It sounds funny, but in fact it’s not funny at all. In the only letter from Oleg that Butyrka prison’s censor allowed through during this time, he wrote that there are no newspapers, they don’t give him books, there is nothing to do, and out of boredom he wrote a fairy tale for his older son Stepan about how Stepan flies in on a drone to rescue him from prison while Chewbacca from Star Wars distracts the guards. And for some reason, they even took that story away from him, along with all his notes.
Well, it seems like the usual stupidity and senseless malice — why pay attention? But yesterday I read in *MK* (*Moskovsky Komsomolets*, a Russian newspaper) that the story has a sequel.
It turns out they cut the story out of his notebook and attached it to Oleg’s personal file as evidence of “preparing instructions for transferring prohibited items into a cell.”
That’s how things are.
By the way, a lot of people ask me how to write Oleg a letter.
It’s easy:
Go here.
Select “Moscow FSIN” and “Pretrial Detention Center No. 2 ‘Butyrka.’”
To Oleg Anatolyevich Navalny, born in 1983.
Pay about 150 rubles (roughly a couple of U.S. dollars) by card, Yandex Money, or something similar.
The censorship there works in incomprehensible ways, so it’s impossible to predict what portion of your letter will actually be delivered to him (none of mine get through, for example) or how long it will take.
Most letters are delivered without a problem. The main thing is, don’t write about Chewbacca, or they’ll definitely add another red mark to his personal file.