"The mustachioed convict is nonsense"

The first interview of Oleg Navalny after leaving the colony

On June 29, Oleg Navalny, the younger brother of the founder of the Corruption Fund Alexei Navalny, was released. Both of them were convicted on December 30, 2014 in the “Yves Rocher case” , only Alexei received a suspended sentence, and his brother - real. Oleg Navalny served a sentence in IK-5 in the village of Naryshkino in the Oryol region. In the colony, he taught English and Spanish, painted, corresponded with dozens of people and made a whole heap of materials for Medusa. About how these three and a half years passed, Oleg Navalny told Medusa journalist Andrei Kozenko.

The sons of Oleg Navalny - four -year -old Ostap and six -year -old Stepan - stand on the sides of his father and hug him by the legs. "Where was dad for three years?" - Oleg asks them. “At work,” the elder Stepan answers, thinking. “What did dad do at work? - continues Oleg Navalny. “I explained to you yesterday.” Children are finally stewing. “That's right,” says their father. “Your dad has provided the legality for three separately taken a regime enterprise in the Oryol region for three years.”

"It is amazing by what criteria you can compare me with Lenin."

- December 30, 2014, Zamoskvoretsky court. They announced the verdict, you were handcuffed. What happened to you on that day?

- It was very incomprehensible. I rode in Avtosak and thought that now I would have to dance some kind of dance of death, fight for the shk. I was completely alone. At 9:30 they condemned, and after 40 minutes I was in a cell in Butyrka, on a quarantine. There they told me that they had been waiting for me for two days, although I became aware of the transfer of the sentence only in a day. The main thing is the general sensation: I do not understand what is happening. I felt sorry that I did not have time to read the book "How to Survive in the Zone." I acted very stupid that I did not read it first of all, I was doing everything with some other things.

- And who did you first meet there? There were also convicts and defendants, it turns out, were there?

- The convicts were there only in the Hozo -Service. There was one very strange type - the first convict that I saw at all. “Everything, Oleg, we have already heard about you here,” he says, “well done. I am too ... ”I say:“ What too?! ” And he says: "I am from the Voronezh Popular Front!" What front, why, too, what does I have to do with it?

I gave me a mattress.

In general, they already knew about me there and therefore was treated like this-in a likes. For some reason, they immediately told me: “Well, don’t worry, Lenin was sitting either!” It is amazing by what criteria I can generally compare me with Lenin. But they constantly repeated this to me, and the comparison seemed logical to them.

- You got there on December 30. The day before the New Year, and, probably, it was a very strange new year.

- Very. I should not have kept one in quarantine. They raised them into the camera, they are small on that floor on four people. And the convict was hooked on me. The door opens, and he stands so awesome, with a pelvis of Olivier in his hands. He probably had plans: to talk with relatives on Skype, to communicate with his comrades, they exchanged moonshine from employees there. And now he was deprived of all this: not only was they taken and handed this Olivier, I also come to the incomprehensible I, tell him: “Healthy!” We ate this olivier, heard salute, other convicts celebrated noisily. Yes, it was strange.

- And how did you give a sharp change in lifestyle? After all, you moved from a state of freedom to a rather subordinate position, and incomprehensible people give you incomprehensible teams - and you must fulfill them.

-In some ways, but you become part of a big game. For one side, convicts play in it. It is here that they are criminals, killers, rapists and so on. And there they are Vasya, Petya and Potap, your friends and comrades in misfortune. And for the other side in this game is the administration. And this positional war is waged in different ways. Some are trying to force others to do something, and the latter are trying not to do this.

Of course, it is fragmented when some hell comes from the mountain and gives the command: get up, sit down, and hands behind your back. There is no such thing that you feel forever subordinates, you feel that in the game.

- How did you go according to the stage?

- February 17 [2015] there was a decision to appeal. We were refused, only the fine was removed from Alexei. By law, I should have been transferred in ten days, but did not meet, and only two weeks later we went to the eagle.

At four in the morning they come, report the stage, collect convicts, put them on gas stations and taken to the station. They plant in such a special iron car - it is divided into small compartment of several types.

- From the inside Iron?

- Not a single wooden detail. An ordinary narrow passage is a little more and more than in an ordinary compartment car. And three tiers of the shckes. There is a large compartment, there is a half -bunch - just three shcons on the one hand. These coupes are closed with iron grilles. In a compartment sometimes and 20 people were stuffed; People either drove standing or literally on each other. They put me comfortably, gave out a black plaid, I spread it and read the "adventures of the brave soldier Schweik." Just an episode about his hit in jail was very similar.

Stopped in Serpukhov, in Tula; Someone was planted, someone started instead of them. We arrived at the eagle, there is a pre -trial detention center, then the colony.

“I saw her on the day of your release.” Not the most optimistic place.

-The first impressions are: it is very cold, small snow was cereal, and for some reason the rooks, who returned in the early spring and flew hundreds above us. Everything is very gray, convicts with yellow-white faces in black pea jackets. It was surrounding, so sad. I realized that I was in a very strange place.

On the first morning we were woke up at five o’clock and said that there would be charging. And so we make some jerks with our hands, twist our heads, and I try to somehow realize: what is happening at all? How not with me.

- Describe a typical day in the colony.

- At six in the morning, a hymn plays, on -duty officers or the day of the convicts go to our detachment - a room forced by binterous beds - and they say: climb! After the anthem, at first, Vysotsky’s song about morning exercises sounded, and then some hellish techno from the 1990s-15 minutes, completely knocking you out of the rut. According to their ideas, this is rhythmic music, under which everyone should engage in charging. Charging, of course, no one was engaged in. It is not clear how it is legislative to make it do-to approve the list of some movements, or what?

Then who wants to, goes for breakfast. Everything must, but in practice - who wants to. Unless if the inspectors arrive, they can drive everyone away.

Then everyone goes through the detachments. This colony is one of the three, in Russia, where both strict and general regime. At seven in the morning, under the “farewell of the Slavs” the convicts are taken to work. They go along a long narrow corridor from the residential area to the industrial - system, columns. It looks like a complete [play-player] Half-Life: a corridor-six hundred meters, narrow, prickly wire, bars sticking out.

But I never went there. When I arrived, apparently, they decided that it would be bad if I go there - and I will evaluate the working conditions from the point of view of the organization of the working space. And there is sewing production - fire safety, ventilation. They thought that I would see it all - and start moving. Therefore, an optometrist arrived almost immediately, said that I have poor vision, and I have really poor vision. And they made me a certificate that I could not lift weights and work in dusty production. Although in reality there are half -blind in that production.

Those who remain in the residential area just do nothing all day. There are part of the convicts who watch TV all day, just sleep. Walk along some kind of trajectory.

- It seems to be impossible to lie in the afternoon - the security is following this?

- There is not such a big shift to keep track of everything. For my arrival, one of the barracks was prepared - they repaired, stuffed it with video cameras and watched from the remote control. They really looked so that no one was lying. Well, more precisely, I do not lie. Sometimes they drove others, threatened that they would write a report.

"There is a layer of serious criminals, but this is a very small layer"

- Oleg, and how from such a rather privileged convict have you become almost the most punished in Russia?

-What are you, I was not the most punished even in the [village, where the IK-5] Naryshkino is located. And when they started [to punish] - I did not become less privileged from this. The administration for a long time could not understand what to expect from me - publicizing local orders or disobedience, and in the end they were used to it, and I was used to it. Stockholm syndrome worked at the full coil in both directions.

And so, I think that it all started with a rally [for the change of power on September 20, 2015], where my appeal sounded. There was a whole story. I called the taxophone, absolutely legal. The administration has a listening tools, but I constantly call only mother and wife - and there, for the “big brother” and the bloody regime, everything was so uninteresting that they stopped listening. Not that I was waiting for the moment, this was not. My brother and I agreed on the call, I wrote this appeal, read it [by phone] twice. The first time the brother said: you read it as a piece of paper, but you need to say speech. I spoke this speech in the pipe flare, the manager, his assistants fled. Well, I think one hundred percent will go to knock that I am engaged in oratory and starting my political game.

For the Federal Penitentiary Service, this was absolutely unexpected. They thought that since I was talking on the phone, it means it was an illegal mobile - and everything is illegally. But then everyone found out. The careers of several leaders of the colony were shaken - and retaliation followed in the form of expulsion of me in SUS.

- Oleg, let's understand the abbreviations.SUS , schizo, PCT - all these things allowed you to isolate even more even in a colony.

- There are several conditions of content in the colonies of the general regime. There is a lightweight option, with concessions-more transfers, you can buy something in the stall for a large amount, you can ask you to be transferred to a colony-settlement-things of this order.

Strict conditions are when you are in a lockable room. The same hut, but the guard locks it. There is a shower inside, the kitchen, and you are all the time with a large number of people. But since in one colony there are two modes, there were also PCTs in this hut - cameras with gratings on windows, double doors, there is a bedside table, you can read.

A schizo is a room almost underground, you are on the basement, grates on the windows - at the top. Such a pit, we called it "kichabur."

- Kicaur?

Well, from Kich and Bour . There is a wooden floor, concrete walls, a sink, a fenced toilet, and the beds are unscrewed at night and they give out a mattress. In the morning you give this mattress, and fasten the bed.

The biggest difference is when you are sent to a schizo, they say: it is for 15 days, and your time stops right away, you sit and wait for these 15 days to pass. And you can be sent to the PCT for two months and for six months, you have already settled down - and as at home. This is a great advantage to dispose of time.

- What are convicted for what are they getting there?

- The main thing - if you found the phone, if you rude to the boss, they noticed with a “thief in law” that he was talking. There is its own scale, which is possible and what is not possible, and it has nothing to do with the real rules, the system is built completely on concepts. There are people who were sitting in PCT for eight years. I have been sitting with three convicts in the last days, one of them spent a year there first, then he was sent to the [more stringent correctional institution] prison, then again - in the PCT for a year, the second - for two years on the PKT. Well, who makes authority in a criminal family - such people, of course, often get here.

- And in the end, how many times did you get - and for what?

- This will be a very long story. 50 penalties, constant translations [from one type of recovery to another] - and it was not always clear why. In view of the fact that I made this zone public, they used me in some of my games. They come and say: the bad convict is Navalny, he has many books, not removed - in his schizo. Sometimes it was due to the activity of Alexei [Navalny], about which I did not know anything. In this case, they simply came and said: you are ordered to close you in a schizo.

Difficult. For me, all these three years - it’s as if you were watching an arthouse film, and you do not always understand what is happening, what it can lead to - and even sometimes it is not clear who the main character is.

As a result, I just stopped nervous. All that you cannot control must be ignored - so I did it exactly.

- And the other convicts, who are they? In Facebook, which was conducted in your letters, several times the demand to free a person by the name of, it seems, Kostya-Mogil.

-Tolya-mogila! I ask that the requirement of his release be spelled out separately.

And so, according to my assessment, a couple of percent of the convicts are not at all guilty. They were closed by the security forces for some thoughts: the business was squeezed, just someone quarreled or the wife went to another. Seventy percent came here with huge procedural violations. They are to blame, but they put them with a slight neglect of the law. Some sit for misconduct, for which it is not clear how to plant. Well, I stole a bottle of vodka. Or got into an unguarded room, two cast -iron sinks were stolen. But they give a lot for this - three years, five. A bunch of drug addicts sits, but not sellers, but ordinary consumers of marijuana, heroin or spice. There is a layer of serious criminals, but this is a very small layer.

- And toly this of this of yours - for what?

-Tolik was a 17-year-old graduate somewhere in the suburbs. After graduation, he went to the tavern, apparently, he was already underplaid. I saw that two healthy types of someone beat, in a word, drunken fuss. He got involved, began to intercede - they began to beat him back. He tried to run away, even jumped in a taxi and shouted something like “Chef, drive!”, But they caught up with him, pulled him out. He says: it so happened that one hit - he fell, the second - he also fell. So it turned out that one was to death, and the second - with serious damage. They gave him five years - because the youngster.

He is from a large family, he has a mother-a mother-heroine. They are all very worried about him, go for dates. Good kid.

- In general, your daily communication has passed normally?

- Yes. I have good communication with everyone. I never think that one or another person is too stupid so as not to try to start communicating with him. You get there, and this is a commune. You communicate with everyone.

Plus, everyone was wondering who I was, there were many questions. First of all, all sorts of rogues and scammers attacked me - everyone heard the name Navalny, and whoever is - no one knows there. Either he is a deputy or even an oligarch. And I, therefore, such a money bag. Therefore, the proposals immediately followed to buy a print with Peter I, with Genghis Khan - and urgently. Or they offered to participate in an extremely favorable project to create a network of hairdressers in Dushanbe.

- How did you come to the conclusion that the main way to save yourself is any kind of activity?

- When I was imprisoned alone for the first time, and I realized that I would sit for three more years. And then I realized that I would lose my mind, if nothing will happen, and the time will stretch the same way. He made a schedule, added the maximum amount of everything that occurred to me - languages, sport. The schedule specifically made up so as not to have time to do everything, not a single person would have coped with such a schedule. This spurks very much, and time flies faster. I constantly did not have time, I put it off for tomorrow-and time passed faster, it works. Everyone ... I wish you not to be in these places, but if you find yourself, do so.

“And what have you learned in three years?”

-I received a legal education in absentia, I can read in Spanish, now I will come to my senses and find a Skype tutor to speak. Portuguese wanted, he is very similar in writing to Spanish, but in pronunciation is completely different. For some reason, I could not find a single native speaker around me, so I decided to postpone it. There was an English tutor, I corresponded with a professor of mathematics from Kazan, corresponded with a girl who helped me by drawing - gave tasks, corrected, said that to change. So I did a lot with drawing. Another origami. Plus, they wrote a lot to me, and I answered each letter, and this is also a good way to spend time. For three hours a day he went in for sports-squeezed, crouched, lifted a 20-kilogram tank for drinking water.

- Oleg, tell us about letters from the will, are they really so important? Just twenty times I started writing you a letter: “Hello to you, Oleg, this is Andrey. Everything is fine with me, I moved from Moscow to Riga, it’s curious here ... ”Exactly at that moment I imagined a certain prison room where you are sitting, reading this letter and thinking something like:“ So, in Riga, I congratulate. "Rad" that you have such an interesting life there. " And I just stopped at that moment, did not know what to say next.

- In vain they stopped. I know how hard it is to write such letters, I myself wrote them to [director Oleg] Sentsov, [former governor of the Kirov region Nikita] Belykh, who were sitting for politics. Yes, it is absolutely impossible to understand what to say to them in our conditions. It is much easier to answer - you just comment on what is written, preferably with irony. As a result, everyone loves you - they say: oh, how witty and cheerful it is.

Так и нужно писать: куда ездил, что видел, интересные статьи, новости. Можно просто поток сознания. И в результате ты хоть немного понимаешь, что происходит не в этом твоем сером мире, а где-то еще. Думаю, любой человек на моем месте чувствовал бы то же самое. Так что жаль, что не рассказали, как у вас там в Риге дела.

«Не доверяйте усатым людям»

— Как вы провели последние дни в колонии?

— Я думал, что это будут очень длинные дни, просто невозможно пережить. Первый и последний день такие — все об этом говорят. Но получилось совсем не так: время пролетело из-за кучи последних дел, плюс было полно судов с администрацией колонии — я же каждое приписанное мне нарушение режима обжалую.

Когда мне вынесли первое взыскание, я им сказал: это обжалую, и все последующие, сколько бы их ни было.

Так что не было суперадреналина. 29 июня местные фсиновцы боялись, что приедет много людей, будет митинг, провокации. И меня выпустили как можно раньше — около девяти утра, хотя обычно около полудня всех оформляют и выпускают.

— Скомканное прощание.

- Yes. И они меня еще на четыре видеокамеры снимали: от выхода из камеры до выдачи личных вещей, в том числе двух тысяч рублей.

Последний месяц разве только был длинноват. Меня перевели опять на ПКТ, мы там с двумя ребятами общались. Они рассказывали, как от борсеточников защищаться, а я им — то, что почерпнул из книги «Физика будущего». We were interested.

— Вы написали для наших читателей карточки «Как сидеть в тюрьме» . Я думал, вы действительно выйдете, жонглируя двенадцатью алюминиевыми кружками. Но показалось, что вы были ошарашены.

— Было так: все смотрят на меня, все меня снимают. А я непубличный человек, как вести себя и что говорить — не знаю, просто очень хочу уехать домой. Меня приехали встречать друзья и родственники, их хочется обнять, но только не на камеру же — это интимный момент. Потом наконец-то поехали.

— Что за ритуал вы устроили по дороге?

— Все зеки говорят, что робу, выйдя из тюрьмы, нужно сжечь, ну вот мы в чистом поле это и сделали. По-моему, очень добрый и правильный ритуал. Правда, она была сделана из какого-то пластика, и не хотела гореть. Жгли ее час. Потом залили водой, чтобы не сжечь поля орловские — и вот тогда уже действительно поехали домой.

— Как вам первые сутки на свободе?

— Это выдох, это эйфория. Я чувствую, что эта колония было давно, десять тысяч лет назад. Все, что было там, кончилось без остатка. Я не смотрю задумчиво вдаль, вспоминая ужасы и лишения. Здесь кайфово, отличная погода, меня окружают родные люди. Мы вот с вами общаемся и едим черешню. От осознания этих мелочей я просто кайфую. А еще я жду, когда приедет жена, привезет бритву, и я смогу наконец-то сбрить эти усы.

— Я хотел спросить: вы их и правда оставите?

— Ужасно надоели. Не доверяйте усатым людям, они вызывают подозрения.

Но это была важная для меня история. Там был такой Афанасьев — начальник зоны, его потом сместили после моей истории с митингом. Я приехал — и мне через неделю выписали первое взыскание, и стало понятно, что все — не будет УДО, ограничения начнутся. Everything is bad. И этот Афанасьев такой: вы должны понимать, куда вы попали. Я от этих слов еще меньше стал понимать, куда я попал и почему это происходит. Начал искать лазейки в правилах внутреннего распорядка. И в одном документе было написано: «короткая стрижка бороды и усов». То есть, получается, усы можно. Я сказал: раз так, значит буду как ZZ Top . Афанасьев очень хотел меня побрить, я сопротивлялся. Он говорил: будем применять физическую силу. Я говорю: ну, применяйте. Они не решились. Представить себе, что они меня будут бить и одновременно брить я все же не смог.

У меня были разные формы усов — как у канадского лесоруба, с бакенбардами. Вот эти свои я год выращивал — они растут вдоль, их можно покручивать. Там нет второго усатого зека. Усатый зек — это нонсенс.

А для меня это был способ почувствовать себя свободным.

— Олег, простите, это жесткий вопрос. Все понятно про колонию, понятно про три с половиной выкинутых года, про политическое дело. Но это не только про вас история, но и про детей. Они оставались без отца — и как им это компенсировать?

- No way. Да и потерянное в тупую время восстановить нельзя. You can’t do anything about it. Вот с [младшим сыном] Остапом мы только недавно познакомились. Меня посадили, когда ему было десять месяцев, а увидел я его, когда ему было два с половиной, он уже говорил. Сказал: «Здравствуй, а ты мой папа? У меня, значит, двое пап?» Я довольно-таки напрягся, а потом понял! Про меня с детьми дома говорили иногда просто «папа», а иногда «папа Олег», вот он и решил, что это два разных человека. Старший подходит, обнимает, говорит: «Я люблю тебя». Думаю, что это травмировало их, но и катастрофы не произошло: с ними был мой брат, дедушка. Но все равно кто-то должен будет за это подвергнуться возмездию. Я буду строить определенные планы на этот счет.

— Я мотивов всепрощения в ваших словах и раньше не слышал.

— Помню я такой момент. Я сижу и пишу [жене] Вике письмо: если я хоть раз скажу что-то вроде: «Ну ладно, три года прошло, бог с ним, так получилось, зачем же мстить» — ты напомни, как страшно холодно мне было в апреле 2016 года, когда отключили отопление, а потом резко похолодало. Я спал в фуфайке, просыпался от холода. Я обозлился страшно: почему мне должно быть так холодно, если я ничего никому не сделал плохого? Абсолютно точно, если будет возможность, я всех причастных заставлю за это заплатить.

Andrey Kozenko