia there is no choice to such an extent that Navalny has become the only chance to have at least some kind of choice,” said Alekseyev.
Despite his disillusionment with the current state of Russia, he believes that changes will come and one day Navalny might become a Russian president.
Post time: Feb-08-2017