The Russian version of Esquire magazine has published a very interesting and extensive conversation between Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the writer Grigory Chkhartishvili – who is better known by his pen name Boris Akunin. Each day this week we will publish a section of this important article. Correspondence: CONVERSATION OF WRITER GRIGORY CHKHARTISHVILI (B.AKUNIN) WITH MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY When the editorial board proposed to me to get an interview from any person who would be interesting to me, I said right away: “Most interesting of all for me would be to talk with Mikhail Khodorkovsky”. The fate of the former richest person of Russia gives me no peace. And not at all because he is the richest. Every time somebody tries to stand up for Khodorkovsky an his comrades, without fail you always hear the reproach: come on, we have many people in our country who are being held behind bars unfairly. They don’t write about them in the newspapers, they don’t have a team of high-class lawyers looking out for them. Why is it, gentlemen, that you’re making such a fuss over this specific oligarch? I will explain why I’m making such a fuss. It was specifically on the YUKOS case that we lost the independence of the judiciary – an institution without which a democratic society can not exist. That means this is precisely the point to which we have to return. If we restore justice and legality in the case of Khodorkovsky, this will also help all the rest of the victims of our foundering Themis. For understandable reasons, the dialogue took place in epistolary form. It is given here without any abridgements. — Grigory Chkhartishvili