Translated material
What is a female colony No. 14
Mordovian camps: Experience Svetlana Bakhmina
"You cannot leave your battle on the battlefield." 96 thousand 28 signatures were collected under the appeal to the President of Russia with a request to pardon the lawyer of Yukos Svetlana Bakhmina. She was released on April 27, 2009 ato, having served 4.5 years in prisons and Mordovian camps and giving birth to a daughter in captivity. The rally on the liberation of Bakhmina is one of the most successful shares of the Civil Society of the 2000s. Otherwise, the Yukos lawyer would be released only in June 6, on June 6, its term has expired - 6.5 years. In Russia, as you know, it is impossible to cam from prison and Sumy. What the prison teaches and how to cripple, how more than four years of imprisonment she and her children have experienced, what experience gained - the New Times asked Svetlana Bakhmin about all this
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Do you already feel free?
It seems to me that I have never lost internal freedom, but freedom from the outside world - it is still not absolute. That is, it never happens absolutely, although the degree of my freedom has increased significantly to date, the feeling that was seven years ago, up to an hour of X (before the arrest of December 7, 2004), so far, is not yet.
Fear stayed?
I don’t know whether it can be called fear, but, let’s say, the previous all my experience, and in principle I have always been inclined to analyze the events that happened to me, does not allow me to exclude some kind of repetition of events. I definitely understand that it could be. Afraid? Probably, yes, I’m partially afraid - what is the soul of crooked? Because I know what is happening behind this.
Start
If you go back: after the arrest of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, you did not think that they would take you up?
I did not think at all. I could not imagine it. I did not understand the advisability of this, I'm not talking about legality ...
Mikhail Khodorkovsky said that when there was already strong pressure on Yukos, searches, interrogations, he gathered a meeting and told the employees that they could leave the company. Have you been to this meeting?
No, I was not there, but his words were brought to us that the company would make every effort to protect everyone, we consider itself right and so on. But if someone does not want to fight, no one was hired, then please, you can leave. And at some point, he conveyed that you say (on interrogations) what you want, protect yourself. But I was already sitting at that moment, for me everything was too late and especially, probably, would not help.
Why did you put you up?
I just turned out to be then (in 2004) on the front edge of the struggle, I was the only person who was responsible for the legal protection of the company, which at that moment was in a state of siege. Gerashchenko tried to talk with all sorts of senior comrades, we did our work: we appealed the decisions of the tax authorities, defended in court, the issues of bankruptcy were resolved, and so on.
Well, after my arrest, I know for sure, everything was demoralized in terms of legal protection and, in general, the desire to continue dropped sharply. Perhaps this was one of the goals of my arrest.
You were arrested right during interrogation. It was unexpected for you or did you understand that this would end?
It was the sixth or the tenth interrogation of the account. At first I went through the case as a witness. But a premonition was: I wrote a long list in advance to my husband - the names of the clinic where the children are observed, the phone of a speech therapist, teachers, tutors plus all kinds of household, household items: who to call, what to pick up from dry cleaning and so on. It was a fairly long list. By the way, his husband retained him.
Methods
And here the investigator says to you: "You are arrested." Do you remember your feelings?
Horror and helplessness. Anger appeared a little later when I realized that nothing could be done. I was taken to the IVS (temporary detention center) of the ATC Zamoskvorechye, and then, in ten days, probably-in a pre-trial detention center-6. Of course, the first days was shock.
And how did you adapt? How can you adapt to prison?
I was lucky, I got into the camera where there were only twelve people, not forty. Several people were, according to my ideas, more than sane, with whom I could speak my usual language. When I went in, there were two women who served at that time a year already in a pre -trial detention center. I thought: “A year? This is impossible. How can you sit here for a year? " Well, as a result, I served two years before the trial. I was taught how to continue my existence, well, here in a purely domestic plan. I almost still have a list of what I need to order from the (prison) store, what to bring from the will, what things are there, how, what ... And then I was transferred to the special block into the "sailor" (SIZO "sailor silence"). And in the "six" (SIZO-6), and in the "Matross" interesting characters came across, which helped me there in something. One was a polka living in Germany, a story with drugs, she was under 60, she was a rather sick person. And so she forced me to start engaging in physical education, forced me to do a set of exercises. I am not at all adapted to this matter. And since I was in a pre -trial detention center, I had not missed a single day - I was in the cell for an hour and a half every day.
Have you been given dates with your husband?
Yes, with my husband I had a date almost immediately. There was a problem with calls to children, they promised me calls, and then they didn’t give me ...
Are these decisions made by investigators?
Yes, this is absolutely in the power of investigators. And when the investigator first promised me to give calls to the children, and then announced that he had changed his mind, there would be no call to the children, I had a hysteria, I announced a hunger strike. I understand everything: we are on different sides of the barricades, but it was beyond good and evil. And I was able to call the children when the familiarization with the case file ended, it was already the summer of 2005, more than six months after the arrest. And dates with her husband were twice a month for an hour, through glass, by phone. I know others and this was not given.
And when did you realize that you will fight for yourself?
From the very beginning, there were no other options. Either it was necessary to hang himself in the cell on the first night, or to continue to live, to defend your rightness. On the one hand, of course, I understood the situation and did not have strong hopes. But as a lawyer, I could not just sit back: I have two notebooks are written out: all sorts of positions, some explanations there, then how to prepare for business, it doesn’t matter whether I am or someone else.
Another life
Did you expect a court to enter the law?
Yes, sure. I have served for two years, and even by the fact that I was incriminated, two years were quite enough. And the lawyer whispered to me that tomorrow there would be a decision and they would let me go. With all these whispering, I thought: and Fifty-fifty ... prepared for the worst. But the blow was still terrible - seven years *** 19 April 19, 2006, the Simonovsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Svetlana Bakhmin to seven years in prison with a sentence in a penal colony. On August 24, 2006, the Moscow City Court reduced the sentence by six months ..
Then the stage, the colony in Mordovia ... They say that in the camp it is easier to sit.
There is a certain moment of alleviation of life, but ... I can’t even say for sure whether it is better or worse. For me not. If you lay it out on the shelves, better - what? Well, yes, it is not such a closed space as in the cell of the pre -trial detention center, there is an illusion that you can pass three hundred meters, the sky over your head without cells with stripes, and perhaps the most important thing: more dates, including long -term dates with relatives. These are perhaps all the advantages that existed.
Everything else, in my opinion, is much worse, because the colony is real when you begin to feel the already convicted criminal. This attitude is already to you. In a pre -trial detention center, I felt, let’s say, a free person, but just locked. If not today, then tomorrow the lawyer will come to you. And the colony is all.
But then it was possible to call on the phone twice a month ...
The phone did not work there for a month - this was terrible for me: that I can’t participate in the life of children and even find out at least twice a month that with my children, what is happening to my mother. You are completely in the power of this institution - regime, routine ... Well, of course, being with people with whom you, in principle, do not really want to be. There were about 90 people in the detachment-72 corpses, that is, the killers-I was in the detachment of the so-called heavy-standers. Mostly - drugs, murders, theft ...
How did the administration treat you?
At first there were certain difficulties until I realized that I should just build a relationship here. And all this time I just tried to explain to people that I am not some kind of terrorist, enemy, revolutionary, and so on, I am able to perceive adequate requests, instructions, orders. And gradually the relationship was somehow lined up. And I understood that I should behave in such a way that there was a chance to get parole.
And so you joined the section of discipline and order? And how did the prisoners react to this? In the male zones, they do not complain ...
I do not know how in male zones, and in female-this is, in a sense, a pioneer camp. I was at the school the chairman of the pioneer organization, the Komsomol of the school and at the university, so for me there was nothing new in this sense. There were, of course, some who were in “denilov”, especially those who sat several times. But to say that this is some kind of mass or something ... There everyone is trying to somehow adapt and improve their lives. She can shout that you are so “red”, but at the same time, if she needs to, she will run to knock on some kind of her neighbor, who did something so wrong, forbidden. This duplicity struck me there. I very quickly realized that nothing can be said to anyone there: not even because they will convey, and everyone will pervert, come up with, present it so that you will then be washed like a fool, explain, etc. Almost one or two people who are relatively ... with whom more or less could simply speak Russian. But I did not need some kind of special company, I can exist autonomously: memories, thoughts, books. I had something to remember, it supported it very much.
After work, was there an opportunity to stay alone with you?
No, it is very difficult with this. Because free time as such, and it is aimed at survival, because you need to wash, wash, and so on, and this is all associated with rather serious difficulties. There is no hot water, and the bathhouse once a week. When I came, they worked on Saturday, then - before lunch on Saturday. But the people do not know how to relax there-they begin to fight from idleness ... They say that all Mordovia lives without hot water, and nevertheless I don’t understand why people need to be sent to such conditions: someone will go out of water, as we had, to pour warm in the winter in order to, sorry, wash individual parts of the body. And someone lowers his hands and does not do this and turns into such a completely anti-human being, which sooner or later-in five, ten years later-will come out and will walk next to us ... And, excuse me, toilets-they seem to exist, but wear a decorative role. There is no sewer ...
I understand that punishment should be restrictions, but we need some minimum conditions for maintaining a woman’s social status. You probably know better than me that 70–90% of women lose social ties, husbands abandon, children in the orphanage, etc. This is the worst, and this, it seems to me, few people are engaged. Therefore, the phone - it is useful in this sense. It is better to expand the possibilities for dates, it is better to make a date for dates so that the children, when they come, are under normal conditions ... For example, I was categorically against that my children came there in such conditions.
Children
The children were told that you were on a business trip? *
Yes, the children did not know almost until the moment when they had to say that "soon you will have a sister." Even when I came on vacation (from the colony), I then asked my elder son, who was seven years old at the time of arrest: “What did you think about what's wrong with me?” -“Well, I somehow didn’t know, my friends said that maybe my mother threw you or just divorced ...” Now my husband and I think that maybe we were wrong, because in fact the children-we give birth to them, and they are divorced from life ... And the youngest was three years old at the time of arrest, and when I arrived on vacation, he did not see me for seven years. Apparently, he had an image of his mother in the photo, and that mother who came in ... He looked like that ... And dad asks him: "Hello, will you find out who it is?" He hesitated and then said: "Mom." But I did not really recognize. I can talk about it so calmly now, and then ... and he now remembers that he did not recognize then, and he was embarrassed. Sometimes, rarely, some roundabout questions can ask something, embarrassed very much.
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Was it scary to return from vacation back to the colony?
No, it was not scary, I myself was surprised at myself, as I myself, with my feet - well, my friends brought me back by car. In addition, at that time I had a deadline when I could submit to UDO (parole), and very much hoped that this vacation and the fact that I returned, that this would help me a lot, characterizes me from the good side. I even returned to prison with some enthusiasm, oddly enough.
When did you find out that people collect signatures in support of your release?
In October (2008). On September 19, I was taken away from the 14th colony to the 21st. Somewhere in early October, my husband came to me on a date, on my birthday, October 13. After that there was a lawyer. And he told me. I even brought some printouts: so I found out that Gorbachev spoke out in my defense. Gorbachev is completely indelible, I could not imagine this ... And then I found out about the letter of a classmate, and that there were already collected thirty thousand signatures by that time. And when I went to the first trial, where my petition was considered, I was almost sure ... No, I forbade myself to be encouraged, but at that moment I already found out that I was waiting for a child ...
You said in court that you are waiting for a child?
No, she didn’t say anything. I was sure that there are enough grounds (for parole). And it was inconvenient to talk about it somehow. Therefore, when I received a bite, I was in a strong confusion. I imagined childbirth in the colony - and it was horror. Since the question, to give birth or not give birth, did not stand: give birth. So they raised me. Then the Supreme Court of Mordovia canceled the decision (Zubovo-Polyansky district court, which refused Bakhmina in Udo), I again had hope. Then in September there was a repeated decision of the first instance. I didn’t go: I probably already had seven months. This is a rather difficult road: in Avtosak, along the bumps along the Mordovian, to the Parza Mordovian Mordovian prison. And I did not go. And until the evening I waited for me to tell me. The administration ran from me: no one dared to tell me that they refused again. As a result, one woman from among the employees was entrusted, and she came up and said something like this: “Do not despair. We have done everything that could. We petitioned for "for" ... "The colony gave a good description. The deputy chief, a woman, went to court. She sincerely worried. Sympathized. Then my lawyer told me that she approached and said: "We tried."
That is, there was no reason to refuse you, especially since you were almost on demolition.
They initially were not, if we talk about parole. Nothing new appeared there, it was not added. Why they refused - I still do not understand. On the one hand, everything was clear, the surname Bakhmina was pretty tired of, since the last year it sounded constantly, on the other hand, someone had to say yes. Probably, this someone was decided for a long time.
Then you were brought to the "sailor silence", but you gave birth in a civilian hospital, right?
Yes. And when my daughter was already four months old, I was finally released on Udo *** on April 21, 2009, the Moscow Transfiguration Court granted the petition of Bakhmina’s lawyers for parole, and on April 27 she was released .. although again nothing changed in my case, nothing was added, did not diminish. But, probably, the child - this became a mitigating circumstance.
In the will
There is a prison experience-at least something positive in it?
No, definitely. Another question, now, for example, in my professional activities of a lawyer, when I give advice, I begin not only from the knowledge of the law, but also from knowledge about that parallel reality that must also be taken into account.
Do you somehow communicate with those with whom you were sitting?
With those who have already left, no, but with those who are still sitting - yes.
Do you follow Khodorkovsky?
I follow: everything that happens, one way or another applies to me, to that part of my life that I am not ashamed, but I am proud of something. But I will not be cunning, I probably are even more worried about people who are my level, my colleagues, who still continue to sit. Well, Alexei Kurtsin, Rugorzin, Malakhovsky, who are sitting and incomprehensible when they can be released. I maintain contact with Kurtsin's relatives. He also has the time to have parole, so we will try, we will help, we will do everything that can be done for them. You can’t leave your own.
Are you going to leave the country?
A very difficult question. Of course, I could not say that I did not think about it. But for me it would be a very difficult solution, because I, so, had a Russian man, I was absolutely patriotic until some time, I already said that I was a pioneer, a Komsomol member and until some point was always proud of the country. I honestly did not understand once, as an actress of a nightingale, who in the early 90s was in the prime of her career, left for America, and when she was asked: “Why? You are a star here, ”she replied:“ I want to do it for my children because they have no future. ” I did not understand her. But not so long ago I understood.
And the work that you are doing now, do you like it?
In principle, yes, I like it. The main issues we deal with is the legal support of the business, although we give consultations and individuals. Of course, I have my own difficulties, because all my life I have been inside a large corporation and was an internal lawyer, there are different tasks and are solved differently. And the level of tasks that had to be solved in Yukos - by interest, in complexity - it was the maximum of what was done in this area in the country. Of course, I don’t have this now. But what to do, I am a lawyer, I can’t do anything else. I need to earn: the oligarchs, who remained, they won’t call me to work, despite all my experience.
Is the prison dreaming? *
Dreaming, yes. It is periodically dreaming that you are there, that you have not yet been freed, you were taken again ... I can’t say that I wake up in cold sweat - this has already become almost everyday life. The bitterness remained. And some kind of emptiness. Sorry for these four years. It’s a pity, how many are not seen, not done, not passed. It's just a pity. But I always say to myself: this is not the worst, terrible - this is the loss of loved ones, the disease is incurable. Glory to God, the family waited for me, children are growing, and I am still a happy person.
Photo by RIA "News"