Limonov giving a press conference.
Edward Limonov is the leader of the National-Bolsheviks Party, a radical left-wing movement that was outlawed by the Russian Supreme Court, but which has emerged as the leading opposition to President Putin. The NBP’s membership numbers in the thousands (see the first pic in the DOs).
Limonov first gained fame as an avant-garde poet in the Soviet Union in the late 60s and early 70s before he was forced to emigrate to the West in 1974. He lived in New York City until 1980. In 1982, he moved to Paris with his wife, the singer Natalya Medvedeva, where he became a major, if controversial, literary figure. During his stay in France, Limonov wrote his best novel, Memoir of a Russian Punk (Grove Press, 1990), along with several other novels and short-story collections.
In the early 1990s, as the Eastern Bloc collapsed, Limonov joined the Serbs, Russia’s historical allies, in their wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Reports of Limonov fighting with the Serbs led to him being blacklisted by most of his European publishers. He moved back to Russia in 1992 and entered politics, initially as the Minister of the Interior in flamboyant nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s shadow cabinet.
In 1994, Limonov founded the National-Bolsheviks Party with philosopher Alexander Dugin and punk rock icon Yegor Letov. It quickly became a magnet for angry Russian kids.
In 2001, Limonov and several members of his party were arrested and charged with attempting to acquire weapons, raise an illegal army, and invade Kazakhstan with the goal of setting up a National-Bolsheviks republic in the Russian-populated northern part of that country. He spent two and a half years in prison.
PS: Limonov’s real name is Edward Savenko.
PPS: Limonov likes his writing in English to read broken, like a real Russian would speak it. So fuck you if you think he sounds like Balki from Perfect Strangers. This is how he writes.
Lefortovo prison is beautiful as a cathedral. It is shaped like a letter K because German princess Katherine became Russian tzaritza Katherine the Great, so obedient Russians started to build prisons in the shape of letter K. In order to please Katherine the Great.
The main line of this letter K is open-spaced enormous corridor with four rows of wide windows in its ends. All along the walls are located the doors of prison cells. Narrow metal staircases are hanging on the walls starting from second floor, giving access to the cells of higher floors. In the same way are constructed two other shorter parts of letter K. All the three are crossing in only the one point. That is exactly place where commanding post of great prison boat is located.
Fifteen months of my life were spent behind Lefortovo walls. I wrote seven books during that time. Prison authorities didn’t object to my writings. They at first didn’t satisfy my demand to get a table electrical lamp. Instead, they proposed to me to take me out of my cell anytime I want to write, then prison wardens would walk me to some empty cell. Usually after dinner time, at about 3 PM, I would switch on the light over the door of my cell. Shortly after, warden will open small eating hole in the door and we will exchange few ritual phrases.
“Prisoner Savenko. I would like to go for work. I’m ready.”
“I will ask permission,” warden will say.
Then he will close eating hole. Then he will reappear in a few minutes, or in half an hour with his fellow warden he will open the door. I would be staying, wearing prison blue coat, my notebooks in my hands, hands behind me. Sometimes I will hold an apple or orange or bread. More often warden will convey me to cell number 13, used at Lefortovo as storeroom. They would close the door behind me. I would take my prison coat off, will put it on iron bed. Small bedside table will serve me as writing table. I would work for four or five hours, then I will switch on the light under the door. Then wardens will walk me back to my cell. Usually my cellmates will take for me prison soup. Those were the best hours of the day. When wardens walked me inside letter K, it was already dark inside prison cathedral. At commanding post, officers were listening to conversations in those cells that were bugged, or they would watch through hidden cameras an evening prayer of prisoner Salman Raduev, or some quarrel of oligarch Anatoly Bikov, or preparing to watch me. In dark corner I would notice purple points of cigarettes smoked by wardens. Oh, my heart is bleeding as I recall in memory those quiet evening hours at Lefortovo.
All the cells in Lefortovo are of same size, each one for three beds. There are only two cells for six beds, usually they are empty, awaiting for time when administration will decide to put great pressure on one of Lefortovo inhabitants.
Lefortovo is a military prison. She is clean, she is tidier, better than prisons of Ministry of Justice, because Lefortovo belonged to FSB, what in the past was called KGB. Beloved to KGB are the colors rose, green, and ochre, the same colors preferred Elvis, by the way. So Lefortovo corridor walls are painted rose to the height of two meters, then white above. Carpets are green, walls of cells are ochre, iron beds are painted blue. The militia-guarded prisons of the Ministry of Interior are shabby in comparison—painted dirty green with no carpets. They are shitty places. They stink. But from a prison of Ministry of Justice one may walk out one day. Lefortovo is prison for those accused of crimes against state, so our future is tragical. When prison administration decided to let me write and later I was even accorded to use prison table lamp, they thought that I will never get out of prisons and camps. Administration also couldn’t imagine that I will be able to smuggle thousands of pages out of prison walls. No, I will not tell you how I managed to smuggle my pages out. Because I don’t want to betray those inmates who may find themselves incarcerated. Let them use my know-how.
I was arrested many thousands kilometers from Moscow at Altai Mountains near border with Kazakhstan. Imagine, you are asleep inside tiny cabin with your party comrades, and then look, at seven in the morning they are coming from the mountains: More than 70 heavily armed men with the letters FSB on their backs. Then they fly you to Moscow and they drive you to Lefortovo. Door is closed behind you. You are trapped, like an animal. They got me in April 2001; two weeks later I was writing like a madman in order to survive in prison.
Then in August investigators brought an accusation against me and against my party comrades. Terrible accusations: The creation of unlawful military formations with a goal to organize an uprising in northeastern Kazakhstan and create separatist republic. They also charged me with organizing a purchase of automatic weapons and explosives. They were serious, those FSB investigators. Their building was connected to Lefortovo prison by a door on the third floor. I quickly understood that FSB investigators are wild beasts, so I decided to confront them. But I decided that I should have as good as possible a relationship with the administration of the prison. One cannot fight the whole world, you know. So I behaved as a model prisoner, never went to bed one minute earlier than 10 PM, never wrote any complaint. I was polite. Eventually, in the beginning of May I established myself as a sort of writer-in-residence of Lefortovo. Because of those books starting to appear in bookstores, I earned money while imprisoned, which was spent on party needs. So I was helpful even imprisoned—the brave leader of a radical party.
In July I was transferred to Saratov for trial. I was placed in Saratov’s central prison, building number three, for those who committed heavy crimes or were recidivists. Most of the cells were with four beds, but usually were populated by five or six persons. In our cell we had an electrical stove, a thing forbidden at Lefortovo. We also had privilege to receive food parcels as often as we can. The window was removed for summertime, so I would sit on my bed on the second tier with my papers around me, my cellmates still asleep. I would think, read, and write until checkup between 8 and 9 AM. As inhabitants of building number three, we had some privileges because our future was expected to be difficult. I wrote only one book at Saratov prison, because I was busy with my trial. Almost every day I was brought to Saratov’s regional court building. Anyway, I worked well. Later I left my papers and my belongings to my lawyer’s care. He took manuscript of my book From Prison to Prison.
When in Saratov prison I lost my wife, singer Natalya Medvedeva. She committed suicide in the night between February 2 and February 3, 2003. Two days later the prosecutor demanded for me a 14-year sentence. The judge gave me four years on April 15, and in May I was transferred to prison camp on the Asian side of the Volga River, but that is a different story.
I wrote so well in my prisons.
EDWARD LIMINOV