Grigory Sverdlin

Grigory Sverdlin is a Russian anti-war activist who, prior to fleeing Russia, was the director of the homeless charity Nochlezhka that operates in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. He fled to Tbilisi, Georgia, which is where he founded Get Lost, an organisation providing aid to Russian citizens wanting to evade conscription and Russian soldiers who want to desert or surrender to Ukraine.

In late 2023, Sverdlin was placed on a wanted list and declared a foreign agent by the Russian government.

Life and Nochlezhka Nochlezhka Charitable Organisation began in 1993 as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) publishing the newspaper The Depths , a street newspaper. The first issue was published in September 1994, with the main task of the newspaper being to provide the homeless with a chance to earn a wage while also changing the attitude of the public towards the homeless.

Sverdlin joined Nochlezhka as a volunteer some time around 2002, with the newspaper being renamed to The Way Home the following year. He became an employee at Nochlezhka in 2010 and by 2011 he was the director of the organisation. This sticker resulted in his car being towed, with him saying "Yes, once the valiant traffic police and Center "E" seized my car for five weeks - to check if it was stolen. At the same time, the policeman shyly looked away: “Well, you understand everything.” But otherwise - not a single incident." He also said that several times a day, this sticker gained him several thumbs-up from both passing drivers and pedestrians, alongside "four very touching notes under the [windscreen] wiper". Georgia is where he said many of his friends had fled to. To facilitate the safe surrender of Russian soldiers to Ukraine, the organisation maintains contact with their Ukrainian equivalent, I Want to Live, a government sponsored organisation that operates a hotline for Russian soldiers wanting to surrender.

Sverdlin said that three days after the organisation was founded, volunteers had received over 1,000 inquiries, including questions about both legally and illegally crossing the border, requests for psychological support and questions about how to safely surrender to Ukraine.