Shortly before the rally in Bolotnaya Square, on Monday, May 6, the writer Grigory Chkhartishvili, better known as Boris Akunin, answered several questions put to him by Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Russian Press Centre. Three hours later, in the same black sweater which he wears in his office, the writer stepped out in the cold wind of Bolotnaya Square and spoke to the assembled thousands of demonstrators, saying, among other things, that, “Any power that has failed to create a dialogue with society, that has failed to keep civil peace in the country will definitely collapse.”

Akunin told the Press Centre that what interests him most today is the period that would follow a change of the regime. He added that this was a subject he would be particularly keen to discuss with Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Akunin and Khodorkovsky have previously corresponded, in a published exchange which can be read here.

A translation of Akunin’s brief  interview with the Press Centre can be read below:

To what extent did the contemporary political trials (Bolotnaya, Pussy Riot, Navalny) stem from the Khodorkovsky and Lebedev trial? Do you see some sort of a common DNA in these trials?

I don’t think so. I think these are different things. I think that the “Yukos case” started, on the one hand, as Putin’s fight against the unlimited power of oligarchs, and on the other hand as an attempt by one oligarch to behave differently, not as others were behaving, that is to work for the country and not to line his own pockets, and that’s why the conflict happened. This happened at a time when [Russian] society was in general still totally disinterested in public problems. But when the public movement in defence of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev started (and this, I believe, happened, I’d say, some four years ago), this already seems to me to be an event of roughly the same type.

Will the Bolotnaya rally, if many people show up today, be able to hasten the time when Khodorkovsky and Lebedev will be released?

Only if very many people show up. And very many people means a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s possible in the conditions of contemporary Russia. Not yet, I think. But sooner or later this will happen, of course.

Four and a half years ago your correspondence with Mikhail Khodorkovsky was published. If this correspondence were taking place now, what subject would be the most interesting for you? What would be your first question for Khodorkovsky?

Here is what my first question for Mikhail Borisovich would be. Let’s think about tomorrow, let’s think of how it will be after Putin. I’d very much like to know how he imagines that period, in all of its spheres: public, economic, political, etc. In general, all of us more or less understand that the current regime is some sort of an anachronism already; I don’t know how much longer it will last, but it will end. But what’s next? This is what interests me the most now.

The video of Akunin’s interview: