Many of Russia’s more than 600 penal colonies stand on the sites of their gulag forerunners, mostly in sparsely populated areas where gold, coal, timber and other raw materials could be extracted. The spirit of Stalinist repression lives on in modern Russia through the penal colony system. An immense number of others perished from some combination of starvation, disease, mistreatment or overexertion. The lucky ones survived and rejoined Soviet society. Russians convicted of phony political crimes or of taking too many unexcused absences from work often served long sentences in forced labor camps doing anything from logging to mining to major construction projects. The gulags often mixed hardened criminals with inmates whose offenses wouldn’t be punishable in other countries. From 1929 to 1953, Joseph Stalin resorted to killing untold numbers of Russian citizens and imprisoning millions of others as he sought to tighten his control over the country, instill fear in his political adversaries and create an inmate work force to accelerate Soviet industrialization. Russia’s penal colonies are a remnant of one of the darkest periods in the country’s history. (REUTERS) ‘Those who never did time in Mordovia never did time at all’ basketball player Brittney Griner serves her sentence, in Yavas, the Republic of Mordovia, Russia.
“They have all kinds of instruments to force a person to behave the way they want.”Ī view shows the Female Penal Colony IK-2, where U.S. “If Brittney is made to work, I think prison will be really difficult for her,” Podoplelova said. Prison officials might punish them by sending them to solitary confinement cells, by restricting visits or phone calls with family or even by resorting to violence, Olga Podoplelova, a Moscow-based attorney for the human rights organization Russia Behind Bars, told Yahoo Sports. Women who complain often make a brutal situation only worse. The shifts are long, the breaks are short, and the rewards are meager. Most are required to make uniforms for the Russian police and armed forces, a tedious job made worse by the combination of high production quotas and decades-old, Soviet-era sewing machines. “These colonies seem to eliminate the differences and the individuality of the women there.”Īfter IK-2 prisoners rise from their beds at 6 each morning, they sit down to a breakfast of stale bread and porridge, and then begin a long day of forced labor. “It really struck me as an incredibly sterile, almost sad environment,” said University of Oxford professor Judith Pallot, whose current Gulag Echoes project is the culmination of nearly two decades of research on Russian prisons. None of the prisoners is allowed to display any personal items atop their bedside cabinets, not even pictures of their loved ones. First-time lawbreakers bunk next to hardened recidivists. Petty thieves sleep alongside drug offenders and murderers. Whereas Griner lived in a cell at her pre-trial detention center in the Moscow suburbs, inmates at IK-2 share a communal dormitory with up to 100 other women. Experts say prisoners can face discipline if they don’t button their uniforms to the neck and wear headscarves at all times. Griner’s first indication of the hardships ahead likely came when she arrived at her penal colony last month and had to surrender her civilian clothes and belongings in exchange for a prison uniform. They paint a bleak picture of corrupt guards, military-esque rules, exhausting workdays and extreme isolation. To better understand what day-to-day penal colony life is like and what challenges Griner might face, Yahoo Sports combed reports from human rights groups and government agencies and spoke to attorneys and researchers who have visited inmates in IK-2.
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A few days after Griner arrived at IK-2, the American basketball star’s Russian defense lawyers visited her and reported that she was “doing as well as could be expected and trying to stay strong as she adapted to a new environment.” Attorney Maria Blagovolina did not respond to an email from Yahoo Sports on Monday seeking an update and further details.
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