There were many people at the Russian American Information Press Center for the press conference, and there were no vacant places in the hall. Representatives of various information agencies, radio, and television, as well as numerous newspapers, constantly asked questions and took pictures. Aleksei Simonov presided over the meeting. Everything seemed extremely clear: my closed trial was a challenge to the new Constitution of Russia and a test of the emerging democratic society as well. My lawyer reported that earlier in the day Judge Sazonov had decided to have me arrested for contempt of court, and this made the press conference more dramatic. Asnis also thought it was possible that I could be arrested right at the doors of this building, though I thought that was unlikely, because OMON officers really don’t like having their pictures taken by the press.
I went home after the press conference. I had decided to let them take me from my home. My son-in-law and his lads accompanied me to 4 Stalevarov Street, to the porch of my apartment.
“Matrosskaya Tishina”
At home, I had a good night’s sleep and was calm the following morning. Nuria was suffering from her usual migraine attack, so I had to content myself with tea instead of breakfast. My elder son Iskander went to school early in the morning, and young Sultan stayed at home. Out of the habit I went to the kiosk, read the newspapers on a bench near our apartment building, and then I came back to the apartment, planning to call some people. As time dragged on, the wait was extremely aggravating, but nobody came to arrest me. I read children’s fairy-tales to Sultan, and then he started drawing his race cars and space ships… Nuria was prostrate with a white kerchief binding up her head.
Around midday, we heard the doorbell ring, and this time everything was routine: an arrest warrant was produced, with an order to prepare for the trip to jail. The policemen didn’t know which jail. They only knew that they had to take me to bedraggled Police Department 139, which had certainly seen better days. It was very close to my apartment block. I was very ashamed in front of Sultan, because he had watched plenty of movies in which various criminals and bandits were arrested. If his father was arrested, there was something wrong. As we say in Russia, they don’t throw people in jail for good deeds. Thanks to television every child knows that, and of course my son was no exception. He watched with horror as finely muscled young men with automatic weapons came to take his father away.
It would be a good idea to take some underwear and clothes, I thought mechanically. However, I realized that I was causing my child psychological trauma, so it would have been an inexcusable cruelty to prolong the scene he had to witness. I quickly put on a ski sweater, a light overcoat, a ski cap, and old winter boots that had already lost their original lining a long time ago.
“Hands!” ordered the OMON officer. I didn’t understand. However, when he barked the word out again, I saw the unmistakable threat and the resolve in his eyes to knock me down with a shattering blow. Then it dawned on me – he wanted to handcuff me. I dutifully obeyed. My son’s eyes were wide open and full of terror. Tears were running down his cheeks. He cried without a sound like old men do.[303]
Finally, Nuria got a bit of control over her migraine and got up to close the door after us. I purposefully went to the door, trying not to look back at Sultan any more. I didn’t even have any strength left to tell him, “I’m sorry.” Probably I cried, too, but without tears or sobbing. When we were descending the stairs, one policeman with an automatic weapon went ahead of me and the other behind me.
A small paddy wagon was waiting for us in the street. Mechanically, involuntarily, my gaze went up to the kitchen window of my apartment on the fourth floor. I saw my Sultan’s little face and quickly turned away. I wasn’t able to wave good-bye to him. A lot of residents of my apartment building were watching all this from a distance.
I was glad that the policemen didn’t bow my head down, while I was getting into the car as police in the U.S. sometimes do in the movies.
The car stopped in the yard of the Police Department 139, and I was ordered to get out. I was taken through a first floor corridor, which reeked of rats and urine, to the officer on duty, who was sitting behind a barred window. The OMON officer who had escorted me gave the duty officer some paperwork and opened the door to a room screened off from the corridor by glass squares covered with white oil paint.
A drunken middle aged man was crying in the room there, saying that he was the former hockey player “K”. I could hardly recognize the famous sportsman who used to play so well on the trade union team. After that he was a hockey referee for a long time. However, the cruel twists of fate in this sportsman’s life finally broke him. He had become an inveterate alcoholic, although something remained of his appearance that showed he wasn’t an ordinary citizen. His clothes were clearly made abroad and were of a very high quality. You couldn’t just go into a store and buy them in Russia. Also, he smoked Camel cigarettes. Soon one of the sportsman’s relatives came and took him away. I was left alone.
I could hear the duty officer calling someone and asking what he should do with “this Mirzayanov.” However, the jail mechanism worked slowly, and nobody was in a hurry to “place” me anywhere. The wait was long and agonizing, and no one offered me anything to drink or a chance to use the restroom. About five hours passed. Finally, the officer opened the cell door and commanded, “Hands!” They handcuffed me, which meant that they would take me to a prison. I didn’t even ask which jail. What was the difference, as it no longer depended on me? We drove around Moscow for a long time and, the car finally stopped near a red building. One of the guards went up to the building and soon he came back and explained something to the driver. I realized that neither the driver nor the guard knew their way.
Eventually, the car stopped near an arch with large iron-clad gates. We drove a few dozen meters further, stopped again and I was ordered to get out. Somewhere people were loudly and constantly shouting, like at a construction site. However, here the voices were anxious. They were taking some kind of a roll call, calling out names. Construction debris and some other trash was scattered about near the walls of the building. The OMON officer opened the iron door and showed a paper to the sentry inside. We went a few meters down the corridor, and I saw many men dressed in dirty military uniforms sitting behind a poorly illuminated wooden barrier. The room was full of gray tobacco smoke and the stench was a mixture of foul odors and vodka.
The ceiling was of an uncertain color, with some hints that it could have once been white. The walls were once painted green, but there was almost no paint left, and you could see the yellowish lime of peeling plaster. On the remaining surfaces there were huge patches of mold. Drunken eyes were glittering in the dim light, and I realized that I was in the famous jail with the lyrical name, Matrosskaya Tishina. This prison was probably originally constructed as a rest home for sailors, and the name translates as “Sailors’ Silence”, though its official name is “Investigation Isolator IZ-48/1.” Isolators are special prisons constructed during Soviet times, which were used mainly for detaining political prisoners and espionage suspects. This maximum security prison in recent years has also held its share of chronic and extremely violent criminals.
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After that he suffered from a nervous tic for a number of years, and no pediatrician could cure him. Even the “Holy water” that Nuria bought for a tidy sum from non-traditional healers didn’t help. At night, in bed, he threw his small thin body from side to side, bumping against the wall, and pleaded in despair, “Mama, this is not my body. It is jumping. Help me please!”