Five convicts familiar with Navalny’s prison confirm hellish conditions

Locked in a prison in the Arctic, Aleksei A. Navalny likely spent his final days in some of the most inhumane conditions in Russia’s vast prison system, according to five men who served their sentences in the same penal colony as the Russian opposition leader.

The men described in telephone interviews unbearable cold, disgusting food, unsanitary conditions and abuse in Penal Colony No. 3 of the remote Yamalo-Nenets region, where Mr. Navalny arrived in December to serve the remainder of his 19-year prison sentence. The former prisoners said conditions were particularly brutal in the solitary cells where Mr Navalny was believed to have been locked up on the day he was declared dead.

But what made the prison, known as IK-3 or the Troika, feared even by Russia’s hardened prisoners was its exceptional psychological pressure and loneliness, they said. It was a system designed to break the human spirit, by making survival dependent on total and unconditional obedience to the will of guardians.

“It was complete and utter destruction,” said a former inmate named Konstantin, who spent time in the prison’s solitary confinement cells. “When I think about it, I still break out in a cold sweat,” he said, adding that he has struggled with mental illness since his release.

The New York Times interviewed four men who had served their sentences at the Troika over the past decade, some just weeks before Mr. Navalny’s arrival. The Times also spoke to one person who was in the colony at the time of Mr. Navalny’s death, as well as a friend of a former prisoner. Their full names and some personal information are withheld to protect them from retaliation.

Mr Navalny, who will be buried on Friday in a Moscow cemetery, described his time in the Troika in occasional posts on social media with the sarcasm, humor and understatement that made the former blogger the face of the opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin.

He managed to maintain an upbeat tone even as he appeared increasingly thin and pale during his rare court hearings, which have lately been largely held remotely via video calls. The government said Mr Navalny died of natural causes on February 16 after falling suddenly during a morning walk. His political movement says he was killed on Putin’s orders. No concrete evidence has been provided to support either version of events.

“Few things are as refreshing as a walk on Yamal at 5:30 in the morning,” Mr. Navalny wrote in a post in January, describing the mandatory morning exercises in minus 26 degrees Fahrenheit on the Yamal Peninsula. “And you wouldn’t believe that a lovely fresh wind blows into the courtyard, despite the concrete fencing.”

Mr Navalny was repeatedly subjected to solitary confinement after being jailed in 2021. He was scheduled to serve his 27th stint in solitary confinement on the day he was declared dead. said a spokeswoman for his political movement.

These cells are designed “to break people morally until you agree to all the conditions of the prison administration,” said a former Troika prisoner, a murderer who had spent time in the Troika’s solitary cells. “It was hell.” Former convicts also said men in solitary confinement had to move their beds aside from alarm clock to bedtime, forcing them to stand or sit for most of the day.

Located in the tundra, the Troika was built to hold around a thousand prisoners in some of the most remote, strict and harsh conditions in Russia, which former convicts say can lead to torture. The prison’s fame dates back to the Soviet Union, when it became an unofficial destination for the country’s convicted organized crime bosses. Under Putin, it has housed some of his political opponents, including former oil tycoon Platon Lebedev.

Extreme cold is the Troika’s most pervasive hardship. The former convicts said that worn-out prison blankets were often the only source of warmth during the polar nights. Two of the former convicts said some of the solitary confinement cells had radiators painted on the walls instead of heating.

The food was extremely poor, even by the standards of Russian prisons.

“It was horrible, inedible porridge,” said Konstantin, the former convict, using a series of expletives.

Prison authorities also exercised strict control over every aspect of prisoners’ lives, relying on an extensive network of informants. The former convicts said this surveillance fueled paranoia and fear.

“You can’t hide anything there, everything is connected, everyone knows everything about everyone,” said a former prisoner named Aleksandr, who had been in the Troika for drugs. He said this made him see all other convicts as a threat, destroying the sense of community that often serves as the main source of support in other Russian prisons.

“You had to make peace with the fact that no one will help you, that you are on your own,” Aleksandr added.

Such conditions can hasten an inmate’s death by chronically undermining a person’s physical and mental health. That’s what former prisoners said prison mortality was highand death remained a constant shadow even after its release.

A St. Petersburg woman named Alisa said she had struggled to recognize her boyfriend Mikhail after he served a four-year prison sentence in the Troika in 2022 for a fraud conviction.

“He was such a charming young man,” said Alisa, who sent packages to Mikhail in prison. “He returned without teeth and with a broken psyche. When he saw me on the street, he didn’t even recognize me.”

Alisa said that Mikhail died a year after his release.

The Troika’s isolation and the atmosphere of paranoia have made it difficult to turn to prisoners to determine the details of Mr Navalny’s death.

A person at the Troika last month said guards blocked access to the prison’s telephone service on the day Mr Navalny’s death was reported. The strict protocols have also meant that few of the Troika convicts have illegal mobile phones, virtually cutting them off from the world after Mr Navalny’s death.

The person in prison at the time of Mr. Navalny’s death said he found out the next day through the prison rumor mill. He said he did not know where Mr Navalny was before he died because the strict daily regime meant the men living in one prison barracks rarely interacted with, or even saw, the men in the other.

The prison also has about two dozen cells for solitary confinement and other punishment measures spread throughout the grounds.

“You could spend 10 years there and not see anyone else and know nothing,” the person said. When asked about the reaction of the convicts to Mr Navalny’s death, he said: “Nobody there cares about anyone else, because everyone only thinks about themselves and when they can get out of there.”

Still, he noted that any disruption to routine, such as the arrival of federal officials at the prison after an inmate’s death, would be welcome as a small reprieve. He recalled a time in 2022 when another inmate had died.

“It may sound callous, you know, but his death put an end to the abuse and eased some of the daily routine,” the person said. “And this is of course positive for the convicts.”

Oleg Matsnev research contributed.