2024-02-21 02:41:31
Locked in cold, concrete cells and often alone with his books – during the last months of his life, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny sought solace in the letters he wrote.
“No one can understand Russian prison life without being here,” he tells an acquaintance in August in one of them. Then, with his typical sense of humor, he adds: “But you don’t need to be here.”
“If they’re told to strangle you in your cell, they will”
“If you tell them to feed you caviar tomorrow, they will feed you caviar. If they are told to strangle you in your cell, they will,” wrote the Kremlin critic. Many details from the last months of Navalny’s life, from the circumstances surrounding his death, which the Russian authorities announced on Friday, even the location of his body , remain unknown.
The New York Times attempts to present how the last days of Navalny’s life were spent. The team of the publication collects parts of the letters and his last statements and talks to some of his relatives.
The letters reveal the depth of ambition, determination and curiosity of a leader who is fueling opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Navalny’s supporters, he will live on as a unifying symbol of their resistance.
A struggle to stay connected to the outside world
His letters show his struggle to stay connected to the outside world.
Even as the brutal prison conditions took their toll on his body, as Navalny was often denied medical and dental treatment, he did not lose his clarity of mind.
In what he shares with friends, Navalny says that he has read 44 books in English in one year and that he is methodically preparing for the future – fine-tuning his agenda, studying political memoirs, arguing with journalists, giving career advice to friends and giving opinions on publications in social networks.
In his public messages, the 47-year-old Navalny calls his time in prison a “space journey.” Until last fall, he was extremely alone – forced to spend much of his time in solitary confinement.
Scanned copies of his answers – after editing
Alexei Navalny is sending hundreds of handwritten letters, thanks to the interesting digitization of Russia’s prison system – a brief burst of liberal reform in the middle of Putin’s 24-year rule. Through an online platform, people write to Navalny for 40 cents a page and receive scanned copies of his responses — usually a week or two after he sends them and after they’ve been censored.
The glass case in the prison is covered with foil
Navalny also communicates with the outside world through his lawyers. They often go to the meetings with documents that they have in front of the glass case that separates them because they are forbidden to present them. At one point in 2022, the Kremlin critic reported that prison officials covered the window with foil.
The Kremlin critic is also without three of his defenders, who have been arrested for participating in an “extremist group”.
Charges in court: You are crazy
Navalny’s appearance in court also gives him an opportunity to show his disdain for the system. Last July, at the end of a trial that ended with another 19-year sentence, he told the judge and courtroom staff they were crazy.
“You have one life given by God, and this is what you choose to use it for?” Navalny stated, according to the text of the speech released by his team.
Fighting for more time in which to eat the disgusting bread that is offered to him
In one of his latest hearings, via video link in January, he argued for the right to longer meal breaks so he could comfortably consume the “two glasses of boiling water and two pieces of disgusting bread” to which he was entitled.
His appeal was dismissed. He tells his friends that he prefers döner and falafel in Berlin and is interested in the Indian food they tried in New York.
The court also rejected his appeal regarding the isolated punishment cells in his prison, in which Navalny spent about 300 days.
“I want to have 10 books in my cell”
Cells are usually cold, damp and poorly ventilated concrete spaces measuring 2 by 10 meters. Prisoners who have to spend time in these cells are only allowed one book.
“I want to have 10 books in my cell,” Navalny told the court. Books seem to have been central to life in prison until his death.
In a letter sent by Navalny to a friend in April 2020, he shared that he prefers to read 10 books at once and switch between them. He adds that he has come to love memoirs. “For some reason I’ve always despised them. But they’re actually amazing,” he says.
In his letters, he also recommends books about serving sentences. In his cell, he also reads “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s powerful novel about Stalin’s Gulag. After surviving a hunger strike and spending months in an “I want to eat” state, Navalny says he has only just begun to understand the depravity of Soviet-era labor camps.
Trump campaign looks ‘really scary’
In December 2023, Navalny reflected on American politics. To his friend – the Russian photographer Yevgeny Feldman, Alexei Navalny wrote that the campaign program of former US President Donald Trump looks “really scary”.
“Trump will become president if President Biden’s health deteriorates. Doesn’t that affect the Democrats,” wrote the oppositionist. He ended with: “Please name a current politician you admire.”
Three days after sending this letter, the Russian opposition figure disappears.
During a frantic 20-day manhunt, Navalny’s exiled allies say they sent more than 600 requests to prisons and other government agencies.
“I’m your Santa Claus”
On December 25, Navalny’s spokeswoman reported that he was found in a remote an arctic prison known as the “Polar Wolf”.
“I am your new Santa Claus,” Navalny wrote on social media the day after his lawyer visited him.
“I don’t say ‘Ho-ho-ho,’ but I say ‘Oh-oh-oh’ when I look out the window where it’s night, then evening, and then night again,” he adds.
It is becoming clear that the Kremlin intends to silence Navalny
Navalny commented in the publication that he reached the Arctic via a circuitous route through the Ural Mountains. There he ends up in his new prison, which is classified as a more severe “special regime” facility.
Even during this trip, Navalny read books. In the new prison library, he is forced to choose from the classics of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky or Chekhov.
In the new prison, he lost his email service. It is becoming clear that the Kremlin intends to silence Navalny.
Navalny’s mother – Lyudmila Navalny flew to the Arctic after the announcement of his death. On Saturday, she received official notification that he had died at 2:17 p.m. the previous day.
Navalny’s friends and relatives are sure that his messages will live on even through his letters from prison, bTV reports.
In one of them, he commented that South Korea and Taiwan were able to make the transition from dictatorship to democracy – then maybe Russia could too. “Hope. I have no problem with that,” says Navalny.
“Keep writing! Ah,” the Kremlin critic also states.