Dear all, We earnestly implore you NOT to send Mikhail Borisovich parcels or packages by post! According to the Russian Correctional Code: “Convicts in minimum-security penal colonies are permitted to receive six parcels or deliveries and six postal packages per year” (article 121, clause 1). In addition, “the maximum weight possible for a single parcel or package is defined by postal regulations. The weight per delivery is not to exceed the weight laid down for one parcel’ (article 90, clause 1). This means that the number of things that can be sent to Mikhail Borisovich per year is narrowly limited by weight. So if he gets a parcel or postal package from you, he’ll be denied a delivery from his family that could contain something vital like warm clothes (by the end of November the temperature in Krasnokamensk was 31 degrees C. below zero). If you want to send foodstuffs, then send them, not to him personally, but to the general address of the colony marked ‘Humanitarian Aid’. If you want to send books, then please address them to the colony library where, so his lawyers say, Mikhail Borisovich is the only visitor and won’t fail to notice them. However, please don’t put any personal inscriptions in any of the books - otherwise it will be considered as a personal package and the weight of the book will be deducted from the overall weight allowed to be sent or delivered to him.


THIS IS IMPORTANT. PLEASE ACCEPT IT. MANY THANKS.