The convict will not be taken to the place of serving his sentence immediately, but only after a certificate of entry of the sentence into legal force is received from the court to the SIZO. After receiving such a certificate, the convict must be sent to the colony at the first stage.
Usually, the stages leave with a certain frequency - often well known to those who have been in jail for a long time, so if there is such an opportunity, it would be good to make inquiries. However, it is unprofitable to send each prisoner in a separate stage to the FSIN, and therefore there is a practice of waiting until a sufficient number of prisoners are gathered for transportation in order to send all at the same time.
Waiting for the “big” stage, the convict is in limbo, because it is almost impossible to accurately calculate the moment of departure. In this regard, it is better to prepare for the stage immediately after the entry into force of the verdict and have things collected in a bag and a supply of food for the trip with you: tea, coffee, instant noodles, sugar, condensed milk, mayonnaise.
You should not take more than two bags and overload them: it will be difficult to carry them over long distances from paddy wagons to carriages, along long corridors and between prison floors. In addition, upon arrival for shipment, the convict will also be given a rolled mattress (it weighs a lot and is inconvenient to hold) with bed linen, a plate, a mug and a spoon. If you even have two bags, it is very difficult to carry all this to the camera at once, and most likely they will not be allowed to go there and back twice. Therefore, it is better to fold a plate, a mug, a spoon into an unfolded mattress, twist it as tightly as possible and tie it with one of the sheets twisted into a kind of rope, holding by which, like a handle, this kind of bag can be carried.
In some colonies and prisons, new arrivals are not given plates, mugs and spoons - forks are strictly prohibited - as are all steel cutlery. Therefore, it makes sense to take with you reusable plastic dishes, a plastic spoon and a knife, just in case.
The convict, who is to be transported, is taken out of the cell early in the morning before the time of getting up and taken to special rooms - “sedimentation tanks”, where people are gathered before being transported somewhere. Body and bag searches are mandatory prior to shipment. Searches will take place every time a convicted person enters and leaves the transit prisons along the entire route, as well as when loading into the so-called. "Stolypin carriage" - a railway carriage for the transportation of convicts. Before loading convicts into paddy wagons, in order to transport them to the railway station and put them in wagons, they give out boxes of dry rations. It usually includes several soups, cereals, tea, jelly, unleavened biscuits, disposable cups of two types - large and small.
During the stage, no one divides prisoners depending on the severity of their crimes and the regime of detention. So, a person convicted of repeated murder, following a strict regime for 15 years, and a person who avoided paying alimony and going on a general regime for 6 months can refuse together. It is better to try to get into one paddy wagon, one carriage, one cell in a transit prison with those whom you know at least a little, with whom you sat in the same cell in a pre-trial detention center and had normal relations. This provides additional moral and physical support.
Do not take to heart different horror stories from "seasoned" prisoners. They can be grossly exaggerated and intended to demonstrate their awareness of prison life and raise their profile in the eyes of other inmates. There are also true stories, but one must also understand that the colonies are different everywhere and the experience of being in some can be very far from the experience of being in others.
Before the stage, it is undesirable to eat and drink a lot, since there is often simply nowhere to go to the toilet. FSIN officers will not stop the car and release the convict to go to the toilet. When transporting in wagons, the situation is similar. When the train is at stations, or the car is left at a dead end overnight, they are not allowed to use the toilet - a sanitary zone. They feed them on the road by pouring boiling water from a kettle three times a day. After a while, they are taken out of the chamber compartments to the toilet one by one. Therefore, you need to drink carefully, too, realistically assessing the capabilities of the body in order to endure the next "walk". You have to sleep in turns, so it is better to distribute the sequence in advance. The sent ones do not have hours.
It can be very cold in the carriage in winter and very hot in summer. There are no windows in the compartment itself. From the side of the corridor, the windows are transparent only in the upper part, where the vents are located. If the guards close them all it becomes very stuffy. The situation is aggravated by the factor of general smoking, which, in the absence of ventilation and fresh air, makes breathing very difficult. In a compartment where 4 people are accommodated in an ordinary carriage - in the carriage for convicts it reaches 12, plus things in three tiers.
The stage can take from several days to several weeks, and all this time, according to the tradition that has developed since the time of the Gulag, neither the prisoner himself nor his relatives are told where they are taking him and when he will be able to get in touch. You have to be ready for this.
If the distance to the camp is considerable, then the convicts are taken from prison to prison and placed in transit cells, which are significantly different from the usual cells of the pre-trial detention center. These are often dirty cells with dampness and mold on the walls and ceilings, sometimes rats and cockroaches, and almost always very meager food (food collected back in the pre-trial detention center will help here). Upon arrival at the transit prison, the newcomer will certainly face another search, and in the worst case, one must be prepared to spend several hours in cramped cells - “settling ponds”, where, with a large crowd of people and their belongings, there is no way to sit down.
Those who smoke and take a large supply of cigarettes with them on the road should take into account that during numerous searches during the stage, cigarettes can be broken in half, and also partially confiscated by employees of institutions.
It is categorically not recommended to take a cell phone or SIM card with you from the pre-trial detention center to the stage - they will almost certainly be found during one of the searches, and the person will come to the colony with an act of violation, which will negatively affect parole and can completely cancel all chances of getting out earlier term.
But the minimum set of drugs will come in handy: broad-spectrum antibiotics, pain relievers, drops for the common cold, cold remedies. They will be selected upon admission to the transit prisons, however, if necessary, through the prison doctor, they can be used. Medicines can come in handy during the off-season stage, when the heating has not yet been turned on, but the cold has already come, or vice versa - the heating has already been turned off, and the frosts have returned. At this time, it is very easy to get sick in damp frozen cells. You have to sleep in clothes (jacket, jacket, pants with underwear and a hat). During the day, when you can't lie under a blanket, tea with sugar every half hour saves you from the cold. If you don't have your own medicines, the doctor will give you some kind of pill and leave. Those who become seriously ill will be taken to LIU - a medical correctional institution.
T -
I was very fond of traveling, and fate has always favored me, providing such an opportunity. Even the prison was no exception. A dangerous moment comes in the life of every prisoner - the stage when you are transported from prison to a colony to serve a sentence imposed by a court. The zones are generously scattered throughout the territory of our vast Motherland, and the jailers can arrange for you a long excursion through its vast expanses. The journey can last as long as you like, and the person simply disappears for a while. Neither the lawyer nor your relatives will know where you are and where they are taking you. I have already heard about how jailers mock and beat prisoners, but I never attributed it to myself. To my naive question: "Why are they beating?" my interlocutor from among the experienced prisoners with surprise, as a matter of course, replied: "Yes, no way!" He advised me to take a minimum of things on the road and not eat or drink anything a day before the trip.
"Why?" - not understanding his instructions, I was interested.
“I don't want to go to the toilet! - answered my consultant. - They don't take them to the toilet. Just in case, take a plastic bottle and bags with you. Take cigarettes, tea, sushnina - cookies, crackers, gingerbread, sweets. "
I will remember with gratitude my instructor.
In terms of closeness, in the degree of lies and hypocrisy, the system of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia has no equal
The monstrous story that was heard at that time about the murder during the stage of four prisoners in the colony of the city of Kopeysk did not at all give me optimism. I was scared. The official version of the murder was that four prisoners, who allegedly behaved badly on the train, immediately attacked the officers upon arrival at the colony. Those, defending themselves, rightfully beat them to death and left them to die in the cells of the isolation ward. The jailers were to blame only for the fact that they did not provide the unfortunate with timely medical assistance and allowed them to die.
In terms of closeness, in the degree of lies and hypocrisy, the system of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia has no equal. It is surprising that the head of the prison system at that time, Yuri Kalinin, a professional jailer who made his way from an ordinary guard to the first person of the FSIN, who resigned after these events, successfully continued his career, becoming a senator, and later headed the HR department of the Rosneft company. becoming its vice president.
With my thoughts I left the pre-trial detention center a long time ago and was in the camp. I was pretty tired of being in the confined space of the prison, in the cramped and stuffy cells, where I spent about three years. It was not clear where they would take me, but I drew a beautiful picture without a single cloud. “I’ll come to the colony,” I reasoned naively, “the police will read my personal file, from which it is clear that I am an innocent person, and they will treat me accordingly, with understanding and sympathy. I will be offered a good job, in the library or at school. And I will live and live and serve my term ”.
The stage itself scared me, and the prospect of changing the prison to a colony was even pleasing. I have compiled a whole list of things and products that I will need on the way and for the first time in the colony. “Nobody knows how and how much they will carry, so we need to stock up,” I thought. I bought porridge and cigarettes at the stall. A trunk specially designated for these purposes grew before my eyes.
After a while, I heard: "Na Peh, with things ..." "Are they really sending me to the stage so quickly?" - I thought. I packed my things, said goodbye to the inmates, we hugged. I was transferred to an empty cell. There were already my things brought from the warehouse: warm winter clothes, a jacket, boots. Several trunks have accumulated. I began to deal with things, separating the necessary from the unnecessary. I collected the bags that I will take with me to the stage. After countless shifting and tough decisions, I ended up with two trunks and a large sports bag. “A shoulder bag and a bag in each hand,” I thought lightly ... I spent two more days in this cell alone, and only on the third I was informed that they were taking me away.
“I'll sit down on the path,” I joked to myself. - I sat down for eleven years! "
"Is Nae ready?" - is heard from behind the door.
“Ready, ready,” I shout back.
The bolts are thundering, the door is thundering open, I see the unfamiliar faces of ordinary escorts. “Now I am not of interest to anyone, I am written off and used material,” I think with relief, leaving the walls of the prison without regret. How good it was for me here, I will understand very soon, barely having time to arrive at my destination - a strict regime colony in the village of Melekhovo, Vladimir Region. Under the signature I was handed over to the escort, and we left the prison building. A paddy wagon is already waiting in the courtyard of the prison.
“First the strogach, and then all the others,” the escorts talk among themselves. Strogach is me
I put my bags in the paddy wagon and climb there myself. I go into the free compartment. Women are sitting behind the wall. Cheerful laughter emanates from their cage. I enter into conversation with them. When they know my deadline, they sigh sympathetically. Sitting on a bench in a cage, I try in vain to peer into Moscow streets that I have already forgotten. It is dark, almost nothing is visible, and the road does not take much time. Smelling the smell of the station and hearing the noise of the trains, I try to figure out which station they brought me to. Childhood memories flooded in when, as a schoolboy, with my parents every summer I traveled by train to the Crimea ... I remember how I was fascinated by the landscapes passing by, how I could not look up from the window for hours. Who would have thought then that such a journey awaited me ...
We arrive at a remote deserted platform, almost right next to the carriage. I hear the conversation of the escorts, they decide who to unload first. “First the strogach, and then all the others,” the escorts talk among themselves. Strogach is me. I grab things. I am handed over to another convoy. The eldest of them, with surprise, takes my huge personal file into his hands, verifies the data. I am unmistakably naming my articles and term. Hardly anyone instead of me can go to the colony for eleven years! I barely drag my luggage onto the train. The bag clings to the doors and interferes with walking, the trunks are pulled down. Barely squeezing through the narrow corridor of the carriage, I reach the compartment. It's empty. An ordinary standard-sized compartment without a window. Instead of a door, there is a lattice. In the corridor there is a small window through which, if it is open, one can see the will. There are two benches at the bottom, two pairs of shelves at the top. There are only three tiers. Stolypin - that's what the prisoners call this car. After the Stolypin agrarian reform, cattle wagons were used to transport peasants. Since then, little has changed, and we are not far behind in our development.
An escort enters the compartment.
"Where we go?" - I am interested.
“Give out prohibited items”, - instead of answering, he demands to prepare things for inspection.
“I have nothing,” I say frankly. - I'm a specialist. SIZO 99/1. You can't carry a needle into a cell there. "
According to the instructions, the convoy can open the windows only while the train is moving. Take out to the toilet - also only while driving. It's the end of July, the heat is incredible
The escort doesn't believe me and starts a search. He unfolds every bag, opens every box so carefully packed in the pre-trial detention center. All things are looked through, all papers are leafed through. Everything is messed up and jumbled up. I have difficulty putting things back into my bags. The car is filled with passengers. I can hear the noise going in the next compartment too. They bring me fellow travelers - one, the second ... I move my things. The third, fourth comes in. The compartments will be filled with bags and people. Fifth, sixth, seventh. People climb upstairs and lay on the upper shelves. Downstairs, on the lower shelves, five people fit very tightly. The free space between the benches and under them is filled with trunks.
The compartment is packed with eighteen people! Closeness, very stuffy. According to the instructions, the convoy can open the windows only while the train is moving. Take out to the toilet - also only while driving. It's the end of July, the heat is incredible.
Traditional conversations are going on in the compartment: who, where, what is in prison, how long. I hear different stories, find common acquaintances with fellow travelers, with whom I sat myself. We got into the carriage at about nine in the evening. The train will start in the morning at about seven o'clock. The escort yields to the insistent demands of the prisoners and violates the instructions - slightly opens the window. In the distance I see the platform, people waiting for the train, summer residents with saplings in their hands. “Senior,” someone yells in the next compartment. "Take me to the toilet, I'm dying!"
“It’s not allowed according to the instructions,” the warrant officer replies. - Here we go, and go. "
“I wish I could take this bastard who wrote the instructions here too,” I think angrily, and then once again I remember my mentor-consultant with a kind word. For more than a day, I did not eat anything and hardly drank. I can't say that I felt good and comfortable, but at least I didn't want to go anywhere. Excess fluid came out with copious sweat, and I basically sat in silence, listened more and endured. Out of eighteen people, I was the only one who did not smoke.
Our carriage moves very slowly and makes numerous stops. It follows its own route, it is attached to one train, then to another. We are going to Vladimir, the road to which takes almost a day. I am all sticky with sweat, soaked through with cigarette smoke, stupefied from the stench and empty talk, everything went numb from sitting in one position for many hours. This is a real torture that I will remember with horror. In the compartment I meet Andrei K., who was sentenced to nineteen years for banditry and murder. I was sitting with his accomplice Dima. Both of them are masters of sports in boxing, they worked in a private security company for one businessman and “solved issues”. Having admitted their guilt and testified against their leader, they received the minimum terms for their position.
We are approaching Vladimir. Once upon a time, even before YUKOS, I worked in an organization that had a branch in this city. The director of the branch invited me to visit, but I still did not go and did not go. “Well, here I have arrived,” I think sadly.
Have arrived. Our carriage is uncoupled from the train and driven onto a distant platform.
The escort instructs the prisoners in a loud voice: "We leave one by one, move on command, squat, do not raise our head, look only down, shoot without warning." Everything is serious. The machine guns are real, the ammunition is live, the fuses are lowered. To the barking of the dogs, I jump out of the train with my bags and squat down. We have to overcome five hundred meters along the railroad tracks before we get to the paddy wagon. With my peripheral vision, I see people in the distance, carefree scurrying along the platform.
"First, first, answer me," - suddenly I hear a voice ... from the toilet
“Let's go on command, we start moving,” the guard shouts. I can barely carry my load and curse myself for having so many groceries.
Bang! It seems to me that my heart is about to stop. This, unable to withstand the load, with the sound of a shot, the belt on the sports bag bursts. It falls off my shoulder and remains behind me. I keep moving. “To hell with her, with this bag. I wish I could stay alive! " - I think convulsively.
“In place! - the overseer commands. "Come back, take your bag." It takes a while for me to realize that he is addressing me.
“Help him,” he says to another prisoner, who is carrying a small purse.
We grab our things and go to the paddy wagon.
With difficulty, drenched in sweat, I get to the paddy wagon, where I thank the savior who dragged my bag. “We urgently need to get rid of things! - dawns on me. - The second time I will not survive this. I will die of a broken heart! "
My savior Valera will turn out to be a notorious repeat offender. By the age of thirty-five, this is his ninth conviction. He sat many times, but little by little. He is a thief, a pickpocket and an epileptic drug addict. Good-looking, what to look for. We will get into the same zone with him. For the bag I will have to thank him many, many times, until my patience bursts and I will not send him to hell.
The paddy wagon brings us to the Vladimir transit prison No. 1 - "Kopeyka", as the prisoners call it. An ancient brick building with beautiful massive vaults, built one hundred and eighty years ago, over the years of its existence, it has absorbed all human vices, as well as pain, bitterness and suffering. I can feel the ominous breath of the prison. We are taken to the basement, to the assembly - to the cell, where there are several benches, a parasha and a dirty washbasin. It smells like mold and dampness. Exhausted, we sit down and await further events. Taking advantage of the pause, I begin to lighten my bags. I take out a bottle of water and a packet of cookies, which I share with my fellow sufferers.
“First, first, answer me,” - suddenly I hear a voice ... from the toilet. I shake my head, unable to understand if I’m crazy. Dalnyak, as they call him in the prison, is an excellent means of communication. Cunning convicts manage to pave roads, stretching out ropes woven from threads, and transfer prison mail from cell to cell through the sewers.
Then shmon again. The third in the last 24 hours. Shake everything up, mixing the contents of the bags. We are searched one by one and transferred to another assembly. Soon, all the arrivals again gather in one cell. We are ready for further actions that will not keep us waiting long. We are given government mattresses, linen and all at once by some tricky corridors lead somewhere. On the way, in the corridor, we meet guards with a huge shepherd dog, which, as it seemed to me, looked at me with kind eyes and winked. We go up to the third floor and come to cell 39. The door opens, we enter the cell together, and I see a horrible picture, half-forgotten, but familiar to me. Overcrowded room, smoke, stench, hanging laundry. The floor is covered with asphalt with countless cigarette butts lying on it. To the right of the entrance hangs a wretched curtain made of dirty sheets, conventionally separating the distant from the cell. Several prisoners languish in front of the curtain, awaiting their turn. Nearby, literally under their feet, a man sleeps on a mattress on a dirty floor. "Corner" - I understand.
A road, or run, is drawn up, where the names of new arrivals are indicated in detail, the numbers of articles in which pre-trial detention centers were held
The tall, about five meters, ceiling of the cell, dazzling with iron patches, catches the eye. This is how the administration welds holes in the ceiling - holsters, holes leading to the cells located above.
I immediately see where the thieves are located. The corner where a rug made from an old blanket lies on the floor is fenced off with sheets. Naked people, adorned with tattoos, enthusiastically play cards.
We go through and sit down at the table, meet the cameraman. Chifir is brewed. A road, or run, is drawn up, where the names of the new arrivals are indicated in detail, the numbers of the articles in which the pre-trial detention center were imprisoned. The run will bypass all the cells of the prison, and if someone has complaints against you, they may ask you: fine, beat, throw out of the cell.
For the chifir, I take out chocolate and cigarettes from the trunk and generously treat the new inmates. I put the Marlboro block in the box for the general on the table. Guys, who have not smoked filter cigarettes for a long time, pull up to the table and quickly take them apart. I am pleased that I managed to get rid of unnecessary cigarettes and lighten my trunks. The men rejoice at every cigarette they smoke. Despite the monstrous amount of chifir drunk, I am overwhelmed by fatigue, and I feel that I am falling asleep. The beholder gives me a personal box, where I can rest as much as I like. Reaching her and barely closing my eyes, I fall asleep. Neither the sound of the TV nor the conversations of inmates bother me.
I wake up from tickling. I can sense that someone is tickling my face. Numerous events of the last days come to my mind, I remember where I am. A cockroach crawls across my face, and I finally wake up. I feel like I'm hungry. I get up, wash my face, boil water and make myself oatmeal porridge. Mind, strength and good mood return to me. Valera appears, who was always there when I got something out of the bag. I treat him to porridge and sweets, give him cigarettes. Satisfied, he retired for a while. Among the things mixed up and mixed up during the chase, I try in vain to find a packet of green tea, which I want to share with the intelligent-looking Muscovite Misha. Seeing my fruitless attempts, he says to me, smiling: “Never mind, don't be upset! You will find it during the next shmona! "
I start to get used to and settle down. I learn that from this cell twice a week they are transported to the zones. On Mondays they are sent to Vyazniki, on Wednesdays - to Melekhovo. The prisoners know everything. The strict regime in Vyazniki is softer than in Melekhovo, where the prisoners have a hard time. From among those close to the beholder, a well-wisher appears, the Hare. He is from Vladimir and carefully offers me to solve the problem and contribute to my distribution to the zone in Vyazniki. Why do I just have to pay five thousand dollars to his friend from the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Vladimir region. I understand that this is a divorce, and I tell him that I absolutely do not care where to go. I see a mobile phone in his hands and I can’t resist asking him to give me a call.
I know my business right away. A huge paper envelope with my photo and data contains a dossier on me in three volumes
The hare tells me about the general and asks me to take part in it, putting money on the phone number. I agree. The telephone is at my disposal. My participation in the general will not bring the peasants any tea or cigarettes and will end with a banal orgy of drug addicts from the thieves. For the first time in my life I will see drug addicts who are stuck, that is, falling asleep on the go.
I haven’t had a phone in my hands for a long time and I make several calls to people whose voices I haven’t heard for a long time. After the conversation, I delete the dialed numbers from the phone's memory. I called my wife and ... I forgot to delete the number. This will result in a bunch of wasted nerves and money paid to the lawyer. Before I have time to leave the walls of this cell and leave for the stage, an unknown person will call my wife. I think it was the Hare. In an agitated voice, he will inform her that Volodya, that is, me, was put in the punishment cell, where they are beaten and tortured. "We urgently need money for a ransom!" He demanded.
They asked for relatively little, ten thousand rubles. I can imagine the state of my wife when she heard this story! The lawyer had to make a lot of efforts to find me - safe and sound - in a strict regime colony in the village of Melekhovo and to reassure my loved ones.
Monday is coming. Today the stage is to Vyazniki. The overseer reads out the list. My name is not there. “So, on Wednesday I'll go to Melekhovo,” I accept the news with resignation. The strict regime colony in the village of Melekhovo is notorious among the prisoners. This is the red zone where convicts are broken, forcing them to give all kinds of subscriptions. So far I cannot understand what is at stake, and humbly await my fate.
Wednesday. Among others, I hear my last name. There are twelve of us. Among them are Valera and Kostya, who was spinning around the thieves. We take our things and leave the cell. Shmon again. I open my noticeably lighter trunks and lay out my things for inspection. The warden reluctantly sorts out my belongings and, wrinkling a few bags in his hands for the sake of appearance, allows me to put them back in the bag.
A paddy wagon is waiting in the courtyard of the prison, which is taking us to the railway station. The car again drives up close to the carriage, and we somehow get over there. In the "Stolypin" we are waiting for another shmon. We hand over the shaving accessories to the convoy, which will be given to us upon arrival at the place. The train starts to move, and we follow to the city of Kovrov. Strictly one at a time, the escort takes each of us into a separate compartment, where he checks the contents of the bags. Kovrov is located a hundred kilometers from Vladimir, and the escorts do not have time to search all the prisoners when we arrive at the station, where a paddy wagon is waiting for us.
Personal files are transferred. I know my business right away. In a huge paper envelope with my photograph and data is enclosed a dossier on me in three volumes. What was written there remained a mystery to me. I give my name, term, article and climb into the paddy wagon. Feels like the journey takes about forty minutes. The grinding of gates being opened and the barking of dogs are heard. We drove into the airlock. The colony gives us a tough embrace.
I do not yet realize where I have ended up. We jump out of the car to the barking of dogs and the screams of the guards. "Run, run, - I hear heart-rending cries of the guards, - faster, faster." You can't hesitate. I hear the sound of a rubber truncheon hitting with a whistle on someone behind me, I hear the cry of this unfortunate man who allowed himself to hesitate only for a second. We are squatted in an embrace with things. You can only look down. Raise your head a little, and a blow with a truncheon will follow.
Not a single complaint will go away from the colony if a lawyer or relatives do not come to you
Curiosity let me down. The sideways glance cost me several sharp and painful blows. But we were, in general, lucky. Our stage was taken gently. The stage, which arrived before me, was beaten thoroughly. The prisoners who arrived the following Wednesday after us also got a good deal. There were no corpses, but during washing in the shower, I personally saw broken heads, bruises and bruises on the bodies of the convicts. Each stage is taken in its own way. Some are beaten less, some more. Someone is not beaten at all. It all depends on the mood of the jailers. They can overdo it and cripple the convicted person, which happens regularly. Everyone will write it off as an accident: "I fell, stumbled and hit my head." Not a single complaint will go away from the colony if a lawyer or relatives do not come to you.
“On command we take our things, get up and run the march,” the overseer commands.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a beautiful wooden church located just a few meters from us. An inexperienced person might think that everything happens with the blessing of God.
We grab our bags and run into some courtyard. We put our trunks in a heap and line up. I'm third. A large man in camouflage with a major's star on his shoulders and a broom in his hand categorically declares: "Now each of you needs to pick up a broom and make a few sweeping movements." Nearby, menacingly waving their truncheons, are his colleagues and several prisoners, who, as it turned out later, enjoy the special confidence of the administration and help to accept the stage. I don't feel like picking up a broom at all. But this is a kind of ritual. The first to go out of order is Kostya and cheerfully begins his revenge. Valera goes next and makes a few sluggish movements. A blow to the back with a truncheon makes him accelerate. It's my turn. Reluctantly, gritting my teeth, I pick up the broom and begin my revenge. “Enough,” I hear someone's voice behind me. I stop and pass the broom into the hands of the next one.
No one from our company refuses to take revenge. The prisoners are well aware of the methods of influence. If you refuse, they will beat you right here in the courtyard, not at all embarrassed by other prisoners. If you don’t take revenge after that, they will take you into the office and beat you again. If you do not break down, then the offended person will be brought to you and offered to make a choice yourself: to become just as offended right now, after a certain procedure, and drop into the cockpit or still pick up a broom. Everyone chooses the latter. For the administration, a convict is not a person. Therefore, any attempts to defend their rights are perceived by the administration extremely negatively and painfully.
Several years ago, convicts who came from Melekhovo to transit prisons were not allowed into the cell by "decent" prisoners. With the words "You have no place among people," the unfortunates were thrown out of their cells and forced to go to other huts, where there were red - orderlies, caretakers and other dubious people.
"Come on, put your last name and sign, he will still read!" - dissatisfied, in two voices, the orderlies urge me on
Depressed, we enter the building with our bags. Here is the headquarters. We are led into a large room, where a grandiose shmon begins, more like a robbery. I see two hefty convicts prowling businesslike around the office with some papers. They approach each newly arrived prisoner and "ask" to sign. Everyone signs without looking, without even knowing what they signed. While some warrant officer is digging through my things, this couple comes up to me and puts a piece of paper and a pen in my hands. They are daytime quarantines. The worst of the worst, the most notorious scoundrels and scoundrels. Pressmen, ready to do whatever they want for certain benefits from the administration. One of them has a scar on the right cheek - from ear to chin. "A *** scar," one experienced prisoner will tell me later about him, "so that everyone can see and be able to determine who he is by this mark."
Looking at what has been written, I try to grasp the meaning of this piece of paper.
"Come on, put your last name and sign, he will still read!" - displeased, in two voices, the orderlies urge me on. I see the words: “Subscription. I, such and such, voluntarily renounce the criminal concepts and traditions of the thieves' world, I undertake to abide by the regime and fulfill the requirements of the administration. "
"What nonsense!" - I am surprised and put my signature. The couple leave with satisfaction.
I look at my scattered things with pity. Free, not an established sample are withdrawn. The overseer stumbles over a bag with medicines, wants to take them away. I desperately resist and defend some of the drugs. Every bag is thoroughly examined and checked, every notebook is scrolled through. My luggage is reduced by one bag. The withdrawn is sent to the warehouse of personal belongings. They shave my head and give me new uniforms. I put on a scary cap with a white stripe, a cotton suit, or a robe decorated with the same white stripes, try on black boots with cardboard insoles. I look in the mirror, I hardly recognize myself in a new guise. Now I am a full-fledged, that is, powerless, prisoner.
A new stage in my life began, which had to be experienced.
T -
I was very fond of traveling, and fate has always favored me, providing such an opportunity. Even the prison was no exception. A dangerous moment comes in the life of every prisoner - the stage when you are transported from prison to a colony to serve a sentence imposed by a court. The zones are generously scattered throughout the territory of our vast Motherland, and the jailers can arrange for you a long excursion through its vast expanses. The journey can last as long as you like, and the person simply disappears for a while. Neither the lawyer nor your relatives will know where you are and where they are taking you. I have already heard about how jailers mock and beat prisoners, but I never attributed it to myself. To my naive question: "Why are they beating?" my interlocutor from among the experienced prisoners with surprise, as a matter of course, replied: "Yes, no way!" He advised me to take a minimum of things on the road and not eat or drink anything a day before the trip.
"Why?" - not understanding his instructions, I was interested.
“I don't want to go to the toilet! - answered my consultant. - They don't take them to the toilet. Just in case, take a plastic bottle and bags with you. Take cigarettes, tea, sushnina - cookies, crackers, gingerbread, sweets. "
I will remember with gratitude my instructor.
In terms of closeness, in the degree of lies and hypocrisy, the system of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia has no equal
The monstrous story that was heard at that time about the murder during the stage of four prisoners in the colony of the city of Kopeysk did not at all give me optimism. I was scared. The official version of the murder was that four prisoners, who allegedly behaved badly on the train, immediately attacked the officers upon arrival at the colony. Those, defending themselves, rightfully beat them to death and left them to die in the cells of the isolation ward. The jailers were to blame only for the fact that they did not provide the unfortunate with timely medical assistance and allowed them to die.
In terms of closeness, in the degree of lies and hypocrisy, the system of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia has no equal. It is surprising that the head of the prison system at that time, Yuri Kalinin, a professional jailer who made his way from an ordinary guard to the first person of the FSIN, who resigned after these events, successfully continued his career, becoming a senator, and later headed the HR department of the Rosneft company. becoming its vice president.
With my thoughts I left the pre-trial detention center a long time ago and was in the camp. I was pretty tired of being in the confined space of the prison, in the cramped and stuffy cells, where I spent about three years. It was not clear where they would take me, but I drew a beautiful picture without a single cloud. “I’ll come to the colony,” I reasoned naively, “the police will read my personal file, from which it is clear that I am an innocent person, and they will treat me accordingly, with understanding and sympathy. I will be offered a good job, in the library or at school. And I will live and live and serve my term ”.
The stage itself scared me, and the prospect of changing the prison to a colony was even pleasing. I have compiled a whole list of things and products that I will need on the way and for the first time in the colony. “Nobody knows how and how much they will carry, so we need to stock up,” I thought. I bought porridge and cigarettes at the stall. A trunk specially designated for these purposes grew before my eyes.
After a while, I heard: "Na Peh, with things ..." "Are they really sending me to the stage so quickly?" - I thought. I packed my things, said goodbye to the inmates, we hugged. I was transferred to an empty cell. There were already my things brought from the warehouse: warm winter clothes, a jacket, boots. Several trunks have accumulated. I began to deal with things, separating the necessary from the unnecessary. I collected the bags that I will take with me to the stage. After countless shifting and tough decisions, I ended up with two trunks and a large sports bag. “A shoulder bag and a bag in each hand,” I thought lightly ... I spent two more days in this cell alone, and only on the third I was informed that they were taking me away.
“I'll sit down on the path,” I joked to myself. - I sat down for eleven years! "
"Is Nae ready?" - is heard from behind the door.
“Ready, ready,” I shout back.
The bolts are thundering, the door is thundering open, I see the unfamiliar faces of ordinary escorts. “Now I am not of interest to anyone, I am written off and used material,” I think with relief, leaving the walls of the prison without regret. How good it was for me here, I will understand very soon, barely having time to arrive at my destination - a strict regime colony in the village of Melekhovo, Vladimir Region. Under the signature I was handed over to the escort, and we left the prison building. A paddy wagon is already waiting in the courtyard of the prison.
“First the strogach, and then all the others,” the escorts talk among themselves. Strogach is me
I put my bags in the paddy wagon and climb there myself. I go into the free compartment. Women are sitting behind the wall. Cheerful laughter emanates from their cage. I enter into conversation with them. When they know my deadline, they sigh sympathetically. Sitting on a bench in a cage, I try in vain to peer into Moscow streets that I have already forgotten. It is dark, almost nothing is visible, and the road does not take much time. Smelling the smell of the station and hearing the noise of the trains, I try to figure out which station they brought me to. Childhood memories flooded in when, as a schoolboy, with my parents every summer I traveled by train to the Crimea ... I remember how I was fascinated by the landscapes passing by, how I could not look up from the window for hours. Who would have thought then that such a journey awaited me ...
We arrive at a remote deserted platform, almost right next to the carriage. I hear the conversation of the escorts, they decide who to unload first. “First the strogach, and then all the others,” the escorts talk among themselves. Strogach is me. I grab things. I am handed over to another convoy. The eldest of them, with surprise, takes my huge personal file into his hands, verifies the data. I am unmistakably naming my articles and term. Hardly anyone instead of me can go to the colony for eleven years! I barely drag my luggage onto the train. The bag clings to the doors and interferes with walking, the trunks are pulled down. Barely squeezing through the narrow corridor of the carriage, I reach the compartment. It's empty. An ordinary standard-sized compartment without a window. Instead of a door, there is a lattice. In the corridor there is a small window through which, if it is open, one can see the will. There are two benches at the bottom, two pairs of shelves at the top. There are only three tiers. Stolypin - that's what the prisoners call this car. After the Stolypin agrarian reform, cattle wagons were used to transport peasants. Since then, little has changed, and we are not far behind in our development.
An escort enters the compartment.
"Where we go?" - I am interested.
“Give out prohibited items”, - instead of answering, he demands to prepare things for inspection.
“I have nothing,” I say frankly. - I'm a specialist. SIZO 99/1. You can't carry a needle into a cell there. "
According to the instructions, the convoy can open the windows only while the train is moving. Take out to the toilet - also only while driving. It's the end of July, the heat is incredible
The escort doesn't believe me and starts a search. He unfolds every bag, opens every box so carefully packed in the pre-trial detention center. All things are looked through, all papers are leafed through. Everything is messed up and jumbled up. I have difficulty putting things back into my bags. The car is filled with passengers. I can hear the noise going in the next compartment too. They bring me fellow travelers - one, the second ... I move my things. The third, fourth comes in. The compartments will be filled with bags and people. Fifth, sixth, seventh. People climb upstairs and lay on the upper shelves. Downstairs, on the lower shelves, five people fit very tightly. The free space between the benches and under them is filled with trunks.
The compartment is packed with eighteen people! Closeness, very stuffy. According to the instructions, the convoy can open the windows only while the train is moving. Take out to the toilet - also only while driving. It's the end of July, the heat is incredible.
Traditional conversations are going on in the compartment: who, where, what is in prison, how long. I hear different stories, find common acquaintances with fellow travelers, with whom I sat myself. We got into the carriage at about nine in the evening. The train will start in the morning at about seven o'clock. The escort yields to the insistent demands of the prisoners and violates the instructions - slightly opens the window. In the distance I see the platform, people waiting for the train, summer residents with saplings in their hands. “Senior,” someone yells in the next compartment. "Take me to the toilet, I'm dying!"
“It’s not allowed according to the instructions,” the warrant officer replies. - Here we go, and go. "
“I wish I could take this bastard who wrote the instructions here too,” I think angrily, and then once again I remember my mentor-consultant with a kind word. For more than a day, I did not eat anything and hardly drank. I can't say that I felt good and comfortable, but at least I didn't want to go anywhere. Excess fluid came out with copious sweat, and I basically sat in silence, listened more and endured. Out of eighteen people, I was the only one who did not smoke.
Our carriage moves very slowly and makes numerous stops. It follows its own route, it is attached to one train, then to another. We are going to Vladimir, the road to which takes almost a day. I am all sticky with sweat, soaked through with cigarette smoke, stupefied from the stench and empty talk, everything went numb from sitting in one position for many hours. This is a real torture that I will remember with horror. In the compartment I meet Andrei K., who was sentenced to nineteen years for banditry and murder. I was sitting with his accomplice Dima. Both of them are masters of sports in boxing, they worked in a private security company for one businessman and “solved issues”. Having admitted their guilt and testified against their leader, they received the minimum terms for their position.
We are approaching Vladimir. Once upon a time, even before YUKOS, I worked in an organization that had a branch in this city. The director of the branch invited me to visit, but I still did not go and did not go. “Well, here I have arrived,” I think sadly.
Have arrived. Our carriage is uncoupled from the train and driven onto a distant platform.
The escort instructs the prisoners in a loud voice: "We leave one by one, move on command, squat, do not raise our head, look only down, shoot without warning." Everything is serious. The machine guns are real, the ammunition is live, the fuses are lowered. To the barking of the dogs, I jump out of the train with my bags and squat down. We have to overcome five hundred meters along the railroad tracks before we get to the paddy wagon. With my peripheral vision, I see people in the distance, carefree scurrying along the platform.
"First, first, answer me," - suddenly I hear a voice ... from the toilet
“Let's go on command, we start moving,” the guard shouts. I can barely carry my load and curse myself for having so many groceries.
Bang! It seems to me that my heart is about to stop. This, unable to withstand the load, with the sound of a shot, the belt on the sports bag bursts. It falls off my shoulder and remains behind me. I keep moving. “To hell with her, with this bag. I wish I could stay alive! " - I think convulsively.
“In place! - the overseer commands. "Come back, take your bag." It takes a while for me to realize that he is addressing me.
“Help him,” he says to another prisoner, who is carrying a small purse.
We grab our things and go to the paddy wagon.
With difficulty, drenched in sweat, I get to the paddy wagon, where I thank the savior who dragged my bag. “We urgently need to get rid of things! - dawns on me. - The second time I will not survive this. I will die of a broken heart! "
My savior Valera will turn out to be a notorious repeat offender. By the age of thirty-five, this is his ninth conviction. He sat many times, but little by little. He is a thief, a pickpocket and an epileptic drug addict. Good-looking, what to look for. We will get into the same zone with him. For the bag I will have to thank him many, many times, until my patience bursts and I will not send him to hell.
The paddy wagon brings us to the Vladimir transit prison No. 1 - "Kopeyka", as the prisoners call it. An ancient brick building with beautiful massive vaults, built one hundred and eighty years ago, over the years of its existence, it has absorbed all human vices, as well as pain, bitterness and suffering. I can feel the ominous breath of the prison. We are taken to the basement, to the assembly - to the cell, where there are several benches, a parasha and a dirty washbasin. It smells like mold and dampness. Exhausted, we sit down and await further events. Taking advantage of the pause, I begin to lighten my bags. I take out a bottle of water and a packet of cookies, which I share with my fellow sufferers.
“First, first, answer me,” - suddenly I hear a voice ... from the toilet. I shake my head, unable to understand if I’m crazy. Dalnyak, as they call him in the prison, is an excellent means of communication. Cunning convicts manage to pave roads, stretching out ropes woven from threads, and transfer prison mail from cell to cell through the sewers.
Then shmon again. The third in the last 24 hours. Shake everything up, mixing the contents of the bags. We are searched one by one and transferred to another assembly. Soon, all the arrivals again gather in one cell. We are ready for further actions that will not keep us waiting long. We are given government mattresses, linen and all at once by some tricky corridors lead somewhere. On the way, in the corridor, we meet guards with a huge shepherd dog, which, as it seemed to me, looked at me with kind eyes and winked. We go up to the third floor and come to cell 39. The door opens, we enter the cell together, and I see a horrible picture, half-forgotten, but familiar to me. Overcrowded room, smoke, stench, hanging laundry. The floor is covered with asphalt with countless cigarette butts lying on it. To the right of the entrance hangs a wretched curtain made of dirty sheets, conventionally separating the distant from the cell. Several prisoners languish in front of the curtain, awaiting their turn. Nearby, literally under their feet, a man sleeps on a mattress on a dirty floor. "Corner" - I understand.
A road, or run, is drawn up, where the names of new arrivals are indicated in detail, the numbers of articles in which pre-trial detention centers were held
The tall, about five meters, ceiling of the cell, dazzling with iron patches, catches the eye. This is how the administration welds holes in the ceiling - holsters, holes leading to the cells located above.
I immediately see where the thieves are located. The corner where a rug made from an old blanket lies on the floor is fenced off with sheets. Naked people, adorned with tattoos, enthusiastically play cards.
We go through and sit down at the table, meet the cameraman. Chifir is brewed. A road, or run, is drawn up, where the names of the new arrivals are indicated in detail, the numbers of the articles in which the pre-trial detention center were imprisoned. The run will bypass all the cells of the prison, and if someone has complaints against you, they may ask you: fine, beat, throw out of the cell.
For the chifir, I take out chocolate and cigarettes from the trunk and generously treat the new inmates. I put the Marlboro block in the box for the general on the table. Guys, who have not smoked filter cigarettes for a long time, pull up to the table and quickly take them apart. I am pleased that I managed to get rid of unnecessary cigarettes and lighten my trunks. The men rejoice at every cigarette they smoke. Despite the monstrous amount of chifir drunk, I am overwhelmed by fatigue, and I feel that I am falling asleep. The beholder gives me a personal box, where I can rest as much as I like. Reaching her and barely closing my eyes, I fall asleep. Neither the sound of the TV nor the conversations of inmates bother me.
I wake up from tickling. I can sense that someone is tickling my face. Numerous events of the last days come to my mind, I remember where I am. A cockroach crawls across my face, and I finally wake up. I feel like I'm hungry. I get up, wash my face, boil water and make myself oatmeal porridge. Mind, strength and good mood return to me. Valera appears, who was always there when I got something out of the bag. I treat him to porridge and sweets, give him cigarettes. Satisfied, he retired for a while. Among the things mixed up and mixed up during the chase, I try in vain to find a packet of green tea, which I want to share with the intelligent-looking Muscovite Misha. Seeing my fruitless attempts, he says to me, smiling: “Never mind, don't be upset! You will find it during the next shmona! "
I start to get used to and settle down. I learn that from this cell twice a week they are transported to the zones. On Mondays they are sent to Vyazniki, on Wednesdays - to Melekhovo. The prisoners know everything. The strict regime in Vyazniki is softer than in Melekhovo, where the prisoners have a hard time. From among those close to the beholder, a well-wisher appears, the Hare. He is from Vladimir and carefully offers me to solve the problem and contribute to my distribution to the zone in Vyazniki. Why do I just have to pay five thousand dollars to his friend from the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Vladimir region. I understand that this is a divorce, and I tell him that I absolutely do not care where to go. I see a mobile phone in his hands and I can’t resist asking him to give me a call.
I know my business right away. A huge paper envelope with my photo and data contains a dossier on me in three volumes
The hare tells me about the general and asks me to take part in it, putting money on the phone number. I agree. The telephone is at my disposal. My participation in the general will not bring the peasants any tea or cigarettes and will end with a banal orgy of drug addicts from the thieves. For the first time in my life I will see drug addicts who are stuck, that is, falling asleep on the go.
I haven’t had a phone in my hands for a long time and I make several calls to people whose voices I haven’t heard for a long time. After the conversation, I delete the dialed numbers from the phone's memory. I called my wife and ... I forgot to delete the number. This will result in a bunch of wasted nerves and money paid to the lawyer. Before I have time to leave the walls of this cell and leave for the stage, an unknown person will call my wife. I think it was the Hare. In an agitated voice, he will inform her that Volodya, that is, me, was put in the punishment cell, where they are beaten and tortured. "We urgently need money for a ransom!" He demanded.
They asked for relatively little, ten thousand rubles. I can imagine the state of my wife when she heard this story! The lawyer had to make a lot of efforts to find me - safe and sound - in a strict regime colony in the village of Melekhovo and to reassure my loved ones.
Monday is coming. Today the stage is to Vyazniki. The overseer reads out the list. My name is not there. “So, on Wednesday I'll go to Melekhovo,” I accept the news with resignation. The strict regime colony in the village of Melekhovo is notorious among the prisoners. This is the red zone where convicts are broken, forcing them to give all kinds of subscriptions. So far I cannot understand what is at stake, and humbly await my fate.
Wednesday. Among others, I hear my last name. There are twelve of us. Among them are Valera and Kostya, who was spinning around the thieves. We take our things and leave the cell. Shmon again. I open my noticeably lighter trunks and lay out my things for inspection. The warden reluctantly sorts out my belongings and, wrinkling a few bags in his hands for the sake of appearance, allows me to put them back in the bag.
A paddy wagon is waiting in the courtyard of the prison, which is taking us to the railway station. The car again drives up close to the carriage, and we somehow get over there. In the "Stolypin" we are waiting for another shmon. We hand over the shaving accessories to the convoy, which will be given to us upon arrival at the place. The train starts to move, and we follow to the city of Kovrov. Strictly one at a time, the escort takes each of us into a separate compartment, where he checks the contents of the bags. Kovrov is located a hundred kilometers from Vladimir, and the escorts do not have time to search all the prisoners when we arrive at the station, where a paddy wagon is waiting for us.
Personal files are transferred. I know my business right away. In a huge paper envelope with my photograph and data is enclosed a dossier on me in three volumes. What was written there remained a mystery to me. I give my name, term, article and climb into the paddy wagon. Feels like the journey takes about forty minutes. The grinding of gates being opened and the barking of dogs are heard. We drove into the airlock. The colony gives us a tough embrace.
I do not yet realize where I have ended up. We jump out of the car to the barking of dogs and the screams of the guards. "Run, run, - I hear heart-rending cries of the guards, - faster, faster." You can't hesitate. I hear the sound of a rubber truncheon hitting with a whistle on someone behind me, I hear the cry of this unfortunate man who allowed himself to hesitate only for a second. We are squatted in an embrace with things. You can only look down. Raise your head a little, and a blow with a truncheon will follow.
Not a single complaint will go away from the colony if a lawyer or relatives do not come to you
Curiosity let me down. The sideways glance cost me several sharp and painful blows. But we were, in general, lucky. Our stage was taken gently. The stage, which arrived before me, was beaten thoroughly. The prisoners who arrived the following Wednesday after us also got a good deal. There were no corpses, but during washing in the shower, I personally saw broken heads, bruises and bruises on the bodies of the convicts. Each stage is taken in its own way. Some are beaten less, some more. Someone is not beaten at all. It all depends on the mood of the jailers. They can overdo it and cripple the convicted person, which happens regularly. Everyone will write it off as an accident: "I fell, stumbled and hit my head." Not a single complaint will go away from the colony if a lawyer or relatives do not come to you.
“On command we take our things, get up and run the march,” the overseer commands.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a beautiful wooden church located just a few meters from us. An inexperienced person might think that everything happens with the blessing of God.
We grab our bags and run into some courtyard. We put our trunks in a heap and line up. I'm third. A large man in camouflage with a major's star on his shoulders and a broom in his hand categorically declares: "Now each of you needs to pick up a broom and make a few sweeping movements." Nearby, menacingly waving their truncheons, are his colleagues and several prisoners, who, as it turned out later, enjoy the special confidence of the administration and help to accept the stage. I don't feel like picking up a broom at all. But this is a kind of ritual. The first to go out of order is Kostya and cheerfully begins his revenge. Valera goes next and makes a few sluggish movements. A blow to the back with a truncheon makes him accelerate. It's my turn. Reluctantly, gritting my teeth, I pick up the broom and begin my revenge. “Enough,” I hear someone's voice behind me. I stop and pass the broom into the hands of the next one.
No one from our company refuses to take revenge. The prisoners are well aware of the methods of influence. If you refuse, they will beat you right here in the courtyard, not at all embarrassed by other prisoners. If you don’t take revenge after that, they will take you into the office and beat you again. If you do not break down, then the offended person will be brought to you and offered to make a choice yourself: to become just as offended right now, after a certain procedure, and drop into the cockpit or still pick up a broom. Everyone chooses the latter. For the administration, a convict is not a person. Therefore, any attempts to defend their rights are perceived by the administration extremely negatively and painfully.
Several years ago, convicts who came from Melekhovo to transit prisons were not allowed into the cell by "decent" prisoners. With the words "You have no place among people," the unfortunates were thrown out of their cells and forced to go to other huts, where there were red - orderlies, caretakers and other dubious people.
"Come on, put your last name and sign, he will still read!" - dissatisfied, in two voices, the orderlies urge me on
Depressed, we enter the building with our bags. Here is the headquarters. We are led into a large room, where a grandiose shmon begins, more like a robbery. I see two hefty convicts prowling businesslike around the office with some papers. They approach each newly arrived prisoner and "ask" to sign. Everyone signs without looking, without even knowing what they signed. While some warrant officer is digging through my things, this couple comes up to me and puts a piece of paper and a pen in my hands. They are daytime quarantines. The worst of the worst, the most notorious scoundrels and scoundrels. Pressmen, ready to do whatever they want for certain benefits from the administration. One of them has a scar on the right cheek - from ear to chin. "A *** scar," one experienced prisoner will tell me later about him, "so that everyone can see and be able to determine who he is by this mark."
Looking at what has been written, I try to grasp the meaning of this piece of paper.
"Come on, put your last name and sign, he will still read!" - displeased, in two voices, the orderlies urge me on. I see the words: “Subscription. I, such and such, voluntarily renounce the criminal concepts and traditions of the thieves' world, I undertake to abide by the regime and fulfill the requirements of the administration. "
"What nonsense!" - I am surprised and put my signature. The couple leave with satisfaction.
I look at my scattered things with pity. Free, not an established sample are withdrawn. The overseer stumbles over a bag with medicines, wants to take them away. I desperately resist and defend some of the drugs. Every bag is thoroughly examined and checked, every notebook is scrolled through. My luggage is reduced by one bag. The withdrawn is sent to the warehouse of personal belongings. They shave my head and give me new uniforms. I put on a scary cap with a white stripe, a cotton suit, or a robe decorated with the same white stripes, try on black boots with cardboard insoles. I look in the mirror, I hardly recognize myself in a new guise. Now I am a full-fledged, that is, powerless, prisoner.
A new stage in my life began, which had to be experienced.
The paddy wagon stopped: there was the sound of the sliding gates of the so-called "airlock"; the car enters the "lock" - the first gate closes and another one opens. The paddy wagon enters the prison yard. Everything changes: the intonation of the voices of the convoy, the barking of shepherd dogs, the smells. If you have time to look around, you will see different colors, different stones. The guards are indifferently calm, however, in collaboration with the jailers, they can "catch up with horror": let the shepherd go at someone, hit him in the ribs with a rifle butt. It is pointless to murmur: whipping up creep "is a proven element of prison practice.
Boxes
From the paddy wagon, the prisoners go to the boxes: the "assembly" begins. Boxes are small cells with an area of 1 square meter or more with a narrow bench or ledge along the wall. They accommodate prisoners before the stage, before entering the cell, during a call to the investigator or lawyer, etc.
Assembly
Assembly is an action, an event similar to, say, the simultaneous recording of the data of a newborn in a maternity hospital and its registration at a registry office. A case is started on the "newborn"; in a special card with him, his special signs, tattoos, and a scar from appendicitis are entered. Mandatory - fingerprints (fingerprints), medical examination.
A lot can depend on the initial medical examination in a pre-trial detention center (prison). An illness, and even more so a disability, will help to procure medical aid, medicines on the long journey from prison to the zone, and in the zone itself - to get the appropriate job. However, earlier it was practiced to reduce the 1st group of disability to the 2nd, the 2nd - to the third, and the 3rd - to the "possibility of easy labor."
Absolute disability benefits are enjoyed only by the visibly crippled - the legless, blind, armless, or just a stone's throw from the "coffin door". Sometimes a wooden leg or a prosthesis is taken from one-legged ones - before the stage for the zone, at the discretion of the doctors.
Shmon in jail
Shmon (search) in a prison differs sharply from a superficial capitalist shmon. An instep support (an iron plate suitable for sharpening) is pulled out of the soles of the shoes, the convict is forced to sit down, push the buttocks apart; all clothes are felt thoroughly. There are many ways to bring money and prohibited items into the prison and the zone, they are described in sufficient detail in the detective-prison fiction. In addition, even before the prison gates, many of these methods become known to the first movers from experienced people. As we have already said, mainly items are selected that can serve as an instrument of suicide and murder. However, if you do not want to end with a private
life, nor interrupt someone else's, then still a forbidden object - a "sink" (blade), a nail or a spool of thread give a feeling of some kind of victory over a prison, give a feeling of freedom and independence ...
A haircut
The hairdresser turns a citizen into a prison convict: a beard, often a mustache, in general - hair - cut, shaved. Before the trial, according to the law, you cannot cut your hair bald, but in prison a haircut is usually argued with lice, scabies, etc. By the way, the defendant, shaved bald, evokes quite natural feelings in the judge and “nodded” (the people's assessors). A bald head can turn into an extra year of the term.
Photo
The photographer immortalizes the "new man" for the prison case and all kinds of registration cards. In prison everything is different, special - and these photographs in front and in profile (it is not even necessary to be bald) turn a pretty face into a criminal image: the chalk cheeks of a half-dead man, glazed eyes ... This applies not only to the photo at the entrance to the prison - a photo for the exemption certificate is exactly the same.
Transit
Often, after processing, they are sent to a transit chamber. There may be boxes for sleeping and rest (more on them later), or there may be old communal bunks in two floors (they have been preserved in many transit prisons). It is at the assembly, or rather, in the boxes and in the transit "huts" (cells), that a person first encounters the law and the lawlessness (lawlessness) of the prison-camp world. The fact is that it is in the transit routes that the convicts pass by in continuous streams and disappear in unknown directions. Temporary gangs of outlaws are gathering together, robbing first-movers and simply dumb convicts. Sometimes bloody showdowns occur: there is a footer (debtor) with a creditor, various enemies ...
Sauna, roasting
Before being sent to the permanent "huts" (cells), all convicts must undergo two sanitary procedures: a bathhouse, etc. "frying". The convicts are sent to the bathhouse, about which little can be said; in some prisons, this institution is quite comparable to similar institutions in the wild, in others it resembles a washing station of the era of war communism (a bar of soap the size of a little finger and no washcloths). Things go on hooks to the disinfection frying chamber (from lice, etc.). Along with lice (if any), plastic buttons and synthetic fibers also perish; the clothes take on a pretty rumpled look. You can, of course, come to an agreement with the servant convict: who will refuse a pack of cigarettes? And the clothes will remain intact. But again, the lice will not suffer ...
Bedding
Just before entering the "hut", the state gives its citizen official attributes: bed linen (two sheets, a blanket, a pillowcase), a mattress, a towel, sometimes, in winter, underwear (soldier's underpants with ties at the bottom and an undershirt, a T-shirt, underpants. These are few who wear, but they burn well, bringing chifir to a boil in a government-owned aluminum mug. The blanket turns into a warm sleeveless jacket; stripes can be cut from the sheet to launch the "horse" into the "hut" below the floor. something money, but when it will be! And the benefit - here it is, this hour!
Chamber entrance
Finally, three or four people are led by the pupkari (wardens) through the gloomy corridors of the prison, and handed over to the corridor attendants. Bolts clink, locks squeak, a heavy door, covered with a steel sheet opens, - you squeeze, with difficulty holding the mattress and the bag, into the cell; the navel pushes, energetically locks the door - and a dozen pairs of eyes rush at you of those with whom you will henceforth have to share the hardships and modest joys of prison life.
Televisions are now allowed in many prisons. If the "hut" is large (in Butyrka, for example), then the TV is not a hindrance. But it is difficult to imagine a "box" in an undersized and overcrowded "hut" of St. Petersburg "Kresty". (In the prison "hairdryer" (jargon) "TV" is a wall cabinet without doors, with shelves on which rations, mugs and everything else are placed.) Meeting a newcomer now and then happens here and there with absolutely indifference, without any interest. According to an eyewitness, no one even turned their heads at his appearance in the "hut", so the "citizens" were carried away by watching the next "session" of aerobics or shaping. (By the way, the "session" to the prisoner is an image of a woman in a nude or semi-nude form, erotica, pornography. Previously, these were postcards, drawings, but now the "session" can be unquoted - the word has taken on a literal embodiment.)
"Hata" (camera)
Different prisons, different "huts". The prison law is one for everyone. I do not mean the instructions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the articles of the Code written on paper, but an unwritten law that has been worked out for decades, or, as they say, "concepts." It is the "concepts" (and they are, as it were, broader than the law) that determine the basic principles of the coexistence of a huge number of Russian convicts in prisons and zones. Acquaintance with "concepts" (or lack thereof) begins with a prison cell (hut).
Many "first-movers", especially youngsters, are sure that the right of the strong, practiced on the street (discos, parties), is the basis of the prison law. The result of this delusion is, for example, the so-called "residence permit", widespread in "huts" of the general regime and among youngsters.
The study of the newcomer to the cell begins with questions about his biography, who his parents are, with whom he was friends. Does he have a nickname. The nickname itself creates a certain positive attitude towards him. If there is no nickname, then the custom of "throwing heads" is applied, that is, shouting out the window: "Prison, give me a klikuhu!" If a beginner agrees to these procedures, it becomes clear to everyone that he is an inexperienced person, and he is given a nickname, usually contemptuous. This is the first step towards suppressing and even harassing an inexperienced person.
The next check is to respond, for example, to a thrown towel, clothes, etc. If the newcomer possesses knowledge in a pod, then he should not only not pick up this object, but also step on it and wipe his feet. A person who is aware of the essence of a pod will not pick up dropped soap during the toilet. Sometimes, when transferring soap to a newbie, the poddler drops it on purpose. If the novice raised him, then by this he "bowed" (obeyed). The rule is: “I don’t drop, I don’t have to lift”.
Then comes the next stage of testing such a beginner under the guise of various games, usually associated with physical impact. The game of "Sly Neighbor" is used. Its essence lies in the fact that he is blindfolded, warning that one of the two inmates will hit him on the head with a book until he guesses the batter. However, the blows are delivered not by two, but by the manager himself. Naturally, a teenager who does not know this will never guess the striker and the "game" can turn into a beating. He who knows this custom will guess right the first time and will be spared the torture.
The game "Count the stars" is no less brutal. The beginner is blindfolded, placed on a stool, then the stool is knocked out from under his feet and asked how many stars he saw when falling. In accordance with the named figure, he receives the number of "carrots", i.e. blows with a wet towel rolled into a tourniquet. The one who knows, even before the game, declares that he will not see any stars, and is exempt from checking.
Other games have a similar purpose: "Sun", "Dump truck", "Dashing driver", "Bicycle", etc.
After these tests, if the beginner did not pass them, he is credited to the category of "Chukhans".
Such a teenager, under threat of violence, is offered the choice of either cleaning a parasha or eating a bar of soap. If he agrees to the first offer, he is included in the category of "garbage dumps", "spoon washes". In the second case, he becomes a "chushkar".
There are customs in the bogeyman by which leaders rip off teenagers. So, intending to ask a newcomer to serve something from the grocery box, a more experienced cellmate puts, for example, sugar there so that when the door is opened, it falls down and thus "gets dirty". Instead of "defiled" sugar, he demands multiple compensation.
"Registration"
Neither questions nor riddles require great intelligence and ingenuity. There is a picture of a tiger on the wall: the newcomer "is offered a fight with him, and he knocks his fists bloodied against the wall under the ridicule of his inmates. (All that was needed was to say:" Let him hit first ").
One may ask: who do you want to be, a pilot or a miner? If you are a miner, you must crawl across the floor under all the bins (After that, you will be treated accordingly: under the bins, "pigs", "roosters" and other "low" suits sleep). A pilot? Climb up and jump upside down onto the chessboard with the queen in the center. Of course, they won't let you hit your forehead on the queen, they will catch you, but which of the newcomers knows about this? "Registration", though crude, primitive, but, of course, brightens up the monotonous course of prison life. The trouble is that it often turns into chaos. Comic cruelty turns into real cruelty; "concepts" are violated; in general, the guilty ones suffer without guilt ...
There are also restrictions on "registration": it is not done for older convicts (from about thirty years old), patients, etc. However, now this "event" is becoming a rare occurrence in prisons. "Registration" and earlier, it was not in "good", "travel", "correct huts"; here they also had fun, but generally harmless jokes prevailed.
"The right hut"
In such a "hut" they live according to "concepts." They will greet you, but they will not ask you about the twists and turns of the case, but will explain the elementary rules of the cell routine (they are the same in all prisons in general terms, differing only in details).
For example, in the "huts" of one of the prisons "televisions" (lockers) were equipped with curtains, so it was impossible to sit on the "parasha" (toilet bowl) with the curtains open. Although in many prisons these "televisions" do not have curtains at all.
The rules of life in a "hut" are quite consistent with the usual rules of a hostel in the wild. While eating others - do not sit on the toilet; wash your hands before eating, do not sit at the table in outerwear. Do not whistle. Don't spit on the floor. Eat your bread carefully, do not drop it, as well as a spoon ("paddle"), mug, slum (plate).
No one serves anyone, no one owes anything to anyone. The camera is removed by everyone, in turn.
The stricter the mode, the less mat. Not because convicts, so to speak, are "correcting", being re-educated: less swearing means less risk of being misunderstood. The well-known word "fucking" inserted into speech "for a link" can be interpreted by the interlocutor as an insult that has a direct address. And even more so, you can't send anyone to ..., this is the gravest of insults. Therefore, for example, repeat offenders serving time on a special regime almost do not use obscene expressions and talk mostly in quiet and even voices, without disturbing anyone and without causing negative emotions.
A real convict seeks to improve his life from the first days of being in captivity - in prison. Someone is pasting a portrait of a pop diva ("session") on the wall near the bunk, another is cutting some seemingly senseless curtains; the third insulates the blanket with pieces of an old coat - etc., etc. Everything is neatly laid out, no mess in the cell, no dirt, if possible. Nobody puts boots under the headboard or puts socks under the pillow ...
Livestock
An important place in the life of a convict is the fight against insects, which in prison are mainly represented by bugs and cockroaches. They fight bedbugs with fire and water: they burn them out, pour them with boiling water, etc., but retreating briefly, the bloodsuckers launch a counteroffensive with even larger forces: they parachute on people from the ceiling, attack in maneuverable groups of 810 bedbugs at once. In place of the dead "fighters" new ones immediately rise.
Sometimes the prisoners' collective does not stand up to a bloody battle in the literal sense of the word and calls for help from chemical troops in the form of a prisoner from a household service, with a reservoir of chlorophos. Together with bedbugs, convicts are also hit and are pushed into the cell an hour after disinfection ...
It's useless to fight cockroaches if there are any. In "Kresty", for example, large and black cockroaches are widespread: so large that when they gnaw on a crust that has been lying around, an ominous crunch is heard. These giants are generally harmless; in some "huts" they were given names.
Lice are rare in prison; the lousy one is immediately thrown into the roast together with the mattress by the convicts themselves.
Mice are most often fun, unless, of course, there is no overly zealous mouse-hater among the inmates ... Rats are as rare as lice, and there are no other animals at all.
Leisure (crafts, gadgets)
There is a lot of leisure time - it's all yours. There is nothing to do: gambling is not a pleasure for everyone, books, too. Many people make all kinds of consumer goods from improvised materials: fountain pens made of sock synthetic threads, chess and other figures made of bread crumb dyed with tobacco ash, crosses made of molten polyethylene.
Artists paint "stamps" (handkerchiefs): to whom sailing ships, to whom portraits of loved ones, to whom - King Kong, fucking a beauty ...
You can sew slippers or insulation on the lower back - from a blanket; you can ... However, the current "democratization" has also affected prisons: in some pre-trial detention centers, moonshine is driven, fermenting moldy bread in plastic bags.
Many cameras have TVs, and they brighten up existence - with football, action films and the obsessive eroticism of music videos.
There are books in the prison. Some even read them: mostly domestic and foreign classics without many of the pages used for hand-rolled and playing cards. You can subscribe to newspapers and magazines. Previously, they wrote out more, now less: the price is not the same.
The "personnel" of the prison include everyone who wears the uniform of the internal troops (wardens, corps foremen, operatives, "godfathers", doctors and nurses), as well as prisoners of household services (food blockers, various slick-cleaners, electricians and orderlies, plumbers, bath attendants , hairdressers and photographers).
The convicts left to serve their time in the pre-trial detention center, of course, are well fed - at the expense of the rest of the lads languishing in stuffy cells. Distribution of food will corrupt anyone: one balander was distributing sugar, having built a second bottom in a ladle and reducing the ration by a third; another tied a large, undercooked fish to a scoop, and anyone who saw this fish through the "feeder" thought that it would fall into his boat (bowl). However, the fish fell down and hung on a string.
The uniformed staff are much closer to the convict. In a prison of strict rules, the pupkar (warden) looks into the cell through the peephole quite often. If something seemed suspicious, he opens the "feeder" and looks through it. If something out of the ordinary happens, he calls for help and enters the cell with her.
Communication with the neighboring camera is carried out in different ways everywhere. You can pump out the water in the toilet and communicate like on the phone, or even transfer all sorts of things: smoke, "little things", etc. In one of the "Kresty" cells, they managed to disassemble the masonry in the ventilation hole and even exchanged handshakes. You can glue a pipe from a newspaper and launch an arrow with a thread on the tails of the opposite body (I saw specialists: they blew the arrow very far and very accurately). Tapping is less common, although it is the most reliable method.
Thirty letters of the alphabet without "e" and soft and hard signs are placed in the following table:
1 2 3 4 5 6
A E l R H s
B F m S C e
B 3 n T h y
Г И о у Ш я
d K p f U
One beat - pause - three beats - pause - two ... For example, the letter "D" is five beats.
It is often useless to ask the administration for anything. They will give what you are legally entitled to, and they will not do an exception to the rules, even if it is allowed by law and regulations.
Ministry of Internal Affairs.
You can go on a hunger strike. However, according to the "concepts", it must be completed. The same as in the rest: if you threatened - do it, took out a knife - hit. It may be cruel, but it cannot be otherwise. Because the filmed ineffectual hunger strike gives the administration a reason not to react to similar protests from other convicts.
Some convicts open their veins: the cops stopped reacting to these things for a long time. More impressive is the opening of the abdominal cavity and the dumping of one's own intestines into an aluminum boat - in front of the astonished and frightened navel. But this is for serious people. In addition, there is an exact way of performing this action, not everyone is familiar with it. This is not hara-kiri, it is not done with a special knife, but with a sharpened "oar" (spoon) ... These same "oars" are swallowed in order to get to the medical unit, already in the zone there are welding electrodes.
The main forms of suppression in the prison and in the zone are punishment cells, low food, deprivation of parcels and visits, physical violence, humiliation of various kinds, up to the threat of being transferred (in prison) to a “cock's house”. And in some areas such methods are practiced.
There is nothing worse than a "press-hut". This is a special cell in which convicts sentenced (according to the prison law) sit out: informers, hooters, rats and simply frostbitten mordovorov, who longed to taste possible benefits and are afraid of the zone like fire ... testimony or whereabouts of money from particularly stubborn suspects. Quite often the existence of "press-khat" is denied, but it is also confirmed by numerous testimonies of those who have gone through this earthly hell.
A punishment cell - low nutrition, cold (or heat), dampness and tuberculosis in perspective. And the guards in the punishment cells are special: some pour water on the floor, others - the prisoner himself ... It is better not to end up in a punishment cell or in a punishment cell (in the zone); however, it is better not to go to jail at all.
It is possible to resist the lawlessness of the "administration" only with the help of complete calmness in everything, with any manifestation of protest: be it legal complaints and statements or "illegal" swallowing of electrodes. Here the convict does not need anything except his own will, although with God's help it is better to do without violence against his internal organs and put more pressure on the internal organs of the "system".
Stages is the popular name for the movement of prisoners between prisons and camps. It goes back to the pre-revolutionary times, when the convicts were driven on foot to the places of hard labor and exile, and the stages were the distances between the fortified cities, in which the streams of convicts rested, gathered, and were distributed. Until recently, there was the concept of a "transit prison" - a prison that served exclusively for such an accumulation and redistribution of the convoy.
When the word "stage" sounds, the soul of the convict freezes, feeling vague anxiety. Stages are always unknown, always new people, trials, when all your past, all your acquired authority disappears and you have to start from scratch to fight for a place in the sun, just like on the first day in prison. As a rule, it is at the stages that the disassembly takes place. When the conflict is not over and the prisoners are separated by the prison walls, they say to each other "see you at the stage" or "see you at the stage (the cell where everyone is gathered before being sent)" and this sounds like a real threat. At the very least, she must be contained in order not to drop her prisoner dignity.
Usually they are transferred from a pre-trial detention center to the places where they are serving their sentences, less often to those under investigation if they are detained in one place, and the scene of the crime and, accordingly, the court and investigation in another. They are also transported between zones, most often for treatment, and those under investigation are taken for a psychiatric examination.
The stage can be very long - it may take two months to get through Russia. And if you suddenly need to cross the border, for example, between Russia and Ukraine, it can drag on for six months.
At the stages they are crowned into thieves and lowered into. This is both deprivation and humiliation. At the stages, powerlessness is acutely felt - it is easy to get a club on the back, or a butt on the kidneys, to be bitten by a dog. Each stage is at least two shmons, when sending and arriving, shmons are always thorough, with undressing, with breaking things. It is always psychological pressure - movement at gunpoint, running - shouts, blows, dogs.
But at the same time, at the stages you can see old friends, accomplices, find out the latest news, see the edge of the free world. And by the way - for some, new people are fear and problems, for others - new acquaintances and impressions.
It is not worth going to the stages with a large trunk - again, a car prisoner, it is difficult to move with a bag under the batons. In addition, the ideal of a barefoot life is a minimum of property, detachment from things, lightness. Therefore, given the tightness of the compartment, exacerbating this attitude, the owners of large bags are not only just disliked, but they are trying in every possible way to dilute the contents of these same bags, or even blatantly. At the stages at the convoy, you can exchange some of the things for tea, cigarettes, canned food. The craftsmen even manage to brew a chifir in the compartment - by making a smokeless torch from a sheet, blocking the fire from the escorts with their bodies (or, which is easier, of course, by agreeing with him). The drink prepared in this way, of course, has a special taste - a little buzz from breaking the rules, from a sip of freedom. They are periodically taken out to relieve themselves - according to the norms, it seems, every 4 hours, but in practice it happens for everyone - one person, accompanied by an escort. It happens that you will not be interrogated - for this the people stock up on plastic bottles. First, the stored water is drunk from them, then it is poured into it. And if someone suddenly has diarrhea, and sometimes this happens, then the circus begins - both laughter and sin. Therefore, knowing that it is time for the stage, experienced convicts almost stop eating a day before, and in the morning they stop drinking.
If we also consider that no one feeds on the road either (they give out rations in the form of bread, sugar, maybe even some canned food, but all this is rather meager), then upon arrival at the new prison until you get to the cell, it may take another whole day - a total of two or three days of hunger.
At the stages, you can even be with a woman, having previously agreed through the compartment wall and received consent to a date with the prisoner who missed the man's affection, and then at night, having talked the escort sergeant, giving him a couple of packs of cigarettes, spend half an hour in the vestibule by the toilet. This is certainly exotic - there are too many "if ...", but it happens.
But this is not the worst thing about the stages. First of all, those who feel behind themselves some shoals from a past life, both free and prison, are afraid of stages. All informers, all outlaws, leaving the walls of prisons and zones, are left without their roofs, which were provided to them in one way or another by the opera. Within the walls of the stage, where people are gathered before the stage, their fate is no longer interesting to anyone - they have worked out their own and have already forgotten about them. Now they are on a par with the rest. As a rule, demand occurs here. They rarely kill - at least in our time, but to omit is in no time. Prejava - a couple of minutes for "discussion" - and execution. The most benign method is slapping, which resets a person's status to zero. More radical - with a head in a dyuchku (a point), if there is one, which immediately makes a person "finished", "lowered".
Therefore, those who are not confident in themselves are also afraid of stages - stages are, first of all, new people and very cramped circumstances, where a conflict can arise because of one centimeter of space.