06.12.2019

“They called me directly from there, from the pre-trial detention center. Then she (the prisoner who called - V) handed over her cell phone. She wrote a statement that she was starting a hunger strike. She complained about humiliation, about “training”, about illegal demands from the administration,” Vlasti Semyonova said.

According to the human rights activist, the "illegal demands" included "squatting" and "undressing". “Women said that the checks they have are carried out in a humiliating manner. Endless training, like dogs. Illegal demands of the administration. During the inspection - squats, undressing. Almost put in a gynecological chair. The examination is filmed on camera. I have a question: why is such a search needed if this is a closed institution? In principle, nothing can get there illegally,” says Semenova.

Two days ago, Almas Sadubayev, director of the State Language and Information Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), denied Semyonova's statement about a hunger strike and beating of women in the LA-155/1 institution in Almaty in an official mailing list for the media. He said that one of the arrested was placed in a disciplinary cell for repeated violations of the detention regime. “Three of her cellmates, including a pregnant woman, inflicted minor wounds on themselves in protest. No one announced a hunger strike, no one opened their veins. In the presence of the leadership of the DIIS for the city of Almaty, a representative of the prosecutor's office, medical workers conducted a medical examination of the above women, no injuries were detected. On this fact, the Ministry of Internal Affairs is conducting an internal investigation,” Sadubaev said.

In a telephone interview with the authorities, to the question of what is the purpose of the internal investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, if the information has already been refuted, Sadubaev replied: “I can’t tell you for sure. In general, I can’t say anything in advance.” In addition, Sadubaev said that the mailing about the refutation of the hunger strike and the beating of women in the pre-trial detention center was based on an official investigation of the Department of Internal Affairs, and now the investigation is being carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “A special internal investigation is being carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This is not a CIIS, not a CIIS, but the ministry itself, we are conducting it,” Sadubaev added.

Semenova, in turn, insists on her own. “This is not my unsubstantiated assertion. In which case I can prove everything. I am perfectly accountable for my actions. When I called the prosecutor's office, they told me that they would contact me and keep me informed, but so far there has been nothing. I was promised this. And then I can also provide this record to the prosecutor’s office,” she stressed.

Sadubaev's words that one of the prisoners ended up in the isolation ward for repeated violations of the regime, she commented as follows: “What is a violation according to their concepts? Legal actions of the administration or illegal? Often these are illegal actions.

By the time Semyonova wrote the post - January 9 - the women, she said, had been starving for four days.

“After my statement, a prosecutor came (to the pre-trial detention center - V). They came from the DUI. In the evening, security officers arrived and officially took statements (about violations - V). They also wrote about the fact of extortion there, ”added Semenova.

I came here for the first time, to the adult zone. The first time I was imprisoned at the age of 14. There I really had something to put in prison, I robbed the accounting department in the military prosecutor's office and the director of the company. I was immediately given three years.

Q. - Do you have a family?

O. - I have only my mother, there is no one else.

V. - Mom is not so little. What is your relationship with her?

O. - Before, we had a good relationship with her, everything was fine with us, only now we did not understand each other. I couldn't open up, I couldn't say anything. She never understood me. When I tell her the truth, she doesn't believe me and starts scolding me. When I tell her something plausible, she believes me. I was afraid to tell her something if something happened to me or something was in my soul, because I thought that she would not understand me, she would start scolding me or start beating me; She beat me for stealing...

Q. - Why did you steal? Did you have a desire to get something or an irresistible inclination? Did you steal from an early age?

O. - Yes, I don't remember it, but my mother told me that I started stealing from kindergarten. My mother was a cook on ships for 10.5 years, we practically had everything. Mom always said she didn't know what I was missing. We always had toys at home, and then we moved to live in a cottage, this is a two-story apartment in the village where we now live.

“And nature was around you, and fruits and vegetables, everything was always around you, but you always lacked something. It all started in your kindergarten. One day you brought a toy home from kindergarten. I asked you: - Nastya, where did this toy come from. And you look at me and say: - From the kindergarten. Mom asked me why I brought it, and she answered that I like this toy. I don't remember, but my mother told me this. Mom said that she scolded me, and I did not wear anything home.

Then, when I got older, my mother told me that I had scoliosis and I shouldn't ride a bike. “You really wanted to ride a bike, I promised to buy you, but the doctor forbade you to ride.” And I stole a bicycle from the neighbors and began to ride, and then threw it away. “Then you started stealing money. I couldn't buy you something, but you need everything. I couldn't stop, I scolded. I bought everything for you, but you still go to steal, you still need it.

Q. - And how did you get in the second time?

O. - There were such circumstances, I don’t even know ... When I committed the first crime against the director of the company in 1996. I was then jailed, I took 8.5 million from him. And when I was released in September 1998, I was I was 17 years old, I came home, and about a week later people came to us whom this man hired ... I was not at home, I was with my friends who I worked for, they traded ... Mom called on the phone and said, for me to come home, because problems at home. I came home, and my mother was lying. I asked what happened. She tells me that two people drove up in a red car, beat her, put a knife to her throat and said: “If you don’t give back the money, that’s it.”

V. - Where is the money?

A. - And the money has long been spent. I spent it, bought things, gave money to friends, took them to the cinema, went to the city, walked, rode in a car ... So I spent all the money. Mom said she didn't know what to do, they would come a second time. I said that we should go to the police, because in court we were told that money could not be taken from me, I am 14 years old. Mom said that “this is how we think, but people think in a completely different way.” We didn't know how to get the money.

I have friends from whom it was possible to take this money, but then they will have to be given back and problems will arise again. And it turned out that I started stealing again in order to return the money, because my mother did not agree in any way that we reported this to the police. I wanted her to film the beatings, I have many friends who work in the police. I also have acquaintances in a security company, I could even apply there, but I needed the consent of my mother, her statement, her beatings, but she did not agree. I went to the guys, they said that they could do a lot, for example, put a tape recorder at home, give money and they would take it already on the street with money. They would have done everything, but if mom is against it, what can you do?

I knew that if I go to people who sell drugs, if I borrow from them, then I will either have to pay back on time (and where will I get them on time?). And then “turn on the counter” and pay twice, for example. I started stealing again and got caught.

Q. - What is your deadline now?

A. - I was imprisoned at the age of 17, I am still 17 years old. I was given 3 years 6 months; 6 months I did my time, and I have 3 years left. They can give me a deferment on one condition, if my mother writes a certificate that she will take me on bail, and my mother does not write to me at all. I do not know why.

Q. - And everything is fine with her, these people did not destroy her?

A. - No, we made a request to find out what's at home.

V. - Don't you write yourself, Nastya?

A. - I wrote 3 or 4 letters to my mother in a month. I have my mom's work phone, but I don't know if she works at her old place.

I didn't know I was pregnant when I sat down. The father of the child is there, he has a family, children too. He is 32 years old. I was imprisoned on January 20, after 7 weeks I saw that I had no periods ...

Q. - Where were you put? Have you been in the Arkhangelsk pre-trial detention center?

O. - Yes, on Popov. I turned to the gynecologist, he looked at me and said: “Girl, you are pregnant.” - “How pregnant?!” “Yes, you are pregnant.” “This can’t be, how can I be pregnant?!” I told him everything, and he said that I was 7 weeks pregnant and that I should go to him every month to be checked.

Q. - Did you write to your mother that you are pregnant?

A. - Yes, I wrote, but there is no answer.

I wanted to have an abortion in prison, because. I knew that I was 17 years old ... I had to somehow with my mother ... She stopped writing. When I went to the investigator, I called her, we talked with her, everything was fine. And when I wrote in letters that I was pregnant, she did not answer. I wrote to my mother how much time they gave me ... I wanted to have an abortion in prison, the doctors told me: “Yes, we will give you an abortion, because. You're underage, we owe you what to do. You don't even need parental consent." He asked how many weeks it had been, said that they would take me next week. They played for time and made it to what I had 12 weeks. The prosecutor comes to our prison and I feel that they are not going to have an abortion. I told the prosecutor...

Q. - Will you raise a child?

O. - Yes, now I think it's good that I didn't have an abortion and I'm even glad...

V. - Why?

O. - It seems to me... It doesn't even seem... My mother and I always have a strained relationship. The fact that we live together in the same apartment, communicate, eat - it does not mean anything. I want a closer relationship, a heart-to-heart talk, but I can’t tell her something, because she won’t understand me.

Q. - Do you think that your child will understand you?

A. - No, I want to have something close, my own, so I want a child.

Q. - Nastya, will you be released and will you have material problems again?

O. - I've already thought about everything. I want to get a job in our shop in the village.

V. - Will they take you, knowing that you stole?

A. - He will take it to his store (our neighbor works there), because he himself was in prison. True, he was imprisoned for murder many times.

I will do everything, but I will not steal, I already know this 100%. I will not steal, I will not rob anyone, I will not extort... I will try to earn money myself. And the child I've been expecting for 7 months already, I won't give him away, as some do...

V. - And where do they give it?

O. - They told me that they were sent to an orphanage.

V. - I.e. renounce maternal rights?

A. - Yes, they refuse. Quite simply, as I understand it, they free themselves and abandon their children. They go out the gate and immediately throw it away. Most don't pick up.

V. - They don't take it? These mothers, who are now festively photographed with their babies, will they not take their child later? Where are the children sent? To an orphanage? How many such cases?

O. - Yes, but didn't they tell you?

Yes, there have been many such cases. The woman freed herself alone, swore, swore that she would never leave her child. She arrived in Vladimir and left the child at the station. They call here from the station and find out, and ask to take the child back. They brought him back here. There were such cases. In addition, there were cases when they came out right here and immediately abandoned the child.

Q. - Do you think that for most women a child is simply needed to weaken the regime?

O. - I think so. For this and to get rid of it faster. It seems to me that children are left for this. I am in the same room with all the mothers. I hardly talk to anyone there. They are grown women, some have sat many times. I don’t understand them at all, I was in a youngster, everything is different there. If I think something about a person, then I will say it in his eyes. And others don't do that. They talk behind their backs, lie 300 times, and they start a fight. They fight. They even had a fight today over a cigarette. Are these moms?! It's a shame, not moms! Previously, as girls who have been in prison for 3-4 years tell me, that the whole zone respected mothers, but now these mothers are not respected at all, because they put themselves that way. They fight over a cigarette, they spread gossip that is incomprehensible, they leave their children. And before mommy will pass - you can immediately see that this is mommy: washed, clean, decent. And it’s nice to talk to her, the girls themselves talk, but now, they say, they don’t even pay attention to them. There are a few people, of course, and that's it.

Q. - Who do you, for example, do you know?

A. - I know Katya B. She will never leave her child.

In the DMR, she quarreled with someone from the medical unit because she started bathing the child, and she was reprimanded. But she knows that she is doing the right thing and carried it there: “this is not your child, this is my child, I know it is right and I will do it.” Well, they called the police, "dubachkov", as they are called. Two women with batons run in, and Katya says: “Are you at mommy with batons?! Am I doing something wrong?!” I talked a lot with Katya and heard from other people: she will never leave her child. You argue with her, for example, and if you tell her that “you will 100% hand over the child,” she is ready to tear your head off right here. She is such a person.

If they abandon children, then children should not be born at all, but an abortion should be done.

V. - I would like to know about your own experience in the pre-trial detention center. Have you ever had a situation where you were treated cruelly?

A. - This time I was pregnant, and they did not have the right to put me in a box or in a punishment cell. If they take me somewhere, they can put me in a “cup”, where there is a seat, but nowhere else. I was in a very bad relationship with one of the guards. I know this person for the first term, and for the second term, and by will I know him ...

Q. - Who is this person?

A. - DPNS, I don't know his data. When I went to the investigator or somewhere else, for some reason he constantly came across to me as a shift. And then he puts me in a punishment cell.

V. - For what?

O. - He must take me to the investigator. He should put me separately from women, because. I am a youngster, he should put me in a “glass”. He, along with all these women, puts me in a box, it's not even a punishment cell, it's such a circle in which everything is like fish, like a herring in a barrel. He put us there. I feel stuffy and smelly in there. And there is such sensitivity, I feel everything, and there they still smoke, 10 people at once. I knock and say: "On duty, come to the cell." He comes up and I ask him to put me in a “glass”, because. it's hard for me. He says: “Here the shifts will change, then you will be transferred and it is not yet known whether they will transfer you.” “You know, I’ll tell the head doctor…”

Q. - Are women subjected to a gynecological examination when returning from court?

Q. - Have you heard of such things?

O. - I have not even heard of such things. I know this for sure, because a lot of women went to court with me and this has never happened before.

Q. - Have you heard about such things here?

Oh no. But there was one girl who has been sitting here for a long time and she scolded me when I wrote this test of yours. She told me: “Are you defending the administration?! You're all lying!" - “What can I write if I don’t know anything about this zone?” In our youth, where I was, everything was according to the rules, as expected. True, here, too, no one treats me badly, because I treat others well. She says: “Fool, there are so many cases here! Beaten, handcuffed...”

Lyudmila D., 26 years old:

Q. - Were you subjected to gynecological examinations in the pre-trial detention center?

Oh yeah. When we are transferred to the prison from the bullpen, there is a medical examination there.

Q. - And when do you return from court or go to court?

O. - And we have a court in Alexandrov ...

Q. - But you are leaving the pre-trial detention center, aren't you?

Q. - Inside the pre-trial detention center?

O. - We are leaving the pre-trial detention center, there is nearby ...

Q. - When you go out and come back, are you searched?

O. - Searched.

Q. – Are gynecological searches carried out?

A. - No, they don't, that's for sure. I have never heard of this and it has never happened to me.

Q. - It was not with you, but were you pregnant?

A. - Yes, she was pregnant.

Q. - And not pregnant women are searched?

A. - There is no gynecological chair there.

Q. - But it can be done without this chair?

O. - I don't know about it, no one told me about it.

V. - Did you give birth here?

O. - Here. Here the conditions are very good.

Q. - Were you pregnant in the pre-trial detention center? Were you in a common cell?

A. - Yes, we had a cell for 10 people. Bunk beds.

Q. - How long were you allowed to walk?

Q. - Do you know that pregnant women can walk without restrictions?

A. - Yes, I know, but they don't.

Q. - And do you know about “eyelashes” that they are not allowed on the windows of pregnant women?

O. - Yes, I know.

Q. - But it didn't bother you much, did it?

Q. - Were you the only one there who was pregnant?

A. - Yes, I was pregnant alone and we didn't have any women with babies. If you are pregnant, then after the trial, after 7 days, in my opinion, they are sent here, to the zone.

V. - I.e. Did you have more or less normal conditions there?

Alexandra R., 28 years old:

V.- Tell us about the searches in the Moscow pre-trial detention center,

A. - At best, they simply make you take off your underpants, unfold, if any, liners or throw them away right there ...

Q. - Were you pregnant?

A. - Yes, while in the early stages, while I was less than six months pregnant, they brought me to the department and forced me to squat until I had a big belly, push my buttocks apart, unfold the diapers. Or forced to unfold in front of them or throw it into the tank.

Q. - Did they look at you in the gynecological chair?

O. - I'm not there, but I've come across this: the girls from the cell told me about it. We had a case in cell 201. I don’t remember her last name, some kind of Marina ... They even beat her because she refused, but she really carried these babies, notes ... She refused to climb into the gynecological chair and they beat her, and the gynecologist looked at her right on the couch. .. They brought her to the cell late, after midnight ...

Q. - Did a specialist, a doctor, look at it?

O. - I didn't even know who was watching... Well, yes, apparently. The midwife who is on assembly...

Q. - Were you examined by a midwife when you returned from court?

A. - No, they were just controllers...

Q. - But there is always a midwife at the assembly?

O. - Well, yes, there upon admission ... Well, how - always? I don’t know if there is always there ... They are on duty there upon admission, because they examine those who come ... As for the chair, I don’t know who is watching: a midwife or not. This is how regular workers see it. To say the least, it's just humiliating.

Q. - Do you know anything about shaving your head?

A. - I went there in September, but they didn't shave me. I had a clean head. There were eight of us in quarantine and five of them were shaved.

V. - I.e. were they lousy?

A. - I don't know, but they say no. Two of them looked like neat girls.

Q. - Could they be cut simply because of the good hair?

A. - They could because of the hair ... Then I heard at the Sixth Detention Center and at Butyrka that they cut their hair for bad behavior. You behave too impudently, you are rude to them, you are rude ... After all, they bring, basically, in the evening, at night, you spend the whole night at the assembly, they cut their hair there.

Q. - What about beating with a truncheon?

O. - I myself experienced this at Butyrka, from 1995 to 1997, when there was no Isolator No. 6 yet.

Q. - Compared to Butyrka, the Sixth insulator seems more tolerant to you?

A. - Yes, in spite of everything, the conditions of detention, of course, are much better, well, not that much, but they listen to us here, their mouths open, that it is clean and everyone who was in transit at our prison said that ready to sit there all the time. We were brought here to Vladimirsky Central, we stayed here for less than a day: they brought us in the evening and took us away in the morning. We were stunned there when they showed us this cell, we said that we would not go there after the Sixth Detention Center, we made such a scandal. We were traveling with children, and I was pregnant ...

Q. - Will you take this child?

Q. - And how will you raise children alone?

A. - Children from one father. Two yes, but this one no.

Q. - Does he help you after all?

A. - The first husband helps.

Q. - Will you raise these children?

Marina T., 30 years old:

Q. - Can you tell us how it happened?

O. - The girl and I were drinking and went with her home with her, where she was supposed to look at things. And this house was already under demolition, it was demolished. We went there and we were detained in this house ...

Q. - Who detained?

O. - Police. They stole in this house, everything was already taken out there, only those who did not move out remained. The police were put there to guard, so that people would not steal. We came there, and they ask: “Why did you come here?” “To see our things, we lived here.” - “Half of the rooms were robbed, the doors were knocked out ... Come on, get in the car.” And we were taken to the sobering-up station. Then this girl was taken away, she was rude, but I was normal. They took her away and put her in a cell. Then some one came (I don’t know how he knows me) and said: “What are you doing here?” - "Nothing". - "Come with me". He took me to some room and said: "Sit down, I'll come right now." After that, two people come in and say: “Come on, undress.” - “What am I going to undress for?” - “You were detained, you are drunk...” - “How drunk am I?!” - "Come on, come on, undress." - "I will not undress". Then one left, and I sat there alone for about 20 minutes, then three more came and said: “Did you decide to undress?” - "I will not undress." - "We are supposed to undress and hand over things." - "I won't." I was sitting, two people flew in, started to undress me, they wanted to rape me, I say: “Leave me alone, don’t touch me!” - "Now we will just fuck you and that's it." In short, I was beaten a little, I came out with bruises, but I was not raped.

And I was in the detention center in Kineshma when I was taken away for the first time in 1995. We were sitting with a girl, she asked them to smoke, they didn’t let her. They took her away, then they brought her in: she was all beaten up, she was raped there, she told me. It was in 1995. This girl was about 30 years old.

Q. - Was she taken away for a long time?

O. - Yes, probably it was not an hour.

Q. - Why did you decide that she was raped?

O. - She told me that she was raped, she was crying, she could not talk at all, she was even shaking.

V. - And who is this? Police officers?

O. - Police.

Q. - You write about abortions and pregnancy, about what can be done for free or paid ... Where did you find out?

O. - This time I was in Kineshma, they went there and asked: are you going to have an abortion or give birth? One of our girls wanted to have an abortion. They told her: “Come on, pay money, write to relatives, then we will do it, but we won’t do it like that.”

Q. - Only for money?

Q. - You write that without anesthesia it is possible to have an abortion free of charge in a pre-trial detention center?

A. - Yes, without anesthesia.

Q. - And you don't need any special permissions for this?

Q. - What article are you on?

A. - Article 158. I still have a year and 10 months.

Q. - How old is the child?

Q. - Are you breastfeeding?

Q. - Do you smoke at the same time?

A. - I don't smoke much. I am serving my second term, the first term is somehow still not very good, but I can’t do the second term. It’s worth shouting at me, I can’t, I just roar, my nerves can’t stand it.

Tatyana S., 25 years old:

Q. - Tell us about your life in the Moscow SIZO No. 6.

A. - In one cell, everyone trusts each other, we all look after the children together, we don’t have this: one fell - let him fall, this is not my child.

Q. - Is it okay in the cell?

Oh yeah. My child has constant stomach pains. We came from the hospital, the child came from the hospital and did not let anyone sleep. Everyone took turns walking with him, because I also want to sleep, I didn’t get enough sleep with him, he constantly screams, doesn’t sleep all night, and falls asleep at 6 o’clock in the morning. So we didn’t let him sleep so that the child would return to normal, otherwise he confused day with night and yelled constantly. And getting the medicine from the administration is a problem.

V. - I.e. Is there a problem with the pediatrician?

Oh yeah. She comes once a week and then, if you write a statement all the time. She should come every day and watch all the children: how the child breathes, how she feels. This is not.

Q. - Do you feel the “eyelashes” on the windows? The sun doesn't shine there...

Oh yeah. They said they didn't break the rules. What to prove? We do not know the rules, but no one gives us.

Q. - Were you searched when you returned to the pre-trial detention center? Did you do a personal search?

O. - When? From the courtroom?

V. - Yes, through assembly. Or just watching a child?

A. - They don't look at the child. They watched me once, and then they didn’t watch me anymore, because it was cold, we sat for a very long time. My child was all over, because he wanted to eat. And I couldn't give him cold food...

Q. - A gynecological examination?

O. - They found a baby there - they began to let everyone through. They didn't let me in, they took me out earlier. And then the girls passed the note through the “horse”. How we send letters: how did we get there, what do you have, what do we have ... For example, if I don’t have cigarettes, and I want to smoke, then I knock, and they lower the “horse” and that’s it. And they catch us downstairs, these dubaks, as we call them, tear them off with a stick and take everything for themselves, they don’t return it, even if it’s some kind of tea. Everything is completely taken away. All my groceries were taken out when I arrived at the prison. They said that “this is impossible, this is impossible” and they pulled everything out, it turns out that all this was possible. It's just - what shift will you run into.

Q. - Don't you know about inspection?

A. - First, when a person arrives there, they check his head. If your haircut is short, then they don’t pay attention to it, and you go through the examination further. And when you have long hair, they look that your hair is good and say: "You have lice." - “How are the lice?! I won't cut my hair." Then they say: “We will bring handcuffs, we will fasten you and we will cut your hair. Either we will cut our hair bald, or we will make a short hairstyle, and then we will give an ointment and you will treat your head.” Well, of course, you choose the second option.

Q. - Did you have long hair?

A. - No, they didn't cut my hair, I had such a short haircut - a cap, and the woman who was sitting with me was all in hysterics. She came with me, we arrived late in the evening and had her hair cut. She had big hair...

Q. What do they do with their hair?

A. - They sell it, we were told later. They were not thrown away, but placed in a plastic bag. The woman was depressed after that, she did not even know where she was. Her hair was everything. She said that she didn’t know how to tell her mother, and mother was supposed to come on Monday and, they say, I would refuse to go on a date. And she didn't go on a date.

Q. - Is this the girl from your cell?

A. - We sat with her in a common cell when we went through the entire medical examination. Where they put her later, I don't know. I saw her on a walk, she was wearing a hat.

Q. - Is it often done?

O. - It is - yes. Almost everything. We often asked what hair was like, and it turned out that not a single person who had short hair before the pre-trial detention center had short hair, no one at all. A lot of gypsies get their hair cut, mostly gypsies. And girls from Ukraine. So - rarely, mostly gypsies and girls from Ukraine. They have beautiful hair and long.

Q. – What other violations can you tell about?

A. - When we leave for the evening check, they count us there. Sometimes we are told that we are going slowly, although at the same time they demand: “No sudden movements. Someone played a joke, pressed the bell (there are such calls, buttons) and the person who did it did not confess. They took our entire cell and punished us: we didn’t go for a walk for a whole week. In general, this is not normal: why should I, a pregnant woman, suffer because of someone? I need fresh air, I need to walk...

Q. - And how long did you, pregnant, walk?

O. - An hour. With the children we walked for two hours. We wanted to walk more, and they say that “we have no time, our working day is ending, it’s time for us all to go home.” And on Friday and Saturday we were asked to leave early and take a walk until four [o'clock], because. after four they do not have time for the train and bus.

Q. - And at the inspections after the trial?

A. - They have no right to touch the child at all, but they paw him completely. There is nothing to breathe there, it smells of smoke ... And she touches it with her own hands. I say: "I will not let my child be tested." She says: “Then you won’t go anywhere at all now.” "Okay, I'm not going anywhere." And they let me into the paddy wagon anyway, they didn’t check. A tiny one-month-old baby, he screamed all the time at the assembly, it was so cold there ... They should give us diapers, two per child ...

V. - In the day?

A. - No, to go to court. This is generally not enough, a small child constantly hiccups and poops, and it’s still cold ... We went in February and January, I went to court for two months in a row, and we sat in a paddy wagon with children for 4 hours, waiting. And diapers have to be changed in court, and I don’t have diapers on the way back. In the end, my child became very ill and the last time I did not go to court with him, I left him in the cell ...

V. - Are you dissatisfied with this pre-trial detention center, although it is much better than Vladimir, or where were you ...?

A. - In Moscow, even if they break the rules there, it's always clean there, you can't say anything.

Q. – You, mothers, were there in a privileged position...?

Oh yeah. When we arrived here, in the colony, everyone said: “It’s immediately obvious that these are Moscow children.” They are so well-fed, they have such cheeks ... Yes, and by the clothes you can see that this is Moscow. And here they bring clothes to children, but they do not distribute all the things, everything is in the warehouse. And the child is dressed ten times already washed ...

V. - Do they give out everything in a row in Moscow?

A. - Yes, a humanitarian aid comes there and they give you things directly into your hands that you need. Pulled out and handed over. The Christian mission came. And they gave us children's things... "Write a list of what you need...".

Q. - Is it a missionary organization "Spiritual Freedom"?

A. - Probably, yes, some missions from Riga also came here, performed with a concert. And there they often come and you can talk to them through the window, they are not allowed into ordinary cells, but they are allowed to visit their mothers.

V. - Did they visit you?

A. - Yes, they came to us. They showed almost a whole concert to teenagers in a cell. Teenagers can watch TV with a video recorder. And why not choose ten people, say, rotate and constantly watch TV in the video room?

Q. - What do you think is better: a large camera or a small one?

A. - Bigger is better. In a small cell, you can just bend over.

Q. - If in a large cell - 60, and in a small one - 10?

A. - No, I didn't sit where there were 10, I sat where there were 4 people. I just cried all day there, I felt better in the big cell.

Q. - Are there any clashes between the prisoners?

O. - We had, of course. Someone steals something ... I had a “family woman”, she ate with me, I made tea for her, although I was pregnant and it was also hard for me, but she was not quite able. She called the doctor when she became ill, but the doctor did not come. We barely pumped her out ... She is asthmatic, she does not have enough air. But they don’t transfer her to a small cell, because there are no places, as they say, although there are places.

Q. - And how did you create a “family”?

A. - A person cannot be there alone.

Q. - Why did you choose this particular woman?

A. - She is quiet, calm, she is already aged.

V. - And you were drawn to her?

A. - Or maybe I didn't have a mother as a child, no one treated me as well as she treated me.

Q. - Were there two of you in the “family”?

A. - No, there were two more. We had one teenager, from a youngster she was. She is a full 18 years old. And Lyuda M. Lyuda was sentenced to two years, she was left at the prison to work as a “seamstress”. The youngster went free and it turned out that we were almost alone for 7 months.

Q. - And how many families were there in your cell, approximately?

O. - A lot. At the most, there are 10-12 people in one family, because the food constantly deteriorates, they do not have time to eat it. I constantly write to Aunt Lena: “Aunt Lena, do not send me butter and sausages. It is expensive. Better send more cookies.” She again - butter with sausage! I tell her that this is not necessary here, this is not the first necessity. The most important thing here is to drink tea. I always wanted tea, I constantly wanted to drink ... A lot of people, it was stuffy ... It was simply impossible to be there, it was stuffy there, there was a constant smell, and willy-nilly, lice could easily appear there, because people slept on the floor. A man comes without lice, and there lice appear ...

Q. - And who is beaten in the cell?

O. - Who killed the child. They do not beat her, but try not to notice him, not to hang out with her, and not even touch her.

Q. - Have you had any?

O. - We had one, she killed a child. Threw it down from the window. They stole the child. The mother was deprived of parental rights. She says: “We drank, and he began to ask for food. We got fed up and threw it out the window.” I told her: “Are you not afraid that you are just in the zone for this case ...?” - “I have already outlived my life, I already have fifty dollars, where else can I live?” She probably went to Potma ...

Q. - Is this considered a worse option for Potma?

O. - I now think that it is better there. There are a lot of Muscovites there, there is something to talk about, some interests...

V. - And here?

O. - One collective farm. They don't know anything.

Q. - Do you read books?

O. - I read everything that is criminal, I really like Marinina.

Q. - And why only criminal?

O. -Because I don't like to read romance novels, that's all...

The only women's pre-trial detention center in Moscow is overcrowded with 250 people. Apparently, three-tier beds will soon be installed, since the free space of the floor is already calculated not in meters, but in centimeters. All passages in the cells are filled with folding beds sagging to the floor. There are 40 people in the cell. To go to the toilet sideways, sideways, along the wall There are two toilet bowls. No privacy...

Photo by RIA Novosti

The former women's LTP in 1996 became a women's isolation ward. People call it "Bastille". All windows of the cells overlook the courtyard. Moreover, the windows are small, under the ceiling, the glass is either dirty or badly scratched, and metal bars, each a few centimeters long. So there is a minimum of natural light in the cells.

Holidays in the Bastille are generally days of dull stagnation. Applications and complaints on holidays are not accepted. One of the women has severe psoriasis on her hands. She was prescribed treatment before the holidays, they treated her for a couple of days, and then - the New Year. The treatment was stopped. Everyone is resting. The infirmary is closed.

Drawing by Anastasia Melnikova. Photo: (c) Elena MASYUK

P.S. Head of SIZO-6 - Kirillova Tatyana Vladimirovna

The former women's LTP in 1996 became a women's isolation ward. People call it "Bastille"

All windows of the cells overlook the courtyard. Moreover, the windows are small, under the ceiling, the glass is either dirty or badly scratched, and metal bars, each a few centimeters long.

So there is a minimum of natural light in the cells.

The only women's pre-trial detention center in Moscow is overcrowded with 250 people. Apparently, three-tier beds will soon be installed, since the free space of the floor is already calculated not in meters, but in centimeters. All passages in the cells are filled with folding beds sagging to the floor. There are 40 people in the cell. To go to the toilet - sideways, sideways, along the wall ... There are two toilet bowls. No privacy. According to the sanitary norm, there should be one toilet for 10 people. But what are the rules here?

The escort officer makes an announcement: "A father will come at Christmas, he will sprinkle water on everyone." I ask, what if a woman is a Muslim, a Jew or an atheist, and does not want to be sprinkled?! “She can go to a corner,” the officer replies, “they won’t do it by force.”

I didn’t see a free corner in the cell where you can “hide” from sprinkling. When building in a cell, women are not placed in one row, and they are not allowed to stand in two rows of beds. Apparently, from forced sprinkling, you can hide only in the toilet. By the way, according to the Internal Regulations of the SIZO (PVR) (paragraph 101): "It is not allowed to perform religious rites that violate the rights of other suspects and defendants." I remember how indignant Yekaterina Samutsevich was when a priest entered the cell of the same SIZO-6 on Easter: “And without asking me, he began to pour water on everything, sprinkled me without my desire. I didn't want him to perform a religious ceremony. We have a secular state,” said Samutsevich.

Pregnant women are also in the same large common cell. Diet food in the form of milk, eggs and cottage cheese is issued only from the sixth month of pregnancy. And until that time - a common table. Although nowhere in the PVR is it said about such a restriction on the months of pregnancy. On the contrary, absolutely all pregnant women are entitled to a diet, and three months before the birth, according to the doctor’s prescription, additional nutrition can still be prescribed to it. Paragraph 22 of the PVR speaks of the creation of "improved material and living conditions" for pregnant women. Where are these improved conditions?

In the morning the women were given porridge, in the afternoon they had pea soup for the first meal, which was for the second - here the opinions of the "contingent", as the employees call the women in the isolation ward, were divided: either potato mass with soy meat or stew, or potato mass with something unknown. There are no positive reviews for this dish. Many pregnant women have toxicosis. They cannot eat potato mass with an unknown filler. Many pregnant women do not have relatives in Moscow, which means that there are no programs. A young woman from Tajikistan has a third month of pregnancy, severe toxicosis, a month ago the doctor prescribed injections, injections were made, nausea remained, the doctor did not prescribe anything else. Walks for pregnant women, as well as for everyone else, for an hour, although according to paragraph 134 of the PVR, "the duration of walks for pregnant women is not limited."

Thursday at the Bastille is a "naked day". This is when women are driven out in their shorts into the corridor for examination by a health worker. In addition to the medical workers in the corridor, there are also employees. It doesn't matter if the employee is male or female. Employee! And in front of them is a naked woman in shorts...

Women also say that when they are taken to the first-aid post for examination, they are forced to kneel, spread their buttocks... And the whole process is filmed by employees.

The women in the pre-trial detention center do not understand why they are not supposed to know the names of the employees. This secrecy is explained by security measures. They are rude, beaten, humiliated - real employees, and these employees can be called by any name. It's impossible to check. Okay, last name and real name are a secret. But then let the employees have badges with numbers, so that in the complaints of women it would not be written: “An employee Roman hit me.” And if there was “Roman” under the number ... Here is such a “Roman”, for example, on July 19 last year, he punched Lyudmila Kachalova in the face. The woman fell, lost consciousness, she was forced to call an ambulance, which recorded hematomas on her face, arms and legs. Neither an internal check nor a prosecutor's check on the fact of Kachalova's beating was carried out. "Roman" is still working in SIZO-6. True, he no longer visits Kachalova, but at first after what happened, he conveyed “hello” to her through his employee, who came to the cell, grabbed paper flowers and other Kachalova crafts from multi-colored paper napkins, threw them into the corridor and trampled them in front of the prisoner feet...

Another of those who, according to women, mocks and humiliates them, are employees under the names "Raisa Vasilievna" and "Anastasia Yurievna". Maybe, after all, it is necessary to conduct an internal check in the pre-trial detention center, or maybe the supervisory prosecutor will be interested in what is happening in pre-trial detention center-6 ?!

Many women have complained about the loss of content in programs. Either slightly salted trout will disappear, then face cream, then cigarettes. Even toilet paper is gone. For example, four rolls were transferred, but only one reaches the addressee. Where did the other three go? For example, Artamonova, a senior detective of the Perovo police department, who has been in SIZO-6 for a year, said that when she received a parcel from relatives ordered through an online store, the package was opened and should be sealed. His cigarettes are gone. On December 26 last year, “health worker Galina Valentinovna” brought Artamonova medicines handed over from her relatives. According to Marina Artamonova, “health worker Galina Valentinovna” threw these medicines into the “feeding trough” for her, and most of the medicines ended up in the corridor. The feeder slammed shut. The course of treatment prescribed by the doctor "from will" was not completed. And from local preparations, according to women, for all occasions - citramon and analgin, analgin and citramon.

Holidays in the Bastille are generally days of dull stagnation. Applications and complaints on holidays are not accepted. One of the women has severe psoriasis on her hands. She was prescribed treatment before the holidays, they treated her for a couple of days, and then - the New Year. The treatment was stopped. Everyone is resting. The infirmary is closed.

One of the women complains of heart problems. She has been in jail for almost two years. During this time, they tried to do an ECG only once, but the device broke down. Now, as we managed to find out from the paramedic who was on duty during the holidays, the device seems to be working, but there is no paper. And the paper is special - rolled, you have to order it, and then wait. And how long to wait? So who knows. For a long time, probably. I think that a woman in need of an ECG will be released faster than an ECG will work in the isolation ward.

Women complain about intervertebral hernia, in response they receive: “Almost everyone has this. It's OK". After spinal surgery, one of the women sleeps on a cot. Pain? “No problem,” is the answer. A woman with thick glasses asks an ophthalmologist for a consultation. But there is a problem with the ophthalmologist, however, as well as with the dentist and the surgeon.

There is silence on all floors of the Bastille, the radio does not work anywhere. Although, according to the same PVR, all cameras must be "equipped with a radio speaker for broadcasting a nationwide program." And since not all cells have a TV, it is very difficult for women to find out about what is happening outside the walls of the pre-trial detention center.

Quarantine. A small cell, a cot in the middle, you can't even walk sideways here. They take them out for a walk, then they don’t. Depends on the shift: "human factor". Some of the women complain that they shower once every ten days. There are no pens and paper to write statements and complaints. The staff said that nothing is issued on holidays, everything is after January 9th. Another of the complaints: on December 31, newcomers were kept closed in the shower for two and a half hours. The water is cold, from the tap. Boiling water is not given. They ask: do you know why tea is so smelly - is it the water here, or is it specially made like that? They don’t accept packages on holidays either, there is no boiler. One of the women had a heart ache in the morning, she asked for validol. Brought in the evening. Women say that they can knock and call the duty officer for a long time: either they will not hear, or in response there will also be a knock from the other side.

In the cell of the collection point (this is a semi-basement where women are usually kept before being sent to court) there are always two women who have gone on a hunger strike. The reason for the hunger strike is red tape and illegal, according to women, court verdicts. There was no money for lawyers, so the defenders in court were state-owned.

Anastasia Melnikova has been on hunger strike since December 15th. She was in the hospital of the pre-trial detention center "Matrosskaya Tishina", where treatment was prescribed by a neurologist. But on December 24, she was taken to SIZO-6. This ended the treatment. Employees conduct daily conversations, tell Melnikova that starvation is a sign of suicidal tendencies and anorexia. She is very afraid that she will be sent to a psychiatric hospital or forced to feed. During the hunger strike, she lost 9 kg. Apparently very weak.

Anastasia is a makeup artist by profession. To keep himself occupied, he makes holiday cards. Instead of paint - eye shadow. Incredibly delicate and beautiful work.

Drawing by Anastasia Melnikova.

Her neighbor Irina Luzina is a restorer by profession. Starving since December 25th. Lost 5 kg. He does not go for a walk because of weakness. Food is brought to the cell three times a day for women. She stays with them for two hours, then they take her back.

In the corner on the bedside table is a large metal tank with the inscription "Drinking Water". The tank is empty and not working at all - the tap is broken. After a long clarification with the staff and the women in the pre-trial detention center, it turns out what is meant by "drinking water" - ordinary tap water. Why do we need this tank then? Required for instructions. It also turns out that this is the only cell where there are no sockets, which means that women cannot boil water for themselves. You need to wait for a “session of kindness” from employees. Of the containers in the chamber, only a metal mug. And the fasting need to drink fluids at least two liters a day. Here they drink tap water. And next to it is absolutely the same camera, but with sockets. Why can't starving women be transferred there?! Not to mention the fact that paragraph 42 of the PVR obliges all cameras to be equipped with “plug sockets for connecting household appliances”.

The mattresses here are the same as everywhere else - thin and matted. It is impossible to sleep on them. Women put pages from their criminal case under their backs and sleep like that. They say: "There are no bruises, but the bones hurt." On holidays, women were not even given toilet paper (a roll of toilet paper in a pre-trial detention center is 25 m, this is a quarter of a standard roll). "Finished, you say? Well, after the holidays you will get it! ” employees explained.
P.S. Head of SIZO-6 - Kirillova Tatyana Vladimirovna

The media has recently paid a lot of attention to the problem of women in prison. Television and newspaper reports, analytical articles, interviews with officials of the penitentiary service are devoted to this topic ...

However, journalistic research suffers from an obvious one-sidedness, they show only the "facade" side of the problem. It would be naive to think that a prisoner, to whom a journalist holds out a microphone in the presence of citizens of the chiefs, will be sincere and direct in her assessments of prison reality. One can hardly count on the frankness of an employee of the pre-trial detention center, who still has to serve and serve ...

In this sense, valuable is the information received from professionals who have recently parted with the prison system, are well versed in its complex organization and at the same time are able to think freely and speak without regard to the authorities. As the famous character of the film “The meeting place cannot be changed” said: “You, boss, ... write books.”

WOMAN IN PRISON

Woman and prison are incompatible concepts. A woman, a being by nature emotional, sensitive and vulnerable, to whom the centuries-old civilization of mankind is assigned the role of a wife, mother, continuer of the family, keeper of the hearth and a prison - a gloomy, merciless, vile and cruel mechanism of the state are so far apart that even in the imagination they are not easy to combine.

A prison is a rather masculine institution, although in the sad reality a woman and a prison, unfortunately, still meet.

Women are much more law-abiding than men. Much less often they commit crimes and offenses. If according to statistics there are more women in the state than men, then women go to prison 10-12 times less often than men. This is partly due to the fact that law enforcement officers are more willing to apply preventive measures and punishments that are not related to deprivation of liberty. But this is only partly.

To a greater extent, the reason for this ratio is the weakly expressed criminal inclinations of women and the low level of criminality of the environment that they create around themselves and in which they exist. The ratio of female and male crime of one to ten is constant and quite stable in recent years. By the way, looking ahead, we can say that even inside the prison, women commit disciplinary violations about ten times less often than men.

Women's crime in its structure differs markedly from men's. In percentage terms, women are much less likely to commit acquisitive crimes, especially those distinguished by audacity - robbery, robbery, and hooliganism. But grossly violent acts of a domestic nature - murders and serious injuries to the body in the total mass of female crime are carried out more often.

This phenomenon, seemingly contradictory to female nature, has an explanation. Women are by no means predisposed to sadism and extreme cruelty. They are just very emotional, and, often, their mind is unable to control strong and vivid negative feelings - anger, jealousy, mortal resentment. As a result, the victims of female violence are, as a rule, their close people - unfaithful husbands and lovers, husbands' mistresses, sadistic fathers, domestic tyrants-cohabitants ...

In the commission of crimes, women are more consistent and frank, so to speak. In the subsequent assessment of their illegal deeds, they turn out to be much firmer and more principled than male criminals, who “swim” much faster and begin, drooling, to publicly repent of sins. A woman, often unbearably suffering from punishment, continues to the end to believe that by killing the offender, she did the right thing.

When arrested, women do not resist, do not shoot back and do not run away on the roofs. They are not detained by heavily armed special forces soldiers. They just come and take them away.

... The attitude towards the detained women in the police is rude and cynical. They can easily be insulted, humiliated, pulled by the hair, “slapped” on the cheeks. But still, this attitude cannot be compared with the beatings and torture that men can be subjected to. Women are practically never tortured, that is, methodical, coldly calculating executions are not applied to them.

It happens that a woman is forced to take off her shoes and lie on the floor, after which they hit her heels with a rubber stick - this hurts and leaves no marks. Sometimes they use a "witty"-sophisticated impact - stripped to the waist, they beat her bitingly with a steel ruler on the nipples - this is humiliating, painful and scary. At the same time, the calculation is made rather not on physical pain, but on the moral violence that accompanies it: rude shouts, cynical insults, idiotic threats, like: “We will now put you in ... a leg from a stool.”

By inflicting physical pain on a woman, insulting and intimidating her, law enforcement officers (or offenders, as it is more correct?) Are counting on a sharply emotional reaction, tears, hysteria and, as a result, the loss of the ability to confidently resist and dodge cleverly. Basically, this calculation is justified, it is bad for women to lie skillfully, calmly and prudently.

Sometimes such an "attack" is not successful, and then the police immediately stop the violence. They know from experience that if "a woman has an inner core", further bullying is absolutely pointless. Will not bend.

There are two factors that protect women from torture and torture. These are the features of the traditional mentality (even the “last thug” in the subconscious is somewhat restrained from hurting a woman, probably, we are not quite Asians) and the fear of possible punishment. State and public human rights organizations pay much more attention to arrested women and minors. The suffering of men, in general, is of little interest to anyone.

It must be admitted that in recent years, torture and other violence against detainees (both women and men) have a clear tendency to decrease. "Troubled" by constant inspections by the prosecutor's office, police officers try to avoid violence, ignoring the hypocritical anger of the authorities about the lack of the notorious disclosure rate.

Sexual harassment occurs quite rarely and only at the first stage, before the detainee is placed in a temporary detention facility (IVS). However, sometimes a woman herself provokes such harassment, offering to somehow “resolve issues” and thereby hinting at the possibility of intimate services.

Sexual violence almost never occurs. From time to time this topic is raised by one of the former arrested and convicted. There are two variants of such "confessions". The first is that the accusations are based on an absolutely sober calculation (as a rule, not of the "victim" herself, but of her lawyer and the "support group") - telling chilling details of sadistic rape and perversion, replicating these details in the media, to attract attention and compassion inexperienced public and morally influence the forthcoming judgment.

The second option is the lie of the “unfortunate” herself, caused by obvious hysterical reactions: having once lied in this way, she begins to devoutly believe in her own lie and then lies completely sincerely, entangling her fantasies with more and more details and not thinking about their obvious absurdity. However, both options are usually combined.

In TDFs, women are placed separately from men, and since women are rarely "received", they sit mostly alone. Such conditions are perceived very painfully, the lack of communication has an extremely depressing effect on the female psyche. But it is almost impossible to avoid this. Detained men will never be planted with women.

...After the arrest warrant is issued, the detainee is transferred to a pre-trial detention center. As a rule, women are completely unprepared for prison reality. Although in recent years a lot has been written about the prison, a lot of it has been shown in TV shows and movies, most women do not pay attention to details at all. They are not interested, since they absolutely do not associate themselves with the prison.

Once in a pre-trial detention center (in the jargon they say “driving into a prison”), women often lose their sense of reality altogether. Once upon a time, a teenage girl arrested as a drug courier, talking about her arrival in a pre-trial detention center, was perplexed: “For some reason they put me in the toilet.” It could not have occurred to her that the prison cell and the toilet were one common room.

The distribution of the cells is carried out by an operative worker, more often it is a woman. Focusing on her impression of the conversation with the newly arrived prisoner (prisoner is the usual name for a prisoner, although it is ugly, it is not offensive) and the scanty information contained in the personal file (and this is a compressed text of decisions on detention and arrest), she chooses her suitable camera. At the same time, he tries to make the prisoner as comfortable as possible in the new society.

This is not done out of compassion and, certainly, not for a bribe, but for their own peace of mind. The less tension and conflicts in the cells, the easier it is for the administration to work. Therefore, basically, accountants and officials sit in one cell, young drug addicts - in another, and "collective farmers" - in the third.

Sometimes this principle is not observed, especially when two or three women “come” to the pre-trial detention center - defendants in one criminal case. Accomplices are kept in different cells, so it is not always possible to have a pleasant company.

Any person entering prison for the first time experiences severe stress. If in the TDF during the detention, and it lasts for several days, there is still a glimmer of hope that this nightmare will end soon, then, once in prison, everyone understands that it will be for a long time, at least for a couple of months, at most for many years.

When a woman is detained and later arrested, many different and intense processes take place around her. Relatives and friends are as active as possible in search of solutions to the problems that have arisen. Often, the picture of events changes every hour: fresh information appears, new people are involved in the “movement”, some procedural changes take place in the criminal case - the article of the criminal code under which she was detained is reclassified to a softer one, and so on.

These events have a real impact on the fate of the detainee: she receives a parcel and a note from her husband, a “kind” cop in the temporary detention facility gives her the opportunity to call home, a lawyer comes for a date…

However, when an arrested person is transferred from a temporary detention center to a pre-trial detention center, the main result of the activity of loved ones becomes unknown to her. Isolation does not allow. This breeds information hunger. It seems to a woman that everyone has abandoned her, her relatives have forgotten, yesterday's friends turned out to be enemies. This suffering increases many times over, but, surprisingly, weak women, unlike strong men, during this critical period are much less likely to commit rash acts, almost never become depressed, and never commit suicide.

Probably no one has scientifically investigated this fact, but it seems that there is an explanation for it. The psychological or pedagogical influence of the prison administration on the newcomer is hardly worth taking seriously. A few words that the prisoner will exchange with the guards, a conversation with an indifferent and tired detective - these are not the factors that can relieve tension. Rather, on the contrary, they only increase the tension.

The only real psychotherapeutic effect on the newcomer is communication with cellmates. Female nature takes its toll - having shared a misfortune with someone, a woman always calms down.

... The relationship between prisoners in each cell develops differently, depending on the specifics of the “public” that has crept up, but on the whole it is neutral and conflict-free. In contrast to the male cells, where there is a constant struggle for leadership (this struggle is always vile, and sometimes merciless), the situation in women is much calmer. Usually in the "collective" there is one "watcher" who "holds" the camera; there is no further hierarchy, all the rest are no different from each other.

However, the expression "hold the camera" is not entirely accurate, in fact, it is much less menacing than it sounds. Just a “watcher” keeps order, controls the order and quality of cleaning, neatness in everyday life and the observance of peaceful relationships. In case of any violations of the prescribed or established order, the “watcher” tries to settle the quarrel so that the administration does not become aware of it, or she herself takes sanctions against the violator (mostly a verbal squabble).

Having settled into the cell, women unite in small groups, the so-called families (usually three or four people), within which they communicate with each other, share experiences, news and food. Friendship such a relationship can be considered a stretch, usually it is unstable and easily broken when the situation changes. In any case, friendship among women who find themselves in prison for the first time almost never lasts at large and never lasts for life.

People who are inexperienced in relation to prison reality (fortunately, there are not so many experienced in this matter) sometimes in conversations touch upon the topic of lesbian love among prisoners. Usually such discussions are accompanied by a list of colorful details, but there is no official information on this topic.

In fact, everything is much more boring and uninteresting. In the pre-trial detention center, lesbian relationships arise and are maintained by those who have previously served their sentences in places of detention, the so-called "second-timers", and even then not many. But this is a separate issue. Between women who first went to prison, such relationships almost never arise, no matter how disappointing the lovers of "strawberries". There are normal female relationships based on the need for communication, mutual sympathy, trust and kindness.

Later, when convicts, having become convicted, end up in a colony where they stay for a long time, the scope for love expands. However, this has nothing to do with the detention center.

Each person, to one degree or another, has a need to be alone, the constant presence of strangers begins to annoy. In a prison cell, this need can never be satisfied. This inevitably causes growing anxiety and irritation. When the tension reaches a certain level (and this level is low for women), conflicts arise. Almost all of them are of a petty domestic nature: someone sat on the next bed, someone took someone else's thing without asking, someone dropped someone's bowl ...

Conflicts end with a raised voice, a squabble, it rarely comes to a fight, but even this does not cause serious bodily harm. There are practically no murders in a cell among women, over the past fifteen years only one is remembered, and it happened among recidivists who were being treated for mental illness. Conflicts generally do not continue and fade as quickly as they appear.

If the administration becomes aware of the conflict that has arisen, then a trial will follow. Guilty (and it is very easy to establish, all variants of conflicts are known, there is nothing new in them) can be punished. Maybe there will be no punishment, in any case, there is no prejudice on the part of the authorities towards convicts, so the investigation always puts an end to the conflict.

It is known that the passion for acquiring new clothes in women is indestructible. The prison provides convincing confirmation of this truth. There are no boutiques, shops and bazaars here. It would seem that new things come from nowhere. It wasn't there. Women are constantly exchanging things with each other. It happens that an expensive blouse is easily given away in exchange for a cheap one, just to update your wardrobe. Imported cosmetics are changed to domestic ones, if only to give a dull life a sense of novelty. Through employees and gruel (more often this is not the name of the prison stew, but convicts from the household services), the exchange also takes place between the cells.

When one of the inmates is to be taken to a court session, the preparation for this event resembles the preparation for a great holiday. The entire population of the cell takes the most active part in decorating the defendant. They do her hair, no one spares things and cosmetics for her. She same tomorrow on people! The feeling of empathy in women is much stronger than the feeling of ownership (is it worth comparing with men?).

Therefore, if a woman with bright make-up, a fashionable hairstyle and a “cool outfit” flashes on the TV screen in a criminal chronicle in the dock, then you should not think that she lives well in prison. Simply, all the best that was in the cell is now put on it.

It is hardly possible to confidently say that trouble unites. Probably, only a common misfortune unites, but in prison everyone has their own misfortune. But female sympathy is constantly manifested, and not only during the exchange of “rags”. Before the court session, tomorrow's defendant is examined, she is dictated to her with blank answers to possible questions from the judge and the prosecutor, they suggest, based on her own experience, how best to behave in a particular situation, they cheer her up and cheer her up.

It happens that a sense of empathy and female solidarity are manifested just as brightly, but in a completely different form. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for women who have killed their child to go to prison. The fact that such a cell is ignored and boycotted in any cell, treated as an outcast and a renegade - this is not so bad, it is understandable and expected.

But one more thing is bound to happen. According to an unwritten long-term (or maybe centuries-old) tradition, several women, seizing the moment, pinch the child-killer in a corner that is not visible from the corridor, close their mouths and use a razor to cut their hair bald. Since the victim usually resists, his head is covered with cuts.

It happens that the guards have time to react to suspicious fuss in the cell and "beat off" the unfortunate one, but anyway, by this time several "paths" have already been shaved. After that, the administration has a "headache" - where to put the child killer. In any cell, the same reception awaits her, unless they start cutting her hair a second time - there’s nothing ...

It is difficult to give an unambiguous assessment of these cruel actions. Prison staff in accordance with the law punish the participants in the massacre, although they fully understand the motives for their behavior ...

... A year or two passes, another child killer ends up in prison, and inevitably this gloomy ritual is repeated.

... Prison life is almost Spartan harsh, which gives women a lot of inconvenience. There is no hot water, it is not just sometimes not there, it is not there at all. Not even a hot water faucet. Since women cannot do without warm water, they constantly heat it with boilers. There are one or two sockets in the cell, a queue forms for them, and, as in any queue consisting of women, minor scandals often break out in it.

They take you to the shower once every seven to ten days, more often it doesn’t work. The prison staff easily accustoms the convicts to this sad fact, cheerfully explaining to them that "only those who are too lazy to scratch themselves bathe."

The living conditions and the "design" of the women's cells in the pre-trial detention center differ significantly from the "decoration" of the men's. The administration makes every effort to create maximum comfort in the conditions of the cell. Women do not have terrifying crowding; the infamous prison bunks are long gone. Each arrested person has a sleeping place on a bunk, and sometimes even an ordinary bed.

The curtains on the windows slightly hide the heavy prison bars, the repair of the walls and ceiling is quite satisfactory, and this is not only sanitary whitewashing, there are often elegant wallpapers on the walls, linoleum on the floor, a suspended ceiling. The toilet is always clean, fenced off from the cell and lined with tiles. The well-known disgusting expression "prison bucket" is absolutely out of place.

The situation in women's cells has changed dramatically over the past ten years. The reason for this is the attention of international public and human rights organizations and, accordingly, the attention of the prison authorities.

In addition, women themselves always try to ennoble their home. They do not need to be forced to do the cleaning, make the bed, wipe the window. Moreover, in any, the most miserable conditions, even in a punishment cell, a woman will find a way to somehow “revive” the situation.

Of course, not all women's cameras are the same. If they are located on several floors, then there is no doubt that the cells of the third floor will be noticeably poorer than the cells of the first. "Checkers" do not like to climb stairs, so there are always "Potemkin villages" below. However, those arrested only benefit from this. If repairs were made before the arrival of the authorities, then after his departure, the walls would no longer be peeled off.

The nutrition of prisoners in prison is the same for everyone, regardless of gender. To be more precise - equally meager. Nutritional norms are approximately observed only when the next commission arrives at the pre-trial detention center. Threads of meat and a film of fat appear in the gruel, the bread is baked from good flour and becomes like a real one. Balandersha - the food distributor - is dressed in a white robe. That is why convicts love commissions, but, unfortunately, they do not come to prison every day.

The apparent discrepancy between the real diet and that provided for by the norms, prison officials explain the lack of funding. May be. It may not be. The question is debatable, since it is those who distribute these funds who speak about the lack of budgetary funds. There is no system of independent control, transparency and publicity. Therefore, one can safely doubt the veracity of such statements. There is money for trips abroad that are useless for business and the purchase of official foreign cars, and not a single penitentiary general has shot himself from shame for the inability to feed the prisoners.

But these doubts do not make it any easier for convicts. Stretching on prison rations without spoiling the stomach is very problematic. Transfers that are now accepted with virtually no weight limit help out. The only bad thing is that not every prisoner has relatives and friends who are able to systematically bring them. Therefore, although women do not die of hunger, they are forced to follow the figure.

... The attitude of the prison administration towards imprisoned women in general, if not benevolent, then certainly not hostile. They are surrounded by much more dense attention than men. If in general in a prison there are up to 100 prisoners per employee who directly influences prisoners - educates, encourages, punishes, then in the women's corps there are 50 per employee. In addition, women always "sit" in one place, and not "ride through prison like men. Therefore, women are better known, at least they are distinguished from each other. They often communicate with them, they are constantly seen and heard, quite a lot is known about their past and present. This makes the relationship between jailers and prisoners more humane. Sometimes, when an arrested woman is in prison for a long time - one and a half, two, three years - the administration gets so used to her, she so firmly occupies her niche in the public relations of the women's corps, that they frankly regret her "departure" to the colony.

It happens that they shout at convicts, it happens that profanity is used, but, nevertheless, it only “happens”. Usually they talk to them calmly, address them: “girls”, and if personally, then by name, less often by their last name.

If a particular prisoner has any problem, then it will be heard on the same day, in extreme cases - the next. It is not necessary for women to seek a meeting with the authorities for days and weeks, as is the case with men.

Such increased attention, of course, should be regarded as a positive factor, but there is also a minus in this for convicts. If men get away with the majority of petty violations of the regime, there is simply no one and no time to deal with them, then the misconduct of women almost never goes unanswered. As soon as the convict "hangs on tails" - this means climbing onto the windowsill and looking out the window through the bars (where to get away from the eternal female curiosity), and the vigilant warden will notice this - punishment will follow: a reprimand, deprivation of transmission, and in the case of a system of violations - and punishment cell. Therefore, the women's punishment cell is rarely empty, although the "severity" of women's offenses is much less than men's.

Are women beaten in prison? - the issue that attracts the most attention of the public. Yes. Bute. This happens, however, quite rarely, and it can hardly be considered the rule, rather the exception.

It's not the angels who mostly end up in prison. Another convict - an aggressive, pedagogically neglected psychopathic drug addict and kleptomaniac - simply does not understand any other influence than a stick. With her hysterical antics, she "brings" the employees to the point that they rashly "weigh" her with a few blows with a rubber stick below her back. When this happens against the background of such "high" emotions, the prisoner always calms down and never holds a grudge against the "educators", obviously realizing that everything went within the framework of justice. At least within the framework of prison justice. Although this is illegal, it fully corresponds to the “golden” rule of pedagogy: to punish not a person, but a misdemeanor. Such punishments never give rise to complaints and do not in the least spoil the relations between the jailers and the convicts.

But there is another version of corporal punishment, much less harmless. This is when the ideological norm “convicts can and should be beaten” comes from the leaders of the prison. A literate, thinking and morally clean person is far from always at the head of the pre-trial detention center. Sometimes this miracle boss makes four grammatical errors in three words of resolution, and can only connect a phrase with the help of dirty swearing. Moral health - at the level of "education" and "culture".

The prison staff imitates such behavior, in any case, they cannot counteract it - the dependence on the leadership is too great. Therefore, often, when a convict is punished for some misconduct by being placed in a punishment cell, illegal punishment is added to the legal punishment: in a fit of servile enthusiasm, they put her “stretched”, with her hands against the wall, spreading her legs, and beat her buttocks with a stick.

It would be fine if this was a reaction to some nasty act on the part of the arrested. It happened that a woman endured such bullying only because she seemed to vote for the wrong candidate in the presidential elections.

The picture of such an execution is humiliating and vile. First of all, it is humiliating for those who carry out or approve this execution. But, unfortunately, most jailers do not feel this humiliation. If the authorities like it, then everything is right.

The saddest thing is that resentment at flagrant injustice is never forgotten. After such "pedagogy" no subsequent educational process will have a positive result. There can be no doubt that a person who enters prison badly will come out of it even worse.

... The relations of convicts with prisoners of the opposite sex deserve to be described not in prose, but in verse. The impossibility of physical contact fills them with gentle lyrics and indestructible romanticism.

In prisons, and even in freedom, fables “walk” about how somewhere, once, prisoners punched a hole in the wall (as an option, they made a tunnel), and through it they “went to visit” the prisoners. It can be assumed that there have been such cases in the centuries-old history of prisons. But they happened so long ago and so rarely that, probably, they should not be considered true. These are just legends. Jailers are for the most part decent rotozey, but they are not so mediocre and lazy as to allow prisoners to break walls and walk around the prison with impunity.

There is another version of such rumors. This is when the guards, for a certain bribe, brought a couple of prisoners together in the same room. Such an action is more plausible, but it cannot be carried out constantly. There are no secrets kept in prison. Everything becomes known, if not the next day, then in a week or two without fail. Therefore, the fact of a secret meeting will definitely and quickly be revealed, and its organizers and participants will be punished.

Experienced prisoners say that such visits (it would be more correct to call them a mating) were sometimes provided by soldiers of the internal troops when they were transported in a special wagon, or, as the prisoners call it, “stolypin”. This version has the right to life, any external control is impossible in the car during the movement, which means that the fact of “love” in the toilet cannot be ruled out (this is the only room where “lovers” can be taken out).

But, anyway, the listed options are so atypical for captivity that they hardly deserve discussion. The manifestation of love characteristic of prison is different. This is illegal correspondence, shouting and talking "on the fingers." Contrary to popular belief, convicts do not know how to tap through the wall.

A huge number of "ksiv" and "malyav" - letters and notes - are constantly moving through the prison in different ways. A large proportion of them - lyrical correspondence. It happens that it is maintained between a man and a woman who are known in freedom: husband and wife, accomplices, lovers, but usually Romeo and Juliet do not know each other and see only from afar through the window bars and the grid of the walking yard. They rarely see, vaguely and indistinctly, but this is not an obstacle to love at first sight. Through the balanders, it turns out which cell is currently walking in a particular courtyard, and a little later a love message is sent there via the “zek mail”.

The fact that such letters are written by the whole camera is not true. Prisoners are living people and are not inclined to turn their souls inside out in front of random neighbors. There may be one or two clues, and even then they are invited to enhance the literary qualities of the text. But semi-literate, ornate patterns are often used, they are simply rewritten, inserting Klava instead of Masha and signing with her nickname, less often with her name. It happens that exactly the same declarations of love written by different admirers fall into one chamber for two ladies of the heart.

The answer usually does not make you wait, and the epistolary novel develops according to all the laws of the genre, sometimes stretching for many months and arousing serious passions - confessions, disappointments, reproaches, jealousy. In general, everything is like for real.

When prison officers seize and read love letters, for some reason this does not touch them, and lovers are punished. But for true love, and convicts, being in conditions of severe isolation and danger, always believe that their love is real, this is not an obstacle. On the contrary, punishments elevate love by correspondence, giving it a taste of suffering and sacrifice.

From time to time visual contact between lovers is repeated. In anticipation and anticipation of his women do not just go for a walk, they go on a date. They dress up and brightly make up, they move to the walking yards with the gait of models along the catwalk, slowly, reluctantly, realizing that they are now in the center of male attention, and stretching out the time of triumph. Eyes "shoot" at the windows of the men's buildings in the hope of seeing an enthusiastic look and hearing a greeting.

Since it is difficult to show oneself in the yard itself, there are too many lattices and nets tangled over it, it is the movement from the building to the yards and back that is the most important element of a women's walk. For the sake of this couple of minutes, a performance is arranged.

Once in prison, the prisoners skillfully adapt to its conditions and learn to live in them as fully as possible. One of the illustrations to what has been said is the rapid mastery of communication skills with the help of gestures. No one knows how much this language corresponds to the real alphabet of the deaf and dumb, but it is quite enough for a prison.

The convicts, if the warders do not interfere with them, can “hang on tails” for hours and enthusiastically “talk” with the admirer. The advantage of such a dialogue is its immediacy, as well as the fact that employees generally do not understand this ABC. They are too lazy to learn it, they do not feel the need for it. And those rare jailers who can read "on the fingers" still do it slowly and do not keep up with the conversation. Therefore, the most subtle and intimate details of love relationships are transmitted “on the fingers”.

... If a woman in prison is an ugly phenomenon, then even more ugly is the presence of underage girls in a pre-trial detention center. Judges are very reluctant to make decisions on the detention of minors, but it happens that it is simply impossible to make a different decision, and the little criminal ends up “on the bunk”.

There are few young girls, and it is impossible to keep several cells for them, and it is impossible to keep everyone in one - they can “pass” on one criminal case, for example. Youngsters always "sit" with adults, who are called "mommies" in prison. "Mommies" are selected by the administration from women who are involved in the commission of minor crimes and are positively characterized. There are no thieves, drug addicts and “correct thieves” among them, mostly women with a good reputation in the past who have committed malfeasance or economic crimes.

How well they cope with such a specific role as educators is a big question. It happens that “borzoi” youngsters “drink the blood” of their mothers so actively that they are forced to ask to be transferred to another cell.

The prison administration pays maximum attention to minors. An educator and a psychologist are next to them, they are studied, their behavior is corrected, someone is constantly working with them. One of the cells has been converted into a classroom for professional teachers. Such training, of course, cannot be compared with school education, but nevertheless it to some extent compensates for the lag in education and distracts from forced idleness.

Nutrition for young children is provided for more high-calorie and varied than adult rations, but this is far from always observed - there are no funds. Yes, and scarce products brought to prison, such as butter or cottage cheese, may not get to teenagers. Many “hungry gulls” “fly” along the chain of warehouse-food unit-chamber, which willingly eat children's rations.

Mostly teenage girls from dysfunctional families, pedagogically neglected and often mentally unbalanced, end up in prison. Often they quarrel among themselves on their still childish occasions. "Mommies" reconcile them, and therefore it does not come to a brawl. Although it happens that the administration transfers another too quarrelsome girl to a “normal” adult cell “for education”. The law forbids this, but practice shows that it is 100% beneficial. There she is never offended, and being next to smart, experienced and tough convicts, the youngster always takes a subordinate position and calms her teenage ambitions.

Copying older girlfriends in misfortune, minors are actively involved in prison novels: they “chase ksivs” to their peers and adult convicts and “hang” for hours on the window, shouting to one another, and with the help of fingers, animatedly communicating with the male population of the prison. There is no trouble from such novels, fragile souls are not injured. But the benefits are obvious - willy-nilly, you have to develop writing skills, compose a text and quote poems.

... The saddest picture in the pre-trial detention center is the children who were born behind bars or got there after their arrested mother. These little people are kept in prison, not having time to commit not only bad, but generally no deeds in their lives. For accuracy, it must be said that convicts give birth not in prison, but in an ordinary maternity hospital, it’s just that there is always an escort nearby.

If the kind attitude of the administration towards imprisoned women has a hint of showiness, since it is not caused by cordiality, but by the need to comply with modern international standards for their maintenance, then the attitude towards mothers and children is truly kind.

They are surrounded by attention and care, they are provided with the cleanest, brightest and warmest cell. If there is not enough heat in winter, an electric heater is placed in the chamber. Living conditions are an order of magnitude higher than in ordinary cells. Children and mothers are under constant medical supervision, they are given from relatives or they buy the necessary products, children's things and toys. Mothers are provided with an additional walk, for which they take their children in strollers. Everything is almost free.

But prison is still prison. In the cell where the children are kept, searches are carried out, just like everywhere else, mothers are taken from time to time for interrogations and meetings with a lawyer, the packages are carefully checked. When a mother is taken to court, she tries to take the child with her in order to “squeeze out a tear” from the judge, although the cell contains a prisoner who acts as a nanny. If an Orthodox priest comes to prison, he baptizes newborns, but godparents always turn out to be people in uniform.

In principle, there can be no idyll in prison, and sometimes a touching picture of a “kindergarten” makes unexpected disgusting grimaces. The prison will always find a reason to once again demonstrate that it is the moral cesspool of society.

Children behind barbed wire are absolutely innocent, which cannot be said about their mothers. They get here for committing a variety of, sometimes cruel and disgusting crimes. The birth of a child, unfortunately, does not always change the personality of the mother for the better. At some point, realizing that a child can skillfully speculate, that she will never be put in a punishment cell, will not be deprived of another transfer, and, moreover, will never be beaten, such a mother begins to “work miracles”, violating the regime right and left and openly mocking employees. At the same time, she pays much less attention to the child than to her unhealthy interests. Conversations of an educational nature are not successful, warnings and threats are ignored. The torment of the prison staff stops only when, at the first opportunity, the mother and child are transferred to the colony.

It happened that the maintenance of a woman with a child confronted the administration with a problem that would make the hair on the head stand on end in an unprepared person. A young unmarried student, having secretly given birth, in anguish before the sanctimonious morality of society and from material hopelessness, like a noose tightened around her neck, threw the baby into a trash can. Alas, familiar story. Thanks to random caring passers-by and doctors, the child survived, and his mother was imprisoned. But since the offender was not deprived of parental rights (and this is a very long process), the child was handed over to her in accordance with the law. It's wild... but legal!

And now imagine yourself in the place of prison employees, who are mostly mothers themselves, fearing at any moment a new attempt on the life of a helpless child by a mother. Fortunately and to the credit of the staff, this never happened. Either the vigilant control was acting, or the maternal instinct was waking up in the failed child killer, but everything ended relatively well.

... The real "decoration" of the prison are second-rate - recidivists. The word "second-timers" is applied only to women, male recidivists are called "strict men" or "specialists" - after the outdated names of the regimes in the colonies. The term "second-timers" is a general one, those who ended up in prison for the second time, and those who are in the seventh fall under this definition.

For second-timers, prison is their home. They have absolutely no fear of her, they instantly adapt, as soon as they get into the cell, arrange a life, get acquainted, joyfully meet with former cellmates, study the situation and the peculiarities of the relationship between prisoners with a trained eye.

To find out all the prison news and changes that have taken place over a couple of years of his absence, a second-rate student needs only a few hours. Therefore, a day or two after the “arrival at the prison”, she feels like a fish in water. Looks like she didn't leave. Employees of the women's corps meet the former ward quite friendly, like an old acquaintance - it is always easier to work with a person whom you have known for a long time.

The relations in the cell between the convicts among second-timers are noticeably different from those who are in prison for the first time. There is always a rigid hierarchy here, the top of which is confidently and firmly occupied by more experienced and authoritative criminals. (The word "authority", often used in relation to male convicts, is never applied to convicts). One or two of these viewers, or as they are sometimes called, rulihi (from the male - the steering wheel) really "hold" the camera. All the rest obey them almost unquestioningly, fearing a direct conflict - they can beat them.

This state of affairs is always in the hands of the administration. There is no obvious lawlessness among second-movers, women are much less likely than men to revel in power, and it is much easier to control the population of the cell. There is no need to waste time communicating with each convict, “picking” in her problems, suggesting some kind of truth to her. It is enough to talk with the beholder, and the desired goal will be achieved.

Second walkers not only internally, but also externally differ from prison newcomers. Usually these are rather young or youthful “ladies” with a sharp, smoky voice and a characteristic “thieves” intonation arising from the usual slight antics when talking. The lexicon corresponds to the prison, although when communicating with employees, they try to speak "normally". It does not always work out, the usual words and phrases still slip through, especially when you are excited.

Hysterical traits, inherent to some extent to all women, are actively developed in recidivists. All of them are obvious hysterics and psychopaths, especially if they were addicted to drugs and alcohol at large. Their mannerisms are quite typical, they are cheeky, impudent and, as if, confident in themselves. In any case, they try to make just such an impression on others.

The second-timers always look a little older than their years, the dangerous life of thieves, unhealthy addictions and the hardships of prison life affect. Their most distinguishing feature is their gaze. Slightly frowning, fast, tenacious, attentive, instantly "photographing" the object, he always slips away, goes to the side, one has only to intercept him and try to look into the second walker's eyes. According to this look, people who had a lot of contact with criminals - policemen, jailers - unmistakably recognize them at large. However, the "counter" recognition is also one hundred percent.

Repeat offenders go to prison mainly for theft or drugs. They rarely commit any non-standard crimes. Many of them have children, sometimes already adults, husbands almost never exist. They do not often receive parcels from relatives, usually they are brought by elderly, unhealthy, poorly dressed mothers, exhausted by their unfortunate lot. Often there is simply no one to bring parcels, as they say in official language: useful social ties have been lost.

But second-timers do not suffer from hunger. According to unwritten prison laws - the concept of a cell where first-timers are kept, always well supplied with food, they share with repeat offenders, using for this a whole range of illegal channels of inter-cell communication.

That's who has developed lesbian love, so it's second-comers. It has the character not only of physiological contacts, but also of psychological ties and social unions. Partners almost always continue their relationship in the colony and often at large. This relationship can last for many years.

“Having stopped at the prison” and learned that her former “girlfriend” is in the next cell, the recidivist takes all measures to be next to her. Since transfers between cells are the “eparchy” of the detective, one has to make a deal - to “hand over” accomplices and friends who remained at large and “leak” information obtained from conversations with cellmates. Such things never become a moral obstacle for a second-rate student, and the “beloved” end up together.

Direct lesbian contacts do not take place in front of the entire camera, for this a corner bed or compartment is curtained, although, of course, the sounds are heard by everyone. Some convicts do not like this (not all of them support and approve such relations), but they do not dare to interfere with the act, since prison morality does not condemn such behavior. The administration, on the other hand, turns a blind eye to lesbian love, let them do it for health, so long as they don’t buzz.

"Zekovskaya mail" "works" surprisingly reliably, quickly and smoothly. Professional criminals (and, it must be admitted, that stealing and drug dealing is really a professional occupation of these people) know almost everything about their girlfriends, friends and just women that they had to deal with in prisons. Whether at large or in prison, they are well aware of who got married, who is in what colony, who recently "lean back" and who will soon go to jail again.

If you do not delve into the essence of the phenomenon, but simply watch the women in prison from the side, then it looks pretty funny. But if you delve into the essence, it becomes scary, especially when you realize that a little time will pass, and others, still innocent, will take the place of these convicts ...

... It would be better if they never got here.

I remember how indignant Yekaterina Samutsevich was when a priest entered the cell of the same SIZO-6 on Easter: “And without asking me, he began to pour water on everything, sprinkled me without my desire. I didn't want him to perform a religious ceremony. We have a secular state,” said Samutsevich.

Pregnant women are also in the same large common cell. Diet food in the form of milk, eggs and cottage cheese is issued only from the sixth month of pregnancy. And until that time - a common table. Although nowhere in the PVR is it said about such a restriction on the months of pregnancy. On the contrary, absolutely all pregnant women are entitled to a diet, and three months before the birth, according to the doctor’s prescription, additional nutrition can still be prescribed to it. Paragraph 22 of the PVR speaks of the creation of "improved material and living conditions" for pregnant women.

Inspection of women in jail

But, he says: measures have already been taken, the guilty have been punished, yes.

And the motive is simple: the investigation missed all the deadlines for the extension, they deceived the prosecutor that Kachalova got acquainted with the case, in theory, because of the missed deadlines, she should have been released according to the law. And so she didn’t have time to file any petitions or anything with the prosecutor’s office. Apparently, the investigation found ways out to the SIZO operative, and she decided to put pressure on Kachalova.
to correct this error. Such are the things. She will have a jury. Well, let's see.

I came here for the first time, to the adult zone. The first time I was imprisoned at the age of 14. There I really had something to put in prison, I robbed the accounting department in the military prosecutor's office and the director of the company. I was immediately given three years.

Q. — Do you have a family?

O.
- I only have my mother, there is no one else.

V. - Mom is not so little. What is your relationship with her?

In addition, a deterrent is the threat of disciplinary action, including placement in a punishment cell or even a review of the case against the convict.

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

Subtle psychologists

Communication with each new patient for a doctor behind a thorn is an exam, and the surrender does not begin with drawing a ticket, but from the first seconds of communication.

“They are all psychologists. Even during the initial examination by the doctor, the convict immediately assesses the situation, what can be afforded, what cannot. Those for whom a new term is a common thing have already gone through different pre-trial detention centers, different colonies, communicated with different people during their time in prison, learned a lot, including the basics of psychology, ”Afanasiev explained.

Some rather subtle psychologists from among the prisoners managed to make the nurses fall in love with them, of course, and they themselves imitated ardent feelings.

I was imprisoned at the age of 17, I am still 17 years old. I was given 3 years 6 months; 6 months I did my time, and I have 3 years left. They can give me a deferment on one condition, if my mother writes a certificate that she will take me on bail, and my mother does not write to me at all. I do not know why.

V. — And everything is fine with her, these people didn't destroy her?

— No, we made an inquiry to find out what's at home.

V. - Don't you write yourself, Nastya?

A. — I wrote 3 or 4 letters to my mother in a month. I have my mom's work phone, but I don't know if she works at her old place.

I didn't know I was pregnant when I sat down. The father of the child is there, he has a family, children too. He is 32 years old.
I was imprisoned on January 20, after 7 weeks I saw that I had no periods ...

Q. — Where were you put? Have you been in the Arkhangelsk pre-trial detention center?

O. - Yes, on Popov.

Inspection of women in pre-trial detention watch online for free in good quality

According to Marina Artamonova, “health worker Galina Valentinovna” threw these medicines into the “feeding trough” for her, and most of the medicines ended up in the corridor. The feeder slammed shut. The course of treatment prescribed by the doctor "from will" was not completed. And from local preparations, according to women, for all occasions - citramon and analgin, analgin and citramon.

Holidays in the Bastille are generally days of dull stagnation.

Applications and complaints on holidays are not accepted. One of the women has severe psoriasis on her hands. She was prescribed treatment before the holidays, they treated her for a couple of days, and then - the New Year. The treatment was stopped. Everyone is resting. The infirmary is closed.

One of the women complains of heart problems.

She has been in jail for almost two years. During this time, they tried to do an ECG only once, but the device broke down.

Examination of women in jail by a gynecologist

The ex-investigator herself denies guilt completely.

- "From above" there was an installation that there should be a high-profile case against the police, - she says. - So, neither personal characteristics, nor certificates of honor, nor awards, nor many years of work could play any role ... Everything was predetermined in advance, although I continue to challenge every step of the investigation, every illegal decision. Of course, it is much more difficult to do this in custody than at large. This is the purpose of our being here under arrest. Basically, the accusations against us are based on the testimony of the so-called “pre-trial judges” (those defendants who made a deal with the investigation, hoping in this way to achieve leniency).
Our arguments stand nothing against the words of the “dosudebshchikov”. Place in custody - the hope of the investigation to break our will and force us to incriminate ourselves or other people.

Angela has been in custody for two years.

Examination of women in jail online

Important

They don’t work in pre-trial detention centers, and waking up at six in the morning, if you don’t have to go to court, is pointless. Just another insult.

In a pre-trial detention center, you can easily become infected with tuberculosis. Theoretically, every new prisoner should have a fluorography.

But often the check is carried out when a person has already been transferred from quarantine to a common cell, or not carried out at all. A nineteen-year-old student of the law academy, the daughter of one of my cellmates, is suspected of having stage IV tuberculosis. Before that, a woman suffering from tuberculosis was placed in their cell.

You can catch the infection in the paddy wagon, where the patient was taken before you.

The attendants never tell you where they are taking you. “With documents” means that they will be taken to the investigation unit, where the investigator or lawyer came. “Slightly” - on a date. "According to the season" - in the punishment cell. “Get ready to leave” - to the court or for examination.

Inspection of women in jail for free

Attention

I ask for a spoon, I try. In my opinion, this is something inedible. However, they say, now they will give fish. I don’t wait for fish, but I don’t need to eat this vegetable stew. I ask the prisoners (40 women in the cell) - do you even eat this? Yes Yes…

They just smile a little and roll their eyes a little more.

I don’t understand why in our advanced days people need to be fed with such a thing. Well, yes, they are prisoners. And if not all, then many committed crimes. Well, now what? Why can't you cook and give women well, at least potatoes with a cutlet? After all, this is where global disrespect for a person begins - you can’t feed him like a pig if you don’t want him to feel like this pig ...

OK. The girl, by the way, is sitting on Art. 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - kidnapping. She says: kidnapping of a man. This is a close friend of her friend. I don't get it, some weird story.

Examination of a girl in jail

Violence against women in the zone is a common problem, which, due to sexual overtones, is rarely covered on television. Prisoners are forced to adapt to difficult living conditions and endure humiliation.

How do women live in colonies in Russia, what are the procedures and conditions in places of detention? Real facts and notes.

• How do they live in places of detention?
• Types of violence and torture
• Orders in the colonies
• How to behave for the first time?
• How is the inspection going?
• Conditions in the chambers

Is there violence against female prisoners in Russia?

Bullying and torture of a sexual nature in the prison department of the Russian Federation are systemic in nature.

Women on inspection in prison. Rules for Conducting a Personal Search, Inspection of the Things of Suspects, Accused, Convicted and Other Persons, Search and Technical Inspection of Cells

The former women's LTP in 1996 became a women's isolation ward. People call it "Bastille"

All windows of the cells overlook the courtyard. Moreover, the windows are small, under the ceiling, the glass is either dirty or badly scratched, and metal bars, each a few centimeters long.

So there is a minimum of natural light in the cells.

The only women's pre-trial detention center in Moscow is overcrowded with 250 people.

Apparently, three-tier beds will soon be installed, since the free space of the floor is already calculated not in meters, but in centimeters. All passages in the cells are filled with folding beds sagging to the floor. There are 40 people in the cell. To go to the toilet - sideways, sideways, along the wall ... There are two toilet bowls. No privacy.

They found a baby at one of them - they began to let everyone through. They didn't let me in, they took me out earlier. And then the girls passed the note through the “horse”. How we send letters: how did we get there, what do you have, what do we have ... For example, if I don’t have cigarettes, and I want to smoke, then I knock, and they lower the “horse” and that’s it. And they catch us downstairs, these dubaks, as we call them, tear them off with a stick and take everything for themselves, they don’t return it, even if it’s some kind of tea. Everything is completely taken away. All my groceries were taken out when I arrived at the prison. They said that “this is impossible, this is impossible” and they pulled everything out, it turns out that all this was possible. It's just - what kind of shift will you run into.

V. — Don't you know about inspection?

A. - First, when a person arrives there, they check his head. If your haircut is short, then they don’t pay attention to it, and you go through the examination further.

The first is that the accusations are based on an absolutely sober calculation (as a rule, not of the "victim" herself, but of her lawyer and the "support group") - telling chilling details of sadistic rape and perversion, replicating these details in the media, to attract attention and compassion inexperienced public and morally influence the forthcoming judgment.

The second option is the lie of the “unfortunate” herself, caused by obvious hysterical reactions: having once lied in this way, she begins to devoutly believe in her own lie and then lies completely sincerely, entangling her fantasies with more and more details and not thinking about their obvious absurdity. However, both options are usually combined.

In TDFs, women are placed separately from men, and since women are rarely "received", they sit mostly alone.

I know this person for the first term, and for the second term, and by will I know him ...

Q. Who is this person?

A. - DPNS, I do not know his data. When I went to the investigator or somewhere else, for some reason he constantly came across to me as a shift. And then he puts me in a punishment cell.

V. - For what?

He should take me to the investigator. He should put me separately from women, because. I am a youngster, he should put me in a “glass”. He, along with all these women, puts me in a box, it's not even a punishment cell, it's such a circle in which everything is like fish, like a herring in a barrel. He put us there. I feel stuffy and smelly in there.

And there is such sensitivity, I feel everything, and there they still smoke, 10 people at once. I knock and say: "On duty, come to the cell." He comes up and I ask him to put me in a “glass”, because. it's hard for me.

Depends on the shift: "human factor". Some of the women complain that they shower once every ten days. There are no pens and paper to write statements and complaints. The staff said that nothing is issued on holidays, everything is after January 9th. Another of the complaints: on December 31, newcomers were kept closed in the shower for two and a half hours. The water is cold, from the tap. Boiling water is not given. They ask: do you know why tea is so smelly - is it the water here, or is it specially made like that? They don’t accept packages on holidays either, there is no boiler. One of the women had a heart ache in the morning, she asked for validol. Brought in the evening. Women say that they can knock and call the duty officer for a long time: either they will not hear, or in response there will also be a knock from the other side.

In the cell of the collection point (this is a semi-basement where women are usually kept before being sent to court) there are always two women who have gone on a hunger strike.

In general, the morning passed in watching "Daddy's Daughters", regional news and the music channel.

Enough of our experiment!

Camera checks take place at 8 am. With bated breath, we listened to the rattling of the keys, impatiently waiting for the inspectors. When the door finally opened, we immediately declared that the experiment was enough and we wanted to go home. However, we were checked. We received a bunch of comments: the bed was not made correctly, the dishes were not washed. But to wash it, you had to eat breakfast. And although the stewed cabbage with stunted sausages did not look so bad, for some reason we did not want to eat.

According to the plan of the SIZO staff, on the second day we had to go through all the doctors, talk with a psychologist in order to exclude suicidal tendencies. Then we had a walk. But we flatly refused and completed the experiment.

The console is operated by only 1 operator. The staff - men and women - 50 to 50. There is a punishment cell where girls are also placed, but they are told one or two days is enough to stop barraging and return to the cell. Everything is of course clean and European. But God forbid anyone, except with a camera and a notebook, enter these places.

What I wish you all, friends!)

Good evening everyone, my birth was the first and it is difficult to describe them adequately right away, I matured before that only after 11 months. Do not remove from the phone under the cat, please remove the moderators. My pregnancy proceeded, in principle, well, toxicosis really tormented me for a long time, and edema at the end of pregnancy. So, I’ll start with the fact that I was 38 weeks pregnant, it was hard to walk, breathe, in short, everything was hard, even to move my toe…

Previously, on the site of the Kirovgrad SIZO, there was a military unit of the internal troops, which was engaged in escorting convicts. I had to tear everything down and rebuild everything.

There really are no familiar dogs. Two perimeter fencing systems - 6 meters and 5 and a half - do not give practically any chances ...

Reception room

With a book of reviews and wishes, which every morning lies on the desk of the head of the pre-trial detention center

Massive modern gateway where stages with imprisoned girls arrive

By the way, flashlights are also modern - on LEDs, the service life of which (as it is written at least) is 60 years.

These signs are everywhere.

And this picture is almost everywhere

Clean

A chamber for pregnant girls, and for those whose babies are born here.

The police were put there to guard, so that people would not steal. We came there, and they ask: “Why did you come here?” “To see our things, we lived here.” - "Half of the rooms were robbed, the doors were knocked out ... Come on, get in the car." And we were taken to the sobering-up station.

Then this girl was taken away, she was rude, but I was normal. They took her away and put her in a cell. Then some one came (I don’t know how he knows me) and said: “What are you doing here?” - "Nothing". - "Come with me". He took me to some room and said: "Sit down, I'll come right now."

After that, two people come in and say: “Come on, undress.” “Why am I going to undress?” — “You were detained, you are drunk…” — “How drunk am I?!” “Come on, come on, get undressed.” - "I will not undress". Then one left, and I sat there alone for about 20 minutes, then three more came and said: “Did you decide to undress?” "I won't undress."
Either slightly salted trout will disappear, then face cream, then cigarettes. Even toilet paper is gone. For example, four rolls were transferred, but only one reaches the addressee. Where did the other three go? For example, Artamonova, a senior detective of the Perovo police department, who has been in SIZO-6 for a year, said that when she received a parcel from relatives ordered through an online store, the package was opened and should be sealed.

His cigarettes are gone. On December 26 last year, “health worker Galina Valentinovna” brought Artamonova medicines handed over from her relatives. According to Marina Artamonova, “health worker Galina Valentinovna” threw these medicines into the “feeding trough” for her, and most of the medicines ended up in the corridor. The feeder slammed shut. The course of treatment prescribed by the doctor "from will" was not completed.

The record of a personal search, examination of the belongings of the suspect, the accused and the convicted person, as well as the act of seizing prohibited items, shall be attached to his personal file.

The procedure for registration, accounting and storage of valuables confiscated from suspects, accused and convicted persons is regulated in accordance with the current legislation of the Russian Federation that regulates this area of ​​activity.

In case of an incomplete personal search, a report on the seizure of prohibited items is drawn up.

To increase the effectiveness of searches, technical means are used, as well as specially trained dogs.

X-ray equipment may only be used to search the belongings and clothes of suspects, accused and convicted persons.

The suffering of men, in general, is of little interest to anyone.

It must be admitted that in recent years, torture and other violence against detainees (both women and men) have a clear tendency to decrease. "Troubled" by constant inspections by the prosecutor's office, police officers try to avoid violence, ignoring the hypocritical anger of the authorities about the lack of the notorious disclosure rate.

Sexual harassment occurs quite rarely and only at the first stage, before the detainee is placed in a temporary detention facility (IVS). However, sometimes a woman herself provokes such harassment, offering to somehow “resolve issues” and thereby hinting at the possibility of intimate services.

Sexual violence almost never occurs. From time to time this topic is raised by one of the former arrested and convicted.

There are two variants of such "confessions".

... It would be better if they never got here.

MOSCOW, June 17 - RIA Novosti, Marina Lukovtseva. In honor of Medic's Day, their patients will not bring a classic set of cognac and sweets as a gift, there will not even be bouquets for women. Not because doctors and nurses are bad or patients are ungrateful - you just need to keep your distance.

A RIA Novosti correspondent visited a hospital located on the territory of a strict regime male colony (IK-3) in Vladimir and found out why gifts from prisoners are taboo, that every doctor behind bars involuntarily becomes a psychologist, and also why doctors in uniform are able to control their fear and from the first seconds can recognize the simulator.

Happy Holidays, sculptors!

“The convicts always congratulate on February 23, the New Year, women - on March 8, and on all holidays.

According to the rules, you had to undress completely. But somehow this idea did not inspire us. So we managed with a superficial examination of the skin for the presence of contagious skin diseases and the scalp for pediculosis. If an infectious disease is detected, then the person and his things are sent for sanitation.

The medical examination takes a lot of time, - said the doctor of the pre-trial detention center. — We have two medical rooms in different buildings. One checks arrivals, the other checks out. The turnover is terrible: those who need to be interrogated in departments come for medical examinations, and those who are sent to colonies from trains. Such people can sit in a pre-trial detention center for only one night. We check about 500 detainees a day.

After the medical examination, our passports were taken away from us. And it's strange - without it, you somehow immediately feel insecure. Instead of a document of a citizen of the Russian Federation, chamber cards were brought to the participants in the experiment.

The journalist of "SM Number One" voluntarily went into the shoes of a person under investigation

Employees of the GUFSIN offered the journalists to spend the night in a cell of the Irkutsk pre-trial detention center. Only four people agreed to this feat, including the correspondent of SM Number One. The employees of the pre-trial detention center answered questions willingly, but they did not want to introduce themselves. They can be understood - after all, the work does not provide for publicity.

Insulator

In the evening, the concrete fence of the pre-trial detention center, entangled with barbed wire, looks even more intimidating than in daylight. According to legend, the police brought us, although in fact we came voluntarily. The door behind us closed with a wild crash. On the territory of the pre-trial detention center, we were met by the staff of the duty shift of the prefabricated department. And it began: “Hands behind your back, let’s go in formation!” Journalists are not at all accustomed to holding their hands behind their backs, so the SIZO staff constantly reminded us of this. As well as the fact that during the stop you need to turn your face to the wall.

Despite the fact that the SIZO building was built in the middle of the 19th century, its condition is quite decent. Flowers in pots on the walls should create a certain comfort. The employees of the detention center said that we found far from the worst times in the pre-trial detention center. The capacity of the isolation ward is 1505 people. Now so many are kept here, but there was a time when there were about 6,000 detainees in the cells.

Body check

First of all, we were sent for a medical examination. The male convoy that accompanied us remained outside the door. The women were examined by a medical worker in the presence of a female SIZO employee. According to the rules, you had to undress completely. But somehow this idea did not inspire us. So we managed with a superficial examination of the skin for the presence of contagious skin diseases and the scalp for pediculosis. If an infectious disease is detected, then the person and his things are sent for sanitation.

A medical examination takes a lot of time, - said the doctor of the pre-trial detention center. - We have two medical rooms in different buildings. One checks arrivals, the other checks out. The turnover is terrible: those who need to be interrogated in departments come for medical examinations, and those who are sent to colonies from trains. Such people can sit in a pre-trial detention center for only one night. We check about 500 detainees a day.

After the medical examination, our passports were taken away from us. And it's strange - without it, somehow you immediately feel insecure. Instead of a document of a citizen of the Russian Federation, chamber cards were brought to the participants in the experiment. They offered to choose an article on which to sit. Previously, we were told that most often people end up in a pre-trial detention center on articles related to drugs, theft and murder. I decided to sit down for theft.

Search

Next was the search. This is an unpleasant process. Again, I had to undress completely. It is clear that women are examined only by women. - We check absolutely everything, - says the junior inspector of the SIZO regime department. - First, we offer the detainee to lay out the prohibited items voluntarily. And then we are looking for. And here, if something forbidden is found, it will be punished. We probe all the seams - they often try to smuggle drugs, a SIM card, sharpeners into them. We also find yeast used to make alcoholic beverages. But the most unusual thing is that they somehow found nail polish in a hole in the body. It remains to be seen why the detainee so wanted to carry him into the cell.

After the search, we felt completely defenseless. Still, they took money, jewelry and a mobile phone, which I specially charged in the hope that at night, when there was nothing to do, I would chat with friends. They also found a penknife in my bag. For this, they would immediately be put in a punishment cell. Good thing I'm a journalist on assignment. The seized money, we were told, is deposited into the account of the detainee, with which he can purchase food in the SIZO store. Jewelry is transferred to the storage room. Seeing our frightened eyes, the staff assured that things would not be lost. We had to accept - we had no choice. The only thing that was allowed to be carried from jewelry was a cross and other objects of religious worship, though only on a string, and not on a chain.

Rolled fingers

And then it started just like in the movies: we were photographed in profile and full face for the card. “Come in, I’ll roll your fingers back,” the fingerprint inspector met us with a smile in the next room. The staff of the pre-trial detention center laughed, because the means used for fingerprinting was familiar to us. This is printing ink, which is used to print newspapers, only a certain substance is added to it, the name of which, of course, was not told to us. A lot of laughter was also caused by the fact that we did not know how to wash our hands after fingerprinting. It's a whole system! The paint is washed off in several approaches ... with pieces of newspaper and liquid soap. And then not to the end. The black spots on my hands lasted for several days.

After that, the person under investigation undergoes an initial medical examination, or, in slang, a primary one, aimed at cutting off infectious detainees from the bulk, - said the X-ray laboratory assistant of the medical unit of the pre-trial detention center. - The first step is fluorography to identify patients with tuberculosis. Thanks to the ProGraph 4000 electronic device, the image is immediately displayed on the monitor. There are only three such devices in the region: in the pre-trial detention center, as well as in the regional and Ust-Orda TB dispensaries. In addition, blood is given for HIV and syphilis. Immediately determine the blood type. The doctor also conducts an anamnesis-survey and describes special signs. By the way, the detainees willingly share information about fractures, tattoos, scars and other signs, because they understand that this will help with identification.

The night will be remembered for a long time

Well, all the preliminary stages have been completed. It remains to get things - and into the cell. Each of us was given two sheets, a blanket, a mattress, a pillow, a pillowcase, a hygiene bag, a mug, a spoon and two cups (under the first and second). Apparently, we could not contain our emotions and some disgust was reflected on our faces. But the deputy head of the shift assured that journalists were given everything new. We calmed down.

An unexpected test was the transfer of these things to the cells. They turned out to be heavy and bulky, and the steps upstairs were steep. Out of breath, we made a small halt at the top, spitting on the rules of the pre-trial detention center.

They put us in cell No. 502. I don't want anyone to hear the prison door closing behind their back. And of course with a bang. Examining the new dwelling with curiosity, we discovered that it is quite possible to live in a SIZO cell. There is a bunk bed, a table with a bench, an LG TV, a washbasin, though with rusty water. Some cells have refrigerators, it's as lucky. We were lucky, even though there was nothing to put there.

Surprisingly, the bars on the windows did not strain at all. Unexpectedly pleased that the cell was warm. In order not to be bored, the detainees are given regional newspapers. And two sheets of paper for writing statements. The rights and obligations, as well as the rules of the pre-trial detention center, could be found on sheets pasted to the door.

There were also unpleasant surprises. First: the bathroom is a meter away from the bed. Second: found that the linen is not new, though clean. The pillow was generally hard, like a piece of wood. They fed us like all detainees, although we hoped for a certain privilege.

When we settled in a new place, the attendant turned on the night light. The cameras should be able to see what is happening there, even at night. But after all, it is impossible to sleep in such bright lighting, at least for us who are not used to such an order. Therefore, we can say with confidence that the night passed with little or no sleep. From the feeling of complete loneliness, we were saved by the walking of the SIZO employees every 15 minutes and tapping with the neighboring cell, where the male half of the journalists were put. The meter-thick walls let sound through perfectly.

The awakening brought no joy. The TV turned on at 6 am. And, of course, on a crime program on NTV. Apparently, in order for the detainees to finally wake up, the radio started working in a few minutes. Gutting the hygienic bag, we found antibacterial soap, the same triclosan toothpaste, a toothbrush and a roll of toilet paper. In general, the morning passed in watching "Daddy's Daughters", regional news and the music channel.

Enough of our experiment!

Camera checks take place at 8 am. With bated breath, we listened to the rattling of the keys, impatiently waiting for the inspectors. When the door finally opened, we immediately declared that the experiment was enough and we wanted to go home. However, we were checked. We received a bunch of comments: the bed was not made correctly, the dishes were not washed. But to wash it, you had to eat breakfast. And although the stewed cabbage with stunted sausages did not look so bad, for some reason we did not want to eat.

According to the plan of the SIZO staff, on the second day we had to go through all the doctors, talk with a psychologist in order to exclude suicidal tendencies. Then we had a walk. But we flatly refused and completed the experiment. In parting with us, the head of the SIZO, Igor Mokeev, met with whom we talked about the conditions in which the suspects were kept.

The state allocates 5,500 rubles a month for one detainee,” Igor Mokeev said. - Of this amount, he has 1500-2000 left. He can spend them either in our store, or on medicines for sick parents, or on repayment of a claim. For us, the main thing is to create the minimum acceptable conditions in order to keep people in a pre-trial detention center. Yes, our rules are quite liberal. But after all, the task of the pre-trial detention center is to isolate a person accused of a crime from the outside world. We don't have to re-educate him. Words and actions, decency in relationships are valued here.

Maybe there are high moral principles in the pre-trial detention center. But for myself, I decided: I will not return to the pre-trial detention center again. Although the staff sarcastically added: "Do not promise."

MOSCOW, June 17 - RIA Novosti, Marina Lukovtseva. In honor of Medic's Day, their patients will not bring a classic set of cognac and sweets as a gift, there will not even be bouquets for women. Not because the doctors and nurses are bad or the patients are ungrateful - you just need to keep your distance.

A RIA Novosti correspondent visited a hospital located on the territory of a strict regime male colony (IK-3) in Vladimir and found out why gifts from prisoners are a taboo, that every doctor behind bars involuntarily becomes a psychologist, and also why doctors in uniform are able to control their fear and from the first seconds can recognize the simulator.

Happy Holidays, sculptors!

“The convicts always congratulate on February 23, the New Year, women on March 8, and on all holidays. And on our professional, of course,” said Aleksey Afanasiev, head of the branch of the tuberculosis hospital No. But the readiness to hear stories about fabulous gifts immediately stumbled upon a significant "but".

“But we can’t afford to take anything from them. It’s not written anywhere, but we ourselves understand that a certain distance must be kept. I won’t take anything from the convict,” the neurologist of the health center of the branch of the Tuberculosis Hospital No. -33 Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia Oksana Kolotushkina.

“We are not only people in white coats, we wear shoulder straps. We comply with the rules and medical ethics, and we have rules of conduct for an employee of the Federal Penitentiary Service,” explained Natalya Koshokina, deputy head of the FKUZ MSCH-33 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia.

According to her, this distance has been observed at all times, and it can neither be shortened nor lengthened. “If you lengthen the distance, you will leave the profession, from the person. If you shorten it, you will violate the border on which respect is built. This, perhaps, in addition to the daily passage through the checkpoint, is the main difference from doctors in the wild,” added Koshokina.

By the way, despite the presence in the prison jargon of a rather dissonant nickname in relation to doctors - "sculpted", no one dares to voice it in the face. The highest degree of respect is the treatment of prisoners by their patronymic.

“They call me Alekseich. Since I came here, they have been called that,” the most experienced of the employees, whose general medical experience has long exceeded half a century, the general practitioner of the health center of the branch of the tuberculosis hospital No. Russian Robert Alekseevich Oparin.

© AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov

© AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov

Not a pioneer camp

Boundaries delineate not only moral and codified norms. At first glance, the corridors of the hospital in the colony are no different from medical facilities in the wild - the same smell of cleanliness and medicines, the same gurney for transporting bedridden patients. But the bars, whose frequency increases depending on the danger of the criminal, on the doors of the chambers level out all similarities. In the treatment rooms, there are also gratings - cut-off, with special holes for intravenous and intramuscular injections, and during the procedures, an inspector is on duty nearby.

Once upon a time, according to the stories of doctors, these bars were almost non-existent, they were introduced everywhere in the early 2000s after a wave of seizures of medical workers swept through. Then there were video cameras, panic buttons, including portable ones that women health workers always carry with them.

“Yes, this is not a pioneer camp. That’s for sure,” Koshokina noted. “Yes, not everyone can work with us. suddenly he will do something to me. "This fear must be overcome. Confidence in one's safety helps. Because we ourselves observe it."

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

Unaccompanied women are forbidden to move along the corridors of the hospital and colony. Even in case of an emergency, they must wait for an inspector or a male doctor. If the nurse needs to get out of the treatment room to the post, she will do this only when the convicts who came for the injections leave the corridor so as not to provoke a potentially dangerous situation.

“If in the Vladimir Central it is supposed to go to a particularly dangerous convict with a cynologist with a dog and four escorts, then I won’t go there alone.

If such precautions inspire confidence in a woman doctor in uniform, then in a woman journalist they only increase fear. Fortunately, a visit to especially dangerous criminals, for obvious reasons, could not be included in the list of visits. The question naturally arises whether prisoners allow provocative antics towards doctors in order to inspire fear.

“In the prison environment, the expression of some kind of negativity, negative actions against medical workers is not welcome. Because the only people in places of deprivation of liberty who can save their lives. A person who allows such an attitude will look pale in front of his own,” Afanasiev assured . In addition, a deterrent is the threat of disciplinary action, including placement in a punishment cell or even a review of the case against the convict.

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

Subtle psychologists

Communication with each new patient for a doctor behind a thorn is an exam, and the surrender does not begin with pulling out a ticket, but from the first seconds of communication.

"They are all psychologists. Even during the initial examination by a doctor, the convict immediately assesses the situation, what can be afforded, what cannot be. Those for whom a new term is a common thing have already gone through different pre-trial detention centers, different learned, including the basics of psychology," Afanasiev explained.

Some rather subtle psychologists from among the prisoners managed to make the nurses fall in love with them, of course, and they themselves imitated ardent feelings. “But under these feelings, selfish interests are hidden, including requests to bring something forbidden into the zone. The girls are burning on this. There were several cases in my memory.

If the doctor is a novice, he will be tested in full. “When a doctor just arrives at a new place of work, they arrange a “bride-in-law” for him. Convicts begin to visit him en masse, often with far-fetched complaints, in order to “probe” a person. And this pilgrimage will continue until the convicts form a complete picture of this doctor," Afanasyev said.

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

Diagnosis "simulant"

If in the wild a certain percentage of the able-bodied population tries to simply buy a sick leave, then prisoners deprived of this opportunity use all their knowledge and acting skills.

“Here comes a patient. And by the way he comes in, you are already starting to collect information. We look at how he behaves, how he talks, what he complains about ... A clear knowledge of the clinic of the disease always helps out. When there is a discrepancy in the description of symptoms by convicts, one complaint contradicts another, doubts are already creeping in. That is, he heard somewhere, read it and gets confused in the description. Already at this stage, the doctor may suspect a simulation, "Kolotushkina said.

As an example, she cited a recent case when a patient in a pre-trial detention center suddenly began to complain of severe back pain before being sent to court. He turned himself in when the doctor asked him to do a couple of movements that would be impossible in the case of real health problems, and the x-ray only reinforced her assumptions - a simulation.

“We had one convict with hypertension. He really didn’t want to leave us - the conditions are better than in the detachment. And suddenly he declares before being discharged that his legs can’t walk. We agreed on transportation. The orderlies took him on a stretcher And for some reason they couldn't get him through the doorway: they tried this way and that, and almost dropped him. Kolotushkin.

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

“But not everyone gives themselves away right away. About six or seven years ago, there was such a patient who just fell ill and lies, his legs can’t walk. We examined him thoroughly. We didn’t find anything. We tried to write him back to the zone. continued to lie. It turned out to be a hard nut - we fought with him for a year and a half. Then, nevertheless, they miraculously convinced me to take him to the zone. A few months later we had the opportunity to hold an exit reception there - he walks, "surprised even years later, he described the case of a phenomenal persistence of the prisoner head of the hospital.

There is another category of prisoners who are ready for more drastic measures to get to the hospital. “In 1978, there was a case. The convict dismantled the bottom of the bed, which was attached with metal rings, and swallowed all these rings. It came out 700 grams of metal. Some of the rings came out, and some didn’t ... I had to operate,” Oparin said.

It is now refurbished in accordance with the latest building technology cells and equipped with round-the-clock video surveillance, which practically deprived the prisoners of the opportunity to swallow something inedible. And earlier, according to doctors, in order to get into the hospital for a long time, convicts swallowed the tips of spoons, nails, hooks from beds. “They also ate hedgehogs. A bunch of bent nails, tied with an elastic band, were fastened with bread crumb. When swallowed, the bread was digested, the elastic band unfolded and a hedgehog similar to an anti-tank one, only miniature, stood up. There is only surgical treatment,” Afanasyev said.

“But there are also entertainers. For example, they stick a spoon to their back and go to take a picture, naively believing that the doctor will not understand whether this spoon is in the esophagus or still on the back,” Koshokina said.

"Another category of patients that we have to deal with are those who are sick with serious illnesses and refuse treatment. The reason is simple - it is beneficial for them to have a severe form of disability, because while they are sitting, they are paid disability benefits," Afanasyev said.

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

On the edge of life

There is a place in the zone for medical exploits. Some survive only thanks to the doctors of this hospital. “We had a convict who was nicknamed Auschwitz for his thinness. He weighed 35 kilograms with a height of about 185 centimeters. They brought him on a stretcher ... They gave him a short sentence - one and a half or two months. before leaving. They were two different people. He began to walk, "said Oparin.

But in addition to such semi-comical cases, in the practice of each of the doctors in uniform there are cases of real salvation or life extension. Sometimes they have to deal with such rare diseases that are not treated in every region.

"Ormond's disease. The disease is severe, leads to disorders of the entire urinary system, turns into chronic renal failure, which will then require hemodialysis. We tried to find out who treats it with us. We got the answer: the one who detected it. The disease is at the junction of different industries medicine. As a result, we raised the literature, developed tactics. We have been treating the patient for two years already. There is a positive trend - the second kidney was saved. We have reached such a level that we have slowed down the disease," Afanasiev shared his success.

According to him, the convict with Ormond's disease is still far from being released, which means that he will still live, because, as practice shows, these people do not take care of their health at all. Former prisoners, Kolotushkina clarified, are simply not ready to bypass narrow specialists, who, in order to get an appointment, require the referral of therapists and the delivery of a whole set of tests. And the list of unique diagnoses made in this closed medical facility can be continued.

Now the hospital has 379 beds - therapeutic, surgical, psychiatric departments and three tuberculosis departments, which are divided into profiles depending on the severity of the disease. It has its own laboratories and diagnostic equipment. There is also a health center in the hospital, which provides medical care to convicts from IK-3.

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

“When they ask us if we are afraid to work with tuberculosis, we answer:“ it’s not scary. ”Because we know everything about it. And we know how to behave,” said Kolotushkina.

In a much greater danger, according to doctors, are people at will. Immediately after release, TB patients, including those with multidrug resistance, simply melt into the crowd, putting those around them at risk of contracting this severe form.

“Sometimes we literally escort those who have been released to the TB dispensary by the hand. We inform the dispensary itself about the existence of such a patient, provide all the medical information there. But usually everything is limited to this drive. These people do not appear in the TB dispensary anymore. there would be a law on compulsory treatment for socially dangerous diseases," she added.

Five years ago, according to doctors, the governor of the Vladimir region, Svetlana Orlova, issued an order according to which tuberculosis patients receive compensation payments and a set of products after their release. So they are encouraged to come to the TB dispensary and register.

“Some patients with psychopathology also need to be sent for aftercare after the end of the term. And we, as doctors, always ask ourselves the question: “Where will he go now?” And then high-profile cases arise, as in Nizhny Novgorod, when he stabbed six children and his wife. In remission, such people should be in compulsory treatment after being released from prison, but it turns out that they are left to their own devices,” Afanasiev supported his colleague.

Aleksei Afanasiev, like all Soviet boys, dreamed of heroic professions and, after working for several years as a military doctor, went away for a while "on free bread." Even local old-timer Robert Alekseevich Oparin, who has been working in the system since the late 70s, could become a journalist, because in his youth he wrote notes for a newspaper and is still fond of writing - he published several books at his own expense. © Photo: provided by the press service Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in the Vladimir Region

© Photo: provided by the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vladimir Region

The only women's pre-trial detention center in Moscow is overcrowded with 250 people. Apparently, three-tier beds will soon be installed, since the free space of the floor is already calculated not in meters, but in centimeters. All passages in the cells are filled with folding beds sagging to the floor. There are 40 people in the cell. To go to the toilet sideways, sideways, along the wall There are two toilet bowls. No privacy...

Photo by RIA Novosti

The former women's LTP in 1996 became a women's isolation ward. People call it "Bastille". All windows of the cells overlook the courtyard. Moreover, the windows are small, under the ceiling, the glass is either dirty or badly scratched, and metal bars, each a few centimeters long. So there is a minimum of natural light in the cells.

The only women's pre-trial detention center in Moscow is overcrowded with 250 people. Apparently, three-tier beds will soon be installed, since the free space of the floor is already calculated not in meters, but in centimeters. All passages in the cells are filled with folding beds sagging to the floor. There are 40 people in the cell. To go to the toilet - sideways, sideways, along the wall ... There are two toilet bowls. No privacy. According to the sanitary norm, there should be one toilet for 10 people. But what are the rules here?

The escort officer makes an announcement: "A father will come at Christmas, he will sprinkle water on everyone." I ask, what if a woman is a Muslim, a Jew or an atheist, and does not want to be sprinkled?! “She can go to a corner,” the officer replies, “they won’t do it by force.”

I didn’t see a free corner in the cell where you can “hide” from sprinkling. When building in a cell, women are not placed in one row, and they are not allowed to stand in two rows of beds. Apparently, from forced sprinkling, you can hide only in the toilet. By the way, according to the Internal Rules of the SIZO (PVR) (paragraph 101): “It is not allowed to perform religious rites that violate<…>rights of other suspects and accused”. I remember how indignant Yekaterina Samutsevich was when a priest entered the cell of the same SIZO-6 on Easter: “And without asking me, he began to pour water on everything, sprinkled me without my desire. I didn't want him to perform a religious ceremony. We have a secular state,” said Samutsevich.

Pregnant women are also in the same large common cell. Diet food in the form of milk, eggs and cottage cheese is issued only from the sixth month of pregnancy. And until that time - a common table. Although nowhere in the PVR is it said about such a restriction on the months of pregnancy. On the contrary, absolutely all pregnant women are entitled to a diet, and three months before the birth, according to the doctor’s prescription, additional nutrition can still be prescribed to it. Paragraph 22 of the PVR speaks of the creation of "improved material and living conditions" for pregnant women. Where are these improved conditions?

In the morning, the women were given porridge, at lunch the first was pea soup, which was the second - here the opinions of the “contingent”, as the employees call the women in the isolation ward, were divided: either potato mass with soy meat or stew, or potato mass with something unknown. There are no positive reviews for this dish. Many pregnant women have toxicosis. They cannot eat potato mass with an unknown filler. Many pregnant women do not have relatives in Moscow, which means that there are no programs. A young woman from Tajikistan has a third month of pregnancy, severe toxicosis, a month ago the doctor prescribed injections, injections were made, nausea remained, the doctor did not prescribe anything else. Walks for pregnant women, as well as for everyone else, for an hour, although according to clause 134 of the PVR “duration of walks<…>pregnant women is not limited.

Thursday at the Bastille is a "naked day". This is when women are driven out in their shorts into the corridor for examination by a health worker. In addition to the medical workers in the corridor, there are also employees. It doesn't matter if the employee is male or female. Employee! And in front of them is a naked woman in shorts...

Women also say that when they are taken to the first-aid post for examination, they are forced to kneel, spread their buttocks... And the whole process is filmed by employees.

The women in the pre-trial detention center do not understand why they are not supposed to know the names of the employees. This secrecy is explained by security measures. Rude, beaten, humiliated - real employees, and these employees can be called by any name. It's impossible to check. Okay, last name and real name are a secret. But then let the employees have badges with numbers, so that in the complaints of women it would not be written: “An employee Roman hit me.” And if there was “Roman” under the number ... Here is such a “Roman”, for example, on July 19 last year, he punched Lyudmila Kachalova in the face. The woman fell, lost consciousness, she was forced to call an ambulance, which recorded hematomas on her face, arms and legs. Neither an internal check nor a prosecutor's check on the fact of Kachalova's beating was carried out. "Roman" is still working in SIZO-6. True, he no longer visits Kachalova, but at first after what happened, he conveyed “hello” to her through his employee, who came to the cell, grabbed paper flowers and other Kachalova crafts from multi-colored paper napkins, threw them into the corridor and trampled them in front of the prisoner feet...

Another of those who, according to women, mocks and humiliates them, are employees under the names "Raisa Vasilievna" and "Anastasia Yurievna". Maybe, after all, it is necessary to conduct an internal check in the pre-trial detention center, or maybe the supervisory prosecutor will be interested in what is happening in pre-trial detention center-6 ?!

Many women have complained about the loss of content in programs. Either slightly salted trout will disappear, then face cream, then cigarettes. Even toilet paper is gone. For example, four rolls were transferred, but only one reaches the addressee. Where did the other three go? For example, Artamonova, a senior detective of the Perovo police department, who has been in SIZO-6 for a year, said that when she received a parcel from relatives ordered through an online store, the package was opened and should be sealed. His cigarettes are gone. On December 26 last year, “health worker Galina Valentinovna” brought Artamonova medicines handed over from her relatives. According to Marina Artamonova, “health worker Galina Valentinovna” threw these medicines into the “feeding trough” for her, and most of the medicines ended up in the corridor. The feeder slammed shut. The course of treatment prescribed by the doctor "from will" was not completed. And from local preparations, according to women, for all occasions - citramon and analgin, analgin and citramon.

Holidays in the Bastille are generally days of dull stagnation. Applications and complaints on holidays are not accepted. One of the women has severe psoriasis on her hands. She was prescribed treatment before the holidays, they treated her for a couple of days, and then the New Year. The treatment was stopped. Everyone is resting. The infirmary is closed.

One of the women complains of heart problems. She has been in jail for almost two years. During this time, they tried to do an ECG only once, but the device broke down. Now, as we managed to find out from the paramedic who was on duty during the holidays, the device seems to be working, but there is no paper. And the paper is special - rolled, you have to order it, and then wait. And how long to wait? So who knows. For a long time, probably. I think that a woman in need of an ECG will be released faster than an ECG will work in the isolation ward.

Women complain about intervertebral hernia, in response they receive: “Almost everyone has this. It's OK". After spinal surgery, one of the women sleeps on a cot. Pain? “No problem,” is the answer. A woman with thick glasses asks an ophthalmologist for a consultation. But there is a problem with the ophthalmologist, however, as well as with the dentist and the surgeon.

There is silence on all floors of the Bastille, the radio does not work anywhere. Although, according to the same PVR, all cameras must be "equipped with a radio speaker for broadcasting a nationwide program." And since not all cells have a TV, it is very difficult for women to find out about what is happening outside the walls of the pre-trial detention center.

Quarantine. A small cell, a cot in the middle, you can't even walk sideways here. They take them out for a walk, then they don’t. Depends on the shift: "human factor". Some of the women complain that they shower once every ten days. There are no pens and paper to write statements and complaints. The staff said that nothing is issued on holidays, everything is after January 9th. Another of the complaints: on December 31, newcomers were kept closed in the shower for two and a half hours. The water is cold, from the tap. Boiling water is not given. They ask: do you know why tea is so smelly - is it the water here, or is it specially made like that? They don’t accept packages on holidays either, there is no boiler. One of the women had a heart ache in the morning, she asked for validol. Brought in the evening. Women say that they can knock and call the duty officer for a long time: either they will not hear, or in response there will also be a knock from the other side.

In the cell of the collection point (this is a semi-basement where women are usually kept before being sent to court) there are always two women who have gone on a hunger strike. The reason for the hunger strike is red tape and illegal, according to women, court verdicts. There was no money for lawyers, so the defenders in court were state-owned.

Anastasia Melnikova has been on hunger strike since December 15th. She was in the hospital of the pre-trial detention center "Matrosskaya Tishina", where treatment was prescribed by a neurologist. But on December 24, she was taken to SIZO-6. This ended the treatment. Employees have daily conversations, telling Melnikova that fasting is a sign of suicidal tendencies and anorexia. She is very afraid that she will be sent to a psychiatric hospital or forced to feed. During the hunger strike, she lost 9 kg. Apparently very weak.

Anastasia is a makeup artist by profession. To keep himself occupied, he makes holiday cards. Instead of paint - eye shadow. Incredibly delicate and beautiful work.

Drawing by Anastasia Melnikova. Photo: (c) Elena MASYUK

Her neighbor Irina Luzina is a restorer by profession. Starving since December 25th. Lost 5 kg. He does not go for a walk because of weakness. Food is brought to the cell three times a day for women. She stays with them for two hours, then they take her back.

In the corner on the bedside table is a large metal tank with the inscription "Drinking Water". The tank is empty and not working at all - the tap is broken. After a long clarification with the staff and the women in the pre-trial detention center, it turns out what is meant by “drinking water” - ordinary tap water. Why do we need this tank then? Required for instructions. It also turns out that this is the only cell where there are no sockets, which means that women cannot boil water for themselves. You need to wait for a “session of kindness” from employees. Of the containers in the chamber, only a metal mug. And the fasting need to drink fluids at least two liters a day. Here they drink tap water. And next to it is absolutely the same camera, but with sockets. Why can't starving women be transferred there?! Not to mention the fact that paragraph 42 of the PVR obliges all cameras to be equipped with “plug sockets for connecting household appliances”.

The mattresses here are the same as everywhere else - thin and matted. It is impossible to sleep on them. Women put pages from their criminal case under their backs and sleep like that. They say: "There are no bruises, but the bones hurt." On holidays, women were not even given toilet paper (a roll of toilet paper in a pre-trial detention center is 25 m, this is a quarter of a standard roll). "Finished, you say? Well, after the holidays you will get it! ” employees explained.

P.S. Head of SIZO-6 - Kirillova Tatyana Vladimirovna