Andrey X

Andrey X was born in 1998 in Saint Petersburg

Khrzhanovskiy was born in Saint Petersburg in 1998 and grew up there. His father Ilya Khrzhanovsky and his grandfather Andrei Khrzhanovsky are Russian filmmakers. As a child he acted briefly, including a role in his grandfather's film Room and a Half (2009).

He left public school at 14 and finished high school at the State Russian Museum School at 16. He then studied at Gordonstoun in Scotland and spent a year at the Shaolin Monastery in China. He graduated in anthropology from University College London, writing on unrecognized post-Soviet states.

Back in Russia he wrote for anti-government outlets such as Meduza and Novaya Gazeta. He also worked with an organization for people on the autism spectrum. In February 2022 he was visiting his grandparents in Israel when Russia invaded Ukraine, and he stayed and received citizenship under the Law of Return.

After the Gaza war began in October 2023, he joined local human rights groups and documented settler attacks in the West Bank on social media. He co-founded Kompas, a Russian-language media group covering the West Bank. In the summer of 2024 settlers struck him on the head, piercing his eardrum.

In December 2024 police arrested him over a Palestinian flag sticker he placed on a memorial in Sderot. A magistrate's court ordered his release, but a district court extended his detention.