Abstract
FOR SEVERAL YEARS now, Russian exiles have been writing letters back home to people jailed for opposing the war in Ukraine. These exiles have now been joined by many others worldwide and the number of political prisoners in Russia has topped 1,000.
Sometimes those prisoners send letters back, but they often send artworks as well.
The lawyer Petr Petrenko is one of those in exile who writes regularly. Petrenko grew up in St Petersburg and worked as a lawyer and university lecturer, moving to London in 2017 to study human rights law at Queen Mary University of London.
“I’m slowly pursuing my PhD, but mostly focused on anti-war activities because the full-scale invasion changed many things for many people and I’m one of those people,” Petrenko told Index.
Petrenko began campaigning against the war in 2022 and now cannot return to his homeland.
He participates in letter-writing evenings in London, but similar events also take place in many cities around the world including in Montreal, Vienna and Yerevan.
He says many of the people who attend the events have some connection to Russia.
“Maybe they were born there, maybe they speak Russian,” he said, “but we are interested in reaching out to the audiences in the cities where we live and we’re trying to accommodate non-Russian speakers as well. So, for example when we hold letter-writing workshops we translate letters written in English and when we receive replies, we translate them back.”
As well as letters, prisoners are also allowed to draw or paint art on their forms
Unlike in the early days of Index, letters from political prisoners do not need to be smuggled out as samizdat - a discreet practice of circulating censored literature in the former Soviet Union.
“There are several online platforms which allow you to upload your message and even photographs and then it goes to the facility where the person you are writing to is based. The authorities review this message because everything is subject to censorship and then they pass it on to the person,” said Petrenko.
The rules around censorship vary by prison and in some you can even mention the war in Ukraine rather than having to refer to it as a ‘special military operation’.
ABOVE AND OPPOSITE: Artist Anastasia Gennadyevna Dyudyaeva was sentenced to three years and six months in a penal colony for what authorities dubbed “a public call for terrorism”.
The courts said that Dyudyaeva had placed postcards with poems in Ukrainian “calling for reprisals against Russian President Vladimir Putin” in a supermarket in St Petersburg.
Her art features another anti-war protester who was jailed for his opposition to the Putin government: the pianist, writer and activist Pavel Mikhailovich Kushnir.
Kushnir was born in 1984 in Tambov and was identified as an exceptional talent from an early age, performing the complete cycle of 24 Preludes and Fugues by Dmitri Shostakovich at the age of 17. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 2007 and was invited to become a soloist for Birobidzhan Regional Philharmonic in 2023.
Kushnir was a civil activist throughout his career but in 2024 was accused of making public calls for terrorist activity after publishing a video on YouTube which called the Bucha massacre “a disgrace to our homeland” and labelled Putin as a fascist.
Kushnir was detained in custody in May 2024. On 27 July, he died in the Birobidzhan pretrial detention centre following a hunger strike.
Anastasia Dyudyaeva produced the art as a tribute after his death.
“You only know about it when you are trying to use certain words or discuss certain topics. We act as helpers in the process of letter-writing. We look at every letter written in our workshops from the perspective of whether it will pass the censorship, and if there are certain questionable things we slightly edit them. We are acting as censors ourselves in a way because our approach is not to send anything which can harm the prisoner,” said Petrenko.
OPPOSITE: Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Razumova was sentenced to seven years in prison for opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She was born in 1967 and lived in the Tver Region before being detained in April 2022.
Razumova and her husband posted videos on social media about the actions of Russian armed forces in Ukraine. They also painted graffiti on buildings and other structures in towns and villages in the Tver region. According to media reports, Razumova was held in solitary confinement for nine months.
ABOVE: Daniil Vladimirovich Klyuka is a 28-year-old art teacher from the Lipetsk region. He has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for allegedly “financing a terrorist organisation” (sending money to his brother in Ukraine) and “high treason”.
Petrenko said: “Daniil drew a place in Italy from where he received a letter and where his supporter is based and it is a way of kind of connecting. He imagines this place when he communicates with this person and we all hope to meet one day there or in any other free place without risks of repression.”
Prisoners can reply to the messages, often from unknown correspondents.
As well as letters, prisoners are also allowed to draw or paint art on their forms which, unless they are censored, are sent back through the same online system.
Unlike in the early days of Index, letters from political prisoners do not need to be smuggled out as samizdat
To explain why writing letters to political prisoners is so important, Petrenko cites Maria Ponomarenko, currently imprisoned for anti-war posts: “Your letters inspire us, give us strength and confidence that there will be a dawn and the changes are inevitable. Your letters serve as a support - solid ground beneath our feet. Your letters are uplifting and help distract us from the unpleasant realities of the Russian penitentiary system.” ✘
The artworks here were received from
Footnotes