Alexei Navalny’s devastating jail letters to Natan Sharansky

• Alexei Navalny shared letters laced with darkish humor, spiritual references and grim insights into jail life with a former gulag survivor, Natan Sharansky 
• Navalny was killed aged 47 at a penal colony generally known as the ‘Polar Wolf’ in Siberia on Friday, and the duo exchanged letters in March and April 2023
• Sharansky, 76, was held in a Moscow labor camp for 9 years from 1978 after being denied permission to go away what was then the Soviet Union for Israel 

Alexei Navalny shared letters laced with darkish humor, spiritual references, and grim insights into jail life with gulag survivor Natan Sharansky within the yr earlier than he died, it has been revealed.

Navalny, 47, who was the strongest home political pressure opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin, exchanged deeply private memos with Israel’s former deputy prime minister Sharansky, 76, in March and April 2023.

In his first word, he wrote ‘I hope I’m the final to endure this’, simply lower than a yr earlier than he was allegedly fatally poisoned with Novichok at a penal colony generally known as the ‘Polar Wolf’ in Siberia on February 16, 2024.

Sharansky was held in a Moscow labor camp for 9 years from 1978 after being denied permission to go away what was then the Soviet Union for Israel, and the 2 bonded over how little has modified within the brutal Russian jail system since. 

Their historic friendship – memorialized within the letters obtained by The Free Press – was sparked by Navalny’s revelation that he learn Sharansky’s memoir, Worry No Evil, within the gulag the place he died. 

They had been strangers when Navalny started the correspondence – penning his first letter to Sharansky on April 3 from IK-6 ‘Melekhovo,’ – a facility round 155 miles east of Moscow identified for the abuse and torture of inmates. 

Sharansky was held on the identical colony for a time, and Navalny joked ‘I’m not certain in case you have retained heat recollections of it’ in his opening letter.

‘Now there’ll in all probability be a plaque saying “Natan Sharansky was held right here”‘, he added.

‘Please forgive the intrusion and a letter from a stranger, however I consider it is permissible in author-reader relations.’

Navalny thanked Sharansky for his e book as a result of ‘it has helped me loads’ whereas enduring unimaginable situations. 

‘I perceive that I’m not the primary, however I actually need to grow to be the final, or at the very least one of many final, of those that are pressured to endure this,’ he wrote. 

Navalny stated Worry No Evil gave him ‘hope’ due to the ‘similarity between the 2 techniques – the Soviet Union and Putin’s Russia’ which uncovered ‘the hypocrisy that serves because the very foundation of their essence’. 

He stated this ‘ensures an equally inevitable collapse’ of Putin’s regime like the autumn of the USSR in 1991.  

The e book additionally prompted an sudden snigger from the prisoner.

‘I used to be laughing once I was studying the passage the place you wrote, “I used to be penalized with a sequence of 15 days at SHIZO, after which, as an offender who broke jail guidelines, they despatched me to the PKT for six months.”

‘I used to be amused by the truth that neither the essence of the system nor the sample of its acts has modified.’

Sharansky wrote again the identical day from Jerusalem, saying he ‘skilled a form of shock receiving a letter from you’ and referring addressing Navalny as ‘pricey esteemed Aleksei’.

‘The thought itself that it got here immediately from SHIZO, the place you will have already spent 128 days, excites in a method that an previous man can be excited, receiving a letter from his ‘alma mater,’ the college the place he spent a few years of his youth,’ Sharansky wrote. 

He famous that Vladimir Kara-Murza, one other jailed dissident who stays behind bars right now, has additionally written to him about how the e book nonetheless served as a information to Russian jail right now. ‘My misfortune has caused this silver lining,’ he stated.

Describing himself as ‘an admirer’ of Navalny, Sharansky stated: ‘Aleksei, you aren’t only a dissident—you’re a dissident “with a method”! 

‘My horror over your poisoning modified to amazement and exhilaration while you began your individual impartial investigation.’

‘I want to you—irrespective of how exhausting it could be bodily—to take care of your inside freedom,’ he added. 

‘In jail I found that along with the regulation of common gravitation of particles there may be additionally a regulation of common gravitation of souls. By remaining a free individual in jail, you, Aleksei, affect the souls of hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide.’

Sharansky was jailed whereas campaigning for the rights of Jews to to migrate to Israel. He was sentenced over a fabricated cost of spying for the People, and spent 9 years enduring torture and solitary confinement in Siberian jail.  

He famous that he was writing to Navalny the day earlier than Passover – ‘the celebration of the liberation of the Jews from Egyptian slavery 3,500 years in the past’ – and signed off his letter to the jailed activist with ‘hugs’. 

Navalny wrote again 4 days later saying he was so overjoyed to obtain a response from the creator that he cried.

‘I used to be so touched that I needed to cover my tears from my cellmates,’ Navalny wrote. 

‘And that is the second time you do it to me! Within the final web page of “Worry No Evil,” the place you write “forgive my being somewhat late,” it’s after all inconceivable to not begin crying.

‘In your alma mater all the things is because it was. Traditions are honored. On Friday night, they let me out of the SHIZO, right now on Monday—I acquired one other 15 days. All the things in response to “Ecclesiastes”: what was, can be.

‘However I proceed to consider that we are going to appropriate it and sooner or later in Russia there can be what was not. And won’t be what was.’

Sharansky responded 10 days later, on April 17, saying he was grateful his letters had been reaching Navalny.

He signed off with a chilling remark: ‘Judging by your whole time in SHIZO, you’ll quickly beat all of my data. I hope you don’t succeed on this.’

Navalny died lower than a yr later, together with his widow Yulia saying he was poisoned with Novichok. 

In a video message, Yulia Navalnya, 47, stated: ‘Vladimir Putin killed my husband.’ Holding again tears, she pledged to hold on her husband’s work and combat for a free Russia with the assistance of its residents.

Navalnaya accused the Russian authorities of hiding Navalny’s physique and of ready for traces of the Novichok nerve agent to vanish from his physique.

Navalny – April 3, 2023

 

Dearest Natan,

Aleksei Navalny right here. Hiya from Vladimirskaya Oblast, though I’m not certain in case you have retained heat recollections of it.

I’m now in penal colony IK-6 “Melekhovo,” however from the Vladimirskaya jail they’re writing to me {that a} cell is being ready for me there. So I’ll possible discover myself in the identical facility that you simply had been in. Solely now there’ll in all probability be a plaque saying “Natan Sharansky was held right here.” Please forgive the intrusion and a letter from a stranger, however I consider it’s permissible in author-reader relations.

I’m writing as a reader. I’ve simply learn your e book, “Worry No Evil,” whereas I used to be held within the PKT.1 And now I’m writing from SHIZO2 —it is going to be 128 days in complete. I used to be laughing once I was studying the passage the place you wrote, “I used to be penalized with a sequence of 15 days at SHIZO, after which, as an offender who broke jail guidelines, they despatched me to the PKT for six months.” I used to be amused by the truth that neither the essence of the system nor the sample of its acts has modified.

I need to thanks for this e book because it has helped me loads and continues to assist. Sure, I’m at SHIZO now, however when studying about your 400 days spent within the “punishment cell” on decreased meals rations, one understands that there are individuals who pay a lot greater costs for his or her convictions. I have a look at the postcards despatched to you by Avital3, all of the phrases have been blacked out. Then I am going to courtroom the place they attempt to persuade me that burning the letters that had been despatched to me is authorized. In any case, there was a “code” embedded in them.

I perceive that I’m not the primary, however I actually need to grow to be the final, or at the very least one of many final, of those that are pressured to endure this.

Your e book provides hope as a result of the similarity between the 2 techniques—the Soviet Union and Putin’s Russia—their ideological resemblance, the hypocrisy that serves because the very foundation of their essence, and the continuity from the previous to the latter—all this ensures an equally inevitable collapse. Just like the one we witnessed.4

Crucial factor is to reach on the appropriate conclusions, in order that this state of lies and hypocrisy doesn’t enter a brand new cycle. Within the preface of the 1991 version you write that dissidents in prisons have saved the “virus of freedom” and you will need to forestall the KGB from inventing a vaccine towards it. Alas, they’ve invented it. However within the present scenario, it isn’t them who’re guilty, however us, who naively thought that there was no going again to the previous methods. And for the sake of fine, it’s okay to rig elections somewhat bit right here, or affect the courts somewhat bit there, and stifle the press a bit over right here.

These little issues, and the assumption that it’s attainable to modernize authoritarianism, are the components of this vaccine.

Nonetheless, the “virus of freedom” is way from being eradicated. It’s not tens or tons of as earlier than, however tens and tons of of 1000’s who will not be scared to talk out for freedom and towards the war5, regardless of the threats. Tons of of them are in prisons, however I’m assured that they won’t be damaged and they won’t surrender.

And plenty of of them draw energy and inspiration out of your story and your legacy.

I’m undoubtedly one in every of them.

My because of you.

Right here, I copied it for myself from the e book: L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim.6

Yours,

Aleksei

Sharansky – April 3, 2023

Expensive esteemed Aleksei,

I skilled a form of shock receiving a letter from you. The thought itself that it got here immediately from SHIZO, the place you will have already spent 128 days, excites in a method that an previous man can be excited, receiving a letter from his “alma mater,” the college the place he spent a few years of his youth.

I reply to you not solely as an “creator to reader,” but in addition as your admirer.

As an “creator to reader”:

After I was writing my e book “Worry No Evil” proper after my launch in February 1986, virtually all of my associates and comrades-in-arms had been both incarcerated in gulags or in a battle. So I envisioned this e book not solely as a memoir, but in addition a type of textbook or guide for how you can behave in a confrontation with the KGB. However by the point it was printed in Russian, the USSR was already collapsing. Due to this fact, through the years, the e book was interpreted increasingly more as a historic novel concerning the darkish center ages. And now—“the fool’s dream has come true!”

First Volodya Kara-Murza and now you will have written to me about how this e book “works” in a Russian jail right now. My misfortune has caused this silver lining.

And now—as an admirer:

Aleksei, you aren’t only a dissident—you’re a dissident “with a method”! My horror over your poisoning modified to amazement and exhilaration while you began your individual impartial investigation.

I used to be very angered by the query of a sure European correspondent the day after your return to Russia. “Why did he return? All of us knew that he can be arrested within the airport—does he not perceive such easy issues?” My reply was fairly impolite: “You’re the one who doesn’t perceive one thing. If you happen to assume that his purpose is survival—then you might be proper. However his true concern is the destiny of his individuals—and he’s telling them: ‘I’m not afraid and also you shouldn’t be afraid both.’ ”

I want to you—irrespective of how exhausting it could be bodily—to take care of your inside freedom.

In jail I found that along with the regulation of common gravitation of particles there may be additionally a regulation of common gravitation of souls. By remaining a free individual in jail, you, Aleksei, affect the souls of hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide.

Aleksei, it’s actually unhappy that the previous can return so rapidly and so simply. Volodya Bukovsky as soon as insisted, after the autumn of the USSR, that communism have to be placed on trial. However there have been few who supported this concept—in spite of everything, the free world gained “with out a bullet being fired”—why return to the previous?

I hope now, in spite of everything these photographs have been fired, it’s clear why that was needed then, and why it is going to be needed tomorrow.

X X X

By the way in which, I write to you the day earlier than Passover—the celebration of the liberation of the Jews from Egyptian slavery 3,500 years in the past. That’s the begin of our freedom and our historical past as a individuals. On this night, Jews from around the globe sit on the vacation desk and skim the phrases: “Right now we’re slaves—tomorrow, free individuals. Right now we’re right here—subsequent yr, in Jerusalem.”

On at the present time I’m sitting on the celebratory meal carrying a kippah, which was made 40 years in the past, out of my footcloth, by my cellmate—a Ukrainian inmate within the Chistopol jail. That’s how twisted all the things on this world is! I want to you, Aleksei, and to all of Russia, an Exodus as quickly as attainable.

Hugs,

Natan Sharansky

Navalny – April 7, 2023

Expensive Natan,

That is only a quick little word to say an enormous thanks on your response.

I used to be so touched that I needed to cover my tears from my cellmates. And that is the second time you do it to me! Within the final web page of “Worry No Evil,” the place you write “forgive my being somewhat late,” it’s after all inconceivable to not begin crying8.

In your alma mater all the things is because it was. Traditions are honored. On Friday night, they let me out of the SHIZO, right now on Monday—I acquired one other 15 days. All the things in response to “Ecclesiastes”: what was, can be.

However I proceed to consider that we are going to appropriate it and sooner or later in Russia there can be what was not. And won’t be what was.

And in spite of everything, the place else to spend Holy Week, if not in SHIZO!

An enormous thanks once more.

Hugs,

A.

Sharansky – April 17, 2023 

 

Expensive Aleksei,

That is only a word in response to your word. It is vital for the connection between individuals and worlds to not be interrupted. I can’t say—between the free world and the unfree world, as you might be right now extra free than many (if not most) individuals in each elements of our world.

However I do know that on your freedom you might be having to pay—with well being, worries for your loved ones, and finally along with your life.

I had sure benefits over you—in spite of everything I’m 159 cm tall, and I had the identical meals rations as you. Within the punishment cell, the sleeves of my jacket drooped so low that I might hold myself heat in them, whereas for you they in all probability solely attain to your elbows.

However at the very least you’ll be able to obtain these letters, and most significantly share your experiences in actual time.

A Russian poet as soon as urged—“Don’t let your soul be lazy, to not pound water in mortar, the soul is pressured to labor, each day and night time, each day and night time.” In Russia, individuals battle with this, however you do it effortlessly.

Judging by your whole time in SHIZO, you’ll quickly beat all of my data. I hope you don’t succeed on this.

Hugs,

Natan