One of the first days after I was transferred to the prison camp, a man from the Caucasus approached me, catching a moment when I was standing alone in the far corner of the exercise yard. Middle-aged. His name tag said: “Nariman Osmanov.” “Dagestan?” I asked.
 “Close,” he smiled. “An Avar from Azerbaijan.” Then he turned away, stepped off as if the conversation was over, and, looking in the other direction—just like in a spy movie—said: “Everyone around you is either ‘goats’ (in prison slang, inmates who cooperate with the administration — A.N.) or informers. Every step you take is being recorded. Don’t believe a single word. And even if I say ‘yes’ out loud, it means ‘no,’ and vice versa.” And off he went. “Well, damn,” I said, scratching my head. I wasn’t expecting anything different, really, but it looked like the man was genuinely taking a risk by telling me all this.
 “Well, damn,” I said to myself a second time today, when my lawyer told me that Nariman and other former inmates from Penal Colony No. 2 had given interviews for a major @tvrain film about what is happening in my colony.
 I really am in a “prison within a prison,” in isolation—I know almost nothing except what concerns me personally. Some of it just shocked me. For example, the story that the barber was beaten for talking to me. We really did exchange a couple of words. I remember wondering where he had disappeared to. Some of it made me laugh. Turns out the “tuberculosis patient” lying on the bunk next to mine was staged. To scare me. Ha-ha. I remember that moment perfectly. They told me, “He has active TB, hope you don’t catch it,” and I thought: “After Novichok (the Soviet-developed nerve agent), I really don’t care—as long as he doesn’t keep me awake coughing.” But overall, what is there to say. I understood it would be something like this. Don’t forget that my younger brother Oleg @navalny_inmate served 3.5 years in the same case. And anyway, I didn’t just fall from the moon—I know how things work in our country. It’s obvious that Putin is behind all this. You can clearly see the handwriting of a psychologically unhealthy man intoxicated by power and deeply fixated on sexual orientation. _____________________ Anyone who has even a basic understanding of how the Russian prison system works will confirm this. Even the cameras here stream not only to the duty officer in the colony, but also to the regional administration—and all the way to Moscow. I can’t even be issued a pair of wool socks from the warehouse without approval from Moscow—and yet this is what’s going on here. I hope that just like they once reviewed photos of my underwear at Putin’s Security Council and discussed how best to apply “Novichok” to the “codpiece area,” now they’re reporting on “secret data” from a camera installed in the toilet of barracks 2 in IK-2. Why haven’t I written about all this before? I think you’ve already had enough news about prison life. Well, it’s a Russian prison—what did you expect. Honestly, I have it much easier than most. The main thing here is not to fall for provocations. So don’t worry about me—I’ll handle everything. I’m more interested in organizing “Smart Voting” with you than complaining about prison. And when we talk about prisons in Russia, it shouldn’t be about my case specifically, but about the system as a whole: lawlessness, killings, inhumane, fascistic torture—this has long been the norm here. And again, I have it easier than many. But do watch the interview—it’s informative about the vile nature of the Kremlin’s power (link in stories). And as for Nariman, this is how we communicated afterwards: sometimes I’d wink at him when no one was looking, sometimes he’d quietly show me a raised fist. It helped a lot—especially at the peak of the hunger strike. So today, Nariman, I’m returning your ✊. Thank you, brother.