October 25, 2006 was the third anniversary of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s arrest in Novosibirsk’s city airport. To mark this regrettable occasion, many courageous and caring citizens chose to demonstrate their support. The Press Centre for the defence of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev and their attorneys would like to express their deep appreciation to all those concerned about Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s fate.

We’d like to thank all the supporters of MBK who took part in actions, pickets and meetings in the cities of Moscow, Novosibirsk, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Barnaul, Voronezh and Pskov.

We’re grateful, too, to all those who sent words of support and encouragement to Mikhail Khodorkovsky. On October 25, 250 or so messages were posted on our web-site. Among those who wrote to Mikhail Khodorkovsky were State Duma deputy Alexey Kondaurov; the well-known politician Alexey Melnikov; the writer and poet Sergey Gandlevsky; and many others, from Kaliningrad to the Far East of Russia, from China to Canada. Messages came from engineers and doctors, teachers and scientists, businessmen and lawyers, public associations and families, pensioners and students. You can read them at http://www.khodorkovsky.ru/society/3_years/html.

We’d also like to thank all those professionals, politicians, writers, actors and public activists who agreed to take part in the poll “How will Khodorkovsky find Russia when he is released in five years’ time?”, conducted by the Press Centre. You can find the results at http://www.khodorkovsky.ru/society/comments/5886.html.

Our thanks too to the 1614 visitors to the www.khodorkovsky.ru website who took part in another poll in which we asked readers:
• When will Mikhail Khodorkovsky be released? (48% - in 5 years at best)
• What plan does the country have for the next 5 years? (56% - Russia will become a less humane place)
• What plan does the country have regarding Mikhail Khodorkovsky? (55% - it will try to forget him)
You can find detailed results of this poll on our website at http://www.khodorkovsky.ru/society/polls/5926.html.

October 25, 2006 has shown that no matter how hard the authorities try to hide Mikhail Khodorkovsky away from Russians behind barbed wire and across a six-time-zone gap from Moscow – they can’t. Russia remembers Mikhail Khodorkovsky and awaits his release.