Thirty days under arrest is a real stretch—too long for the standard "lie around and read" routine. In thirty days, you can even pick up some useful skill.
My unquestioned first choice was wakeboarding. However, the administration of the detention center flatly refused to provide me with a boat and a suitably sized body of water. And this despite the fact that the right to self-education and sports activities is explicitly provided for in the internal regulations.
So I had to consider the most obvious option: studying languages. A foreign language is boring, and there’s no way to practice proper pronunciation (unless, of course, you’re learning Uzbek).
So I decided to learn a language that isn’t human at all.
After a brief struggle, Python 3 beat out Klingon. After all, I have to communicate with computers more often than with Klingons. In the Beautiful Russia of the Future (a political slogan referring to a hoped-for democratic Russia), of course, things will be different.
Besides, my friend Volodya Ashurkov wrote to me recently that Python is a simple language, manageable even for a pathetic humanities major. That inspired me.
Learning a programming language in a cell, without electronic devices or internet access, is a peculiar experience.
It reminds me of those heartbreaking photos: an IT class in a rural African school. No one has a computer, including the teacher, so he draws the Windows start screen on the blackboard in chalk.
Still, never mind. If African children can do it, so can I. So here I am, sitting and inventing exercises for myself.
For cell in prison:
if nonsmokers > 0
And so on.
I hope your life is interesting too.
I hear on the radio that arrests are continuing across the country of the guys from our campaign offices who organized the "He Is Not Our Tsar" protests nationwide. I’m sending my support to them and to everyone who is not afraid to fight for their freedom.