[clockwise from top left] Konstantin Yablotskiy, Maria Kozlovskaya, Elvina Yuvakaeva, Anastasia Smirnova and Masha Gessen are leaders in the fight against Russia’s anti-gay “propaganda” law and policies, despite constant threats against them.

Anastasia Smirnova is an activist with the Russian LGBT Network, an interregional NGO that promotes equal rights and respect for human dignity, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. She was arrested in 2014 for holding posters calling for Russia and the Sochi Olympics to uphold Principle 6, the nondiscrimination clause in the Olympic Charter. 

Artyom Loskutov of Novosibirsk is a performance artist who started a new kind of political protest dubbed a “monstration”; Yulia Bashinova is an activist who held the first “monstration” in Moscow in 2011. Since anti-Putin gatherings rarely receive permission from the authorities, the participants often risk arrest.

Svetlana, head of the Mothers of Dagestan group in Makhachkala, which worked to assist victims of abuses by law-enforcement and security agencies in Dagestan, lost her son in an enforced disappearance in 2007. In 2015, Svetlana's human rights organization had to close down as a result of relentless pressure by the authorities. 

Sergei Kovalev of "Memorial" Society is one of the legends and leading figures in Russia's human-rights movement. A talented scientist, Kovalev sacrificed a promising academic career to precariously battle for human rights in the Soviet Union. In 1975, he was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment in a labor camp and three years of exile, charged with "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda." Following his term of imprisonment, Kovalev returned to human rights work, and became one of the founders of "Memorial" Society, the most prominent rights group in the country, and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. He was also a member of the Russian parliament between 1993 and 2003. Kovalev received numerous prestigious prizes for his human rights work, including the French Order of the Legion of Honor in 2006, and the Sakharov Prize in 2009.  

At the time of this photo, Victor had recently finished his training as a print shop technician and hoped to find a job very soon. He is active in Best Buddies Russia, a volunteer movement that connects people with and without disabilities. Victor has starred in several productions of the “theater of the naïve,” an acting program engaging people with disabilities, and especially enjoys musicals. One of Victor’s hobbies is playing computer games.

Voronitsyna is a former glossy magazine photographer, now confined to her bed in a suburb of Moscow with rapid-onset multiple sclerosis. After fires engulfed western Russia in 2010 began organizing information about which regions needed what kind of help, and when.

Evgeniya Chirikova (center), 34, and Khimki Forest activists, in the Khimki Forest outside Moscow. The environmental activists camped out in the Khimki Forest near Moscow become a national symbol of resistance to corrupt authority. For four years they had been trying to prevent a highway being built straight through the last old-growth oak forest in the Moscow region. On 26 August 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the construction of the highway to be halted.

Lyolya is a homeless woman who benefited from Dr. Liza's program.

In 2007, Elizaveta Glinka, or "Doctor Liza" as she was commonly known, created a charity fund called "Fair Help." Liza and her volunteers gave food, clothing, and medicine, free of charge, and provided medical aid to the homeless of Moscow. Dr. Liza set up a makeshift clinic and distribution center near Paveletskaya train station in central Moscow. She wrote a blog to let people know the problems Moscow's homeless face. Today there are estimated to be over 100,000 homeless persons living in Moscow and over 4 million living across Russia. In December 2016, Doctor Liza died in the fatal Black Sea plane crash involving a Russian military jet carrying 92 people to a Russian military base in Syria.  

Alexander Kalikh, a human rights activist from Perm, works with historic memory projects and helps prisoners.

Noize MC is a superstar Russian rapper whose breakaway hit, “Restore Justice (Mercedes S-666)” stoked public outrage over a corrupt official responsible for a fatal hit-and-run accident.

Nadira was chief editor of the independent newspaper “Chernovik” in Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim region of southern Russia. She and several other staffers of the newspaper were prosecuted under Russia’s anti-extremist legislation for exposing law enforcement officials as perpetrators of torture, abductions, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.

Tanya Lokshina is the Russia program director and a senior researcher at Human Right’s Watch and is based in Moscow. Having joined Human Rights Watch in January 2008, Lokshina authored several reports on egregious abuses in Russia's turbulent North Caucasus region and abuses by all sides to the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. Her recent publications include a range of materials on Russia's vicious crackdown on critics of the government and on the plight of civilians in eastern Ukraine. 

After studying in a mainstream school for five years, Kyrill was on the verge of quitting because all of his classes were to be held on the second and third floors of a wheelchair inaccessible school. His mother came to Perstektiva for help. Perspektiva, an organization that aims to promote independence and an improved quality of life for disabled people in Russia, helped raise public awareness about this problem and the school finally installed a manual chairlift.

Vanya’s mother is an active member of the  Parents’ Group at Perspektiva. Since early childhood, Vanya has taken part in many public actions organized by Perspektiva to support people with disabilities. Vanya has read all of the Harry Potter books and hopes to write a sequel someday. He loves to play with his younger brother and sister.

Lyudmila Alexeeva is the doyenne of the Russian human rights movement. Trained as a historian, Alexeeva got involved in dissident work in the 1960s and was one of the founding members of the Moscow Helsinki Group in mid-1970s. For her work in human rights, Alexseeva has been the recipient of many awards, most notably the French Order of the Legion of Honor (2007), and the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize in 2009. 

Oleg Orlov is the chairman of Russia’s leading rights group, Human Rights Center "Memorial." Memorial compiles archives, takes oral histories, and conducts public education campaigns to ensure that the terrors of Russia's Soviet past are not forgotten. He remembers his colleague from Chechnya, Natasha Estemirova -- who was murdered for her human rights work in 2009 -- as "the heart of Memorial."

Badalov is a prominent Chechen human rights defender and a former wrestling champion.

Antifa youth, who battle the spread of racism.

A gas mask used as a torture implement. The technique is referred to as "elephant" given the trunk-like appendage of the mask.