MOSCOW – Russia's most famous prisoner, the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, spends much of his time tidying his cellblock, reading letters and visiting the mess for meals, with porridge often on the menu.
But perhaps the most maddening thing, he suggested, is being forced to watch Russian state TV and selected propaganda films for more than eight hours a day in what the authorities call an "awareness raising" program that has replaced hard labor for political prisoners.
"Reading, writing or doing anything else," is prohibited, Navalny said of the forced screen time. "You have to sit in a chair and watch TV." And if an inmate nods off, he said, the guards shout, "Don't sleep, watch!"
In an interview with the New York Times, his first with a news organization since his arrest in January, Navalny talked about his life in prison, about why Russia has cracked down so hard on the opposition and dissidents, and about his conviction that "Putin's regime," as he calls it, is doomed to collapse.
Navalny started a major opposition movement to expose high-level corruption and challenge President Vladimir Putin at the polls. He was imprisoned in March.
Navalny has not been entirely mute since his incarceration in Penal Colony No. 2, just east of Moscow. Through his lawyers, who visit him regularly, he has sent out occasional social media posts.
Nor is he being actively muzzled by the Kremlin. When asked about Navalny's social media presence on Tuesday, Putin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, said that it was "not our business" if Navalny spoke out.
But the written exchange of questions and answers covering 54 handwritten pages is by far his most comprehensive and wide-ranging account.
In today's Russia, Navalny made clear, hours spent watching state television and movies chosen by the warden are the experience of a political prisoner, a status Amnesty International has assigned to Navalny.
Despite his circumstances, Navalny was upbeat about Russia's future prospects, and he outlined his strategy for achieving political change through the electoral system even in an authoritarian state.
The modern experience of a Russian political prisoner, Navalny said, is mostly "psychological violence," with mind-numbing screen time playing a big role.
Navalny, 45, conceded that he has struggled to remain visible in Russian politics through a tumultuous period as the government has clamped down on the opposition and the news media.
The protests that erupted after disputed Belarusian elections last year spooked the Kremlin, he suggested. The Putin government's other worry, he said, was the electoral strategy he has devised and calls "smart voting."
Under the strategy, Navalny's organization endorses the candidates it thinks have a chance of winning in regional and parliamentary elections, which will be held next month. These are not always their own candidates, but often more moderate opposition figures.
The Kremlin was so concerned about the upcoming elections, he said, that it engineered a crackdown this year not just on his group and other activists but on moderate opposition politicians, civil society groups and independent news media outlets.
Navalny suggested that while the crackdown may prove to be a tactical success for Putin, it may also be a long-term liability.
"Putin solved his tactical question: not allowing us to take away the majority in the Duma," Navalny said, speaking of the Russian Parliament's lower house. "In this way, he highly appraised the potential of 'smart voting.' But to achieve this, he had to completely change the political system, to shift to a principally different, far harsher level of authoritarianism."
Longer term, Navalny said, the repression carries risks as Putin makes enemies of local and regional leaders "who were thrown out of the political system together with us."
