Translated by Tatiana Rudyak

My friend, Zhenya Kulakova, who defends political prisoner Viktor Filinkov, spends many hours in GULAG offices (penitentiary system offices are like any other government offices, but much worse). There, she does coloring in—always with one multicolored pencil.

I cannot do coloring in, but I like doing line drawings of empty black and white figures. That’s why, at the end of last year, I drew for Zhenya—and anyone else who likes coloring in—a coloring book of different creatures. Linor suggested adding a prison around them.

I had my doubts—do I really want to create prisons? And offer to color them?

Here’s what’s come of it . . .