12th November
This is the oldest and biggest prison in Russia and is more or less a museum. I had a nasty stand-off with the same guy who gave me shit on the train, while waiting for allocation of rooms. He blames me and Dima for the lengthy incarceration. Claims he never got a full legal briefing and claimed whatever we did turned to shit. He will send a complaint about it to IMAD [Greenpeace ships unit]. He made a comment about me never sailing with Greenpeace again. I think I prompted that by asking him why he was whingeing so much since he was the one who swore he’d never sail with us again. Some people are upset with the way it’s turned out and the campaign team in general.
Got packed to my cell and now sharing with Anton. He got a book out and pointed to the word ‘AMNESTIA’ indicating that a good chance for our release would be the December amnesty, which is a whole month from today, which I think I can easily handle. BUT with difficulty if we have continuing rumour see/saw. What we need is a date to work down to. Just saw long clip on Arctic 30 arrival in St P with the press saying it was like a Top Secret transport of high level personnel. The circus continues.
Across town, in a hallway at SIZO-5, the women are lined up in front of cell doors. The guard standing next to Sini slides a key into the lock and the door swings open. Sini takes a nervous step forward. The door closes. Two women look up from their bunks. Sini tries to smile. She holds out a hand but the women ignore it.
They’re both Russian, middle-aged. They look away. Sini sees a spare bunk, crosses the cell, sits down and stares at the floor.
Along the hallway Alex is in her new cell with three other prisoners. One of them is an old woman, tired and sad, short and plump with long white hair. Alex is sitting on her bed watching her. A key turns in the lock, the woman jumps up frantically, makes her bed then stands stiffly in front of it, waiting for inspection. The guard pokes his head around the corner then disappears. Twenty minutes later there’s a sound from the corridor, Alex stands up, the woman pushes her out of the way to get to her bed and straighten the sheet.
The woman sits on her bed. Alex sits down next to her. She has a dictionary and by pointing at words she can make herself understood. She asks the woman how she ended up here, and nervously, by pointing at words herself, the woman explains that she’s seventy-four years old. She says an intruder broke into her house, he kicked and punched her but she ran to the kitchen and pulled a knife from a drawer and stabbed him in the shoulder.
She’s looking at seven years. Her name is Marina.
Meanwhile Sini is lying on her bunk, watching her new cellmates. One of the women is floating around the cell, her eyes vacant like there’s nothing behind them. Sini stands up and walks to the window. The woman follows her, talking to herself in staccato Russian. She pokes Sini, shakes her head, wags a finger. Sini waves her away and sits back on her bed. But when she stands up again the woman shuffles behind her, shaking her head with disapproval and muttering to herself through tight dry lips. Sini unzips her bag and starts laying her meagre possessions on her bed, the woman rushes across the cell with a panicked expression, shaking her head wildly. Sini shoos her away. She lies on her bunk, pulls the sheet up over her head and holds herself tight. She can sense the woman standing over her. She can hear her breathing.
She’s taken to gulyat and shouts over the wall. ‘Camila! Alex! Faiza!’ But there’s no answer, so she shouts again. A guard opens the door of her box.
‘I don’t know why you’re shouting,’ he says. ‘There’s nobody there.’
TWENTY-SIX
13th November
In the cell. It sucks. Not freaking but way bummed. Went to the exercise yard. At least you can see some sky, but it is shitty. Saw the isolation cells on the way. They looked really bad. Got a copy of the prison rules in English. Tried to read them but quit when I got to the place where the family of the inmate can recover his body. The prosecutor (new for St Pete) stopped by after dinner. They all had a good laugh when I said Igor ‘killed’ me at chess today (they saw the board out). I almost asked him what he was going to do with us. But I chickened out. I did not like seeing him.
On the afternoon of the second day in St Petersburg the SIZO governors tour the activists’ cells, bringing with them a retinue of officials. When the door of Alex’s cell opens, Marina jumps to attention with a look of terror on her face.
Fifteen men file in, one after the other, prison guards and the head of the prison.
‘Do you have any problems?’ asks the governor.
‘No,’ says Alex. ‘I just want to go home.’
The man sniffs. He looks around. His eyes fall on the old woman. He walks over to Marina and starts asking her questions. She speaks quickly, he nods and makes some notes. The delegation leaves, the cell falls silent. Then Marina starts to weep.
‘What’s wrong?’ asks Alex, putting an arm around her. ‘Don’t cry Marina. What’s wrong?’
One of the other women, a young Russian, sits on the bed and puts a hand on Marina’s shoulder. ‘She cries because she’s been here two years. She asks for help many times and receives nothing. Then they visit you and for first time she speaks to governor. First time he knows who she is. First time they are nice to her. First time.’
In the other jails – Kresty and SIZO-4 – the activists are also being visited by the delegation of officials. An array of huge hats, immaculate uniforms and medals. There’s barely enough room for them in the cells.
They ask Dima, ‘How is it?’ and, ‘Is it okay?’ and, ‘Is it all to your liking?’
‘Apart from being in jail, it’s all fine.’
The men nod and pat each other on the back then stream out of the cell.
On day three, the activists are visited by the chief prosecutor of the St Petersburg region, accompanied by a colonel and a phalanx of junior officers. The head of the regional human rights commission brings up the rear with the head of the prison. In each cell the chief prosecutor asks the same questions.
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Do you have any complaints?’
‘Are you satisfied with the conditions?’
And Roman tells them, ‘Every time, every day, you ask us this. Well, my answer is I don’t have any fucking complaints about the conditions, it’s not a sanatorium, the only complaint I have is that I’m here at all, together with my twenty-nine friends.’
14th November
Went to sleep early last night + woke up really early thinking every noise outside was the porridge trolley. Feeling the blues today a fair bit. Guess it may be the ‘3 day’ transition period that I feel it takes to get grounded. However I feel down. The isolation is hard. Much more so than Murmansk as conversation over the walls at ‘gulyat’ is nigh on impossible. Been thinking about Mama a fair bit which always brings me very close to tears. I keep feeling she may die while I’m in prison, which would be unbearable. The cells are more comfortable but the complete lack of contact with the other GP crew is miserable.