The Fifth Floor: The Russian grandma who went to jail

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Natalya Filonova is a former kindergarten teacher, a mother, a grandmother. But she’s also an activist and in 2022 she was arrested during a demonstration against the war in Ukraine. Nina Nazarova from BBC Russian has been trying to find out what happened to her. Plus, how a homeless bumblebee brought a community together, with Joao Fellet from BBC Brasil.

Prestented by Faranak Amidi Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson

(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
0:07.8	This is the fifth floor.
0:11.5	The fifth floor, you knowssonous.
0:15.9	This is the fifth floor at Farnak Amidi Sobeth. This is the fifth floor at the heart of global storytelling
0:25.2	with BBC journalists from all around the world.
0:29.0	I'm your host, Farnak Amidi.
0:37.1	You know, yeah, definitely, in some moment when a pacifist begins... This is Natalia Fylova.
0:42.3	This is Natalia Philonova.
0:45.3	In September 2022, Natalia took part in a protest against the military draft in Russia.
0:53.3	In this video, she made a passionate appeal to other
0:56.3	women, saying, let's sabotage mobilization and stop the war.
1:00.9	The world is watching us. We need to protect our men.
1:11.0	Natalia isn't an imposing figure or a seasoned public speaker.
1:15.9	In this video, she looks like her typical Russian grandmother.
1:19.8	She's wearing a green jacket, a matching headscarf tied under her chin,
1:24.3	a gray fringe framing her round face.
1:30.6	She was talking to a YouTuber who was broadcasting live from an almost empty square where a handful of people gathered to protest against the war in
1:37.2	Ukraine. A few minutes later, the police arrived and rounded up people. Natalia was one of them.
1:44.4	Don't need to proceed with me. arrived and rounded up people, Natalia was one of them. What happened to her after that? My colleague Nina Nazarova from BBC Russian has been trying to
1:55.3	piece together Natalia's story, starting with a question. Who is she really?
2:01.9	Natalia Filonova is a 63 years old pensioner in Russia in a remote region of Buratia.
2:09.3	She used to be a kindergarten teacher and she worked as a tutor in a school for disabled children.
	...

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