Pavel Kushnir was a pianist and writer who died on July 27, 2024, in a Birobidzhan pretrial detention center. The musician was arrested on charges of public calls for terrorism due to anti-war videos he published on his YouTube channel. At the time of his arrest, only five people were subscribed to the channel.

"Birobidzhan Diary" is Kushnir's last and most personal text. The story of the daily life of a philharmonic soloist is interspersed with essays on the struggle of a lone anti-war activist, an extremely honest, educated and sensitive person, whose fearlessness and convictions turned out to be incompatible with life in Putin's Russia.