MK Karelia (the newspaper for Karelia – the region in which Mikhail Khodorkovsky is currently imprisoned) invited readers to submit questions to Khodorkovsky. A translation of his answers can be read below.

1. Being found in not so distant places,[1] serving a term for goodness knows what, do you still have the sense that Russia needs you?  Or can Khodorkovsky nevertheless be able to also feel he is needed “over there”, where, in your words, things are just fine without you?  After all, your son, living in the USA, has no doubt become needed there… Anna Andreyevna, teacher

I do not doubt that if I set myself such a goal, I could live and work in another country too, in different places, although it would be somewhat complex in the DPRK or Iran.  However, Russia is my Motherland, with which I feel an indissoluble connection, for which I feel responsibility.  Very much has been done, experienced here.  Here is where the people about whom I am not indifferent and who need me are.  That is what I think, and I have no other explanation.

2. On 20 December 2012, the Moscow City Court reduced Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s and Platon Lebedev’s prison term from 13 to 11 years.  I do not think that this brought you much joy, inasmuch as you are insisting on your complete innocence.   But why is the Moscow City Court suddenly making such relaxations?  With what is this connected?  And do you believe that you and Platon will be acquitted? Margarita Ivanovna, pensioner

This is the latest intrigue aimed at not allowing a real reconsideration of the case.  But the case is going to be reconsidered; this is inevitable, inasmuch as a country that respects itself cannot leave such a disgrace on its list of applicable legal precedents.  The architects of my and Platon’s criminal cases have undermined the legal basis of the economy.  It will not be possible for them to just forget such a thing.  Nor will they be allowed to.

3. Previously, they hid people unacceptable to the regime in psychiatric hospitals, now they lock them up in jails.  And what do you consider, which is better for a person (safer for the psyche) – to sit several years in jail like you or to be found in a psychiatric hospital periodically coming out to liberty?  Nikolai Mikhailovich, pensioner

Beyond any doubt whatsoever, jail is better than punitive psychiatry.  Here, you are a subject, who can stand up for his rights.  At the end of the day, here you can die with dignity.  There, you are merely an object, a vegetable, into which modern drugs easily transform a person.  I have seen people after a course of chlorpromazine…

4. Mikhail Borisovich, the impression is being created that you have never been afraid of anything.  But is such a thing really possible?  After all, each of us does fear something – fear is a normal thing for a person to feel. Vera, grade 11 pupil

You are mistaken, I get scared easily.  A jarring sound (thunder, for example, or some bloodcurdling special effect in contemporary films) can literally make me jump.  Something my wife, who truly is not afraid of anything, regularly laughs at.  You simply need to learn, having “jumped”, to come back to the same place and to stand there to the end.

5. Mikhail Borisovich, Vladimir Putin wished you freedom and health during his last big press conference in Moscow.  The president declared that he did not interfere even once in the activity of the law-enforcement agencies, which were investigating the case of the ex-head of YUKOS.  “I am convinced that everything will be in accordance with the law, Mikhail Borisovich will come out to liberty.  God give him health”, said Putin to journalists.  And what would you wish our president? Natalia

The fact that I am Putin’s political adversary absolutely does not get in the way of my having a normal attitude toward him as a person.  So my wishes for Vladimir Vladimirovich are genuinely symmetrical: for good health and fortune.  I am convinced that the post of President is not an essential condition for this.

6. Mikhail Borisovich, you wrote in your book that you are strong in logic, but not in emotions.  Can it truly be that you have never cried?  No one and nothing can force you to shed tears? Irina, KSPA student

My view is unchanged – a man can cry only about the death of someone he was not able to defend or save.  In any other situation he is obligated to fight.

7. “Lack of education played a cruel joke on our rulers” – you write about the clumsy actions of our leaders, attempting to fill shop counters at the end of the 80s with the help of cooperatives.  So what is getting in the way of the men in power rebuilding our economy now?  Why in your view are we still dependent on the price of oil, gas? Alla Yurievna, worker of culture

Our dependence on oil and gas prices is a direct result of illiterate management of the country.  The country is badly managed because today’s political elite is incompetent.  It is attempting to compensate for its incompetence by freezing the development of society.  Such “freezing” hits Russia’s human capital and this means a modern, complex economy.  As for going back, to the industrial stage, we can only do this by sharply reducing peoples’ standard of living, since this place in the world’s division of labour is occupied by the Asian countries with their far cheaper workforce.

8. Mikhail Borisovich, recently, Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin asked the Moscow City Court to repeal a decision on the recovery of 17 billion roubles from you and Platon Lebedev.  He asserts that in 2004, according to a verdict of the Commercial Court, NK YUKOS executives had already paid out 98 billion roubles to the Ministry of Taxes and Charges of the Russian Federation, as restitution for the material harm caused by them; what was being spoken of then included the non-payment of taxes.  The claims, in both 2004 and 2005, had one and the same subject matter and one and the same set of grounds for their submission.  What do you think? Will the court pay attention to this declaration of Lukin’s?  And in general, what is your attitude toward the institution of ombudsmen in our country? Ivan, PetrSU student

I am always glad when someone respected considers it possible to publicly point out the obvious absurdities of the verdict issued to me and Platon; which is phony and lawless to the core.  Not only the security of citizens, but also the reputation of the country depends on the readiness of judicial power to protect the rights of people, including correcting previously allowed errors.

9. They are saying a lot now in the mass media about the “Magnitsky act” and the “Dima Yakovlev law”.  So what do you think about these laws? Andrey, eleventh grader

I consider that, in the modern world, the violation of human rights cannot be dictated by the internal affairs of individual countries. This is a false notion of sovereignty as is the right of an elite to mistreat its fellow citizens.  Respectable society is no place for the holders of such views, be they Russians or Americans.  And to hide behind children, i.e. to exchange one’s foreign visas and accounts for the right of children to acquire a family, is a complete disgrace, a manifestation of instincts of serfdom. But now, to ensure Russians themselves an opportunity to adopt orphans is a step in the right direction.  It is a pity that we are taking it as if though “in revenge” against the Americans, and not in a timely manner and at the dictate of conscience.  By the same token, I am not convinced that these plans are going to be realised in today’s Russia and under today’s quality of its leadership.  Everything may end up getting confined to a brief PR campaign and then dwindling “to nothing”.

10. Many are predicting your fate for Navalny.  What would you advise Alexey?  To flee the country or to remain here and await his lot? Valery, student

I have already said if the Kremlin decides that Navalny has indeed become politically dangerous, they are going to lock him up.  To leave or to go to jail is a personal and not at all simple choice.  Here one cannot rely on other people’s advice.

11. Natalia Gevorkyan cannot stop being amazed by the fact that you are the same age as Johnny Depp.  But what actor do you like?  And in general are you a lover of the cinema and the theatre?  In your book you write that before jail you did not go often to exhibitions and theatres, work did not allow you to.  But after confinement will you change your attitude toward institutions of culture? Olesya, worker of culture

Of the modern-day Hollywood actors I like Harrison Ford, Sandra Bullock, and Julia Roberts.  I had instinctively wanted to name names of actors of intellectual cinema, so as not to be reproached for indulging the tastes of the mass audience, but I am an ordinary person, the same as the majority in the country, with ordinary predilections, and on top of that with limited access to the latest novelties in the cinema and a complete lack of access to the theatre.  Of our actors, I like Yekaterina Guseva, Ivan Urgant, and Sergey Bezrukov. I often catch myself at the thought that I very much want to pay a visit to a conservatory, even though I do not have a good grasp of classical music.

12. You write that you have leadership in your soul.  Does this mean that when you are released, you will once again be trying to be the best?  Have you decided in what field you will become a leader? Maria, pedagogue

A leader will be a leader in any place he ends up.  On the contrary, a refusal to be a leader (for example in the family) requires conscious efforts.  Where and when I will end up in the future I do not know for now.  This does not depend on me alone.

13. You have said that Putin and his entourage do not believe in the people.  This being said, you admit that the main problem of our society is extreme inertia and apathy.  Surely you are not hoping that our somnolent people is going to wake up once and for all at some time?  When and under what conditions can this happen? Dmitry Petrovich, builder

The Russian people is not homogeneous.  Large cities are already found in the late industrial era, while Moscow and Saint Petersburg are even in the post-industrial.  At the same time, clan/tribal relations have still been remained in force in the North Caucasus – and not only there.

In order to become a modern country, Russia needs a 60-70% post-industrial and new-industrial segment (the knowledge economy).  This will happen.  This is not just an historical necessity, but also, in the medium-term prospect, an inevitability.  All we can do is bring the emergence of such an era in Russia closer or push it further away, but we cannot call it off.  We are the active part of society, those who want and are able to get people to follow us in politics, culture, business, and science.  Those who make a population into a people, a society.  It is up to us.  Today’s lagging behind by the country is our responsibility.  And in history, the people always goes after the active part of society, following, in the main, the standards and guideposts formulated by it.  This is why one should not blame the people for everything and in this way transfer the responsibility from an ailing head onto a healthy one.