Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg: The Extraordinary Story of the Arctic 30

TEN

‘Okay, hands against the wall! Hands against the wall, bags on the ground!’

There’s a five-metre-high gate behind them, and in front of them is another set of identical gates with tight rolls of barbed wire over the top. A blinding spotlight is trained on them, dogs are barking all around.

‘Pick up your bags! Turn left! Keep one hand behind your back. Move!’

Ropes are hanging vertically and horizontally from the brightly lit windows, socks are being pulled across the wall. And Dima knows it’s the doroga – the road. He looks up, and the feeling he has when he sees it is… is joy. He knows what all this is and he’s finally going to experience it. He knows it from books, from family stories, from songs sung at home. It’s in his blood. And now he’s here, he’s actually going to live it. But the air is filled with screaming and thumping. He glances at the faces of his friends. A guard pokes him in the back.

‘Move!’

In an instant the joy deflates. No, this isn’t a book. This is real.

They’re each issued the standard bedroll, an aluminium bowl, aluminium spoon, aluminium mug. Then they’re taken out into a long broad corridor with rows of pitted metal doors on either side. The hallway echoes with clinking keys, shouted orders, the cries of the other prisoners. One of the hatches ahead is open, Frank can see a face squeezed through the gap, and as he gets closer he can see it’s Kieron. Their eyes meet. He doesn’t look good. Wide eyes, messy hair.

Frank is stopped outside a door. The guard pulls it open and pushes him inside. It smells of cigarettes and damp. In front of him two men are pulling a rope through the window, and Frank thinks, Christ almighty, they’re getting the drugs in, I’ll keep well out of that, I’ll just keep myself to myself.

But a moment later the men have dropped the rope and are questioning him.

‘Name? Birthday? Where you born?’

Frank bites his lip. He considers ignoring them but he thinks better of it. He gives them his full name and date of birth.

‘Where you born? What crime?’

Frank tells them. He sees one of the guys writing it all down, then the Russian drops a scrap of paper into a sock and it disappears out the window. And Frank thinks, fuck, identity theft! What an idiot! I’ve been here one minute and I get suckered. They’re gonna rob my bank account. I’m stuck in prison, this goes to the bosses and they sell it to some guy on the outside. Unbelievable.

Dima is standing outside cell 306. He rubs his short salt and pepper hair, scratches his beard and pushes his round, steel-rimmed spectacles up his nose. The guard inserts a huge key into the lock. The door swings open. Dima steps inside, he puts down his pink bag and the door slams shut behind him.

And he thinks, yes, definitely a Solzhenitsyn moment.

Dima knows the protocol from the books. There are four beds, three inmates. The bottom beds are taken, he nods to his cellmates and throws the bag onto a top bunk, turns around and introduces himself.

‘Litvinov, Dimitri. Born in sixty-two.’

‘Vitaly.’

The other guy says, ‘I am Alexei. Welcome.’

Then Vitaly says, ‘What are they charging you with?’

‘Piracy.’

Dima’s cellmates stand silent for a moment before they both make incredulous little circles with their lips. ‘Ooooohhh,’ says Vitaly. ‘We’ve been expecting you. Sit down sit down, be comfortable, my friend. Yes yes, we knew you were coming. Didn’t know we’d have one of you in this cell, but we knew you were coming to SIZO-1. Some of your friends are already here. There was a memorandum from the kotlovaya, the boss cell, it said we should be positive and co-operative with you. In the criminal hierarchy you’re pretty high up, you know. Because you’re sufferers. You’ve suffered from an absolute injustice. Yes yes, we knew you were coming. We’ve known for a week. We knew before your judge found out.’

Down the corridor Frank is lying on his bunk, staring at the ceiling, pondering those words shouted at him through a cell door back at the courthouse on Thursday. You’ve got some fucking questions to answer. It’s your fault we’re getting sent down. Is all this his fault? He was in charge of the action, that much is true, but surely nobody could have known the Russians would overreact like this? He knows who said it, and he knows some of the others will be thinking the same thing. Even if he gets out of here, he’s still going to get shit from them. But then, maybe they’re right. Or maybe not. Jesus, who knows?

Then Frank gets tapped on the shoulder and he’s handed a little scrap of paper. It’s from Dima, it says, This place is fucking cool man, my cellmates are fucking great, I could stay here for months! Then Phil sends him a note saying, Frank old bean, nice of you to join us! Then another one from Phil. Beware the soup, here be dragons!

Next door, Vitaly grabs Dima’s hand and sits him down on the bed. And in furious excited Russian he launches into a crash course in surviving Murmansk SIZO-1.

‘It’s probably kind of weird for you, and scary to be here. But listen, Dima, people live here.’ He’s in his thirties with dark hair, yellow teeth, maybe Uzbek roots, possibly Tartar. He has light coffee-coloured skin with an alcoholic face, but he’s been in prison so long the booze has drained from his cheeks. His skin is dry and shot with red hairlines from burst capillaries. ‘This is not the end of the world, people live here just fine, and you will be fine here too. How many of you are there?’

‘Thirty.’

‘Thirty, right. Okay, well you can talk to them on the doroga, it goes all night, it goes to all the cells, you can send a message, there’s no problem. We have another big group here, seventeen men. A gang. They shot up a nightclub. They stay as a gang here by communicating on the doroga.’ He points at the wall. ‘You see these shelves? We put all the stuff on there. Anything that’s on the shelf you take, and anything you have that you want to share with us you put on the shelf. If there’s something you don’t want to share, keep it in your bag. If someone takes it from your bag they’re a bitch and an arsehole, so nobody does that. So whatever you have, put it on the shelf. You’re with us here now, we share everything and you should too.’

‘Okay, cool, got it. What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine.’

‘Exactly. Okay, what else? You have the morning inspection, and after they’re done they say, “Do you have any complaints or questions?” And you’d better not say yes, because it doesn’t matter what you say. If you say you have a problem, they’ll give you a real problem. So just say nothing.’

There’s a bang on the wall, Vitaly holds up a hand in apology, jumps up and pulls a sock into the cell. He unfolds the note.

‘Aaaah, it’s a kursovaya. It’s a circular, sent from the boss cell. The normal letters are called malyavas’ – ‘deliveries’ – ‘but this one goes to all the new people, you and your friends.’

He hands it to Dima. It’s written in prison slang – an ornate language that is both rough and formal.

The note sets out other rules. Violence is absolutely not allowed. No arrestee is permitted to commit violence against another arrestee, if they do they will be punished, and they will be punished with violence. Only sanctioned violence is permitted, and it is for the kotlovaya – the boss cell – to determine if, when, how and against whom violent retribution is wrought. And you are not permitted to be rude. Hard cursing is not allowed against another prisoner. One is permitted to say, ‘I hate this fucking shit,’ but you can’t say, ‘Fuck you.’ You will treat other arrestees with respect.

Dima finishes the note, shakes his head with incredulity and hands it back to Vitaly. The Russian consults his list of names and cell numbers, writes an address on the note, folds it then drops the kursovaya into the sock and bangs on the wall. It whips away, heading for another activist. Vitaly turns back to Dima.

‘This is a black zone. There are black zones and red zones. That means there are things here that are not allowed but are still tolerated by the guards. Other prisons are red zones, that means nothing is tolerated. It’s a much harder job for the guards in a red zone. The prisoners in those places are in for their fifth or sixth stretches, they’ve got ten-year terms, they don’t give a shit. But this is a black zone. That’s why the road is tolerated. They know it happens, just don’t get caught.’

‘I don’t want any trouble.’

‘Who does, Dimitri, who does? There are six walls here, three facing into the yard – the ones you saw when you arrived – and three facing out to the street. On each wall there is a boss cell. All the goods, the sugar and the cigarettes, everything, it all flows to and from that cell. The road operates on each wall, and each wall has its own kotlovaya, its own boss cell, its respected prisoner. So we have six bosses, responsible for maintaining order in our community.’

‘The mafia.’

‘No, no, Dimitri, please. We prefer to call them respected prisoners. You should too.’

‘Right.’

‘Now, the boss decides which prisoner goes into which cell. Of course he can’t tell the guard to put this guy into cell three-zero-six, but what he can do is determine what category of cell some prisoners go to. They tell the guards and the guards co-operate with the kotlovaya. And there are basically four categories of cells. There are cells for the normal prisoners who participate in prison life – me, you, your friends – and we call them “people cells”. The prisoners in those cells are the ones who get the respect, they’re the ones who get decent treatment from the system, right.’

‘Right.’

‘Then below that are the sherst’ – it’s the Russian word for ‘wool’ – ‘the informers. If they demote you to sherst they have you put in a certain cell. The guards don’t want any killings, right. They don’t want any trouble. So when the boss says, “This guy, we want him in the sherst cell,” the guards move him there.’

‘Okay.’

‘Then there are the cells for passive homosexuals.’

‘Passive homosexuals?’

‘In some ways we’re more tolerant in here than on the outside. It’s okay to be a fucker, but not a fuckee. It’s not okay to give a blow job to a guy, but it’s okay to get one. You can cum, no problem, but you can’t put out. If you do, you’re petuch. A passive homosexual, and that’s bad. The passive homosexuals are a caste. They’re the ones who clean the toilets, they do the shit work. Sometimes we make them wear dresses.’

‘And they have their own cells?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Petuch cells. Let me see your bowl and spoon.’ Vitaly gestures with his fingers. ‘Come on, give them to me.’

Dima holds them out, the Russian snatches them and examines each in turn. ‘Okay, good. You’re not marked down as a poof. If they have you down as a poof they put the number “2” on your bowl and spoon. If you have a “2” on one of these that means the bosses have got you marked as obizhenny. Then you’re demoted to a petuch cell. Okay, then below that there’s another category. Former employees of law enforcement agencies. Cops. Prosecutors. There are lots of them in prison, there’s a lot of crime that goes on in that sector of society. Bribery, murder, everything. And they end up here. They have their own cells as well. They keep themselves to themselves, otherwise they tend to get killed.’

Dima blows out his cheeks and whistles. Vitaly stands up and pulls an exercise book from the shelf. ‘And this…’ He holds it reverently. ‘This is the domovaya. Every cell has one, this is our house book. This needs to be kept religiously. This is where we keep the list of prisoners’ names and their cell numbers for the doroga. The domovaya is very much a challenge for the regime, because we prisoners are not supposed to know what’s going on beyond the walls of our cells. We’re supposed to be in isolation.’

SIZO means ‘isolator’.

Vitaly tells Dima that the domovaya allows the bosses on the wall to maintain discipline. So if somebody is a sherst, if he’s sold out another prisoner and the bosses want to know where he’s been transferred to, it’s all in the book.

‘And if somebody is abused by the guards, you want to know where they are so you can support them. It’s very important that we maintain our community. As soon as somebody is put in your cell, you send a kursovaya to the whole prison saying there’s been a change in my cell, such and such has moved in. His name is this, his crime is this, his date of birth is this, and that’s all noted in the domovaya in each cell.’

‘So you guys know where all my friends are?’

‘Of course. And if a letter or a package passes through your cell on the way to another cell we will keep track of it, keep a record. Received and sent from this cell to that cell. Each cell is required to do that so you can compare it later. That way, if a package disappears along the way we can tell who lost it, what happened. Although that doesn’t apply to the wet letters. Then we…’

‘I’m sorry, wet letters?’

‘Letters to the women’s zone.’

Vitaly explains that he and his cellmate Alexei have girlfriends in the women’s sector on the second floor. Lots of the prisoners are conducting relationships inside SIZO-1, though they’ve never met their lovers and they likely never will. ‘Our love is as strong as anything you know. Those letters, our love letters, they have a different status on the road. Not the same status as normal business, where the rules are very strictly enforced.’

Dima flips through the domovaya. He looks up.

‘Holy shit, you guys are pretty well organised in here.’

‘You sound surprised. What else are we going to do? We have many days to fill, my friend.’

‘Right.’

‘Oh, and Dima, one more thing.’

‘Sure.’

‘We have a saying here. Ne Ver’ Ne Boysya Ne Prosi. It is a fine motto. You can live your life by it. It tells you everything you need to know. It will help you survive.’

Ne Ver’ Ne Boysya Ne Prosi. ‘Don’t Trust Don’t Fear Don’t Beg.’

‘Don’t trust anybody in a uniform,’ says Vitaly. ‘The more faith you put in the authorities, the more it hurts when they screw you over. To trust the police is to disrespect yourself. And don’t fear because whatever you’re scared of, you can’t stop it happening. What will be will be. Your fear changes nothing, but it hurts you, so let it go. And don’t beg because it never works. Nobody ever begged their way out of SIZO-1, so don’t sacrifice your dignity on a false promise. There’s no point being nice to the guards, the investigators, the prosecutor or the judge. Your pleading only makes them despise you more.’