Ernes Ametov: “Why Did They Choose Our Door?”

He tied a string to my finger and slid a ring down it.

Ametov was born on May 30, 1985, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In 1992, his family returned to Crimea, settling in the city of Bakhchysarai. He graduated from Taurida National University with a degree in law. Ernes is married to Eleonora Ametova, and they have two sons.
On October 11, 2017, armed FSB officers stormed the Ametov household and conducted a search. Ametov was arrested, but three years later, the court acquitted him. However, two years after his acquittal, he was charged under Part 2 of Article 205.5 of the Russian Criminal Code for alleged “participation in the activities of a terrorist organization” and Part 1 of Article 30 and Article 278 for alleged “actions aimed at the forcible seizure of power,” and sentenced to eleven years in a penal colony plus one year of restriction of freedom.

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Calm down, it’s the FSB.

“Fire! Open the door!” somebody shouted. A loud knock and ruckus followed as people in uniforms burst into the Ametov family’s apartment during their morning prayer. Eleonora noticed her hands trembling from fear while she prayed, and when she saw a dozen Russian officers pointing guns at her and her husband, memories of her grandfather’s stories about the 1944 deportation flooded back. “They’re here to kill us,” she thought. “Calm down, it’s the FSB,” said Ametov, noticing Eleonora’s panic.
The raid on the Ametov home took place on October 11, 2017. That day, Ernes Ametov was arrested. He became one of the eight defendants in the second Bakhchysarai group of the Hizb ut-Tahrir case. The search lasted nearly five hours. Eleonora recalls feeling like the officers were deliberately dragging out the process, going through each document and confiscating some books—though they later returned them because they were not on Russia’s list of banned literature. Curiously, they did not search the kitchen.
Ametov was taken from their home while Eleonora stepped away to change clothes. “We jumped into the car and followed him. I remember being so worried they’d kidnap him, that he’d ‘disappear.’ And the day after the search, there was a trial,” Eleonora recalls.
The Ametovs have two sons, Aladin and Imran. At the time of the search, the eldest was eight, and the youngest was five. “Aladin woke up early before they knocked on our door and hid in the couch. Ernes asked him what he was doing, and our son said he was scared. It was like he sensed something.” When the officers began the search, they advised the Ametov children, “Don’t be afraid, just turn on some cartoons.” While the search was underway, Eleonora went into the kitchen to make porridge for her children. After the arrest, Imran kept asking his mother, “Why did they choose our door?”
Eleonora and Ernes met through a mutual acquaintance: Eleonora’s childhood friend and Ernes’s classmate. A month after their first meeting, Ametov proposed at the Khan’s Palace. “It felt like a scene from a movie.

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Alyssa Milano is an American actor and activist, associated with the extremely popular TV show Charmed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, where she played one of the witchy sisters, Phoebe Halliwell. Another of Milano’s starring roles was Jennifer Mancini in Melrose Place.

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He tied a string to my finger and slid a ring down it. He said beautiful words, that his life was in faith, in serving God, and he was inviting me into his life to make me happy.

Our first Kurban-Bayram together. I wasn’t practicing Islam then, just following traditions. In the morning, I woke up to a huge bouquet of roses. My husband said, ‘We don’t celebrate typical holidays like International Women’s Day or Valentine’s Day, but you’ll always get flowers without needing a reason.’ That’s how our family life began: pure, beautiful, and right,” Eleonora says.

He wasn’t eating bread he could make me a gift.

Eleonora’s birthday was three months after Ametov’s arrest. At that time, he was in a Simferopol pre-trial detention center. “On the morning of my birthday, someone rang the doorbell. My children and I were scared at first, thinking it was another search. I opened the door and saw flowers and a card. The delivery person passed along some warm wishes from Ernes, saying my husband loved me very much. I was shocked.” Eleonora says that every birthday since her husband’s imprisonment, he’s managed to send her flowers. One time, she even received a rose made from bread that Ametov crafted in prison. Later, he told her that he had been saving his bread from prison rations to make her a gift.
Eleonora shares that her husband has always had a knack for making things with his hands: “Right after we got married, he installed internet cables. Later, he made custom built-in wardrobes and became passionate about working with cezves. He made brass cezves for coffee by hand. His work caught the attention of others, and he was invited to train in this craft in Turkey, but Ernes declined because he didn’t want to leave our family. He took a photography course, and we started filming weddings together and making wedding decorations. He inspired me to start a YouTube channel and film videos.” Eleonora adds that Ametov is a trained lawyer, though he never worked in his profession.
Ametov was shocked by the arrest of Rustem Abiltarov, a defendant in the first Bakhchysarai group of the Hizb ut-Tahrir case. Abiltarov was a good friend of his. Eleonora recalls the moment she and her husband learned the news of Abiltarov’s arrest—how they stood in silence, unable to speak. “I said, ‘They’re facing decades. The children won’t see their father for decades.’” Abiltarov was sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison. Since then, Ametov tried not to miss a single search or court hearing held on the peninsula.

In May 2024, Milano took on a new role as a UNITED24 ambassador. Together with Nobel laureates Paul Nurse and Edvard and May-Britt Moser, actors Ivanna Sakhno and Mark Strong, she will support the Education and Science program.