New Years Congratulations

Dear Mikhail Borisovich!

Happy New Year! I wan to convey to you and your family the most sincere wishes of health and happiness. I believe in your guts and courage, they will not betray you. My warmest regards for New Year’s Day and Christmas to you, your parents, wife and children.

- Alina, St. Petersburg


Happy New Year, Mikhail!

Let this year fulfill your and your family’s hopes!

Health and good luck to you!

- Evgeny


Dear Mikhail!

It has been a very hard year for you and Lebedev. I wish you and your family the most luck possible in this situation, and a happy New Year. I hope to see you one day and talk about politics.

Sincerely, your friend

- Evgeny Shunko, Michigan


Convey Mr. Khodorkovsky my wishes for health and pleasant unexpected joy in 2006. I hope when he is released to freedom the country will change for the better. No, not the country, but the nation-state. Or society? It does not matter. Everything is going to be all right.

Sincerely,

Valery


Mikhail!

Let my New Year’s congratulation add to the many thousands of congratulations sent to you during these days. Happy New Year! I am convinced that 2006 will bring you freedom. Do not even argue by analyzing reality and current developments. Nothing can be taken in terms of common sense in this country, which makes latter wonderful. I do not know about you, but I believe in miracles [and] it is people who perform them. One more time, happy New Year!

Sincerely,

S.Agafonov

Dear Mikhail Borisovich,

Russia is celebrating Christmas and New Year; Russia is reviewing her performance; Russia is thinking about the future. What will it be like? Opinions differ widely. The 2005 political landscape is dominated by your trial and your imprisonment. You are still a significant, appealing figure in the complex political arena of this country. May God give you strength to withstand your tribulations, and may Providence safeguard your near and dear ones. It is unlikely that the circle of your friends and followers has grown wider or more numerous, but it includes those for whom Khodorkovsky is not a rich patron, not a tycoon, but first of all a thinker, a man who did not leave Russia, even with the tide turning against him. Keep in mind the lines of [the poet Anna] Akhmatova: "I always stood by my people, no matter where my people had the misfortune to be." Our people are one of the most complex phenomena of the last century and of the 20th and the future 21st centuries. It may not be a good idea to overestimate the moral virtues of many Russians. Therefore, the job of the politicians who take on the responsibility of talking to the people, of speaking on their behalf, of looking for ways of enabling them to develop further, is all the more involved and demanding. I believe that Fate will give you another chance to take an active part in all this. Keep well.
Yours truly,

- Nikolai, Tomsk