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7 months ago
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The late opposition leader Alexei Navalny spent his final weeks in the IK-3 prison colony (also known as Polar Wolf) in the town of Kharp, some 2,000 kilometers northeast of Moscow.
He was transferred there in December from a prison in the Vladimir region in secret, with his whereabouts unknown for three weeks.
His allies said the transfer to IK-3 — the most restrictive type of prison colony in the country — was an attempt to further disconnect Navalny from society as he served his 19-year sentence.
The Moscow Times traveled to Kharp to photograph the remote town where IK-3 is located:
The sign at the entrance to Kharp.
Moscow Times Reporter
"I am your new grandfather Frost," Navalny said in a social media post on Dec. 26, his first since arriving at IK-3 in Kharp.
"I have a tulup, an ushanka and I will have valenki soon," he said.
"I now live above the Arctic Circle ... But I don't say 'ho-ho-ho, I say 'oh-oh-oh' when I look out the window, where first there is night, then evening, then night again."
Moscow Times Reporter
A view of a residential street.
Moscow Times Reporter
Allowed out for a daily walk in the pitch black at 6:30 a.m., Navalny said: "I promised myself I would go out in any weather."
His cell was "11 steps from wall to wall."
Moscow Times Reporter
A restaurant called Beliye Nochy (White Nights).
Moscow Times Reporter
A local resident using a snowmobile to get around.
Moscow Times Reporter
The town of Kharp was built by Gulag prisoners during the Stalin era.[
Moscow Times Reporter
A man walks his dog on the street.
Moscow Times Reporter
"It has never been colder than minus 32 (Celsius). Even in such a temperature you can walk more than half an hour — only if you have the time to grow back a nose, ears and fingers," Navalny said in a Jan. 9 post.
"Today I was walking, freezing and thinking about Leonardo DiCaprio and his trick with a dead horse in The Revenant," he said, referring to a scene in which his character crawls into an animal carcass to keep warm.
"I don't think it would work here. A dead horse would freeze to death within 15 minutes."
Moscow Times Reporter
A children's playground covered in snow.
Moscow Times Reporter
A World War II monument in Kharp.
Moscow Times Reporter
The town of Kharp had a population of about 5,000 in the 2020 census.
Moscow Times Reporter
The nearest major settlement is Salekhard, the regional capital of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district, some 45 kilometers away.
Moscow Times Reporter
Accounts from current and former IK-3 prisoners describe a particularly harsh environment with barebones living conditions along with physical and psychological brutality.
Some prisoners complained about a lack of clothing and other essentials in the colony, the independent media outlet Vyorstka said, citing court filings.
Moscow Times Reporter
“The conditions [in special-regime colonies] are quite terrible, it is clear that this is detention in maximum isolation,” human rights defender Igor Kalyapin told The Moscow Times in December. “I think that Navalny was sent so far precisely in order to ensure this maximum possible physical isolation, so even taking a trip there would be a problem.”
Moscow Times Reporter
