Judge: ‘This is not a circus. Stop it.’
The prosecutor asks for three years in prison. For each of us.
welcome to hell
The weekend arrived, and I went to have a manicure.
In custody, you’re allowed to have your nails done. You just have a long wait. They take you from your cell down to a room they call ‘the hairdresser’s’. A prisoner sits at a desk, and on a shelf by her side is an assortment of nail polish. There is very little colour inside prison. Here, the windows are painted white, the prison yard is grey concrete, the walls are also dull grey, the beds are made of iron. The floors are just grimy with dirt. Then here is this colourful nail polish, arranged on the shelf, and you can pick any one. Even the prison guards go to have their nails done by this girl. Once, I heard them talking:’ Oh, it’s terrible that you’re going to be released. Who will do our nails?’ The guards were very upset. The prisoner was about to be freed, but they weren’t pleased for her, not one tiny bit.
I asked her to paint my nails blue.
the sentence
‘Well, girls, today, you’re being sentenced, right?’ asks another convict at court.
‘Yes,’ we say in unison.
‘That means you should look super pretty,’ the convict says.
We look at each other sceptically. It’s 17 August 2012.
kiss the bride!!
The ultra-right crowd chants, ‘Burn the witches! Burn the witches at the stake!’ They hold up signs: ‘They danced at the altar rail, now they will dance in jail!’
‘Correcting the behaviour of the accused is possible only in conditions of isolation from society.’
The chanting is periodically interrupted with shouts of ‘Kiss the bride!!’ – City Hall is just ten yards away.
in the name of the russian federation
‘The court slapped two years on them. I had nothing to do with it.’
– President Putin
If you were sitting alone in some bright room, you might sob and beat your head against the wall because you won’t see your son. But you can’t do that here. Later, you’ll understand that, from now on, you can’t do that ever, anywhere.
In deciding our sentence, the court takes the nature and degree of the crime into consideration, the impact of the sentence on correcting the convict’s behaviour and the circumstances of the convict’s family life.
putin is lighting the fires
People gather around the plexiglass cage in small groups; their cameras click, they wave their hands. Their eyes seek out the best angle for taking a picture, and then, letting the camera hang down from their necks, they look at us with sympathy. With such sympathy that I feel pity for these young people in their checked shirts. Especially the last one. He stands before us and shrugs, as if to say, forgive us for not being able to set you free.
you can’t stuff us into a box unmask the chekists
It’s as though all the people coming up to our cage – every single one – takes our hands in their thoughts.
Dozens of hands are holding mine, bound before me in metal handcuffs.
thank you
All of us had been taught how to behave during solemn events and ceremonies.
‘We were inspired by the Riot Grrrl movement. We called ourselves Pussy Riot, because the first word invokes a sexist attitude towards women: soft, passive creatures. And our “riot” is a response to that attitude. We rose up against gender inequality. We wanted to create the image of an anti-fascist superhero, so we needed to wear masks.’
– Katya Samutsevich
‘Let’s go! Go! Go!’ a Spetsnaz officer barks. ‘Move!’ and he shoves us into the autozak.
spend a wild day among strong women
I don’t have any time to ask questions. In the autozak, the Spetsnaz officers take off their helmets and simultaneously exhale. One of them sits opposite us, holding a large video camera. Some are bound to us with handcuffs; the others surround us in a circle.
‘Are we really that dangerous?’ I try to strike up a conversation with my Spetsnaz companion to get him to loosen the handcuffs a bit.
‘Stop it,’ the officer says. ‘Can’t you see? We’re just following orders.’
clear the road
The road to the detention centre has been cleared of traffic, as though we were a cortege of high officials. We are crammed together. I feel the heat coming from under the multiple layers of the officers’ black uniforms and armour.
‘Girls, why did you have to go and force your way into the church?’ one of them asks indignantly, making Katya smile.
‘Do you really like what the Church is doing?’ Katya asks.
‘And the authorities?’ Nadya adds.
‘Of course not!’ the Spetsnaz officer bristles. ‘But you’re young women! So young! And such a long sentence!’
‘Well, that’s the one they gave us,’ Nadya says with a grimace, clearly expecting a sermon from the officer.
Our autozak resembles a boat cutting through the August heat, like a prow above the waves.
the more arrests, the better
‘Listen, girls, don’t you feel bad about wasting your youth?’ the officer asks after a short pause.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t regret it.’
‘What is there to regret?’ Katya asks.
‘Would you have acted any differently?’ Nadya says.
‘They’re revolutionaries,’ the Spetsnaz chief cuts in. ‘Enough talking.’
‘They did the right thing to arrest them, the court did the right thing to convict them. You can’t undermine our moral foundations, you can’t destroy the country. What would we be left with then?’
– Vladimir Putin
‘Shall we smoke?’ I ask.
‘Yep,’ replies Nadya.
wasted youth
When the autozak stops at a traffic light, you can go to the bars on the windows and see people crossing the street. They walk quickly, striding over the white stripes of the crossing. You think, When I get out of prison, I’ll be a pedestrian, too. And when you start thinking this way, you become more of a prisoner than a free person.
Not a single person crossing the street even suspects that, inside the plain white van, the eyes of a convict are watching closely.
If you happen to see a van like that when you’re walking down the street, look carefully – they may be looking at you.
6. Transportation in the ‘Stolypin’ Car
There is no certainty or predictability. There is no fate. There is a choice.
My choice and yours, in each moment that demands it.
‘my desire to speak was ignored’
Katya goes out into the city. She goes down the steps of the court to the street. Our October appeal hearing is over.
Nadya and I return downstairs to the basement to collect our small bags and go out to the autozak.
Katya runs down the street, avoiding the journalists, who try to surround her with microphones and hundreds of questions.
‘Why did they let you go free?’
‘Why are your friends in prison?’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’
because
Nadya and I get inside the autozak. Two of us will stay in prison.
‘Get inside the cage, quickly.’
‘Not the cage, please.’ I’m almost crying.
‘Those are my orders. I have to keep you apart. One of you into the cage. No talking back.’
‘Please –’
‘Don’t separate us yet.’
Four crying eyes melt the guard’s resolve. We ride in the autozak together. We say nothing for about ten minutes. And then –
‘I ran out of grechka.’
ran out of grechka
‘Me, too,’ Nadya says. ‘And my cigarettes are all gone.’
‘I’ll get you some,’ I say, brightening up. ‘We’ve got tons in my cell!’
For the whole ride, we
talk about how we are going to break the rules and make a road between us.
In SIZO No. 6, my cell is on the second floor; Nadya’s is on the third.
It’s October.
one road
I take a sheet, rip it into strips, try to tie them together. I have to do this in the toilet, since that’s the only place where the guards aren’t able to see me. It takes me a long time to tie strips together, an hour or more. I don’t know how to make a rope of sheets. Why would I know? What need have I had for a rope?
Two cigarette cartons don’t fit through the bars. They’ll have to go one by one. Quickly – the guard might come to the door at any time and see me. Nothing will happen to me: I’m a political. Madonna lifts up her shirt for me on TV. But cellmates, they’ll be punished. I’m well aware of that.
a home-made rope
I quickly tie the rope around one cigarette carton and shout out the window: ‘309!’ – Nadya’s cell. Another home-made rope drops down from the third floor. I tie it to my rope, secure the cigarettes and watch them as they’re hoisted upwards. I see a hand reach out from Nadya’s cell and take them. When the rope drops back down, I take the second carton and attach it. She pulls it up. It worked.
The Road – a home-made device for communication between prisoners in single cells.
Our sentence went into effect immediately. That same evening, I signed a paper saying, ‘Acknowledged’.
elderly atheist
The next day is the start of the weekend. No one comes to the detention centre at the weekends. Weekends are rest for everyone – even for investigators and lawyers, human rights advocates and family. Everyone stays at home. The prisoners stay in their cells. But suddenly, in the middle of the day, my cell door opens. Two people come in. An elderly man, who I learn is an atheist, and a pale young woman with a sympathetic expression on her face. Plain clothed. They ask: ‘Do you really not regret what you did?’
Silence.
It’s a question I’m asked in the cell, in the autozak, in the courtroom. A question that makes me sick, that sticks like a bone in my throat. A dull, predictable question. Until now, I’ve answered it dutifully, going into detail, calmly or, sometimes, enthusiastically. But this time, something breaks inside me. There is something terribly wrong, something unseemly, about this pompous old turkey and his young assistant.
‘It’s time for you to go,’ I say, gesturing towards the door.
‘Don’t talk to me like that, young lady. We are officials, and we decide where you’ll serve your sentence. We can arrange for you to stay in Moscow.’
‘You’ve already decided,’ I say. ‘Haven’t you?’
it’s my time
They exchange glances; they turn to go. The young woman says, ‘Masha, I suggest you forget everything that has happened to you here.’
My cellmate Aya replies, ‘Nah, it’s you who’ll forget. She will remember.’
I look at her gratefully and promise myself never to forget. Not a single thing.
The door closes. ‘Alyokhina, prepare for convoy,’ says a voice outside the door.
an hour to get ready
My cellmates hover around me like concerned little bees. Ordinary bees gather nectar; mine fill my bag with honey. Honey (delicious), soap (I’ll distribute it), thirty bars of chocolate (I’ll give them away), instant coffee (I love coffee), multiple cartons of cigarettes (cigarettes always come in handy).
Aya hugs me and cries. I don’t cry. I look out of the window. There are the bars on it, and beyond the bars the cold light of street lamps in the evening.
Aya makes tea, and I move closer to the window. Outside, Head Doctor Ivanova is walking back and forth with a torch, left to right, right to left, making sure I won’t try to communicate with anyone before the convoy leaves. She’s like a tired termite. She’s wearing a convict’s padded vest on top of her white doctor’s coat. And if you think about it, how is she any different from a convict? She wears a uniform, standard issue; she wears black shoes. She’s on one side of the bars; I’m on the other.
night behind bars
‘What are you staring at, Alyokhina?’ Ivanova shouts, annoyed.
Nothing. I’m saying goodbye.
‘Etap’ in Russian, means the transportation of convicts from one prison to another. From a detention centre to a penal colony. Etap is the convict’s first step on his path to correction. This is what it’s called in Russia: ‘The path to correction.’
journey from prison to prison
‘Where? Where are they taking you?’
None of the prisoners know. The guards know, and shake their heads. ‘What did you do to them?’ one of them asks as she takes me to be searched. ‘No one from here has ever been sent there before.’
i sang a song
It is evening. The bare waiting room is full of women – they are silent. They smoke. They are silent.
An autozak draws up by the prison entrance. A plain white van with two green stripes.
They call us out, one by one. The convoy escort holds a fat packet in her hands – my personal file. It has a cardboard cover, stitched on with white thread.
‘Where? Where are you taking me?’
‘You’ll find out when you get there.’
There are twelve of us. Several nursing mothers with infants. Baby boys. One of them, wrapped in a prison blanket, sleeps in my arms. He’s only two months old. No one says a word. The van rocks back and forth as it moves through the Moscow streets. It stops at the train station. We stay there such a long time that I want to either fall asleep or shout at the top of my lungs, but the babies are sleeping and we wait for the train in silence. It’s deep into the night – destination unknown.
destination unknown
At every train station, there is a special zone for windowless vehicles. Inside, swimming in tobacco smoke, tired people doze, leaning against each other for support. We doze until the convoy escort calls: ‘Transfer!’
Then the autozak pulls up to the train, and everyone grabs their belongings.
‘Transfer – prisoner number one!’ the convoy escort yells. He yells loudly, so that he can be heard at the other end of the car. And the transfer gets underway: prisoner number one, prisoner number two, prisoner number three … bent beneath the weight of bags, those condemned by the state run through the narrow aisles of the Stolypin car. We stream into the compartments of the prisoner transport train until the barred door clangs shut behind the last prisoner.
why are we running
We lie down across one another’s knees in the compartment bunks – bare planks three rows high. ‘Keep an eye on her,’ the convoy escort says to his subordinate, who is wearing a bulletproof vest, and points at me through the bars. The subordinate nods. They move to the other end of the car, and I fall asleep.
keep an eye on me
We must, we are compelled to, change Russia, her face is frightening. It’s terrifying to live here, but you cannot abandon her. You cannot abandon the body, nor the feelings of suffering; you cannot lose your baggage, we cannot lose the pale grandmother who travels with us, who speaks only in a whisper, afraid even to think about the authorities. She looks back when I pronounce the name ‘Putin’. They have crippled our country. They humiliate and hate us. There’s nothing you can do, yet still you do something: out of spite, in vain, without hope, in desperation. The junkies here all stick together, as one voice they vow that when they get out they will shoot up out of spite. You dream, I heard, of shooting us, but you can’t even imagine how strong cripples are.
There are ten of us in the Stolypin car. I am sick. To be sick with a fever and ride in the Stolypin car is a bad combination, almost unacceptable.
In the summer, it’s hellishly humid. There is always someone who passes out. In the winter, it’s hellishly cold. You need a padded jacket or, as they say, a vatnik. And, definitely, thick socks.
cripples are strong
How do they treat the sick?
The
y don’t. No one will treat you; you just endure it.
They drop the mothers off along the way and we continue our journey. Destination unknown. The prisoners in the men’s compartment shout: to Nizhny Novgorod! But we don’t disembark there. I feel worse and worse, and now I’ve started coughing.
night
We’re still travelling, strange as it might seem. We finally find out where we’re going: ‘No further than Kirov.’ Hello, taiga.
morning
They wake me up by shouting my name right in my ear. Mechanically, I give my full name, date of birth, and my sentence. Don’t laugh – although I doubt you’re inclined to laugh. Five a.m., my first dark taiga morning.
During the day, you are taken to the toilet twice. Prepare two plastic buckets: one for urine, one for boiling water. There is no food; only boiling water. Have instant Chinese soup with you.
chinese soup
6 a.m. We load our bags into another autozak, then they pile us in. We ride to SIZO No. 2, in the city of Kirov. This is a transfer prison, from which they will soon send us on to destinations unknown.
This is their trick – the unknown. This is their method – to frighten. Their way of showing you are just a body.
Riot Days Page 8