21 – 25 March 2025
by Anna Karetnikova
Source: Facebook
21 March 2025
The historian Aleksandr Skobov was handed a 16-year prison sentence.
Source: Facebook
22 March 2025
Well, for some people even a short term in prison is enough …
OVD-Info reports that on 21 March at the Novorossiysk Prison No. 3 (Krasnodar region) Jehovah’s Witness Valery Bailo died aged 67.
‘In detention, the believer was not treated for many months. He then had to have surgery on his knee joint, the ligaments of which were completely torn: the knee was held together only by the muscles. Bailo also complained of a severe toothache, owing to which he could only eat liquid food. He was also diagnosed with a chronic gastrointestinal disease, which became acute during his incarceration.
‘The lawyer of the deceased noted that he repeatedly filed complaints, “but no one responded to them”. The attorney added that he last saw Bailo on 5 February. “He was exhausted and said that he couldn’t eat because of the acute, stabbing pain, but he was denied medical assistance. It seems that he died of exhaustion and starvation,” stated the lawyer.
‘Bailo was sentenced to two and a half years in a penal colony last July, having been in custody since April.’
Source: Facebook
23 March 2025
Sometimes, amidst the gloom, you recall something funny, and just like that a memory surfaces. Things have hardly got better there without me – they say they have gotten worse.
And a photo from those times.
… The convicted prisoners on the maintenance crew left their work for a time and went out into the sun for a minute, to stand by the barracks and take a break from their work. One of them was Russian, with a locksmith’s bag, and one was Uzbek (apparently a Russian citizen), carrying a shovel.
“We have rats, cats” – said one of the inmates jubilantly. “And there was a chinchilla, I remember when I was a kid, that was great!”
“Ahhh,” remarked the Uzbek, indicating interest in the story.
“Man, it was such fun! To cut a long story short. It sits in its cage by the window, and you sneak up to the window,” (while telling the joke he demonstrates the action of sneaking) and suddenly it jumps out of the cage, and you try to catch it, ‘Hah!’”
“Hah,” repeats the Uzbek delighted.
“And suddenly she’s lying on her side ! As though she’s dead, she’s kicked the bucket.”
“What do you mean by “kicked the bucket” brother?
“I taught you Russian, didn’t I? And I taught you the tongue-twister ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pepper’? Well, say it then!”
“Peter Piper … pepper picked … ugh, it’s a tricky saying. So, what’s with the shanshalla then brother?”
“Well, it was fine really, it didn’t really die, I remember that, even though it was so long ago…It just fell over.”
“So, what is a shanshalla then, a little dog, right?”
“Oh, strewth…You don’t even know what a chinchilla is? It’s like a squirrel. Or a big mouse. Or a hare. Sort of a combination of all of those critters.”
“A hare,” the Uzbek repeats as if spellbound.
“ Anna Georgievna, do you know any other tongue-twisters we could teach him?”
“I do. I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop. Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits. … Go on, say it.”
“What! That’s too hard even for me! Isn’t there an easier one?”
“What about… She sells sea shells on the seashore …No that’s no good. Do you know the one about Betty and the butter?”
“These tongue-twisters of yours are pretty tricky, Anna Georgievna.”
“Shanshalla,” the Uzbek keeps on repeating the new word with an enchanted smile … “Not a dog, a shanshalla.”
Spring comes even to those in prison. (с)
Source: Facebook
25 March 2025
Once again, I shrug my shoulders at all the fuss and goings on about red caviar in pretrial detention centres for prisoners.
I would have kept quiet if completely reasonable people hadn’t joined the discussion. Heck, we’ve been there and done this already: crabs, geese with apples, someone getting gold teeth with diamonds …
People still don’t have beds or medication, and inmates die without medical help in the remand facilities but yet the Penitentiary Service gets people talking about “all these criminals living in the lap of luxury! They’ve got it better behind bars than on the outside!” And people get all excited about that.
Then the “activists” join in and start talking absolute nonsense that detention on remand should be a “punitive” measure (are you sure about that?), that prisoners accused of serious and extremely serious crimes should not be sold caviar (I mean, as if any those on any other charges are being sold it! They talk as though staff in remand prisons have nothing better to do that decide who can have caviar and who can’t!)
All this time the Penitentiary Service has allotted so much money to itself that maybe it can start breeding sturgeon and add caviar to prison food, be it black or red. Evidently, the Penitentiary Service has no intention of explaining where all the money is going now there has been such a drastic reduction in the prison population and in the number of penitentiary facilities. At the same time, ‘super projects’ to build ‘hyper colonies’ are being cancelled one by one. So where is all the money going? On improving the lives of inmates? On salvaging the medical situation? It doesn’t seem like it. On salaries, bonuses and housing for staff? Then why are they all running away, as the latest figures on personnel shortages are showing?
…But then the topic of expensive food comes up and all other issues get left by the wayside. It’s all a kind of Penitentiary Service equivalent to the question of removing Lenin’s body from the mausoleum or returning the statue of Dzerzhinsky to Lubyanka Square.
It goes like this: what are they saying about us? Torture, they say? Another prisoner has died? Pah… Well, we’ll use our own super-weapon. We’ve talked about crabs already? Well, then let’s move on to caviar in the prison store!
… So now everybody’s engaged in lively discussion? Excellent, let’s resume the stealing.
Source: Facebook
Translated by Nathalie Wilson
