Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is serving his two and a half years sentence for violating parole at penal colony no.2 in the provincial town of Pokrov, 100 kilometres east of Moscow. It is part of a sprawling network of some 684 work colonies that today holds some 393,000 prisoners. The system requires inmates to carry out menial labour for a meagre salary and is routinely flagged by Russian advocacy groups for imposing long working hours and overlooking harsh conditions.

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