Lyudmila Ulitskaya Turns 70
Yesterday marked the 70th birthday of Lyudmila Ulitskaya, the prominent Russian novelist, and long-time supporter of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who co-authored “Dialogues” – a correspondence exchange between Khodorkovsky and herself, published in 2009 in the Russian magazine “Znamya”.
During their year-long letter exchange, Ulitskaya learned a lot about Khodorkovsky, and their correspondence covered everything from their personal backgrounds to political motives. She frequently speaks of Khodorkovsky, and in an interview to The Observer, during a visit to London in 2011, said:
“I believe that Khodorkovsky is in jail because the whole society was so scared that no one stood up for his defence. There were threats: the court was afraid, the witnesses, the judge, because no one had the courage to speak up and that saddens me. That loss of dignity frustrates me because our society had only just started overcoming its fear after so many years of oppressive rule … I was travelling around Russia a lot and I would constantly come across different traces of his charitable work, he spent a lot of money on education, setting up children’s homes, giving schools the latest computer equipment. My support for Khodorkovsky primarily lies in how much money he spent on charitable enterprises.”
