"Modern-day Russian penal colonies have become moneymaking enterprises... [E]very correctional facility has a production unit such as a sewing factory..."

"... or a woodworking or metalworking shop, with most of the profits going to intermediary companies buying and selling on low-cost goods, or to the prison authorities 'through kickbacks by companies that purchase the goods directly.'... [O]pposition politician Alexei Navalny... painted a grim picture of life inside Penal Colony No. 2, calling it 'our friendly concentration camp.' He accused guards of denying him proper medical care or the chance to sleep and described dehumanizing surveillance. Media investigations have reported abuse of prisoners at such facilities."

From "Brittney Griner may go to a Russian penal colony. Here’s what you need to know" (WaPo).

Here's the article linked at "our friendly concentration camp": "Putin foe Navalny once described prison life with dark humor. Now his messages are just dark" (WaPo). The "posts" in social media were made, we're told, by "anonymous members of his team," who have somehow received messages from Nalvany, messages written in his "familiar wry style":

“Greetings, everyone, from ‘Enhanced Control Sector A,’ ” a March 15 post said, announcing his arrival at the notorious Penal Colony No. 2 about 110 miles east of Moscow.... Navalny called his new home “our friendly concentration camp.”... 

“Three things never cease to surprise me: the starry sky above us, the categorical imperative inside us, and the amazing sensation of running the palm of your hand over your freshly shaved head,” he said, having been shaved on entry to the prison.... 

“The regime, the charter, the daily routine,” he mused in a post [the day he entered the facility]. “The literal fulfillment of endless rules. Obscene language and vulgar words are forbidden. And this ban is strictly observed. Can you imagine a prison where they don’t swear? Scary stuff.” 

Former inmates told Russian media that life in Penal Colony No. 2 consists of a constant forced rush, where you are always running late to perform endless meaningless tasks — making your bed over and over, for example.... 

Describing the dehumanizing prison surveillance... Navalny said it was as if “someone upstairs” read George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and then said, “Yeah, cool. Let’s do this.” 

Navalny’s name on his uniform bears “a beautiful red stripe” designating him as prone to escape. A video above his bed monitors him constantly, but that is not enough. He is awakened every hour at night by a guard who video tapes him and intones, “Two-thirty, prisoner Navalny. Registered in the preventive registry as prone to escape,” a post said. “In his place.” 

“And I go back to sleep in peace with the thought that there are people who remember me and will never lose me,” the post continued. “It’s great, isn’t it?... If you look at things with a sense of humor, you can live.”.... 

[A later post] described the prisoners in black uniforms and hats with ear flaps, doing morning exercises in the snow after being awakened at 6 a.m. and singing the national anthem, “Glory to our free Fatherland,” at precisely 6.05 a.m. 

“Just a delight,” the post said. “The loudspeaker on the pole commands, ‘March! Hands by your sides! Ready? On your feet! One, two, three, four!’ And the men in black with beastly faces march, rattling their boots. “At that moment I imagine I’m in a Russian remake of ‘Star Wars,’ where instead of the Imperial Guard, there are convicts in pea coats and fur hats, cigarettes in their mouths. Instead of laser rifles, they carry iron crowbars,” the post continued.

Such writing! As for "the categorical imperative inside us" — I presume this is a reference to Kant's "Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals": "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

Nalvany is endlessly surprised that the categorical imperative is inside us.