In August 2026 a shortage of special yellow envelopes arose in Berlin, and 9–10 September the story became known to the media. There is news that reality could not have invented better than itself.
In Berlin, the prosecutor's office encountered a problem worthy of a separate episode of a bureaucratic comedy:
there are convicted criminals.
there are verdicts.
there are prisons.
there are also places in prisons.
There was only one thing missing.
Envelopes.
And not ordinary ones, but special yellow envelopes for official correspondence. They are the ones used to send legally significant notifications — including about when a person must appear to begin serving their sentence.
And at that point the justice system said, for a time:
— So… without an envelope, we can't put him in prison.
One can imagine the conversation:
— The verdict has entered into force?
— Yes.
— The person has to go to prison?
— Yes.
— Is there a place?
— There is.
— Then what's the problem?
— The office.
Because of the envelope shortage, the sending of approximately 1500 letters over two weeks had to be postponed, and among them were notifications about the start of a prison term.
That is, somewhere a person could quite well be sitting at home and thinking:
“Well then… the state knows where I am.”
And the state did know.
The state was simply looking for an envelope.
The fact that some places in the prisons remained empty at the same time looks especially fine.
The prison:
— We're ready.
The prosecutor's office:
— So are we.
The convicted person:
— In principle, I understood too.
The yellow envelope:
— But I didn't.
The cause was not only a banal shortage of office supplies: the system of official mailings was switching to new envelope forms, and the stock turned out to be insufficient.
Later the supply did arrive, and the work continued.
But the story itself is already wonderful.
Because we are used to thinking that a person's freedom is decided by judges, lawyers and laws.
And it turned out that sometimes between a person and prison stands the last defender:
a yellow envelope worth a few cents. 😄
And if someday someone says:
“One person decides nothing,”
one can answer:
— Possibly. But one envelope — oh yes it does.
