Czech cyclist rides across Russia to Moscow, plasters city with "Putin is a killer" stickers

A Czech traveler on a bicycle crossed into Russia through the Estonian city of Narva and reached Moscow in just eight days, where he staged a bold protest: he filmed himself shouting "Slava Ukraini" ("Glory to Ukraine") on Red Square while wearing a T-shirt featuring President Petr Pavel, and plastered the city with stickers reading "Putin is a killer" set against a blood-red background. He shared the story in an interview, explaining both his motives and the risks behind this extraordinary journey.

He had been planning the trip since February, training since March, and told his loved ones about it only three days before departure — his wife found out by chance two weeks earlier. As cover, he had taken an earlier trip to Uzbekistan in June, cycling more than a thousand kilometers on a regular bike as preparation. He already had experience smuggling items: last year, during a trip across all of Russia to Mongolia, he managed to carry a well-hidden drone that a customs officer failed to spot even during a thorough inspection, despite holding it in his hands.

Filming by the Kremlin and a dangerous slip-up

He deliberately chose his filming spot on Red Square so that both the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral would appear in the frame. The shoot dragged on for an hour: his phone kept falling off a railing, the microphone failed, and he had to redo several takes because of slips of the tongue. He repeated the phrase "Slava Ukraini" at least ten times. Only when he noticed an unfamiliar young woman filming him on her phone did he realize just how risky his behavior was on such a crowded square.

Besides the T-shirt, he briefly wore a cap bearing a vowel-less phrase that translates roughly as an obscene insult directed at Putin, but admitted he only dared wear it twice — it was simply too conspicuous and dangerous, since that particular letter combination provokes an extremely harsh reaction in Russia. He was far more cautious with the Putin stickers, carefully scoping out each location beforehand — parks, streetlight poles, e-scooters, the metro, and the area around Red Square. One sticker ended up on a public restroom right across from the FSB headquarters.

The most dangerous moment — at Navalny's grave

According to him, the greatest risk arose not where he expected, but at the grave of Alexei Navalny. Only six people were at the cemetery — four in uniform, one in plain clothes, and himself. Noticing that the plainclothes man was watching him — walking past him twice and constantly talking on the phone — he instinctively veered off along the wall in the opposite direction, circling the area to avoid the two uniformed men stationed at the exit. Walking straight between them without stopping — even brushing one with his shoulder — he heard someone ask, "Who are you?" and replied that he was a tourist who didn't understand Russian. His heart rate at that moment, according to his watch, hit 140 beats per minute.

He prepared for possible detention every single morning: deleting unnecessary data from his phone, encrypting important files, clearing his browsing history, switching profiles, and turning off his VPN. He carried a GPS tracker with him, with a second one mounted on the bike, along with medication and items that could help in the first hours after a potential arrest. He also prepared himself psychologically for interrogation, rehearsing answers to questions about where he had been, where he was headed, and why.

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Source: novinky.cz