What kind of lives do political prisoners in Russia lead? Punishment without cause, insufficient food, and seclusion

When authorities at Penal Colony No. 6 arbitrarily placed a tiny cabinet next to a fold-up cot, stool, sink, and toilet in Vladimir Kara-Murza’s already overcrowded concrete cell, the man could only snicker.

The opposition activist was not permitted to have any personal possessions in solitary confinement, therefore Yevgenia, his wife, said that the only items he had to keep in it were a cup and a toothbrush during that sad period.

She said that Kara-Murza had previously been instructed to get his bedding from the opposite side of the hallway, but that inmates were required to always keep their hands behind their backs while they were not in their cells.

“How was he meant to handle it? Using his teeth? As stated to The Associated Press by Yevgenia Kara-Murza. As he was gathering the blankets, a camera-wielding guard showed up and informed him that he had broken the regulations, adding even more punishment.

Life in Russia’s penal colonies is a harsh reality for political prisoners like Kara-Murza, who face physical and psychological abuse, lack of sleep, inadequate food, subpar or nonexistent medical treatment, and a bewildering array of arbitrary restrictions.

This month, the most formidable adversary of the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny, died mysteriously in a remote Arctic prison colony, one of Russia’s toughest establishments.

According to Grigory Vaypan, a lawyer with Memorial, an organization established to chronicle persecution in the Soviet Union, particularly from the Stalinist prison system known as the gulag, “no one in the Russian penitentiary system is safe.”

According to Vaypan, “the situation is often worse for political prisoners because the state aims to punish them further, or further isolate them from the world, or do everything to break their spirit.” His organization has identified 680 Russian political prisoners.

Last year, Kara-Murza was found guilty of treason for criticizing the conflict in Ukraine. He is among the rising number of dissidents being kept in harsher circumstances as a result of President Vladimir Putin’s political crackdown. He is now serving a 25-year sentence, the worst for a Kremlin opponent in contemporary Russia.

The Aftereffects of the Gulag

Human rights activists, former prisoners, and their families provide a dismal image of a jail system that evolved from the Soviet Union’s gulags, as chronicled by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” and “The Gulag Archipelago.”

It “more or less still has the backbone of the Soviet system” notwithstanding changes, according to Amnesty International’s Russia expert Oleg Kozlovksy.

Inmates often reside in cramped barracks with bunk beds. An activist who spent more than a year at Navalny’s jail, Penal Colony No. 2 in the Vladimir area, from 2021 to June 2022, Konstantin Kotov, remembers claustrophobic conditions with up to 60 guys per room.

In Berlin, Germany, Oleg Navalny, Alexey Navalny’s brother, poses for photographers.(Image | AP)
Kotov told AP that the epidemic didn’t even alter that. Masks were mandated from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., but he doesn’t think they made a big difference. People sometimes had high fevers. After being transported to the hospital and returned, that was the end of it, he said.

Meals are simple and disappointing.

Porridge was served for breakfast, soup that had little to no meat, mashed potatoes, and a cutlet of pork or fish for lunch and supper, according to Kotov. Prison shops ran out of fruit and vegetables virtually regularly, and inmates were only allowed two eggs every week, he said.

The ration is often inedible and insufficient. According to Navalny, “almost no one survives on rations alone.” Porridge for breakfast, soup and porridge for lunch, and porridge with herring for supper were how his wife put it.

Within reasonable bounds, extra food is sold, or family members may send packages. Punishment cell inmates do not get packages.

There is a rigid schedule of mundane chores and responsibilities, such as cleaning and paying attention.

According to his wife Tatyana Usmanova, Andrei Pivovarov, who is serving a four-year sentence for operating a political group that is outlawed, is required to clean his solitary cell for many hours every day and listen to a tape on the rules of the jail. However, she said, he is unable to do both at once, complete fast, and take a break. Rule violators are punished by guards monitoring them on CCTV.

“System of salvery”

Russia has slightly under 700 prisons, the majority of which are penal colonies with varied degrees of security, from “special regime” to minimal. There are perhaps thirty to forty female prison camps.

Journalist and prisoner rights activist Zoya Svetova claims that governments with stricter control prefer to send political detainees.

Although prisoners must labor, there are often insufficient jobs for males. According to prisoner advocate Sasha Graf, women often make uniforms for the military, police, and construction workers, putting in long hours for little remuneration.

Sewing for 16 to 18 hours a day, Nadya Tolokonnikova, a member of the Pussy Riot protest group, remembers her almost 22-month jail sentence in 2012–2013. She told AP, “It’s a system of slavery, and it is genuinely horrible.”

According to Graf, inmates get pay that is less than the minimum wage, which is set at 19,242 rubles (about $200) per month in 2024. However, in practice, this amount is as low as 300 rubles (around $3.20), which is sufficient to purchase sanitary goods and smokes from the prison kiosk.

Tolokonnikova said that the warden of Penal Colony No. 14 in the Mordovia area identified himself as a “Stalinist” when she first arrived. You may be someone outside of this colony, with a voice and people who love and support you, but here, you are entirely under my control, and you must realize this, she said he informed her.

Svetova, who served on a commission from 2008 to 2016, claims that while commissions that monitor prisons theoretically conduct inspections and represent the interests of prisoners, government supporters have recently changed the panel’s members.

She said that the present administration oppresses and intimidates people by using jails.

Advocates claim that although reports of physical mistreatment are uncommon for political prisoners, they are widespread for other convicts. As per Kozlovsky of Amnesty, intimidation instead often occurs via the enforcement of small offenses.

Due to his improper buttoning of his uniform and failure to place his hands behind his back as instructed, Navalny was placed in a punishment cell for many months. At one point, he referred to it as a “concrete kennel” that was 2.5 by 3 meters (8 by 10 feet) and could be “cold and damp” or “hot and there’s almost no air” depending on the season.

For many, extended periods of solitary confinement or punishment cells are the main means of communication. A lawyer’s visit or letters that are censored and may take weeks to arrive are their only means of support; other colonies employ a quicker internet service.
Advocates and present and past prisoners claim that health treatment is almost nonexistent and that the only medications offered are rudimentary ones, if any.

According to Tolokonnikova, “prison guards automatically assume the inmate is lying and is merely complaining about health problems to get some kind of extra privileges.”

It should come as no surprise that prisoners struggle under such circumstances.

Yevgenia Kara-Murza said that while living alone, her husband, 42, has become worse.

He had two poisonings that were almost deadly in 2015 and 2017, and he also got polyneuropathy, a disorder that causes his limbs to lose sensation. He was given some care in Moscow while he was being held for trial, but not in the Omsk prison colony.

She said that “he needs physical therapy, exercise,” which is unlikely to be achievable in his cell.

Alexei Gorinov, a former member of the Moscow municipal council who was sentenced to seven years in prison for opposing the conflict in Ukraine, has a long-term pulmonary illness and underwent surgery to remove a portion of his lung before going to jail. After six weeks in solitary confinement, his condition worsened, and he is still recuperating.

During a hearing in the Moscow City Court, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny displays a heart sign while standing inside a defendants’ cage.(Image | AP)
According to his lawyer, Gorinov, 62, was too weak to even sit up in a chair or talk in December, according to Gorinov’s supporters. After being transferred to a prison hospital, he is still roused every two hours, according to his supporters, since he is considered a flight risk and officials need to often verify his whereabouts. It seems like a kind of agony to him.

While public pressure has been essential in stopping jail abuses in previous years, Memorial’s Vaypan feels that Navalny’s murder crosses a limit.