My Fellow Prisoners Read online

  I got to know a guy who was doing time for a paedophilia-related crime and who was consistently refused all requests for parole and a reduced sentence.

  Alexei had ended up in prison at the age of nineteen. He’s now twenty-two – a nice young guy who doesn’t have any tattoos or other ‘peculiarities’ that often characterize prisoners. He’s hard-working and does amazing things on the old metal-turning lathe.

  His story is simple. As a teenager he was given a suspended sentence for robbery. It was pretty run-of-the-mill – he had one too many, nicked a mobile phone from an acquaintance, an hour later found himself in custody. He got four years suspended.

  To this day he gets very embarrassed when I call him a ‘bandit’ and ask him to explain why he did it.

  He’s clearly ashamed about the whole thing, and doesn’t even want to talk about it.

  Two years went by; he was still going to school. Aged eighteen he met a girl, Ira, at a disco. She was underage. They started living together, at her parents’ home. They hoped to get married as soon as they could. But then the campaign against paedophilia started. The town they lived in wasn’t big, everyone knew everything that went on. The local police officer received his ‘quota’ demand, and so he went into action. The parents of the girl wrote letters, the bride-to-be sobbed in the courtroom, but it was all to no avail. The judge ‘understood everything’ but she too had a quota to fill and a campaign to adhere to.

  The result: five years, taking into account the suspended sentence.

  It was the minimum sentence the judge could impose, if you ignore the fact that the verdict was completely unfair in the first place.

  For two years Ira waited for Alexei. They hoped that the court would reconsider his case, that he would be released on parole. But, alas, it became clear that none of these bureaucrats was prepared to go against the grain.

  Even visits were impossible.

  After two years Alexei wrote to Ira telling her not to wait for him. And he stopped replying to her letters.

  I look into his eyes. No, there are no tears, just a well-hidden, deep-rooted despair.

  He’s a strong, good-natured guy, like so many other strong, uncomplicated people. They took away not just his freedom but also his happiness. He doesn’t complain, he accepts those who are his seniors, his ‘bosses’, as a force of nature. He was caught up by a wave and thrown on to the shore – alone, without a home, without a family.

  What can you do?

  But I am left feeling angry and bitter about this hopelessness, about the cruelty of our system, about the cries of people who don’t want to know the truth and demand only one thing: ‘Crucify him!’

  Everyone needs to stop; look around you! Not everything is that simple and unambiguous.

  During my time in prison I’ve met a good number of such unfortunate people. Some of them have their partners waiting for them. They have a long wait. Some get married in prison. Children come along. And the fathers are still there behind bars, condemned as ‘paedophiles’.

  What sort of people are we, if we allow such a thing?

  ‘The investigation will get things straight’

  When I read articles, letters or blogs I am often amazed at people’s genuine belief in the integrity of the police and judiciary, and how their pronouncements and interviews are taken as a fairly reliable source of information.

  I will admit, of course, that many representatives of these professions, in their personal lives, are entirely decent citizens who, like the rest of us, lie only occasionally – when they have to – and feel bad about doing so.

  When they’re at work and part of ‘the system’, however, they lie virtually all the time, and as a rule tell the truth only to gain someone’s trust – which then enables them to lie more successfully afterwards. They lie to individuals, to the court, to one another. These are the rules of a system which, if for this reason alone, needs to be dismantled. It just isn’t a place where honest people can function.

  I happened to come across a rather interesting person in prison. A con-man, a member of one of the ‘law enforcement’ gangs. Led by a colonel serving as prosecutor, the gang comprised dozens of operatives, a customs officer, a few other people of official rank, a civilian intermediary (my new acquaintance) and a trader.

  Its ‘business’ was of the standard kind: the customs officer would find out who had just received some merchandise at the warehouse, the prosecutor (as he then was) would initiate criminal proceedings, the operatives would ‘arrest’ the goods and pass them on to the trader who sold them at profit, whereas a notional cost was returned as ‘compensation for the loss’.

  While all this was going on, the owners of the property would be rotting away in jail; afterwards they would either be released or given the full treatment, depending on how ‘perceptive’ they’d proved to be.

  And so it continued until one fine day when this particular cabal happened to stumble across a bigger racket than their own.

  While the prosecutor slunk off to Armenia, and the operatives were released on bail, the civilian members of the group ended up in pre-trial detention. It’s well known, after all, that ‘ravens don’t peck out other ravens’ eyes’.

  Despite what had happened, my cellmate still retained a steadfast faith in the ‘law-enforcement agencies’. ‘The investigation will get things straight’ was his stock response to any flagrant abuse we might hear about from fellow inmates, or see on television.

  At first this really got on everyone’s nerves. In prison there just isn’t anyone so naïve as to put their trust in ‘the investigation’. But then I found a useful outlet for my cellmate’s way of thinking. For example, when we watch a TV report on a police general’s luxury residence worth millions of dollars – gilded toilets, piles of jewellery, the works – I immediately ask: ‘How come nobody knew? He must have been paying off the top brass, surely? What’s the investigation going to say?’

  ‘The investigation will get things straight,’ is my cellmate’s inevitable response. ‘No doubt the money for the house was provided by the general’s children who earned it honestly working in a state company; criminal elements who’d had their wings clipped by the general must have set him up, and the most he’s guilty of is dereliction of duty.’

  When I first heard this kind of reasoning, I assumed my cellmate was joking. But he was quite serious, and a couple of weeks later his version was confirmed by the official press secretary of the ‘respected’ Investigative Committee.

  And so it went on. Whether it was the latest government bandit shown on TV or an article about a truly dreadful case like a drunk copper running over a woman and her child, my cellmate would declare that ‘the investigation will get things straight’; and he’d come up with some totally absurd version of events (along the lines of ‘they threw themselves under the wheels, and in any case he’d been dismissed from the force long before’). And soon enough this version would be officially confirmed. He got it right every single time.

  But nothing lasts for ever. The time came for his verdict. None of us were surprised when the operatives got suspended sentences, the trader ten years, and my cellmate – fourteen.

  The investigation had straightened things out all right …

  But to say that to his face would have been cruel. Back in the cell, not a word was spoken …

  After a couple of days the shock wore off and he sat down to lodge a cassation appeal, saying: ‘It’s okay, the investigation will get things straight.’

  Soon after that he was transferred, but we heard on the prison grapevine that his sentence remained unchanged.

  So when you’re next watching television and hear the words ‘criminal proceedings have been initiated’ or ‘the investigation has established’, before you allow yourself even for a second to believe what’s being said, just think: maybe the person who has written these words is a colleague of my cellmate, the con-man.

  At any rate, in the regular announcements of the
Investigative Committee’s press secretary, I hear his voice loud and clear.

  The Guards

  I’m writing these notes because I want people who care about these things to know what I have personally experienced in prison.

  Over time I’ve turned from an ordinary victim into an interested observer, and I’ve discovered that for many people the prison world remains terra incognita. And yet in our country one in every hundred people is currently in prison; one in ten (maybe by now one in seven) of the male population passes through prison at some point in their lives.

  Moreover, prison has a terrible effect on the majority of both prisoners and guards. It’s not yet clear, in fact, which group is affected more.

  Society has to do something about this human tragedy. And for a start people need to know about it.

  This story is about the guards.

  The people who feel most uninhibited in prison are the police investigators, known in the vernacular as the ‘operatives’. Their official duty is to prevent crimes that someone might be thinking of committing, and to uncover those that have already been committed. As a result they’re not much constrained by prison regulations. Facial rearrangements and endless interrogations, mobile phones and drugs – these form just a small part of their standard arsenal.

  The operatives usually know how to work with people and are good at it. They know how to talk, how to listen. But there are exceptions.

  Take the head of the police investigation unit, a 27-year-old called Pelshe, whose first name and patronymic are so hard to pronounce that by common agreement he’s long been known simply as Sergei Sergeyevich. He’s not a man for small talk. He fixes his transparent, ice-cold eyes right into yours and lurches about desperately, caught in a verbal trap of harrumphing and interjections. When he’s sober, that is.

  In fact, he’s rarely sober. When you see those slightly protruding ears glowing red like traffic-lights and catch that faint whiff, you know he’s in a good mood and his speech will flow smoothly. But at the same time it’s a signal to the unwary: ‘Keep your mouth shut.’ Alcohol has no effect on the professional operative’s memory.

  However, Sergei Sergeyevich is just as likely to treat the most taciturn prisoner to a dose of his none-too-gentle fists. He hits people like a true professional, leaving minimum trace, though the recipient spends a week groaning and pissing blood. But no one reckons this ‘talking to’ is particularly bad. The general opinion is that he’s not an animal; ‘freelance operatives’ are far rougher.

  As well as applying his fists, Sergei Sergeyevich can also treat you to tea and sweets, and give you cigarettes; he’ll even let you make a call on his mobile. Though you can be sure he’ll make a note of the number.

  Sergei Sergeyevich regards the visits of ad-hoc commissions as an unavoidable evil, and his attitude is no different from that of the other inhabitants of the prison colony. In order to feed these numerous commissions, Sergei Sergeyevich generally collects funds from the staff. But if it’s getting close to pay-day, then he might look for additional ‘support’ from the prisoners themselves.

  The detainees take an understanding approach to the problem and chip in. Sometimes, instead, they ask him to ‘sell’ back something previously taken from them, like their telephone or another forbidden item. And then the ‘high contracting parties’ reach a consensus, and a deal is struck.

  Sergei Sergeyevich lies to the court and commissions without a second thought.

  ‘Sergei Sergeyevich, who wrote this two-page explanation?’ the judge asks.

  ‘The convict Badayev, in his own hand,’ replies Pelshe firmly. ‘As is written.’

  ‘But Badayev is illiterate; it says so in his personal case file. He only had two years of school!’

  Sergei Sergeyevich says nothing, the traffic-lights glow red … You might think he’s feeling embarrassed, but we all know the real reason. And Sergei Sergeyevich is lost in his own thoughts. He doesn’t give a stuff about the court. The convict Badayev does give a stuff, but nobody else gives a stuff about Badayev.

  In the difficult years of reforms, representatives of the criminal world (so-called ‘overseers’) kept the prisoners fed and prevented needless conflicts between them, while also embedding a criminal ideology. Now Sergei Sergeyevich and his colleagues do the same thing, effectively training up the future foot-soldiers of the criminal world.

  ‘You’re not a person, and those around you aren’t people!’; ‘You should just listen to your superiors and not think when following an order!’; ‘The less you think, the better your life!’

  These are the maxims that are hammered into the heads of 18- to 25-year-old detainees, and as a result the percentage that ends up back in jail is astronomical. Those who manage to stay out of prison do so in spite of it, not thanks to it.

  In fact, this is why nobody is particularly surprised when a slightly more inebriated than usual Sergei Sergeyevich yells at the top of his voice at roll call: ‘Who’s the overseer here?! I’m the overseer!!!’

  Indeed he is.

  ‘Sergei Sergeyevich,’ I ask him, ‘if you and your colleagues were to change places with the prisoners currently in here, no one would notice much of a difference, would they?’

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ he agrees, and seems not the least bit aggrieved by this state of affairs. He’s the same as everybody else.

  Sometimes, what takes place in prison seems like a version of ordinary life beyond the prison gates, just taken to a grotesque extreme. Nowadays in ‘ordinary’ life, too, it can be difficult to distinguish a racketeer from an employee of an official organization. In fact, does this distinction even exist for most people?

  And what happens to those of us who are too frightened to stand up for our rights, who adapt and hide behind a mask of submissiveness? Does this protective mask not morph to become our real face? Do we not gradually turn into slaves, silent and unresponsive, but prepared to commit any abomination if so ordered from on high?

  When I was leaving the colony, it was Sergei Sergeyevich who carried my things to the car.

  ‘Please don’t come back to our colony,’ he said. ‘It’s more peaceful without you.’

  Four years later the colony was burned to the ground, set alight by those same silent prisoners.

  Guilty without Guilt: Volodya

  It looks very likely that over the next few years we will find ourselves living in a bureaucratic-police state, with absolute power in the hands of a corrupt bureaucracy. A bureaucracy that’s indifferent to our fate and utterly brazen. Here I want to tell the story of two people who have ended up in its clutches.

  The cell door opens with its usual clank and standing on the threshold is a rather short, plump man with surprisingly long, slightly curly hair.

  ‘Hello everyone,’ he says and, limping heavily, makes his way over to a free bunk.

  The young guy occupying the lower bunk sighs deeply, and gets up to switch places.

  ‘It’s okay, don’t worry,’ the small man says, clambering up using his stiff leg and unpacking his things like someone who’s done this many times before.

  Like all newcomers, he’s left in peace for a few minutes to get his bearings, and then the cautious enquiries begin, and they continue over tea. It transpires that the guy – let’s call him Volodya – has been in various prisons over the past few years, for the most commonplace offences.

  Volodya turns out to be easy to get on with, one of those people who, in the business world especially, are adept at networking. Business intermediaries. In fact, that’s exactly what he did before he ended up in prison.

  Four years earlier, ‘using his specific banking knowledge’ (to quote his case file), he withdrew half a million dollars from the account of a member of a security agency, reckoning that, as the money was clearly dodgy, the guy wouldn’t go to court.

  But he had miscalculated. The bank reimbursed its client every last kopeck, and filed a suit. Volodya went down.

  Truth to tell, th
is part of the story didn’t bother him that much. He’d taken his chance, had blown it, and had been convicted without evidence – but not for nothing. Yes, his sentence was a bit heavy (eight years), but what could you do about that?

  Having been sent to the prison colony, he started making plans for the future. After a couple more years he became eligible for parole. It was at this point, as Volodya related, that an order came through for him to be transferred to Moscow.

  ‘I racked my brains and finally came to the conclusion that they were planning to stitch me up with someone else’s bank fraud.’

  What actually happened went far beyond his worst imaginings. The investigator declared that two years earlier he, Volodya, had beaten another detainee to death in prison.

  My cellmates and I looked at each other, and then at little, lame Volodya, with a certain disbelief. Well used to this reaction, he pulled out his case file. Despite the fact that my own trial was ongoing, I couldn’t resist reading it in its entirety. It was the story of yet another human tragedy – as terrifying as the Magnitsky case and just as commonplace in Russian prisons.

  The file told the tale of a 45-year-old man who had ended up in prison because of a bottle of wine. An ordinary guy, he’d had a drink, wanted some more, didn’t have any money, so walked into a supermarket and in an act of drunken stupidity grabbed a bottle from the shelf. Unfortunately this happened to be an expensive wine that had accidentally ended up on an open shelf. He was stopped at the till, the police were called and as the bottle cost more than 2,500 roubles he was sent to remand prison.

  In prison his old ulcer flared up again and he was moved to the prison clinic where he spent a couple of weeks. After that he was transferred to another remand centre, again to its hospital facility. It was there, a week later, that they discovered that he’d broken nineteen ribs. And a week after that he died from injuries to his spleen.

  So the cost of one stupid bottle of wine turned out to be a human life.