Early in the morning, as part of a new criminal case, searches are being carried out in the homes of at least 4 peaceful believers in the village of Kholmskaya.
The FSB detective, Lieutenant I.V. Govorukhin, together with the district police officer, two detectives and two witnesses, searches the house of Anna Yermak and her family. There are two children at the site of the special events, one of them is an infant. Law enforcement officers seize children's coloring books, as well as electronic media belonging to Anna's husband, who is not one of Jehovah's Witnesses. The whole family, especially the older child, is under a lot of stress. After the search, Anna and her husband are summoned for questioning by the Investigative Committee.
Investigator Vitaliy Kuzmin arrives at Olga Ponomareva's house at 6:30 a.m., accompanied by 2 armed security officers in uniforms with FSB patches and masks, as well as 2 Cossacks and 2 witnesses. They are conducting a search authorized by Judge Aleksandr Kholoshin. The believer lives with her 70-year-old disabled mother, who, as a result of the visit of law enforcement officers, becomes ill with her heart.
During the search, investigator Vitaliy Kuzmin checks the believer's laptop, opens the Zoom application, which Olga uses for work, and asks to see the last conference. Investigator Kuzmin searches for "American books" in the house, turning over the mattress and throwing things out of the closets on the floor. Operatives also search the veranda, car, bathhouse and greenhouses in the garden. They search for everything "about Jehovah" from the believer, seize her laptop and notebooks with quotes from the Bible, citing the fact that she has "her own Bible." The investigator calls peaceful Bible discussions with other believers meetings of a "forbidden group" that the woman "joined."
A few hours later, Olga Ponomareva is taken away for interrogation to the Investigative Committee in Abinsk. The head of the investigation team is Lev Galustyants. Investigator Kuzmin also participates in the interrogations, who cannot explain to the believer what exactly her guilt is. Olga uses Article 51 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which allows citizens not to testify against themselves if they fear that the voiced information will be illegally used against them.
Despite the fact that the believer has an incurable disease and has undergone several operations, the investigator threatens to send her to a pre-trial detention center, interpreting her position as a refusal to testify. Later, Olga is allowed to go home on her own recognizance.
