I traded the red stripe for a green one. An operative officer says to me, “Come to the commission, you’ve been summoned.” It was the biggest commission I’d ever seen. Looked like a wedding. A T-shaped table, lots of people. Only instead of a bride and groom, there was the boss sitting under portraits of the leaders. I thought: why so ceremonial? Far too many participants for an ordinary reprimand. Were they about to read out a death sentence or something? The speaker says: “Convict Navalny arrived here on March 11 and was placed on preventive monitoring as an escape risk. Officer So-and-so has submitted a report proposing that Navalny be removed from preventive monitoring.” Wow! I couldn’t believe my ears. The commission votes unanimously in favor. I was so overjoyed that the boss actually told me to calm down and speak only when permitted. Then he added, “Wait, we’re not finished yet.” Okaaay... The speaker says: “Officer So-and-so has submitted a report stating that convict Navalny adheres to extremist and terrorist ideology. It is proposed that Navalny be placed on preventive monitoring as an extremist and on preventive monitoring as a terrorist.” The commission votes unanimously in favor. So I ripped the tags with the red stripe slashing across my mug off all my clothes. And sewed on new ones—with a green stripe. And joined the large ranks of Muslims (that “extremist” stripe was invented for them; 70% of prison “extremists” are Muslims), nationalists, and football fans. This is good news. The “extremist” and “terrorist” monitoring categories are not nearly as exhausting as the “escape risk” one. I worked out that I had said the phrase “Navalny, Alexei Anatolyevich, born 1976, is being unlawfully detained on the territory of Penal Colony No. 2, Unit No. 2” 1,669 times into a video recorder (that’s how they check every two hours that you haven’t run away). I got terribly sick of it. But extremism is great. Nobody checks on you. I was worried they’d make me kiss portraits of Putin and memorize Medvedev quotes, but no need for that either. Now there’s just a sign hanging over my bunk saying that I’m a terrorist 😉