January 16, 2023

"Stop Bullying" Navalny


"Stop Bullying" Navalny
Alexei Navalny on a march in memory of politician Boris Nemtsov, who was killed outside the Kremlin in 2015. Michał Siergiejevicz, Wikimedia Commons.

Medical workers from Russia, the United States, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other countries have called on the Russian state to "stop bullying" and to provide medical care to Alexei Navalny, an imprisoned opposition politician. On January 10, an open letter was published and signed by over 600 medical workers. 

"We demand to stop bullying Alexei Navalny, we demand to stop sending Alexei to punitive confinement, we demand to allow civilian doctors to visit him and, if there are indications, to hospitalize him in a civilian hospital for a full examination and treatment," the letter says.

According to the BBC, Navalny was in punitive confinement over the New Year holidays. After the holidays he fell ill: he has a fever and cough. Despite that, the prison authorities did not allow Navalny's hospitalization, ostensibly because there are influenza patients in the colony's medical unit. The authorities also forbade Vadim Kobzev, the politician's lawyer, from sending him medicine. 

Navalny said that he is sure the colony's authorities are deliberately endangering his health. On Instagram he wrote that, during the New Year holidays, his cellmate was regularly sent to the medical unit for a day and then returned to their cell. Navalny said he believes that prisoner was being used as a sort of "bacteriological weapon."

Navalny was confined to the strict-regime penal colony in Melekhovo, Vladimir Oblast, in June 2022, and this is not the first allegation of a biased attitude of the colony's authorities towards the politician. Since August, Navalny has been sent to punitive confinement 10 times, reportedly for very strange reasons: he unbuttoned a button on his prison uniform, cleaned the exercise yard poorly, and spoke negatively about mobilization.

According to Navalny, every 10 days he spends in punitive confinement he loses 3.5 kilograms, and because it is forbidden to lie in bed during the day, the politician reports having a backache. In addition, because of constant “violations,” Navalny has been deprived of long visits with relatives and the opportunity to leave his cell.

You Might Also Like

Outsmarting Smart Voting
  • November 01, 2021

Outsmarting Smart Voting

For the first time since 2016, and the first time since the momentous constitutional changes of 2020 allowing President Putin to run for two more presidential terms, Russia has elected a new parliament.
Patching the Holes
  • July 15, 2022

Patching the Holes

Russian lawmakers have been vigorously adding new laws in response to political and cultural developments and public protests, rather than due to pressure from the public or practical necessity.
A Director Detained
  • October 31, 2022

A Director Detained

Russian playwright Alexei Zhitkovsky has been detained for suspicion of engaging in "extremism."
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
Murder and the Muse

Murder and the Muse

KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955