To this day, I do not really know why they put me in jail. And none of the participants in these events could explain this to me. Although I have long been out of prison and live in a well-fed and calm Norway, but every night I wake up from nightmares and involuntarily try on any life situation — how it could have developed in prison. You may not believe me, Dear Reader, how many people today question the Holocaust or reject the fact of Stalinist repression. I think that the same misconceptions will arise about the repressive policies of dictatorial regimes in Central Asia, where people themselves have created hell on earth. I got out of this underworld and realized that I had to tell my story to people so that it would serve as a science for the next generations. My book is a true story about the tragedy of Serge Ivakov, and how many such broken destinies are there all over Uzbekistan? The image of the main character is collective, but its main prototype was the author himself, his fate, and almost everything described in this book I happened to experience myself. My case is an ordinary one for the so-called second wave of mass repressions in Uzbekistan. Not only me, but also many of the former political prisoners who were previously far from literature, took up the pen. They consider it their duty to talk about their experiences. Conscience and memory do not ever let them go. Once in captivity, I began to keep a record of my time in prison from the very first days, literally. At the time, I was not sure if I would ever get out of there alive. But my notes were miraculously released, and after my release, I took a typewriter and typed the text myself. Later, in 1999, I met computer hackers and they, either out of respect or out of pity, gave me an old IBM 386, and that is how it all started. Yes, My Dear Reader, everything, absolutely everything started with the old computer! My human rights work, and journalism, and everything else. Many human rights organizations still use my work in their reports, and they do not consider it necessary to mention the author's name. I read the archives of a Russian human rights organization, and they didn't even think to put me on the list of repressed people in Uzbekistan. I was informed that it turns out that I was convicted not on a political, but on a criminal article. Amazing naivety or a well-planned meanness! Has anyone in Uzbekistan ever been convicted under a political article?