“Zoo with strict conditions”
Many times I heard from experienced prisoners in Bezhetsk about the Strict Confinement Detachment (SCD), but the reality exceeded my worst expectations.
In a 30-meter day room, on a floor filled with ordinary concrete screed, there are wooden benches without backs, screwed to the floor. 17 video cameras vigilantly monitor the slightest violations. I took off my jacket to wash myself – report. A grate separates the floor to the ceiling a meter from all walls and windows. It looks like an indoor animal cage, only there are jailers instead of zoo visitors. You won’t get bananas or sweets from them. In Russia, the Society for the Protection of Animal Rights does a good job, but it struggles with human rights.
We watched with envy how the Amur tiger was groomed and nurtured in the zoo: they fed him fresh meat, bathed him every other day… In SUS there is always twilight with a smoke screen of tobacco. I am forced to breathe this poison, the exhaust hood is not working. Both barred windows are tightly closed with matte polycarbonate. Next to the windows on the wall, two small lamps burn dimly.
There is not a single lamp inside the cage itself, but the TV is on non-stop. Writing and reading is difficult due to darkness and noise. In detachment No. 8 of the SUS, 23 prisoners are serving their sentences. Someone was sent to a punishment cell and PKT (small solitary confinement). The overwhelming majority of the special contingent are Muslims from Central Asia. They perform namaz five times a day. The prayer in Arabic is read aloud. At this time, the others do not speak and turn off the TV sound.
The Administration has the opportunity to use the bedroom for religious ceremonies, but complicating the lives of prisoners is equated with exemplary service. Practitioners of Islam are forced to kneel on concrete, and their small rugs have been confiscated. In a toilet without lighting there is only one toilet for such a crowd. During meals, the dining room opens with a one-sided table where no more than 6 people can sit. Most people have to eat while standing, and then stand in line to wash dishes with cold water in the toilet by touch.
Due to the overcrowding and psychedelic atmosphere, bloody conflicts often occur. Mental confusion is common. A small exercise yard is surrounded by a six-meter fence, tightly welded from waste metal products, reminiscent of the scenery from a disaster film about the Apocalypse.
Something in the style of Salvador Dali. The upper part (ceiling) is so tightly covered with a weave of barbed wire that in sunny weather it is difficult to see the blue sky. Reinforced concrete slabs from the Stalin era are lying askew on the floor, on which you could break your legs. It’s one thing to be walled up in concrete in a pre-trial detention center temporary detention (pre-trial detention center), it’s another matter – ten years in a high-security zone. We see no grass, no trees, no sun. At night we are allowed into the bedroom – this is the happiest moment.
Usually, convicts who prevent the “owner” from lining his pockets end up in the SUS, and not just the leaders of the criminal environment and malicious violators. I got caught for criticizing the authorities. Besides me, there is another political prisoner in the SUS – Rakhmiddin Kamolov, “pumping for justice.” Half of the Muslims do not even know why they are imprisoned, although the answer lies on the surface. First, they do not have the ability to pay for a lawyer or the knowledge to protect their rights. Secondly, they are not threatened with early release anyway. Thirdly, it is more difficult to buy the faithful with worldly connections or intimidate them with repression.
Still, those who paid “for a life of pleasure” to the head of the colony, Pavel Motin, can afford anything. The prices of indulgences are reasonable: from 300 to 500 thousand rubles per year. On June 14, he went to the disciplinary commission through the territory of the zone from the SUS already in the status of a persistent violator under escort. My former colleagues looked at me with horror as if I were a leper, afraid that I would want to shake hands with them and they themselves would fall into disgrace. I am familiar with this look, which I often observed from people in the courtroom through the bars of the accused.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
