“We were told about the visit of the so-called “musicians” day after day. The duty shift was not allowed out of the zone; the head of the colony took charge outside the schedule. The deputy for BioOR gathered all the orderlies and supervisors, announced a complete “stop” to the prohibitions, and in return promised a life without troubles and commissions. There was no morning divorce; everyone waited in the barracks until lunch for the arrival of the “government” employees. This was deliberately told to prisoners and junior inspectors.
The PMC helicopter landed outside a secure facility, next to the colony, although I heard from colleagues that in other camps it happened that they landed directly on the parade ground or stadium. Outside the zone, they did not particularly communicate with anyone, they ignored the courtesies of local officers, and did not even consult with anyone. They just told them to raise everyone, even the kicha (punishment cell), the SUS (the detachment where malicious regime violators serve their sentences) and the BUR (Unified cell-type premises), if there is one. Apparently, somewhere the evildoers were not taken out, so they set accents from the threshold. On the contrary, they told me not to touch the “Cross” (medical unit). Our officers did not know how to communicate with them, they did not remove their hands from their heads, they saluted as in the army. The Wagnerites entered the camp itself, led by Prigozhin. Everything is in camouflage with hardware. Very impressive, their boss has two Hero stars on his chest. The prisoners were lined up in front of him. He spoke without fear, face to face. He said something like, we are recruiting people to kill: murderers, robbers, everyone is needed. Like, we are an organized group, you can call it that. He reproached that he himself served time and experienced the life of a prisoner, and now, look at him, he is a twice-hero. The guests promised the daredevils freedom and money, and then also left in an organized manner.
Honestly, they didn’t convince everyone. But I myself heard how they called home: “Galya, we’ll buy a new car!”, They showed off in front of their friends: “I would like to go to such a disco!” Over the next eight days, the headquarters received about 700 applications. This is a little more than half of the entire colony.
The procedure for registration is as follows: on their personal affairs, certificates were drawn up in a new form – in them not only excerpts from the AKUS (PO FSIN), but also indicating origin, faith, connections (extended information, it was required to indicate down to the true “family members” in the colony ) and other detailed operational information. The papers were sent to Moscow. From there, under strict control and in secrecy (all documents were received and stored in the safe of the Special Department – the special accounting department, which is located in a civilian building outside the zone) “pardons” came signed by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief for 200 people. These papers were not brought into the zone, but this is definitely true.
That week, before lights out, military KAMAZ trucks arrived at the colony and took these people away. It turns out they are now officially free. As for the composition of those selected. Several people were taken from SUS. More than 50 people were taken from one detachment at once. Why? Don’t know. Opera, maybe they wrote something. All of them were mostly convicted of crimes against persons, illegal weapons trafficking, or had previous service in the Armed Forces. For the rest, nothing has arrived yet, I think this is now their reserve.”
According to the Cheka-OGPU, the next trips of recruiters from the Wagner PMC are planned to the colonies of the Volga region
“ВЧК ОГПУ”