‘She was no pushover’

‘They had a lot of things in common’

Anastasia Yemelyanova, a feminist activist and critic of the war in Ukraine, left Russia in the summer of 2022, a few months after its forces invaded Ukraine. Having attended every anti-war rally she could for months, Yemelyanova became worried she would face prosecution, her friend Marina says.

Like many Russians who decided to leave the country last year, Yemelyanova moved to Turkey where she met a man called Nizar on dating app Tinder. Nizar was raised in Syria but had also settled in Turkey as a refugee.

Eventually, Anastasia moved to the eastern Turkish city of Erzurum where Nizar went to college. On 5 September, she revealed on Twitter that she had planned to rent an apartment in the city, apply for a residence permit, and get married.

Fifteen days later, however, Anastasia stopped replying to messages from her friends, who attempted to lodge a missing person’s report with the police, only to be told it wasn’t possible. The officers on duty said that since neither the missing person nor those reporting her as such were Turkish citizens, they were unable to start an investigation.

Undeterred, Anastasia’s friends engaged in some online sleuthing themselves and were able to track down Nizar’s family, his place of work, the college he went to and his social media accounts. They reported their findings to the Erzurum police with the help of a Turkish friend.

In Istanbul, another group of Anastasia’s friends were also determined to find out her whereabouts. “On 23 September, the girls spent several hours arguing with the local police,” Marina recalls. “As some of the policemen left, a female officer searched the database for Anastasia’s credentials and told us our friend had been dead for three days and that Nizar had been detained on suspicion of her murder”.

Neighbours subsequently reported hearing a domestic dispute going on in the couple’s apartment at around 11 PM on 20 September. Two hours later, Nizar knocked on a neighbour’s door and asked him for help. “I didn’t open the door, I thought it was just a drunkard,” the neighbour said. “Then he returned and knocked on my door once again”.

Nizar told him that “his friend’s sister” had been wounded. “I told him that I was a paramedic and I could treat the wound if it wasn’t too big,” the man recalled. “As we approached the apartment, I looked into the doorway and saw a pool of blood that had already clotted, and that’s when I realised the woman was already dead”.

Upon detention, Nizar claimed that his girlfriend had hurt herself with a glass fragment from the coffee table the two had smashed during their fight, according to Turkish media reports. Under interrogation, Nizar eventually admitted stabbing Anastasia in the leg with the glass shard.

The police claimed to have informed the Russian embassy in Ankara of Anastasia’s death straight away, although it later transpired that Anastasia’s mother hadn’t been informed about what had happened to her daughter for four days.

‘I trusted her choice’

Thinking back, Yemelyanova’s friends struggle to recollect any indications that Nizar had a tendency towards violence. “She only told us good things about him, and he was just a normal guy to us as well,” Marina says.

“Nastya [short for Anastasia] was very cautious: she would always tell me where she went and with whom, she would share her location with me and last summer she would always wait up for me at home when I was out late,” Yemelyanova’s friend Anastasia Polozkova wrote on Instagram.

Yemelyanova worked as a computer linguist at the Hannah Arendt Research Centre, ran an educational YouTube channel on feminism together with her associates, and was an activist involved with Russian dissident groups Rodina and Vesna. Anastasia also sold clothes and fashion accessories with political slogans embroidered on them.

“Nastya was no pushover,” Maria says. “She would never tolerate any domestic abuse. She was a tough cookie, a feminist, she always knew what she wanted. I trusted her choice, just like most of her friends”.

“She was a very kind and considerate person, she loved cracking jokes and having fun. Despite being really ironic, she was also sensitive and vulnerable,” Marina recalls. “She always tried not to bother anyone: I noticed it the same day she arrived here. She really loved cooking, and she cooked a whole batch of food for me before she left, telling me I needed to eat more than just sandwiches. She also left a note for me in the morning: ‘Love, kisses, Nastya.’ That’s the kind of person she was.”

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Yemelyanova’s friends are now busy searching for an optimal solution on how the young woman’s body should be repatriated to Russia. Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu, a Turkish feminist group aimed at combating femicide, has provided Anastasia’s mother pro bono legal assistance.