Key PointsAlexei Navalny is serving mixed sentences of 11 and a half years for fraud and contempt of courtroom.He additionally requested for a kimono, a therapeutic massage chair and the names of the guard canine, amongst different issues.The requests had been turned down by the utmost safety jail authorities.
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most well-known opposition chief, on Friday shared letters exhibiting how he has poked enjoyable at jail authorities for a number of months with a number of weird requests for a kimono, a balalaika, a beetle and even to maintain a kangaroo.
The requests had been turned down by the utmost safety IK-6 penal colony at Melekhovo, about 250 km east of Moscow, based on the Russian paperwork he posted on-line.
“When you find yourself in a punishment cell and do not have a lot leisure, you possibly can all the time amuse your self by corresponding with the jail administration,” Mr Navalny mentioned.
Why is Navalny in jail?
Mr Navalny is serving mixed sentences of 11-1/2 years for fraud and contempt of courtroom on prices that he says had been trumped as much as silence him.
The letters confirmed that Mr Navalny requested for an eclectic vary of things, together with, variously, a bottle of moonshine, a balalaika, a workers, two pouches of low-cost tobacco, a kimono and a black belt.
The correspondence additionally reveals the circumstances of the Russian jail system: Mr Navalny requested for a megaphone to be given to a mentally unwell convict in a cell reverse in order that “he might shout even louder”, and for jail authorities to award the tenth dan in Karate to a prisoner who apparently killed a person together with his naked palms.
Each requests had been refused. The jail declined to remark.
What had been the opposite requests made by Navalny?
The jail’s replies, written within the stilted administrative Russian of officialdom, full with serial numbers, acronyms and references to varied legal guidelines and guidelines, give a satiric perception into the typically absurd world of Russian paperwork, a theme author Nikolai Gogol satirised within the nineteenth Century.
“The query of awarding japanese martial arts {qualifications} just isn’t dealt with by the administration,” the jail wrote again on 28 April.
In response to Mr Navalny’s request for a allow to maintain a kangaroo, the jail wrote: “The animal recognized in your request pertains to the double crested-marsupial… Your request is left with out satisfaction.”
He requested for a therapeutic massage chair to be given to an unidentified squad chief, suggesting it’d scale back stress.
The jail wrote coldly that therapeutic massage chairs weren’t supplied.
Mr Navalny inquired concerning the names of the guard canine. The jail mentioned it couldn’t give him such data.
Mr Navalny mentioned he was instructed by guards that data of the names of the canine might enable him to befriend the creatures after which attempt to escape.
His inquiry about whether or not he wanted a allow to maintain a beetle was met with a refusal.
“The insect recognized by you in your request belongs to the animal kingdom,” the jail mentioned in a 3 Could letter.
