We will live as long as there is prison

Audio version of Ilya Zhegulev's report

Once upon a time, on the island of Fire in Novozero, Vologda, there was a monastery known throughout Russia, where tsars and aristocrats came. After the revolution of 1917, the monastery was turned into a prison, and in the 1990s, the so-called Vologda Pyatak became the first colony in Russia for life-sentenced prisoners. You can get to Fiery only through the neighboring Sweet Island - its life, like the life of several mainland villages in the neighborhood, depends entirely on the colony, and there is no Internet or public transport there. Meduza presents an audio version of Ilya Zhegulev's report about life on Sladky and his story about how he got to the island and what he saw there. The text is read by Konstantin Benyumov.

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