The annual “Return of Names” event takes place on the eve of Political Prisoner Day — October 30.
On this day in 1974, prisoners in the Mordovia and Perm labor camps declared a hunger strike to protest political repression in the USSR.
In Toronto, the action organized by Memorial has been held for many years near the Raoul Wallenberg Monument — dedicated to the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II and became a symbol of moral courage and human solidarity.
Decades later, political prisoners still exist in Russia, and many are again forced to go on hunger strikes as one of the few remaining ways to draw attention to unbearable conditions and injustice.
Since September 25, 2025, human rights activist Mikhail Kriger has been on a hunger strike, protesting constant harassment — repeated solitary confinement on fabricated charges and deprivation of correspondence.
This year, participants of the action read aloud 1,506 names, 22 messages from today’s Russian political prisoners, and 12 names of people they personally wished to remember.
Thanks to volunteers and human rights defenders, the event took place in 95 cities across 37 countries.
Recently, Memorial presented the animated short “My Dear Ones, I’m Writing to You From…”, created by the creative group East Pond.
It tells the story of letters that helped people survive in the GULAG and was made for the traveling exhibition “The Right to Correspondence.”
Based on archival materials from Memorial and the book of the same name, the film focuses not so much on the hardships of imprisonment as on the tiny spark of hope that came from staying connected to the outside world.
Letters helped people survive then — and they can still do so today.
Writing to a prisoner, offering support, and sharing news is a way to keep silence from winning.
Watch the film on Memorial’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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