The novelist and press secretary to the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny talks about imprisonment, survival and writing under the regime
In May 2018 Kira Yarmysh found herself in jail for a second time. Yarmysh – press secretary to the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny – had called for people to attend an anti-government rally in downtown Moscow. Its title: “He’s Not Our Tsar”. The tsar in question – Vladimir Putin – was about to be inaugurated as president for a fourth term.
The Moscow authorities refused to sanction the rally. What happened next was predictable. Riot police arrested hundreds of people. Later that month Yarmysh turned up at a police station seeking the release of a fellow campaigner. She was herself detained and held overnight. A court gave her 25 days behind bars for “administrative violations”.
