On February 16, 2024, Alexey Navalny was killed in the penal colony in Kharp. On the anniversary of his death, Novaya Gazeta Europe special correspondent Irina Kravtsova spoke with people who had corresponded with the politician during his imprisonment. One of them was journalist and photographer Yevgeny Feldman, who lives in Riga.
Feldman says they first met in person in April 2012 in Astrakhan, where Navalny had come to support Oleg Shein. After that, the photographer often covered him but deliberately kept his distance in order to preserve professional objectivity. After Navalny’s arrest in January 2021, their restrained working relationship gradually turned into a regular correspondence.
Feldman sent his first letter on the night of Navalny’s return to Russia, when it became clear he had been taken to Matrosskaya Tishina prison. Later, after leaving Russia in January 2022 because of the risk of prosecution in “extremism” cases against people linked to FBK, he wrote to Navalny that he felt ashamed to be leaving. The reply, passed on through Kira Yarmysh, was brief: everything was fine, and he should settle into his new place.
From November 2022, when the FSIN-letter system became available, the exchange became steady. Feldman says he sent about 50 letters and received a reply to almost every one. They discussed American politics, books, films, depression, street food, and the everyday details of life in exile. Navalny also asked him to do small pieces of research, including on how American political pollsters work.
After Navalny was transferred to Kharp, the electronic service no longer worked there, and letters had to travel through Zona-Telecom by regular post. In December 2023 and January 2024, Feldman sent four letters. After Navalny’s death, he was told in late March that three replies had arrived from Russia; Navalny did not have time to answer the fourth.
“Why am I reading your letter saying my letter may be the last one, and not seeing your tears on it? And anyway, if some letter turns out to be the last, put it on eBay,” Navalny once replied, Feldman recalled, when he shared his fears.
Feldman says that in his letters Navalny remained lucid, sharp, and vividly alive even under maximum pressure. In his view, prison correspondence lets an inmate spend at least a few minutes in the outside world, while letters delivered after the sender’s death create the opposite feeling: for as long as you are reading new lines, the person somehow still remains with you.