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Edward Limonov in Lefortovo

My dearest friends and readers.

From the silent eternity of Lefortovo Prison I am sending you tight, compact: Heil, brothers!

Let me to tell you a story of one day in life of Edward Veniaminovich.

At six I was risen from my iron bed with a voice of a prison officer: "Good morning. To rise!" Voice is expedited from a 20-by-20 centimeter hole in the iron door, called a "fooder" ("kormushka" in Russian). I got up, thinking that today is my 270th day in prison and only even because of that that is not a good morning. But I put on my pants, taking them from under my pillow. My only cell-mate: fat young fellow accused of financial fraud with a false avisos, moaned and grimaced. Then he got up, a minute later than me. I put my covers on my iron bed then above I put a blue marine blanket. Then I went to toilet bowl and urinated. Then I cleared my nose by inhaling water with a both nostrils, and pushing it out of nostrils one by one. Then I washed only a forehead, nose and cheeks. I went by my bed, I prostate myself on my blanket and coverted myself with a prisoner's "fufaika". It stinks.

I covered my eyes with a towel. Light never goes out here, it's always a light on in prison. My fat cell-mate was left to his sort. And his sort was coming: noisy sound of garbage-collecting vehicle. Iron door was opened with all possible iron noise in most undelicate manner, and my cell-mate throwed newspaper carried our garbate to prison's garbage can.

"The refrigerator?" asked one of garbage collecting officers. "No thanks," said my cell-mate.

"Refrigerator" means do you want to take some of your food from the refrigerator?

Then mate cleared his nostrils with a noise of an elephant. He is over 100 kilograms, 185, and 31 years old. I call him "Ikhtiander" for his maniacal love of water. He could spend a tons of water, he likes to wash clothes and he washes his hands five times in 15 minutes. He probably was born under the washing tub, he is a maniac of washing. Maybe his mother was a washing woman, I don't know. He is a Jew and he likes skinheads. He is a radical. He said that Afghan problems as well as Palestinian, Azerbaidjani and Chechen problems could by solved only by nuclear weapons.

Elefphant business over, Ikhtiander combs his hair and slowly, carefully, with a dozens of different noises, goes to bed. As a 90 years old man in a dying coma.

Now it is my turn to be disturbed. I lay under fufaika in wiating when the fooder will be opened again with a preaching voice: "Letters, visits to administration, demands." Suddenly I realize that today is Sunday so today they don't collect letters, don't sign you to visit to administration, as well as don't accept written demands. It is so good, with relief I fell asleep. As a matter of fact prisoners wildly communicate with administraiton. If you want throw out your shoes you should write a dmand. Once I tried to get rid of shoes, it took me 12 days. I wrote such a strange demands as "Please, give the order to put a rubber band in my pants."

Everytime when you went to watch a television after 10 p.m., you should write a demand to a prisons director. Please, let me. Usually I write demands for notbooks and pens.

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