From Kamchatka to Berlin's city council: the story of Russian-born politician Elizaveta Kapinos
Russian-born Elizaveta Kapinos won a seat on a Berlin district council for the Greens party. She spoke about her journey from Kamchatka to German politics.
Voting in elections for Berlin's city parliament and district councils concluded on September 20, determining who will govern the German capital for the next five years. Among the winners was Elizaveta Kapinos, a woman born in Russia who moved to Germany in 2020. She placed ninth on the Greens' list in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district, where the party secured 14 council seats.
Kapinos was born in a small town in Kamchatka and later lived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky until age 15. She recalls the peninsula's distinctive character — its ocean, volcanoes, and heavy snowfall — and the fact that the only way to leave Kamchatka was by plane. After finishing school, she studied international relations at Moscow's Higher School of Economics, since Kamchatka offered no suitable programs at the time.
She first visited Berlin in 2018 on a student exchange and fell in love with the city. After completing her degree, she enrolled in a master's program in political science at the Free University of Berlin and stayed on.
According to Kapinos, Berlin has changed over the past eight years — the cost of living has risen sharply, and residents are less optimistic about the future than before. She joined the Greens in November 2024, shortly after Germany's governing coalition collapsed. She chose the party for its clear vision for the future, its climate policies, and its consistent support for Ukraine. Kapinos notes that German citizenship is not required to join the party, something she relied on herself, as she only obtained her German passport in spring 2025.
