“In contemporary Russia, under these conditions, it is a battle — a silent battle,” said Tatyana Krupina, a 28-year-old chemist who went with a small group of friends to lay flowers last week.
“在当前的俄罗斯，在现在的情况下，这是一场战争，一场无声的战争”
坦卡拉，一个28岁的化学家说道。
她和一小群朋友上个礼拜来献过花。
This is what passes for protest in Russia in January 2023, 11 months after the invasion. Russians have also begun laying flowers in other cities, spurred by social media.
在俄国发动侵略战争11个月后，俄国人也开始在其它城市献花。而社交媒体，就是背后的推手。
The flower tussle is one of the first public protests taking place on a large scale since the days after President Vladimir Putin’s announcement in September that hundreds of thousands of men would be called up to fight.
这是自从普京在去年九月，声称数十万年轻男人要被征召入伍后，爆发的俄罗斯的第一场大规模群众抗议运动。
Russia has imposed harsh penalties for criticizing the war, or even calling it one, so for many Russians, laying flowers seems like a rare opportunity to show dissent without being arrested.
俄罗斯对批评战争的人惩罚严厉，所以，献花是表示抗议的一种安全方式。
For anti-government Russians remaining in Russia, the flowers remind them that they are not alone in their opposition to the war, even as the propaganda becomes increasingly vitriolic and the letters Z and V, which have become pro-war symbols, are etched on public buildings.
对于在俄国国内的反战异议人士，鲜花让他们感到不再孤单，特别是官方大力宣传战争，把象征支持战争的Z和V，刻在大楼的墙上的时候。那些鲜花温暖人心。
And for Russians who fled because of persecution, potential conscription or a refusal to pay taxes that will fuel the war machine, the flower memorial is a sign that there are still people left in the country who are brave enough to protest.
当俄罗斯人逃离迫害，征兵，或者用逃跑的方式拒绝交税，免得为战争送子弹的时候，鲜花是一种象征，在这个国家，还有勇敢的人，用这种方式，站起来抗议。
“This is not only a way to show people in Ukraine that there are people in Russia who do not condone what is happening; it shows people that they are not alone,” said Alexander Plyushchev, a popular Russian journalist with a significant following on YouTube.
油管网红记者压力山大说：“这不只是让乌克兰人明白，俄罗斯人同样感同身受，还告诉他们，我们和他们站在一起。”
But even laying flowers has potential consequences. At least seven people have been detained, according to a New York Times journalist who witnessed the episodes over the past week. Four were detained after placing flowers at the site.
但即使是献花也不安全，据纽约时报跟踪报道这个事情的记者所知，最近一个礼拜，已经有七人因为这个被捕，其中四人更是刚放下花就被逮捕。
The police have tried to prevent people from photographing the memorial, and have told others to delete the images from their phones. But people keep arriving, looking for an opening when many are not gathered around the monument so that it does not seem like an illegal public gathering — and quietly placing their flowers.
警察还不许人民照相记录这一事件，抓到就让他们删除相片。但是人们继续涌来，在纪念碑周围见缝插针，在看起来不像非法集会的时候，静静的在纪念碑前放下鲜花。
“My endurance is finished; I want to show my opinion,” a lawyer named Ekaterina Varenik said Saturday afternoon after placing flowers on the statue. She was referring to not being able to express her opinion publicly.
“我的使命达成，我想表达我的想法。”一个叫尔喀特尼娜的律师，在周六下午放下鲜花，她说她没法公开表达自己的想法，只能这么偷偷的干。
Varenik, 26, said she last protested when opposition politician Alexei Navalny was arrested two years ago. She stayed home when thousands protested the war mobilization. But, she said of the crackdown, “Every day it gets worse and worse, and stricter and stricter.”
26岁的瓦尼卡说起她因为示威在两年前被捕的事情，她这次在几千人反战抗议的时候，躲在家里面疗伤。她说“管控越来越严，情况越来越糟糕。”
For more than half an hour, Varenik stood in front of the statue with a homemade poster that read, “Ukraine: not our enemies, but our brothers.”
半个小时的时间里面，瓦尼卡在雕像前拿着自制的标语：“乌克兰，不是我们的敌人，是我们的弟兄。”
She was detained by the police shortly afterward, and could face up to 15 days in prison.
她很快被赶来的警察逮捕，面临最高15天的牢狱之灾。
For many, standing in front of the statue is intensely emotional.
对许多人来说，只是站在这个雕像前，就已经心如刀绞。
“How can this be happening?” sobbed a pensioner named Rita who declined to provide her surname out of fear of retribution, and gave her age only as over 50. “People are dying: children, the elderly,” she said. “It is just awful. Maybe this will be a reminder to people that we are living in a terrifying world.”
“这到底是怎么一回事”芮塔哭着说，她因为恐惧受迫害，不敢告诉记者自己的姓氏，只说她五十几岁。“老人和小孩在死去。”她说，“太可怕了，这是一个可怕的世界。”
Some prominent Russians have minimized the protests.
有些俄罗斯名人就对这次抗议很蔑视。
“Bringing flowers to a monument does not require courage, or even money,” Dmitry L. Bykov, a poet and writer who is critical of the government and lives in exile, said Wednesday during a discussion streamed on YouTube.
“拿鲜花到纪念碑不需要勇气，甚至不需要花钱。”诗人和作家，反政府流亡人士拜克夫周六在油管上说，
“This is aesthetically beautiful, but completely pointless,” said Bykov, who Bellingcat’s investigative journalists concluded was the victim of an attempted poisoning in 2019 with a nerve agent similar to the one used on Navalny. He said, “There is only one positive effect: Maybe someone will find out who Lesya Ukrainka is — a great poet — and read her work.”
“这都是表面功夫，但是完全没用”，拜克夫说。
拜克夫当年因为调查贝卡特事件，差点被用神经毒素投毒。
这回他说：“这个献花事件，唯一的作用，就是有人会发现谁是这个被献花的雕像，莱雅乌克兰，发现她原来是一个伟大的诗人，然后去找她的诗作来欣赏，仅此而已。”
The statue has been the site of altercations with pro-war nationalists, who have denounced the mourners and accused them in reports to the authorities of discrediting the Russian military, which is now a crime in Russia.
这座雕像曾经是好战的军国主义咒骂那些为战争中死亡的人哀悼的人之处，
这些哀悼者被认为是在贬低俄军，这现在在俄罗斯是犯罪。
The Kremlin’s crackdown on political opposition and protests accelerated after the invasion of Ukraine. About 20,000 protesters have been detained since the war began, according to OVD Info, a human rights watchdog. Many lost their jobs after protesting, signing petitions or writing social media posts critical of the war.
入侵乌克兰后，俄当权者加强了对异议人士的镇压。据人权观察机构估计，自开战以来，两万抗议人士被捕，很多人因为抗议，签名，或者在社交媒体上反战而丢掉饭碗。
Ilya Yashin, a municipal councilor in Moscow, was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison for speaking about Russian atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine. A 19-year-old university student from the city of Arkhangelsk is facing up to 10 years in jail for social media posts criticizing the war.
莫斯科的社区工作者莉亚叶新，因为谈论俄军在乌克兰步查的暴行，被判刑八年半。而另外一个19岁的大学生，仅仅因为是在社交媒体上反战，被判刑十年。
In that context, defying the police to lay flowers may require a degree of bravery, but it also takes a mental toll that has become harder to bear as the war grinds on.
在这样的环境下，哪怕是仅仅在纪念碑放下鲜花，也需要勇气，还有难以忍受的精神压力。
“I know that at any minute the police can come to my house and arrest me,” said Maksim Shatalov, 36, a former flight attendant who said he had been fired from his job because of his anti-war position.
“我知道警察随时会来我家逮捕我。”36岁的前航空公司的空中少爷马克辛沙他洛夫说，
他就是因为反战，被公司开除。
Shatalov became friends with a tight-knit circle of activists after being thrown into an avtozak, or police van, after a protest in April. During the summer and fall, they protested against the mobilization, painted anti-war messages around in the city in chalk and laid flowers at other memorials.
Shatalov and his friend Anna Saifytdinova, 34, brought flowers together to the statue one recent evening. She had four white roses — Russians give an even number of flowers as a tribute to the dead.
Because one of their friends, a minor, had been detained after placing a picture of the devastated Dnipro building at the base of the statue, Saifytdinova waited until there were no people around so they could not be accused of staging an unsanctioned protest.
“I already spent eight days in jail for protesting mobilization,” she said. “If I am detained again, I face criminal charges.”
That could mean a sentence of up to 10 years.
“It’s like Russian roulette,” she said. “You never know when something bad could happen, or when it won’t happen. Some people have been detained for holding a blank piece of paper in public.”
Shatalov said he was planning to leave Russia soon because he feared arrest.
“I believe that I would do more good in another country than by staying here without a job and without a livelihood,” he said. “What will I accomplish when I sit in a prison camp: Will I be beaten up constantly or kept in a cage all the time like Navalny? Or someone from the private military company Wagner will come to try to recruit me to fight in Ukraine with threats that if I don’t sign up? They’ll just drive me to the point where I kill myself.”
Still, some who risk arrest insist on showing their resistance.
“Moscow is a huge city, and everyone is quiet,” said Varenik, the lawyer, before she was detained for her anti-war poster. “I want to show the world that we should not be quiet. We allow all of this with our silence.”
