Life behind bars in Russia (Part 2)

In every barrack in a colony there is a television. Therefore, in time free from work, the prisoners have the right to watch television shows until 22:00. Inasmuch as there are practically no people with a higher education in the camps, in the main there’s youth sitting there, so they watch the shows that correspond to their level of intellectual development. As an example, they watch absolutely pointless television shows such as «House-2» [a “reality show”, somewhat racier than similar ones in the US—Trans.].

There’s plenty of talk about sex. Sometimes pornographic magazines are leafed through (without advertising it, naturally). Privileged prisoners, close to the administration for one or another reason, have the opportunity to watch pornographic films in the commissaries. But for the majority of the zeks this is unobtainable.

In every zone, and in a “red” one as well, there is a category of prisoners named “roosters”. This is a rather diverse category, because people become “roosters” for a variety of reasons. There are also the “blues” [homosexuals—Trans.] They say that sexual contacts are in principle possible and do take place. But this no doubt does not take place without the knowledge of the employees of the administration, because to get some privacy in the camp is practically impossible.

So is there private life in camp? There is a surrogate thereof. This is when experienced zeks have already learned not to pay attention to the reality that surrounds them (and the people who surround them) and to just do their thing: read books, play the guitar, write verses, look out the window… We had a guy named Ivanich in our barrack. At times you’d get the impression that he lives all by himself, while the camp is something separate entirely. He interacted with a very narrow circle of people, and more often – with a cat. Moreover, he and the cat, it seems, found a common language more quickly with each other than with anyone else. Ivanich didn’t go anywhere: not to work, not to morning exercises, not to the cafeteria, not to club social events… Sometimes people would come to him from other barracks. Say what you will, but I don’t know another person who was as well informed about the life of the whole camp. At the time when the entire barrack went outside for morning exercises and then to breakfast, Ivanich remained inside only with the on-duty group – 2-3 people out of the number of convicts. While we jerked around in the freezing cold, making like athletes, Ivanich would brew himself up some chifir [incredibly strong tea preferred by zeks, largely undrinkable by mere mortals—Trans.], slowly drink it, and contemplatively look out the window. Through the window was seen the building of the ShIZO, the long fence with barbed wire along the perimeter, and – far off – a road to nowhere, into the smoky distance of the Ussuri taiga. It’s hard to say whether this part of Ivanich’s life was his private life. I think it was. Because in other hours he rarely managed to be alone.

It is noteworthy that international norms for holding convicts in places of deprivation of liberty consider an indispensable condition to be the separate holding of men and women, adults and minors, the previously convicted from “first-timers”… Such norms are prescribed by Russian legislation as well. However, in civilized states, all prisoners are usually placed for the night in individual cells or two in a cell. And another thing. In those same European Penitentiary Rues, it is said that sanitary facilities and access to them must be such that each prisoner may at any moment heed the call of nature in conditions of decency and cleanliness. In so doing, by conditions of decency are unequivocally understood close