Post from an Arctic prison. Alexei Navalny’s final letters which reached recipients after his murder

Anna

Name changed and place of residence withheld for security reasons.

Towards the end of 2023, I’d just started writing to political prisoners, something I’d been doing for a month or two. I made a point of not writing to high-profile political prisoners. I’m just an ordinary doctor from a small place, with no connection to the media or public life. I decided to write to those less prominent prisoners, the ones who probably received little mail and felt isolated.

I hadn’t intended to write to Alexei, but when news emerged in December that he’d been located in Kharp after his disappearance, I read a moving piece about him—an article or maybe a social media post—and decided to send him New Year greetings. Just a short paragraph. I live relatively close, only a thousand kilometres away, so I even offered to visit and drop off a parcel. It was a spontaneous emotional thing.

I didn’t write again after that. I wasn’t expecting a reply, given the sheer volume of mail he must have received. But I continued to walk over to the post office, checking letters from other political prisoners. Then, in May, when I went to the post office again, they handed me a small stack of letters—five, I think—and among them was Alexei’s reply. It was dated late January. My hands trembled as I took it. I was in floods of tears. I cried all the way home as I drove.

I still write to political prisoners. There are different types of people, of course: some write to many inmates, but infrequently. I can’t do that. I prefer to write regularly, and have been corresponding with almost the same group for over a year. When one is released, I pick up another. I usually have about five [ongoing correspondences]. Emotionally, that’s my limit, I’m afraid.

It’s not just about writing though, I also try to help. Like, arranging deliveries of essential items, finding information, keeping up with news relating to their cases, sending parcels—warm clothing in winter, lighter items in summer when they have no one else to provide them. Prison winters can be brutally cold. I remember one woman in pre-trial detention asking for wool socks and a grandma shawl, then in the summer, in the same cell, she was begging for shorts because of the intense heat.

I know many who write to political prisoners are well-known figures, eloquent writers. I’m not like that at all, to be honest. I’m just an ordinary person, and I write whatever comes to mind. I might mention a book I’ve read, a play I’ve seen, music I’ve enjoyed, somewhere I’ve visited, or something that struck me in the news. It’s probably a bit silly, but none of my pen pals have ever said: “Don’t write such nonsense.” Quite the opposite, in fact. They tell me that when they read my letters, they feel transported, as if they are free and travelling with me.

Deciding to start writing wasn’t difficult. It was late 2023, almost two years into the war. I was in a terrible state of mind, utterly hopeless. Something had to give. And then I realised this was a way to combat that sense of complete futility and depression. Acknowledging that my problems were insignificant in comparison made it feel almost shameful to wallow in despair, and galvanised me to act.

Help those less fortunate. Do what you can, and let it happen as it does. That’s how I live, really.

Evgeny Feldman

Photographer and photo editor, Meduza

I wrote my first letter to Alexei just after his return, when the court hearing at the police station finished and it was clear he was heading to Matrosskaya Tishina, [Moscow’s famous detention centre]. I wanted to be among the first to write, hoping a letter might offer some support. And so I began writing to him regularly. Letters to Moscow’s pre-trial detention facilities moved quickly.

We even saw each other on February 20—the final hearing in the “insulting a veteran” case. The press were allowed into the courtroom; Navalny and I waved and smiled at each other. Afterwards, I sent him a quick note: ‘Good to see you.’ But the letter never reached him, as he was moved [out of Moscow] almost immediately.

He ended up in IK-2 Vladimir, where FSIN-Letter wasn’t available. I asked his team if there was another way to correspond, but, presumably to shield him from being overwhelmed with mail, they said: “Listen, you shouldn’t.” So, for that first year of his sentence, we were only in occasional contact, via somebody else.

In January 2022, a month before the war began, I left Russia, fearing arrest. My wife, Natasha, stayed for another fortnight to sort out paperwork. Before she herself departed, she posted a paper letter to Navalny from me. In it, I explained that he was the only person I felt shameful over leaving, and that I wanted to discuss it with him properly. That letter is where my book ends.

Later, when he was moved to a different prison, and a few months after I’d relocated to Riga, Latvia, I started writing to him again via FSIN-Letter, as it was functioning there—and quickly. What’s more, it turned out the censors weren’t interfering with our correspondence at all; they didn’t block anything from my letters, or his. From autumn 2022, our correspondence became very frequent. I was probably getting a letter from him almost every week, right up until he was moved to Kharp.

Our correspondence revolved around four main themes. First, and most commonly for political prisoners, was the desire for normalcy. This is where you’d tell him about going to a punk festival, or eating a Yorkshire burrito in London. Just everyday stuff.

The second theme was the situation in Russia, broadly speaking: from the war and specific news items to reflections on current affairs.

The third was American politics, a major interest of mine, which Alexei keenly encouraged, even suggesting I start a blog or channel about it. This came up a lot in our letters. Would Biden run again? What about Trump? He was reading Reagan’s memoirs, for instance, and I’d recommended a biography of Robert F. Kennedy—a huge hero of mine, and someone I see as quite comparable to Alexei in some ways. We discussed all of this, and the art of writing such books.

Within that topic, I was often struck by a pragmatic streak in him. For example, he’d quiz me in detail, asking me to find out how in-house polling worked in US political campaigns. So, campaign HQs have their own pollsters: What exactly do they ask? How do they operate?

The fourth theme, which often stemmed from the second, was emotional support. I’d occasionally get the blues, write to him about it, and he’d offer support. He could be quite cutting in his jokes, and often responded with irony. All of which was incredibly valuable, of course.

Now, I'm in Australia, and about to open my first solo exhibition here—dedicated to Alexei. And it’s crossed my mind: Alexei’s dead, and I’m travelling the world, in a way, on the back of it. Then I thought, well, if he was still alive and we were still writing… and I could imagine him, almost word for word, what he’d say: “Yeah, you gotta call me the greatest of all politicians at least four times there. But seriously, you’re crazy! What are you stressing about? Don’t even think twice, just go and enjoy it!” I can practically hear him saying it.

Once Alexei was moved to Kharp, the letters slowed to a crawl. It was a ridiculously convoluted system: an e-letter would be printed out in the European part of Russia, then take a month as a hard copy to reach the prison, be vetted by the censor, and then the reply would go through the censor again before being posted as a physical letter to a regular Russian address. When I started writing to him there, it was clear the whole process was becoming comically distorted. Trying to discuss something like the US primaries, knowing it would be two and half months before he could reply, was just absurd.

Nevertheless, between late December and February, I sent him four letters, and it seems he received three of them, as replies kept arriving until the end of March. They were sent to a Russian address, where someone living there would photograph them and forward the images; eventually we managed to get the original paper letters sent on to Riga. While all our earlier correspondence only exists as scans, these final letters were physical objects, which we were able to preserve.

What’s more, when Alexei was transferred to Kharp, he’d returned to his family the books he’d had with him in Vladimir. Among them was the Bobby Kennedy biography I’d recommended, which he’d enjoyed. His family then sent it on to me, and now I have it at home in Riga—a biography of Bobby Kennedy stamped by the prison censors: ‘Checked’.

Svetlana

Name changed for security reasons.

I first wrote to Alexei when he was in a Moscow pre-trial detention centre. I got a brief reply—I didn’t keep it, but it was something like, ‘Thank you, everything will be alright’.

After that, I wrote to him roughly once a month. The next reply I received was in December 2022—it was in response to a letter where I described going with my husband to see “Boris Godunov” at a Milan opera, and how utterly different the production was from how the Russian propaganda presented it. He wrote back briefly to say he’d heard about it, yes, but there was ‘a nuance’…

His next reply was to a letter in which I’d told him about Toronto’s 19th-century mayor, whose story, it seemed to me, had strong echoes of Alexei’s own. He’d really liked that.

My work involves a lot of travel, and I’d often write to him from wherever I was. Or about books I was reading. Alexei’s replies were usually brief: a thank you, and some reaction to what I’d written. In total, there were six of these, not counting his initial, very short note.

When the first news of Alexei’s death broke, it was that feeling of utter disbelief. Then, around February 20, I got a call from someone in Russia who was receiving my post: ‘You know, there are letters here for you. I don’t quite know how to break this to you…’

It was incredibly difficult. Partly because it was the first time he’d asked me anything personal, anything about myself. It completely floored me.

I think I’m probably still partly in denial. I mean, intellectually, I understand, I’m a sane person. I’ve even visited his grave—several times. But just now, finding this letter to photograph for you—I burst into tears again.

I write to political prisoners quite a lot. I used to write regularly to Andrei Pivovarov, and also to Ivan Zhdanov’s father, Yuri Pavlovich—a wonderful man. Communicating with him, I always felt I had to raise my game, to rise to his level. His letters were a great source of support.

Currently, I’m writing to [Navalny’s incarcerated lawyers] Alexei Liptser and Vadim Kobzev, [Moscow city councillor] Alexei Gorinov, [photographer] Sasha Strukov, [reporter and activist accused of Navalny’s ACF connections] Olya Komleva, who usually replies within three days—if I haven’t heard from her for a week, I start to worry something’s happened. I write to some people monthly, others less frequently. But when someone replies, I always write back straight away, of course.

There’s a quote of Alexei’s—I can’t remember now when he said it—that really resonated with me: “It’s not shameful to do a little. It’s shameful to do nothing.” What I do is, of course, only a tiny contribution, but, thanks to Alexei, I don’t feel ashamed of it.

Sergey Smirnov

Mediazona editor-in-chief

Our correspondence didn’t start as soon as Navalny was incarcerated. I was sure a lot of people are writing to him and asked for advice, whether I should start at all. We’ve known each other very well, but I’m afraid to be obtrusive. But I did write after all—and he responded.

Navalny always had a really peculiar way of testing people. He was like, I need to make sure that you’re really Smirnov: what did you write me on Twitter 7 years ago in a reply to a such and such post? Or: in which row were you sitting during this or that trial? And, as always, with inimitable Navalny-style humour.

I can’t say the correspondence was super intense. A lot of day-to-day stuff: books, languages, where the kids go to school, how much rent is in Vilnius, what to see in the city. Very ordinary topics. However, there was politics too. Just like in this last letter: it was a continuation of our discussions about the 1990s in Russia. He asked me what I thought about his extremely critical post about the 90s? I said: on the one hand, you’re right; on the other hand, I see all of this as a preview for a plan of future Russia. Then we kept exchanging remarks on the 90s, and at some point I recommended Greg Yudin’s lecture “Democracy in Russia: What went wrong.”

I got this letter 10 days after the murder. Very painful and hard experience. Painful and hard.

Olga Komleva

On March 28, 2024, the Kirov district court in Ufa sent local activist Olga Komleva in pre-trial detention under charges of “participating in an extremist community”. Komleva, a cadastral engineer by training, had been a volunteer at Alexei Navalny’s Ufa, Bashkortostan, HQ for several years. She was soon transferred to Moscow, where, on July 28, a further charge was brought against her—of disseminating “fake news” about the military. Two and half weeks before her arrest, Komleva posted a video online of herself opening a letter from Navalny, sent on February 6. It’s the only video of its kind we’ve been able to find, and we felt it was important to include it in this article. It’s in Russian. Alexei’s letter is short and reads: “Hi Olga! I think ‘chicken head’ as an expression exists in the Russain language as well. But it definitely does not describe you:)) Happy belated birthday! Yours, A.”

With Dmitry Shvets.