ONE YEAR - THAT'S ENOUGH !!!

First of all I want to apologise for my awful English, I haven’t been writing in English for 15 years. It is also the reason why my text will be as short as possible, and I’ll give most of the place to pictures.

If this site was aimed at a Russian-speaking public, I would not have published these photographs. In Russia they have already been displayed ad nausea, and officials used them enough during election campaigns, assuming, (unfortunately correctly) that pictures of humiliations inflicted on this once so powerful man would flatter the lowest instinct of the population. And I would not want to participate to this voyeurism. Besides, Russians know perfectly well what the living conditions are in their prisons.

But in the Occident we have rather different asssumptions of what the life of such a VIP is likely to be, even in custody. We imagine individual cells endowed with all modern conveniences. It’s far from the truth! And it is not coincidence that, after her visit to Russia, the Council of Europe representative and German government former minister of justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger declared herself to be extremely shocked by what she saw in the Meschansky Court. I spent ten minutes there myself, and I can say that it is something I’ll never forget.

I haven't found any illustration of the Khodorkovsky trial in the western press. I assume that the world should know not only WHAT is happening, but HOW it is happening.

These pictures are shameful for the Russian judicial system and for officials, not for Mr. Khodorkovsky. Even behind bars he remains more free than many of his fellow citizens. And ours.

The Prison

View from the street	View from the street
View from the courtyard (MBK's cell looks onto this side)	View from the courtyard
View from a side street	Matrosskaya Tishina by night
Window of a cell (NB - they are too high, so that it's impossible to look through them)	Scheme of a cell

The Courts

November 11th, 2003. First appearance of Mikhail Khodorkovsky after his arrest. The Moscow Town Court refused to release him from custody. He was not allowed to attend his own legal proceedings, so he is participating by means of a video-link from the prison. Notice that there is no possibility of escape, so placing the camera behind the bars is... just for show.

December 22th and 23th, 2003. The Basmanny Court prolonged pre-trial detention for three monthes.

January 15th, 2004. The Moscow Town Court ruled in favour of Basmanny Court's decision. One more time Mikhail Khodorkovsky wasn't allowed to attend the proceedings.

Since june 2004 and almost every day in the Meshchansky Court...