Letter from B.Yu. Kagarlitsky to his relatives and supporters!

Rabkor 23 August 2023

After the arrest, the activists managed to talk to B.Yu. Kagarlitsky. He gave them a letter, which he asked to put in the public domain. Here is the full text of the letter:

Letter from prison
This is not the first time this has happened in my life. They put me under lock and key even under Brezhnev, beat me and threatened to kill me under Yeltsin. And now the second arrest under Putin. Those in power are changing, but the tradition of jailing political opponents, alas, remains. But the readiness of many people to make sacrifices for the sake of their convictions, for the sake of freedom and social rights remains just as unchanged.

I think that the current arrest can be considered a recognition of the political significance of my statements. Of course, I would prefer to receive recognition in a slightly different form, but everything has its time. In the more than 40 years that have passed since my first arrest, I have learned to endure and understand how changeable political fortunes are in Russia

I think that the current arrest can be considered a recognition of the political significance of my statements. Of course, I would prefer to receive recognition in a slightly different form, but everything has its time. In the more than 40 years that have passed since my first arrest, I have learned to endure and understand how changeable political fortunes are in Russia.

In the Komi Republic, where I now ended up by the will of fate and the FSB investigators, the weather is not bad, and everything in the prison is not badly arranged. So I'm fine. Unfortunately, I have not yet been allowed to use the books I took with me. They are tested for extremism. I hope that the censors will expand their horizons in the process of studying them - one book is devoted to the state of modern universities, and Sergey Zuev, the former rector of Shaninka, wrote it - also in prison. The other is about the history of World War II.

I am allowed to receive letters. A lot of them came. And they can be answered. In this sense, it is easier to sit now than under Brezhnev. The food is also much better. There is a stall where you can put money for me. The list of products in the stall is no worse than in some delivery stores. The prices are, however, higher. But you can, it turns out, even order lunch in a prison cafe. The menu is quite good! True, there is no microwave to warm up food.

In general, you can live. The only question is how long it will last. But this is not only my problem. Millions of people all over the country are thinking the same thing. So we have a common destiny, regardless of where and in what conditions we are.

It is quite difficult to understand from the TV installed in the cell what is really happening. But the main news will still be reported to us. I remember how in 1982 in the Lefortovo prison we waited with interest every day for the newspaper Pravda, in a mourning frame, to be placed in the “feeding trough” of the cell.

The experience of the past years, it would seem, is not very conducive to optimism. But the historical experience as a whole is much richer and provides much more grounds for positive expectations. Remember what Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth?

No matter how dark the night
She will make way for the day.

PS . Many thanks to all those who expressed solidarity with me, those who demand my release, write letters to the prison. Of course, it is necessary to achieve the release of all political prisoners. Sooner or later it will. And for some reason I think that sooner rather than later.
https://rabkor.ru/columns/editorial-columns/2023/08/16/letter_from_prison

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