- 2 days ago
Discover Russia’s hidden outcasts—and the family secret that could have destroyed us.
👉 What World Leaders NEED to Know about Russia: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6d9EIByxz1AdkmIOYUlrDd0rmByq5zSN
What happens when your own family becomes the state’s enemy? In this episode, Elvira Bary uncovers the hidden world of Russia’s outcasts—from persecuted peasants and “лишенцы” erased by Soviet laws to modern “foreign agents” silenced for speaking the truth. This is a personal journey into how Russia has always divided people into first and second class, destroying lives across generations. It’s a story of fear, survival, and the silence that families kept to protect themselves—and the heavy price that comes with it.
Video Chapters:
00:00 Russia’s Second-Class Citizens
02:30 Dividing Souls
06:16 The Estate System
09:44 Outcasts of the Tsarist Era
13:26 Outcasts of the Soviet State
17:27 Dissidents and “Social Parasites”
21:20 Foreign Agents
👉 JOIN ME ON THE JOURNEY Sign-up for news about the New Book here: https://elvirabary.com/elvira-barys-newsletter/
MY HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK SERIES
➡️ Russian Treasures (a historical novel about the Bolshevik Revolution and Russian
👉 What World Leaders NEED to Know about Russia: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6d9EIByxz1AdkmIOYUlrDd0rmByq5zSN
What happens when your own family becomes the state’s enemy? In this episode, Elvira Bary uncovers the hidden world of Russia’s outcasts—from persecuted peasants and “лишенцы” erased by Soviet laws to modern “foreign agents” silenced for speaking the truth. This is a personal journey into how Russia has always divided people into first and second class, destroying lives across generations. It’s a story of fear, survival, and the silence that families kept to protect themselves—and the heavy price that comes with it.
Video Chapters:
00:00 Russia’s Second-Class Citizens
02:30 Dividing Souls
06:16 The Estate System
09:44 Outcasts of the Tsarist Era
13:26 Outcasts of the Soviet State
17:27 Dissidents and “Social Parasites”
21:20 Foreign Agents
👉 JOIN ME ON THE JOURNEY Sign-up for news about the New Book here: https://elvirabary.com/elvira-barys-newsletter/
MY HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK SERIES
➡️ Russian Treasures (a historical novel about the Bolshevik Revolution and Russian
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00There's a blank spot in my family history, not the kind you skip in a photo album.
00:06This was erased on purpose.
00:09My ancestors were ordinary peasants before the 1917 revolution, except one branch on
00:15my mother's side, a branch that doesn't add up.
00:20My great-grandfather always wrote in official documents that he was a village house painter.
00:26Yet, by the 1920s, he somehow got a higher education and moved up in the system.
00:34His brother did, too.
00:36But the strangest part, I know almost nothing about that side of my family.
00:42My mother doesn't even know her own grandmother's last name.
00:46That grandmother simply disappeared.
00:50No trace.
00:51No documents.
00:52No photos.
00:53The only thing that survived in family whispers was that she was pretty.
00:58My big eyes?
00:59Those are hers.
01:01My grandfather, her son, was a Red Army colonel.
01:05He lied in his official biographies, claiming he didn't know his mother.
01:10But that was not true.
01:11When my mother was a little girl, they took her to see that grandmother, secretly, for
01:18one visit.
01:19One memory.
01:20Why all the secrecy?
01:22The only explanation is that she was Elishenitz, one of the disenfranchised.
01:28One of Russia's invisible people.
01:32In the Soviet Union, if your family was once nobility, clergy, a merchant, or even a low-ranking
01:38official, you were marked.
01:41The state called you an outcast, stripped you of rights, and erased you from society.
01:48And contact with such people, even your own blood, could ruin your life forever.
01:54You see, Russia has always divided people into first class and second class.
02:01By faith, birth, or ideology, it didn't stop with the fall of the Soviet Union.
02:07Even now, people can lose everything if they fall out of favor with the state.
02:13My name is Elvira Barry.
02:14I was born in the Soviet Union.
02:17Today, we are going to uncover how Russia created its outcasts, how it marked people as not-quite-human,
02:26and how that shadow still follows families like mine.
02:35Long before ideology or class divided people in Russia, religion was the first to draw lines
02:41between full citizens and second-class citizens.
02:45In the 17th century, Russia was torn apart by a church schism that many today barely remember.
02:51But it shaped the nation's attitude toward power and conformity for centuries to come.
02:58This split began when Patriarch Nikon, supported by Tsar Alexei, decided to reform the Russian
03:04Orthodox Church to align its rituals more closely with Greek practices.
03:09What sounded like a minor edit turned into a cultural earthquake.
03:15Back then, it mattered deeply how people crossed themselves, how they pronounced prayers, and
03:22whether they held up two fingers or three.
03:26A big difference.
03:27For the state, religious unity wasn't about faith.
03:31It was about control.
03:32At a time when Europe was torn apart by religious wars, with Catholics and Protestants fighting and
03:39kings losing their thrones over faith, Russia's leaders feared that even the smallest crack
03:46in religious unity could destroy their power.
03:50If you did not pray the correct way, how could they trust you to obey the Tsar?
03:57The old believers, those who rejected the reforms, were branded as dangerous rebels.
04:03The state hunted them relentlessly, burning their books, executing their leaders, exiling communities
04:12to Siberia, and imposing heavy taxes to force them into submission.
04:17In some cases, old believer villagers were burned to the ground.
04:22Many chose to set themselves on fire rather than abandon their faith.
04:26A grim testament to how violently the state demanded religious conformity.
04:32It wasn't only the old believers who were persecuted.
04:35The Russian Empire viewed Catholicism and Lutheranism with deep suspicion, especially in its western
04:42territories, fearing foreign influence and potential disloyalty to the Orthodox Tsar.
04:48The state restricted the construction of Catholic churches, limited missionary work, and closely
04:54monitored Lutheran communities, particularly those in the Baltic region.
04:59Various religious sects suffered similar fates.
05:03Sectarians, like the Molohans or Duhobors, faced fines, forced relocations, and persecution
05:11for their refusal to follow the official Orthodox line.
05:15Communities were split apart, leaders imprisoned, and families forced to convert onto threat of
05:22exile or economic ruin.
05:24And of course, among the most systematically discriminated second-class citizens in Russia were the Jews.
05:32They became subjects of the Russian Empire after the partitions of Poland in the late 18th
05:38century, and from the start, the state saw them as outsiders to be controlled.
05:43Jews were confined to the pale of settlement, barred from living in many cities, restricted in their
05:52professions, and subjected to additional taxes and legal discrimination that made them permanent
05:59outsiders in the empire.
06:02This is a vast and painful history in itself.
06:05And I have a separate video dedicated to the history of Jews in Russia if you want to dive
06:11deeper into how they were made second-class citizens by design.
06:21For centuries, Russian society was carved into estates, each with its own rights or lack of them.
06:29There were the nobles, who held land and power.
06:33There were the townspeople, the Mishani, who were legally free but tied to their crafts and cities.
06:41There were the clergy, who held their own special privileges.
06:46And then there were the peasants, the backbone of the Russian Empire, who by law and by social
06:53expectation were treated as simple, foolish souls, in need of guidance from those wiser and more
07:01cultured about them.
07:03It was disturbingly similar to how enslaved people in 19th century America were described by their owners
07:11as helpless children who needed the care of their masters, all while being exploited for labour.
07:21Served them in Russia, tied millions of peasants to the land and to the will of their landlords.
07:27A nobleman could sell a peasant, separate families, or punish them, as he saw fit.
07:34Peasants had no right to leave the land without permission, and their labour funded the luxurious
07:39lifestyles of the few at the top.
07:42Could someone move between these estates?
07:45Technically, yes, but the doors were nearly closed.
07:49A peasant might escape serfdom by joining the military or by entering a religious order.
07:57Rare cases of merchants or exceptionally talented artisans buying themselves freedom did exist,
08:04and a handful of serfs became famous writers or entrepreneurs.
08:09For example, Artemiy Tireshenko, a Ukrainian peasant, rose to become a major sugar manufacturer
08:15and philanthropist.
08:16But these were exceptions, so rare, they became legends, not the norm.
08:24The gap between the lives of wealthy nobles and peasants was unfathomable.
08:29Even the most enlightened people of the 19th century, those who read Rousseau and discussed
08:35emancipation, could not bridge the chasm between themselves and the peasants.
08:40They might feel guilty about the suffering they witnessed, might build schools or set up clinics
08:47on their estates, might speak passionately about reform in salons, but they never saw the peasants
08:55as their equals.
08:57The divide was too deep and the belief in their own cultural superiority too ingrained.
09:04Russia's estate system was a machine built to divide its people and to ensure that, from
09:11birth, a person's place in society and their opportunities were set in stone.
09:17Sordom was officially abolished in 1861, but the habits of mind it created, the view that
09:23some people are less than simply because of birth didn't vanish with the stroke of a pen.
09:31And in many ways, the belief that some people are meant to rule, while others are meant to
09:38be ruled, continued to shape Russia long after the chains of serfdom were broken.
09:48In Tsarist Russia, everyone, from the highest noble to the humblest peasant, lived under a
09:56constant, unspoken threat.
09:58You could lose everything at any moment.
10:01A wrong word, a wrong association, a hint of suspicion, and your life as you knew it could
10:09be over.
10:09The higher you climb in society, the more you had to lose and the more terrified you
10:15became of falling.
10:17Even nobles were not safe.
10:19The Tsarist system had a brutal tool called civil execution.
10:23It was not a death sentence in the physical sense, but it was the death of your status and rights.
10:30A nobleman could be stripped of his rank, titles, and privileges, losing the protections
10:37that came with them.
10:38They could no longer serve in the military or hold government posts, and their family's
10:44social standing would collapse with them.
10:47For many, it was a fate worse than death.
10:52One notable example was the poet Alexander Ratyshev, who was exiled to Siberia for his writing criticizing
10:59serfdom and autocracy, effectively executed in civil terms for daring to question the system.
11:06Merchants were not safe either.
11:09The state tightly controlled markets and affairs, granting and revoking trading rights at will.
11:16A merchant could lose the right to trade over a tax dispute, a bribe unpaid, or suspicion of disloyalty.
11:25State agents ensured that trade served the Tsarist's interests first, so one misstep could ruin a merchant's livelihood and push
11:36his family into poverty.
11:37Even among peasants, one could become an outcast.
11:42Peasants lived with the opšina, or the village commune, a system that managed land distribution,
11:50taxes, and collective responsibilities.
11:53The opšina was a lifeline in a harsh world, providing protection and a sense of belonging.
12:00But it could also expel individuals deemed troublesome or unable to fulfill communal duties.
12:08To be cast out from the opšina meant losing your access to land, your right to farm, and the support
12:17network that was essential for survival.
12:20An expelled peasant became a wanderer, vulnerable to starvation, exploitation, and arrest as a vagrant.
12:30Life under police civilians was another form of slow erasure.
12:35Those marked by the state, whether for political suspicion, religious dissent, or criminal accusations, faced heavy restrictions.
12:44They could be forbidden from living in major cities, forced to report regularly to local authorities, or barred from certain
12:52professions.
12:53Exiles in Siberia could not return home without permission, lived under constant watch,
12:58and were often restricted in whom they could associate with, what they could read, and even where they could walk.
13:06In Tsarist Russia, the fear of becoming an outcast was ever present.
13:11The glittering palaces of St. Petersburg and Moscow were built on this fear.
13:17A fear that kept people obedient, compliant, and grateful for the rights they had, however fragile those rights might be.
13:31In the Soviet Union, becoming an outcast wasn't about what you did.
13:36It was about who you were.
13:39This was the brutal twist of the Bolshevik system.
13:42Personal merits, hard work, or loyalty meant nothing.
13:46If your birth betrayed you, if your documents indicated that you came from nobility, merchants, or the clergy, you were
13:55automatically branded a
13:57Lishenitz.
13:58A person stripped of rights, a non-full citizen in the workers' state.
14:04This connects directly to that strange blank spot in my family's history I shared with you earlier.
14:09All these silences.
14:11All these erasures.
14:13Most likely it was because they were hiding something dangerous.
14:17The fact that they were Lishenzi by birth, trying to survive in a country that could destroy them for who
14:25their parents were.
14:27For the Lishenzi, life was a series of closed doors.
14:31It was very difficult for them to secure state employment.
14:35And there were no other options available.
14:39They were the last to secure housing in the overcrowded cities.
14:43Starting in 1928, the Soviet regime launched mass expulsions of Lishenzi from major cities,
14:49with Moscow and Leningrad leading the purge.
14:53Families were evicted from apartments, no matter their qualifications or the years they had worked,
15:00and their children were expelled from universities.
15:03In schools, children of Lishenzi were forced to publicly renounce their parents.
15:08Many families, desperate to remain in the cities, moved into small garden cottages,
15:14dachas, living in cramped, cold conditions while they were trying to find any niche in the Soviet system.
15:20This is vividly depicted in my historical novel, The Prince of the Soviets,
15:25which tells how people clung to any fragment of dignity while being systematically pushed out of society.
15:32Children of Lishenzi did everything they could to hide their origins.
15:37They invented false biographies, destroyed old documents, and created new identities to
15:44slip through the cracks of the state's relentless bureaucracy.
15:47In the Soviet Union, the bureaucracy wanted to know everything about everyone.
15:53Every person had a personal file that contained their autobiography, work history, recommendations,
16:01and often denunciations from neighbors and co-workers.
16:05Without this file, you could not get a job, except perhaps as a janitor or an unskilled laborer in a
16:12factory.
16:13And that is exactly what happened to many.
16:16Between the late 1920s and early 1930s, it is estimated that around 3 million people in the USSR were classified
16:25as Lishenzi.
16:26While official discrimination against Lishenzi is somewhat after the 1936 Soviet Constitution,
16:33suspicion and informal barriers continued for decades, with many former Lishenzi and their children denied prestigious jobs,
16:44party membership, or higher education opportunities well into the 1950s and 1960s.
16:51What happened to their descendants?
16:53Many managed to blend in by hiding their past, building new identities to become normal Soviet citizens.
17:02Others remained on the margins, locked out of social mobility.
17:07But the trauma of being an outcast, of living under the constant threat of exposure,
17:14left deep scars that shaped family histories, like mine, where entire branches disappeared, names were forgotten,
17:23and silence became the only way to survive.
17:32As the Soviet Union moved past the chaos of revolution and purges, it found new categories of people to cast
17:39out – dissidents and social parasites.
17:43In theory, the USSR claimed to have eliminated class enemies, building a society where all were equal.
17:49In reality, the state replaced Lishenzi with new forms of outcasts – those who dared to think differently,
17:59or refused to conform to the strict expectations of Soviet life.
18:04Who were the dissidents?
18:06Writers, poets, scientists, engineers, and even ordinary workers who criticized the government,
18:12demanded reforms, or simply spoke the truth about the system's failures.
18:18Their crimes could be as simple as circulating forbidden literature, signing petitions against
18:25political repression, or speaking out about human rights.
18:30Andrei Sakharov, a brilliant physicist who helped build the Soviet hydrogen bomb,
18:35became a dissident when he began to speak out against nuclear proliferation and the lack of freedom in the USSR.
18:44He was exiled internally to the closed city of Corki.
18:49At the time, my hometown was in such poor condition that living there was considered a punishment.
18:57Publishing underground books and journals, some as that, could get you expelled from your job,
19:03placed under civilians, and sent to prison camps for anti-Soviet agitation or slandering the Soviet system.
19:11And then there were the parasites.
19:14In the USSR, everyone was required to work in a state-approved job.
19:18If you did not have a work record, you could be charged with tuneyatstva, parasitism.
19:26It was a criminal offense to live without official employment, and it was used as a convenient tool to silence
19:34those who refused to conform or who wanted to live outside the state's structures.
19:39For example, the artist and poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, faced threats of parasitism charges when he refused to take state-assigned
19:47work that interfered with his writing.
19:50The Nobel Prize-winning poet, Joseph Brodsky, was prosecuted for social parasitism because he wrote poetry instead of working at
20:00a state-assigned job.
20:01Many informal street musicians, underground artists, and spiritual seekers found themselves in constant danger of arrest simply because they refused
20:12to join the rigid structures of official Soviet life.
20:16How did people survive?
20:17Dissidents and those accused of parasitism often lived precariously on the edge of society.
20:24Friends and sympathizers provided food, shelter, or unofficial work to keep them alive.
20:29Some took on low-level jobs that allowed them to maintain a minimal legal employment status while continuing their true
20:38work in secret, writing, painting, or organizing underground meetings.
20:44In 1988, Boris Grebenchikov's famous song called them the generation of janitors and watchmen.
20:52Entire families suffered alongside dissidents, children were denied entry to universities, spouses lost jobs, and neighbors were pressed to denounce
21:03them.
21:04Being labeled politically unreliable closed almost every door in Soviet life.
21:15The Soviet Union may have collapsed, but Russia has found new ways to create second-class citizens.
21:22Today, they are called foreign agents.
21:25This label did not appear out of thin air.
21:28It has deep roots in Russia's past, where the state has always seen independent voices and foreign connections as threats.
21:35In 2012, the Russian government introduced its foreign agent legislation, claiming it was necessary to protect the country from external
21:45interference.
21:47The law requires any organization receiving foreign funding and engaging in vaguely defined political activity to register as a foreign
21:56agent,
21:56a phrase that, in Russian, carries the heavy Soviet-era echo of spy or traitor.
22:03What does the state want to achieve?
22:06Fear and control.
22:08The label is meant to isolate, humiliate, and financially exhaust those who dare to think and speak independently.
22:16Human rights organizations, independent journalists, environmental activists, and even feminist and LGBTQ groups
22:25have found themselves branded as foreign agents simply for receiving a grant from abroad
22:31or reporting on issues the state wants hidden.
22:36How does life change under this label?
22:38Those listed as foreign agents face endless bureaucratic harassment.
22:43They must mark all publications with a warning that they are a foreign agent,
22:49submit detailed financial reports, and endure constant inspections.
22:53Non-compliance leads to heavy fines and potential criminal charges.
22:59Employers are pressured to fire them.
23:02Landlords refuse to renew leases.
23:05And collaborators fear association with them will bring trouble.
23:09The stigma is real and intentional.
23:13People cross the street to avoid speaking with a foreign agent, afraid of attracting police attention.
23:19Banks may close accounts.
23:22And social media platforms may flag their content.
23:26State media smear them as enemies of the people, traitors, or puppets of the West.
23:32And yet, many do not give up.
23:36Independent journalists continue reporting, even after their newsrooms are raided and their colleagues are arrested.
23:44Human rights lawyers keep defending political prisoners.
23:48Activists keep organizing, even when forced to register themselves personally as foreign agents.
23:56Some move abroad to continue their work in exile, while others remain, accepting the risks, determined to give voices to
24:04those who are silenced.
24:06The struggle of foreign agents is not just about resisting a label.
24:11It is about the fight for the right to exist with dignity in a society that demands silence and conformity.
24:19It is about the right to tell the truth, to criticize power, to speak on behalf of the marginalized,
24:26and to remain human in a system that prefers obedient shadows.
24:31In modern Russia, the mechanisms of exclusion have evolved.
24:36But the logic remains the same.
24:39The state decides who is worthy and who will be cast out.
24:45Their faces change.
24:47Peasants, licency, dissidents, and now foreign agents.
24:51If this story made you think, share it with someone who wants to understand Russia beyond the headlines.
25:01If you haven't yet, subscribe and join our growing community where we learn to think deeper together.
25:08And if you'd like to help me keep making these videos, you can buy me a coffee or join the
25:14think tank below.
25:16Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
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