On 17 December, the Russian Human Rights Commissioner’s ‘Hasten to Do Good’ medal award took place in Moscow. The award was given to nine laureates, two of them posthumously.

Elizaveta Glinka and Vladimir Lukin were awarded for their great personal contribution to the protection of human and civil rights and freedoms declared in the Russian Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the European Convention of Human Rights.

An assistant nurse Yulia Anufrieva from Novgorod region was awarded posthumously. She worked in the Oksochi care home for the mentally disabled and in September 2013, when there was a fire, she took 23 people out of the building. Another post-mortem award was given to a nuclear physicist, well-known blogger and The New Times columnist Anton Buslov from Samara. He was awarded for his active civil position, courage, moral and information support to cancer patients.

Colonel Serik Sultangabiev from Sverdlovsk region received the award for the courage displayed in protecting the right to life. On 25 September 2014, he saved a soldier under his command, when a grenade had exploded during the military exercises. The same nomination award was given to an eighth-former Yury Kusakin from Smolensk region. In March 2014, Yury’s saved life of his friend, who had fell under cracked spring river ice during a walk.

Two laureates Ivan Yatsenko and Dmitry Pervutinsky were awarded for their social initiative. Mr Yatsenko from Leningrad region is the head of a socially important project ‘Ambulance Aviation’ started in early 2014. Dmitry Pervutinsky from Novosibirsk is an author of the web-project ‘Heroes of Our Time’ keeping record of the people whose acts deserve great respect and admiration.

Alla Popryga from Harp village (Yamalo-Nenets area) received the medal for her active civil position in protecting the rights of persons with disabilities. She organised a sewing workshop and ‘social taxi’ for the disabled in the village.

The award is traditionally timed to Human Rights Day celebration and is given to Russian citizens, aliens and stateless persons, as well as to legal entities for their merit in the field of human rights and freedoms. The award’s criteria are commitment, heroism and courage displayed under the circumstances of a threat to human rights and freedoms.