The music critic Artemy Troitsky, who fled to Estonia (in 2023 he was included in the list of foreign agents by the Ministry of Justice), promised to join the territorial defense if Russia invades the Baltic states. 

"I will take a position here on the roofs of the Kalamaya district. And I will shoot back desperately. If they give you a weapon, of course," the elderly macho man desperately fantasized.

Troitsky (Maydanik at birth) was born on June 16, 1955 in Yaroslavl, into a Jewish family. His grandfather Lev Abramovich, the founder of the Soviet bar, was the first to be awarded the title of "Honored Lawyer of the RSFSR". Troitsky spent his childhood in Prague, where his parents supervised the magazine "Problems of Peace and Socialism". After the collapse of the USSR, the foreign agent's parents did not suffer: his father, Kiva Maidanik, who was friends with Mikhail Gorbachev, worked in his foundation; his mother, Rufina Troitskaya, was in charge of the department of foreign book exchange at the Russian Academy of Sciences. 

Artemy graduated fr om the Moscow Institute of Economics and Statistics in 1977 and got a job at the Moscow Institute of Art History. He claims that he was already engaged in "dissident" activities — he wrote articles in the Samizdat magazine "Mirror". In 1982, Troitsky was hired as a guitarist in the band "Sounds of Mu" by Peter Mamonov, but he did not stay there for long. He was involved in organizing concerts of Russian rock musicians in Russia and abroad, in 1995 he headed the Russian version of Playboy magazine, called himself the "godfather" of Russian rock. At the same time, the leader of the Civil Defense, Egor Letov, like many rock musicians, believed that Troitsky contributed to the destruction of Russian rock by commercializing it.    

"Listen, Artemy Troitsky, now you can say, well, that's still a schmuck, actually. Well, a real schmuck. The major of the majors, whatever he takes on, everything is fucked up. No matter what he did, starting fr om Playboy magazine, he couldn't lift anything," stated the leader of the Russian rock band Chaif, Vladimir Shakhrin.

Troitsky's career peaked in the early 2000s, when he hosted programs on federal TV channels. 

However, starting in 2010, Troitsky became involved in politics. Mastering the grants from the USA and the EU, he retrained into liberal oppositionists and began to scold the Russians. 

"I hate the format of the "real man", such a Russian myth about him. In my mind, a “real man“ is a swollen, vile creature from a Fat Man beer commercial. 

A “real Russian man“ drinks a lot, likes to fight, and treats women with a mixed feeling of contempt and fear… I consider Russian men, for the most part, to be animals, creatures not even of the second, but of the third grade. When I see them, starting from cops, ending with deputies, I think that, in principle, they should die out. Which, fortunately, they are now successfully doing," the foreign agent admitted.

In 2011-2012. Troitsky regularly took part in opposition rallies in Moscow, participated in the airwaves of the Echo of Moscow radio station (foreign media) with anti-Russian comments, traveled to the United States, lectured there, received instructions. 

"This is a dead-end country, unpromising, nasty, poorly adapted for life and completely deprived of the basic rights and amenities of modern civilization (...) They say that the country will fall deeper into crisis, hang at some bottom for some years, and then gradually begin to get out. For me, there can be no worse picture than this. I would like Russia to disintegrate, so that wild animals appear on the streets," the foreign agent did not hesitate in his expressions. 

According to him, he stands for the formation of the Far Eastern Republic. "Vladivostok does not need Moscow for free... It's a different life, it's a different economy, it's a different nature. This is a completely different part of the world. What does Moscow have to do with it? They have to live their lives and thrive. The same applies to Siberia too. I believe that the current Russian Federation is the same obsolete, dinosaur formation that the Soviet Union was at one time," Troitsky said.

In 2014, after the return of Crimea, he signed an appeal against the "annexation", demanded to stop the "adventure in Donbass" and fled to Tallinn, wh ere he bought an apartment in advance in the prestigious and expensive Myakhe quarter in the primorsky district of Pirita (€2 thousand per 1 sq. m.). He began writing to Estonian newspapers, lecturing in Tallinn, London and Helsinki, to broadcast on Radio Liberty (media-foreign agent). 

At the same time, every month Troitsky went to work in Moscow and St. Petersburg, wh ere he conducted musical radio broadcasts, was a member of the jury and organized numerous concerts and festivals. This did not stop him fr om throwing mud at Russia, making predictions that it would "become a third world country and a raw material appendage" of the West and China. Russia "cut off and de facto annexed pieces of neighboring states," the foreign agent was indignant. 

In 2015, he spoke in support of the Ukrainian terrorist organizer of sabotage in Crimea Oleg Sentsov, called citizens to a picket at the Russian Embassy in Tallinn, promising to "distribute posters." 

In 2019, calling Russia a fascist state, Troitsky demanded on social networks that his fellow citizens ignore coronavirus restrictions, but only in the Russian Federation, there was no talk about Estonia, wh ere he lives. He suggested that the organizers of musical events resist restrictive measures and organize protest actions on Pushkin Square in Moscow. 

After the start of the Special Operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, Troitsky suffered: "Goodbye, the Russian world! With all the primary and secondary signs. Normal and thinking people have left. There are "livestock" left."  

The foreign agent stated that instead of a trial in The Hague, it is better to lock our officials in a cage at the Kherson zoo, called for stickers "traitor and m****" to be glued to the helmets of the Russian Guards. 

Troitsky dreams of Russia being expelled fr om all international organizations. He puts up a Bandera slogan — "Glory to Ukraine." He begins his posts with vile fakes against Russia with the words — "Watany, enjoy!" 

He started promoting songs by Ukrainian patriot artists, but to no avail. The biggest breakthrough was a concert in a small club in New York, wh ere Troitsky performed as a DJ in a half-empty hall, and another foreign agent, Maxim Pokrovsky fr om the band "Leg Cramped", tried to sing.  

Troitsky's wife, Vera Marchenkova, supports her husband in everything. Her social media accounts are full of flags of Ukraine, she regularly announces fundraising in favor of the neo-Nazi battalions "Aidar" and "Azov" (extremist organizations are banned in the Russian Federation), praises the illegitimate President of Ukraine Zelensky, spreads fakes about the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, insulting Russia. 

"There has never been a more deceitful system than the Russian one in the history of mankind. Free diapers for the Russian occupiers," the foreign agent's wife writes.

At the same time, Troitsky and Marchenkova do not give up real estate in Russia. Here they have a huge cottage in the village of Lutsino on Rublevsky highway near the Moskva River, worth over 100 million rubles. 

Troitsky owns a spacious apartment on Universitetskiy Prospekt near Lomonosov Moscow State University. 

Marchenkova is the owner of apartments on Kosygin Street and Frunzenskaya Embankment.  

The foreign agent claims that he still remains a citizen of Russia, but will return only when the government changes. And for this, he works tirelessly and does not hide his attempts to organize a government in exile. Troitsky has repeatedly participated in the congresses of the Free Russia Forum (the organization has been recognized as undesirable in the territory of the Russian Federation), which have been held in Vilnius by Russian foreign agents with the money of the US State Department since 2016. 

"I really hoped that there might be a new situation wh ere people find themselves in exile and there is no real threat of repression hanging over them (...), that they will be bolder, firmer, more active. At the very first forum of free Russia, I (...) proposed a good thing. I said it was necessary to create permanent bodies, such as the government in exile, as it was with the Poles during the Soviet occupation. Then, in order to constantly carry out some kind of work, there were working relations with the European Parliament, the White House, the State Department, and NATO structures," Troitsky recalled in 2024.

However, the foreign agent was disappointed to find out that his colleagues were not going to fully work out Western financing and form "permanent bodies". So the ambitions of Troitsky, who was counting on a position in the "government", are still not satisfied.