The wife of the opposition activist Alexei Navalny, Julia Navalna, told about the first long visit with her husband in the penal colony in Pokrov. It lasted for three days. A Kremlin critic is serving a 2.5-year sentence for violating parole in a case of alleged financial embezzlement.
Julia Navalna informed on Instagram about her stay in a penal colony in Pokrov (Volodymyr region). “You come and bring a lot of food with you. The guards carefully check the soup for the presence of a telephone inside, cut the dumpling or peach looking for heroin and smell all the drinks to see if they contain alcohol. Then they examine you and search you” – she said in the Thursday entry.
Navalna wrote that longer meetings are held in specially designated rooms with access to the kitchen. She said that in the penal colony in Pokrov they look “very decent”, they resemble a two-star hotel by standard. There are paintings in the corridor with the rooms.
“And then they bring in a very skinny, tanned, smiling man in prison clothes – this is your husband. And in such a closed space, with visiting rooms and a kitchen, you spend three days. Like in the song -” I’ve had three happy days “. No glass and bars. A close person is nearby. You reach out and touch, still a bit surprised that nobody is trying to interfere, “Julia Nawalna wrote on Instagram.
Inmates in Russian prisons have the right to family visits, but it is up to the prison authorities to agree to specific requests.
Earlier, Navalna also visited her husband in the penal colony, but it was not a long visit, but a short one-time visit, which she called “the best date in her life”. She then informed journalists that her husband, who had announced a hunger strike demanding medical treatment, had lost 76 kilograms.
Julia Navalna with her husband on another occasioninstagram / navalny
Repressions against colleagues
Alexei Navalny, activist and well-known critic of the Kremlin, is serving 2.5 years in prison in the Pokrov penal colony for a parole violation in a case of alleged financial embezzlement.
Recently, many of the opposition activist’s associates have left the country. Criminal cases were initiated against some of them.
In June, a Moscow court declared organizations linked to Navalny, including the Anti-Corruption Foundation, “extremist.” The Foundation for Combating Corruption was established in 2011. She investigated cases of corruption in the ranks of the authorities and repeatedly reported on the luxurious life of senior officials.
Main photo source: instagram / navalny