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

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.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
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.
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.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Woe From Wit (bilingual)

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.

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