“Cats are not the property of the institution”: How Gregory Winter rescued cats, was baptized, and found a son in the snow

Gregor Marcus Severenin Winter left the penal colony № 5 in Kirov region on the morning of December 30th. He spent two years and one month in detention.

Gregory brought a bag from the colony out with him containing 18 kilos of letters from strangers from all over the world. The bag was weighed at the post office, when he was sending it from Kirov to his home in Cherepovets. Ahead of his release, he asked in all of his letters for people to meet him on the outside and help with his bags, but nobody came to the colony gates.

Winter said that after his release he went to help the men who were released on the same day, they got drunk and were almost late for the train to Moscow. On the 31st of December he went to get the cats, who were waiting for him at various pet sittings, and before that were living in the penal colony. The prisoners didn’t want to let the cats into the barracks, so Gregory came up with a scheme: he “packed” the cats into a cardboard box and taped it shut so they wouldn’t escape. A prisoner who was about to be released would notify the prison officers that he is not leaving alone, and would take the cats with him—at the gates they would be handed to a volunteer. The prisoners almost never refused, but the majority asked for money.

“The prison administration never asked any questions. The person who is ‘going for a call’ has the right to take anything that is not considered an institution’s property with them. Cats are not an institution’s property. You could take 5 or 10 out—no one would bat an eye.

In the colony he kept a table with the names of all the rescued animals: cat Borzik, Hitroushka, “kittens from industrial zone” and others—22 animals in total. The majority found their home in shelters, but 4 cats have waited for Winter to get out of the colony. After his release he brought them to a rented flat, let them roam and went for a walk around Kirov.