Telegram from Oleg Navalny

Oleg Navalny, convicted by 3.5 years, drew "prison stickers" for a messaging service

Oleg Navalny, the brother of the opposition politician Alexei Navalny, convicted of 3.5 years in the colony in the case of "Yves Rocher", drew pictures-stalks for the Telegram message exchange service. Pictures are sketches of scenes of prison life. Oleg Navalny handed the drawings through a lawyer to a civil activist, urbanist Pavel Akimov, who belonged to the idea.

In an interview with Radio, Freedom Pavel Akimov explained that, despite the youth and ironic nature of this project, he should draw attention to the case of Oleg Navalny and to the problem of political prisoners in Russia:

Pavel Akimov

“With Oleg Navalny, I correspond in spring, I started somewhere in May,” says Pavel Akimov . - He, at least for me, approaches me very creatively, it immediately caught my eye. Then I accidentally stumbled up, again on Facebook, that a girl from the British design school decided to make an exhibition of his works, which I actually went to. I learned about this exhibition, and somehow the idea came by itself that it was possible not to engage in an analog art, but to do something in digital format.

I did not limit it either on topics or execution. It is logical that a person ultimately described this very prisoner’s life that surrounds him

Steamers in messengers themselves are a kind of addition to the text, to photographs or videos that can be sent. This is the expansion of the so -called "emoji" - icons denoting different conditions of a person, different objects. Such a universal language of communication in messengers. I sent Oleg a full sheet of this “emoji-keyboard” that exists today in smartphones so that he can somehow focus on it, because drawings are attached to them, which then turn into stickers and suggested: if you liked the idea, you can draw everything that comes to your mind. I did not limit it either on topics or execution, I completely relied on his choice. It is logical that Oleg ultimately described the prisoner that surrounds him. As a result, sketches, pencil sketches that I simply translated into a digital form turned out to be a little processed and poured into Telegram. And in the end, we have a set of sketches that you can share in the Telegram messenger.

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Pavel Akimov - about a joint project with Oleg Navalny

- Do you have your favorite, most remembered by you stickers that Oleg Navalny drew?

- They are all, of course, funny, but it is clear that the most ironic are more remembered. There is a sticker called “Educational Conversation” (or “Preventive work”), where an employee of the Federal Penitentiary Service, obviously, is beaten by the prisoner in uniform - this is the irony of Oleg and the excellent illustration of the prison orders that surround him. Well, and just some fairly funny abbreviations. We live in a country in which one of the pillars of traditional culture has the roots in places not so remote. One way or another, many people are familiar with slang, with some symbols, and this falls on the common archetypes, which are sitting in our heads. In general, this phenomenon is interesting to me.

"Prison stickers" Oleg Navalny: (you can download here )

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- How are these stickers understandable to people? And how popular are they? Can you somehow track it?

- They were downloaded and established more than 5.5 thousand people. In fact, it is difficult for me to say how much is it and what it can be compared with. But in principle, for such a kind of story that suddenly appeared from nowhere, this is not so little. Despite the fact that 5.5 thousand installed them, and then only a little more than a hundred removed them. But this, of course, thanks to his brother Alexei, who published links, thanks to the Medusa publication, which also wrote about it in Russian and in English, that is, the media wave went. I still tried to give this project not just a joke-humorous, easy look, but to turn it into a reminder that there are political prisoners in the country. Such a fairly simple format is an extra way to remind each other, to show those who, perhaps, do not yet know that we have people put people in prison for anything, and they are already there, on Oleg’s example, they are completely marveling for a year and a half, absolutely innocent.

Despite a slightly youth format, this is a story about the fact that the country has political prisoners

-Do Telegram have any restrictions on such stickers? Or can anyone create such drawings and pour into the system?

- Yes, all this is quite simple and open. Telegram is basically famous for its open policy, they have open APIs, they welcome developers who do some things for Telegram. There is a “sticker-boot” for stickers-this is a program with which you begin to communicate, which has a list of teams, quite trivial, and your task is to make pictures in a certain format and send them to this very “sticker-bout”, which will already make stickers for “telegram”. And then you can already track statistics, delete, add new and so on. That is, everything is very free and open.

- You first said that you correspond with Oleg Navalny since spring. How did you learn about his business, how long have you follow his fate, the fate of his brother?

- I have been participating in all these political activities for quite some time, either just as an observer, or as a relatively active participant. He worked at the mayor of Alexei Navalny in Moscow in 2013, was engaged in observers. Accordingly, I somehow follow all these processes, including the case of "Yves Rocher", according to which Oleg went to prison. I actually somehow late with a letter. This story about the fact that you somehow seem to understand what a person should write, it seems like it would be ready, but it is not clear what a stranger write, and whether he needs your letters at all. Therefore, I only sent the first letter in the spring, and since then, albeit not very intensively, but we correspond.

The very idea of attracting attention in non -standard ways to the problem of political prisoners seems to me very sound

“But you personally are not familiar with him?”

- No, it’s not personally familiar.

-Are there any ideas of further such cooperation?

- Honestly, until it appeared. But in general, the very idea of attracting attention, maybe in some non-standard ways, seems very sensible to the problem of political prisoners. Therefore, I will be glad if, perhaps, my small collaboration with Oleg will inspire someone else on such things, ”concludes Pavel Akimov.

Alexey and Oleg Navalny in the Zamoskovoretsky Court of Moscow during the announcement of the sentence in the case of Yves Rocher, December 30, 2014

In December 2014, Oleg Navalny was sentenced to 3.5 years in a colony in the case of fraud with the means of the Cosmetic Company "Yves Rocher". His brother Alexei Navalny, whom the court also found guilty as part of this case, received a suspended sentence. Alexey Navalny called such a sentence "the most vile and disgusting" and stated that his brother was made in this situation in this situation. Oleg Navalny is serving a sentence in a colony in the Oryol region. On June 27, 2016, the Uritsky court of the Oryol region refused him on parole , motivating this by the fact that the convict has 12 outstanding penalties. Navalny’s lawyers stated that the penalties were imposed on their client illegally.

On July 13, Oleg Navalny for the fifth time was sent to the penulator for 13 days with the formulation "sat on the bed during the day." According to the estimates of Oleg Navalny himself, in a year and a half in the colony he spent 55 days in a schizo. He was presented to him about 20 disciplinary sanctions. Alexey Navalny considers the main reason why his brother is in the colony and regularly receives penalties, his political activity. If the sentence of Oleg Navalny is not reduced or it will not be released ahead of schedule, he will be able to release in the summer of 2018.

The human rights center "Memorial" recognized Oleg Navalny by a political prisoner. Human rights activists considered that in the criminal prosecution of the Navalny brothers, an obvious political motive was traced: the cessation of Alexei’s public activity, the elimination of the threats that his activity creates the current government. "It was ordinary economic activity, disputes in connection with which they could and should have been resolved in a civil law basis," the memorial statement said.

To date, the Memorial human rights center has recognized 91 people with political prisoners .