Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, spent his final weeks in a penal colony above the Arctic Circle.
His 19-year prison sentence was widely condemned by rights groups and in the West as punishment for daring to cross President Vladimir Putin.
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Through messages passed through his lawyers, he posted regularly on social media in a characteristically optimistic and light-hearted tone.
Here is what Navalny’s final weeks looked like, in his own words:
– ‘Ho-ho-ho’ –
On December 26, Navalny posted his first message from his new Arctic prison colony, having disappeared for weeks after being moved from his former prison closer to Moscow.
The icy IK-3 prison colony in the Siberian region of Yamal-Nenets, some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) from his native Moscow, would be where he spent his final few weeks.
“I am your new grandfather Frost,” Navalny said, in his usual tongue-in-cheek manner.
“I have a tulup, an ushanka and I will have valenki soon,” he said, referring to traditional furry Russian winter coats, hats and boots.
“I now live above the Arctic Circle … But I don’t say ‘ho-ho-ho, I say ‘oh-oh-oh’ when I look out the window, where first there is night, then evening, then night again.”
Navalny said he was tired from the 20-day journey from his previous prison in the central Vladimir region, close to Moscow.
“Don’t worry about me, everything is well. I am so happy that I finally got here.”
– ‘Thinking about Leonardo DiCaprio’ –
A few weeks later, after a spell in quarantine, Navalny shared more details about his conditions in the new Arctic prison.
“The idea that Putin was pleased (enough) that he had put me in a barracks in the Far North that they would stop throwing me in solitary confinement was … naive,” the 47-year-old said.
Prison authorities told him: “‘Convict Navalny refused to introduce himself in the correct way’. Seven days in solitary confinement.”
Navalny spent more than 300 days in solitary confinement — or a “punishment cell” as his colleagues called it, based on its name in Russian — during his three years in prison.
He was ordered there on 27 occasions, often for minor infringements of prison protocol.
Allowed out for a daily walk in the pitch black of at 6:30 a.m., Navalny said: “I promised myself I would go out in any weather.”
His cell was “11 steps from wall to wall”.
“It has never been colder than minus 32 (Celsius). Even in such a temperature you can walk more than half an hour — only if you have the time to grow back a nose, ears and fingers,” he said in a January 9 post.
“Today I was walking, freezing and thinking about Leonardo DiCaprio and his trick with a dead horse in The Revenant,” he said, referring to a scene in which his character crawls into an animal carcass to keep warm.
“I don’t think it would work here. A dead horse would freeze to death within 15 minutes.”
– ‘I’m Russian’ –
Navalny also regularly ridiculed prison routines.
On January 22, he said the prison wardens at IK-3 would wake everybody up at 5 a.m. to play the Russian national anthem.
“And right after that — the second most important song in the country: Shaman’s ‘Ya Russky,'” he said.
The song — which means “I’m Russian” — has become an unofficial anthem for President Vladimir Putin.
“Imagine the scene. Yamal-Nenets region. Polar night. In a penal colony of convicts, prisoner Navalny serving 19 years — who the Kremlin’s propaganda for years has scolded for taking part in Russian marches — is exercising to ‘Ya Russky'”.
– ‘Send me money’ –
In a court hearing on 15 February — a day before his death — Navalny was filmed joking with the judge over a stream of fines he had been issued.
“Your honour, I will send you my personal account number so that you, with your huge salary as a federal judge, can send me money,” he said, laughing.
“I am running out of cash, and thanks to your decisions, it will run out even faster. So send it!”
– ‘I love you’ –
Navalny’s last post, published on Valentine’s Day, was dedicated to his wife, Yulia.
“Baby, you and I have everything, just like in the song: cities, airfield lights, blue snowstorms and thousands of kilometres between us,” he said, quoting a popular Soviet-era tune.
“But I feel that you are near me every second, and I love you more and more.”
AFP