“Wow, so, it is you, Vil Mirzayanov! What a surprise for us. We already heard about you several times on television. We even knew that you had been arrested. We thought you would be sent to Lefortovo or somewhere, but here you are with us, common criminals,”[304] said a man over forty, with an unnaturally black face and dark eyes with reddish-yellow circles. We became acquainted, and everybody asked me to relax and speak up if I needed anything. They would try to do anything to help me. Since I had nothing with me, they suggested I use their toothpaste, soap, and a safety razor. They had food that their relatives had sent them, and they offered to share it with me. Right after my arrival, food was brought to the cell, consisting of porridge mixed with leftovers of some incredibly fetid fish, bread, and muddy hot water that was supposed to be tea. My cellmates had some dry seasoning, and after we added it the disgusting porridge didn’t reek quite so much.
After dinner I had no strength left at all and could day dream only about sleep. My cellmates suggested I lie down on a bed with a mattress, but I was uncomfortable about depriving someone of his turn to sleep, and so I refused. I thought I would put my old light overcoat on the bed as padding and it would be quite enough, but I couldn’t get to sleep for a long time because I was suffering from extreme fatigue. The bed was an iron rectangle with thick woven strips of iron sheeting, welded crosswise, and it was extremely uncomfortable to sleep on. The strips were far apart, so they stuck into my body and it hurt. My coat didn’t save me from this torture. My cellmates were constantly smoking and the ventilation window was always open, so it was chilly and noisy. There was a constant buzz from the exchange of words between the cells. The “jail mail” was working tirelessly.
Soon I watched my neighbors write something; then they rolled and wrapped their letter in polyethylene film. They sealed the edges of the roll together with the flame from a match, making a capsule. This was tied it to a string, and the other end was attached to something in the cell. Then Victor N., the prisoner with the swarthy face, thrust his hand out through the bars of the ventilation window, shouted out an address. Then he threw the letter-capsule upward. We heard a cry of approval, which meant that the message reached its destination, or one of the transfer points of the jail mail system. All this was new to me and very different from Lefortovo Prison.
Finally I fell asleep, but only for a short while. I woke up because it was cold and my whole body ached from those damned iron strips. My cellmates noticed my suffering and encouraged me to take a bed with a mattress. I did so, but only later. It was time to get up and have breakfast. It smelt of thick tea. It turned out that my cellmates had prepared a generous portion of chefir, which they immediately offered to me. Curiosity got the better of me, and I tried this concoction. However, I didn’t feel the euphoria that you might feel after a glass of wine or vodka. Still, there was something about the chefir. My heart was beating faster and my head cleared up, but drinking normal tea had the same effect.
I thought that this prison drink had no effect on me, as for example diethyl ether, because the longtime exposure to chemicals weakens the body’s reactions to these substances. Still, to keep company, I joined my cellmates from time to time when they were drinking chefir. When they sipped this drink, they got very excited and began ardently discussing their stories, coming up with various theories about their upcoming prosecutions and trials.
My cellmates treated me with respect. The rumors that “first-timers” were always subjected to humiliating trials proved to be completely wrong.
My cellmates also told me that when the jail regime was toughened and the security guards started beating prisoners half to death for no reason, they had made a collective decision that under no circumstances should any prisoners fall for these provocations by coming to the defense of someone who was being beaten. The security guards were only waiting for such an excuse to start shooting, and to shift the blame for their outrageous treatment of the prisoners. However, the prisoners explained to me that the only ones who returned to jail were those who hadn’t learned to be smart and rich enough to avoid further arrest and investigation. Even if someone found himself back in jail, the money made his life there less onerous, and possibly quite tolerable. He always had something to drink and good food to eat. He even had women…
I thought this sounded like thieves’ bragging and doubted their words, but they assured me that in jail, just like in the world outside everything could be bought and sold, only it cost much more inside, because the people who provided “all this” charged for the increased risk. They even described some ways of obtaining this “heavenly” life, which I won’t go into. It has nothing to do with my emotions; the point is that it is true. Criminals in the armchairs of power joined with criminals who supervise the thieves’ world. This is completely logical, because the nature of the criminal Communist regime cannot operate differently.
After lunch the door to the cell opened and the security guard who appeared commanded, “Mirzayanov, get ready to exit!” This meant that I was being summoned to meet with my lawyer. We took a winding route through many corridors, and finally, the guard led me into a room with a table and two chairs that were welded to the floor. Aleksander Asnis was sitting at the table. He couldn’t hide his agitation when he saw how worn out and exhausted I was. I must admit I was also excited to see my lawyer. I was very glad that he had found me in this terrible prison. I made an effort to suppress a brazen attitude that was beginning to rise up in me, and I started to answer his questions. Naturally, Asnis asked about my present situation and was deeply disenchanted that they kept me under such terrible conditions. I comforted him, by saying that these conditions were not the worst, although I didn’t have a mattress. I had left home as an inexperienced “first-timer” without warm clothes, soap, tooth paste, tea, and other necessities.
I told Asnis about the prison cells where, according to my cellmates, they packed 70-120 people into 30 square meters. Despite the ventilation window and the window in the door which were always open, there simply wasn’t enough air to breathe. People went to the door vent to light a cigarette, since it was the only place where the match didn’t snuff out because of lack of oxygen… Regardless of the season, those prisoners stripped down to their underwear, because their clothes were always wet from constantly oozing sweat and the high humidity. The heat made the situation worse in the summer, and most people would just lie around on the concrete floor in a state of prostration. Sometimes a towel hanging on the wall would ripple, because the prisoners finally gave up struggling with the lice which propagated so quickly. Prisoners in those cells slept in four shifts, because of the shortage of space, mattresses, and pillows.
304
Even for very experienced journalists, this was unexpected. See: Sergei Mostovshchikov, “Prosecution of Russian Scientist is seen as 100 a Percent Political Trial”,