How to survive quarantine: advice from political prisoners who were under house arrest

More than one and a half billion people in the world are in self-isolation due to the coronavirus. In dozens of Russian regions, fines have been introduced for leaving the house, and many feel like they are under house arrest. OVD-Info talked to political prisoners who were under real house arrest about whether it really looks like quarantine, how they feel in self-isolation and what they can advise others based on their experience.

Sergey Fomin

Defendant of the "Moscow case". On August 5, 2019, he was put on the wanted list on charges of "organizing riots" due to summer protests. On August 9, he voluntarily surrendered to the police, until September 3 he was in a pre-trial detention center, and then until December 6 he was under house arrest. On December 6, the charges against Fomin were dropped, and the criminal case was closed.

In fact, during quarantine, you don’t wake up every day with the thought that you can go to the zone for eight years. When you are under house arrest or even just under investigation, you wake up every day with the thought - will I go to jail. And you think that most likely you will go to jail, looking at Russian realities, where there are very few acquittals. Much easier in quarantine.

I am visiting my sister now, and we [in the region] do not have quarantine or mandatory self-isolation, but in principle we try not to go anywhere. She has children and I have to babysit the youngest child while my sister works remotely. I sit with the children, work a lot, I can go for a walk.

Under arrest, I did not go out anywhere, and no one came to see me, except for my father, because it was impossible according to the conditions. I couldn't go for walks, I couldn't use the Internet. I was completely alone, I could read books very concentratedly, and nothing distracted me. Here are children, here the Internet is the same.

I was in a pre-trial detention center and was under house arrest, and the pre-trial detention center, of course, is the most difficult: you cannot leave the room, you cannot see any life, you do not receive any information. In addition to the fact that we had a TV there, which showed state channels.

Under [house] arrest, at least I could go to another room. I wore a bracelet, I stopped noticing it after about a day. Although, of course, every time you glance at him, you feel that you are not free. In fact, he does not interfere with anything, except that they advised not to go to the bath with him, but I went to bed several times, and he did not break.

It was difficult that I could not communicate normally with the world - I could watch TV, listen to the radio. As Sergei Shnurov sings: "I have a radio - one-way communication." That is, you can only perceive what is happening in the world, but you cannot say anything. I think this is the hardest thing under house arrest.

On the other hand, now people are in the same situation - they do not know what will happen next, and I think that the psyche of people will be affected not by restrictions, but by the uncertainty of the future. I think it is in this sense that what is happening now is like house arrest - a person does not know what will happen next. And I think this uncertainty will break the psyche of a lot of people, there will be massive depressions.

Now millions of people are faced with the fact that they cannot leave the house fully, and they can partially experience what imprisonment is. I think if you are at home, you need to make some kind of schedule. If it is not there, you will simply start either working all day, or, conversely, resting all day. When you go to work, this mode is set from the outside, and without this, a person often cannot self-discipline and simply dissolves.

About fines and QR codes [which in some regions are used as passes to leave the house] - on the one hand, I understand that this does not comply with Russian laws. But on the other hand, no one passed such laws simply because no one knew that such a situation would come. And the fact that people, when they were told to stay at home on weekends, took to the parks, this is not only a Russian situation. I watched a BBC report from London, and it's the same there, people went for a walk, gathered in crowds. People, in general, probably do not think that it will affect them. But human life, a pensioner, or a person with complications, is more important than temporary inconvenience from fines or codes. Probably, they would still have to be introduced, since people do not feel threatened by this disease, and it is very terrible.

Julia Tsvetkova

Artist from Komsomolsk-on-Amur, administrator of the Vagina Monologues public. Accused of making and distributing pornography because of body-positive drawings. The article provides for up to six years in prison. She was under house arrest from November 23, 2019 to March 16, 2020, when the court changed the preventive measure to a written undertaking not to leave the country.

For obvious reasons, I am in no hurry to close myself at home immediately after I was released from custody. Four months of being locked up took a toll on my health. In the first days after, I could not walk a couple of kilometers so as not to get tired (for me this is not the norm at all). So now I compensate, I go for long walks. But in general, it’s almost self-isolation: I don’t go to public places, only to the store, I simply don’t have a job now, I can’t go anywhere, because I have a written undertaking [not to leave]. So [quarantine] hasn't affected my life much, at least for now. It is difficult to influence what has been completely destroyed by the investigation.

They usually sit under arrest longer, which is partly why I did not have time to adapt to arrest and establish some semblance of a normal life. My four months were spent in three cases brought one after another ( two administrative cases were also brought against Tsvetkova about “LGBT propaganda” - OVD-Info) , interrogations, trials, a battle for dental treatment, new statements from haters, death threats. For me, these four months have merged into one long and unpleasant dream. Feeling of fear of prison, fear of threats. Feelings about ruined work and projects that are not given to take place.

Now I have a respite, I breathe a little more freely. I don’t perceive quarantine as something terrible, because so far in my future there is still the opportunity to go to places not so remote. In some ways, I was “lucky” to have an arrest behind me, because now, when there are so many fears and anxieties, I feel calm, because it was worse and will probably be worse.

[Under arrest] I had almost no quiet days. When they were, I slept a lot - this is a protective reaction of the body to stress. Wrote diaries, posts on the Internet. Read. I drew a little. I organized an activist festival, which I am very proud of. And so no big achievements or self-development programs, a solid survival mode. Now I walk a lot, get back in shape, started cooking, study ecology and urban planning. I'm waiting for judgment. I'm trying to make plans in a new life, while it's difficult.

[Important] Don't berate yourself for being unproductive. [Before my arrest] it seemed to me that I had to work, work, work, grow all the time, scolded myself for mistakes, for being unproductive, for laziness, did not allow me to rest, read, watch - only something for work. And under arrest, when not every day I had the strength to get out of bed, I learned not to scold myself. Appreciate even small steps, small actions. Love yourself not for achievements, but simply because. For me, this is a lesson for life, not just for quarantine.

And then and now [most depressing] is the unknown. I'm facing two to six [years], which with our 1% acquittals brings my chances down to that one percent. So yes - I'm not afraid of the virus. I'm afraid of prison. And death threats that don't stop.

I lost my job and all my projects because of a case brought against me. It's complicated. It was also difficult after the search, as all the equipment was confiscated, even the e-book. I lost the entire library, all the music, photos, developments. It is still hard to bear.

In everyday life, it was difficult that I could not deal with them. My mother had to do everything - go shopping, go on business, take cats for treatment, work, carry heavy bags. And I could only look at it. And this impotence is hard. Another ban on treatment . When there is a toothache, they are ready to accept you, but the inquiry decides to forbid.

The bracelet almost did not interfere, at some moments it was not felt at all. But he is like a silent reminder that I am not free, that I am being controlled. The bracelet had several false alarms, and if you are caught in violation, you will be sent to a pre-trial detention center. And this constant excitement interfered. I even went to the bathroom with the phone, because the bracelet reacts to the temperature, and could work, and they would call me. The absence of a bracelet is the absence of this constant voltage.

In domestic terms, quarantine is a vacation. I can go to the store myself. I can go to the dentist if needed. Take cats for treatment.

I agree that fines and QR codes are a “digital Gulag”, and now quarantine is as close as possible to the conditions of house arrest. Or even worse: after all, there is no case, no investigation and no trial, but people seem to be guilty of something, since they were put under arrest. So-so picture. We need to fight the virus, not people. Knowing how domestic tracking systems (not) work, I understand how stressed those who are forced to install QR codes will be. And the system fails, and the police themselves do not have an adequate tracking system, but they constantly intimidate. Of course, all this is stress, and anxiety, and depression from injustice, and excitement for what is in the future.

I have two feelings. On the one hand, many will now understand more what deprivation of liberty means, and perhaps more actively join in support of political prisoners. On the other hand, house arrest is an arrest. These are interrogations, pressure, expectation of trial and term. This is not a retreat, not a vacation, not an unscheduled vacation. And I would like people to understand that quarantine and arrest are very similar, but still they are not the same.

Roman Udot

Member of the council of the Golos movement, a public election monitoring organization. Accused of threatening to kill an NTV employee because of a conflict at the airport. Udot and his colleagues, despite refusing to be interviewed, were filmed and asked questions by the same TV channel employees who had previously harassed other activists. Roman was under house arrest from May 23 to July 9, 2019, then the court changed the preventive measure to a ban on certain actions. On November 28, he was sentenced to 320 hours of compulsory work.

Recently, people often ask me for advice on how they can continue to live. They usually expect some kind of fun conversation, but I don’t give it: some part of our acquaintances will die, someone will lose their job - there is little fun in this.

We have been in self-isolation at Golos since March 16, half a month ahead of the Russian authorities. Of course, the fact that people now have the Internet is a big plus. We are, in fact, ready to fly to distant worlds when it takes a long time to fly in a small ship. I think going outside is not so important, I was much more lacking in the Internet under arrest than the ability to move my limbs in space. And communication, maybe even a little too much - now I could not talk to you, because there was another meeting in the "Voice". Although there is not enough non-verbal communication - that's why people feel loneliness.

With my usual sense of humor, I will say that I was under house arrest when it was not yet mainstream. In this regard, quarantine is easier, because it is a "holiday of common misfortune." On the other hand, it will be more difficult when everything is over. Arrest is a personal drama, and here the life of a whole society ends, for the first time in history the entire planet is in quarantine, this has never happened before. This equalizes us all, but then the blow will be stronger than the lack of freedom of one.

I advise you to stretch the airbag. At best, the rest can then be fun to drink away, and at worst it will come in handy. In the same way, a person going under house arrest understands that there will be no work, that it will be necessary to live worse than we lived before, no matter how bad we lived before.

If you think that you will have more time, in fact you will have less, because in ordinary life a lot is taken over by the division of labor. And now you have to feel like Robinson - cook, sew up, time will be sorely lacking, and you will understand how hard our ancestors lived in the caves. I can already see from our meetings that many have begun to let go of their beards.

What can I advise - find good gloomy philosophers, the Stoics helped me. In fact, there is a catastrophe on the planet, nothing funny is happening. We still need to move, pump up programs for doing exercises for 15-20 minutes in the morning, since we have been cut off from all the gyms. A mat, chair and wall are enough to make a small gym. And special applications are needed - before we were forced by society, but now we need something else. And some kind of program helps - some kind of animal starts up, which directs us, and we must obey.

Congratulations to those who work, and people without work should definitely find some kind of business. Because it is very annoying when the information goes in one direction. Learn to play the guitar, learn English. Set a task, because otherwise the regime is spreading, and a cosmic day begins, where it is not clear when it is day and when it is night.

When my arrest was over, the first thing I went to was catering, some kind of junk food, and just ate. Because before it seemed that you were walking, holding out one hand - you drank coffee, holding out your other hand - you ate french fries, this is perceived as something that does not represent itself. And here I came out - I felt it! Previously, he extended one hand - drank coffee, extended the other - ate.

The simple joys of life then begin to play with bright colors. By the way, I spoke about the Stoics, but there is also Epicurus, who is considered to be for pleasure. And he said: pleasure is not caviar in spoons, but in fact it is water, bread and friendship. And now, not wine, not delicacies, then go out into the street with a friend, eat french fries - epicurianism in its purest form.

Vyacheslav Egorov

An activist from the city of Kolomna, Moscow Region, a member of the No to Kolomna Landfill initiative group, which opposes the reloading of the Volovichi landfill in Kolomna. Accused of repeated violation of the rules of the action, he faces up to five years in prison. From February 2 to July 30, 2019, he was under house arrest, now under house arrest.

Quarantine and house arrest are somewhat similar, the main thing is the inability to influence the situation. That for a person who is free and accustomed to make decisions and make choices is very, very difficult. Only prison or illness is more difficult. Before house arrest, I served two times three days of administrative arrest, and yes, it’s even worse there, because there you can’t do anything at all, and all your rights are [held] by the employees of the detention center, and your life depends on them. And it's scary, of course.

Everyone has different regimes of [house] arrest. Someone can go for a walk, someone goes to the courts and investigators, goes to the store or to the kindergarten for a child. Mine was practically the most strict: do not leave the apartment, the telephone and the Internet are turned off, employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service are taken to the courts, it is impossible to see witnesses in the case (and half of my friends are there). And yes, with a bracelet on your leg, which you get used to pretty quickly and stop noticing. Once a day, an employee of the Federal Penitentiary Service comes and checks the presence of both myself and the integrity of the equipment.

While I was under arrest for six months, I made up for everything lost in communication with children. The youngest at that time was five, and the previous year he didn’t see me at all, because I was constantly either working or dealing with our local problems with the garbage, because of which I was imprisoned. That is, the older ones spent time with me at least earlier, but the younger ones were not lucky. And now, the time has come. And it was very cool: books, studies, cartoons, films, games, and with the elders also music, and a guitar, and to talk - everything that is possible. I think that I have never had so much time for children, and it is unlikely that I will. In general, isolation is a time of communication with children. Any. And yes, there is no evil without good.

In this sense, quarantine provides the same opportunity. So - enjoy the children and those who are close to you. For me, quarantine differs from arrest in that in quarantine there is no opportunity to really communicate with friends. After all, you really need to understand that isolation is necessary, at a minimum, so as not to infect risk groups - parents and those with chronic diseases. Not all of my friends were on the list of witnesses under arrest, so the rest came to see me quite often. And this, of course, saved me, since most of my life is friends, relatives and communication with them.

And of course, a significant difference between arrest and quarantine is the ability to go outside. Even if observing precautionary measures, even if not communicating, even if for a short time (to a store or a pharmacy), but you understand that you are free, that this is not a prison. Under arrest, you look out the window, and you are simply writhing: the injustice and inevitability of what is happening just sometimes tear you apart from the inside. It's not a constant feeling, but sometimes rolled. Nothing can be done with him, except to be distracted: books, communication. And everything rolls back.

Added fuel to the fire that you do not know the deadline for the end of the arrest. Each time it was extended for two months, and so they could do a year, for example, or even more, there is such a practice. With quarantine, by the way, it is also not very clear, but at least there is the experience of China and Europe.

And yes, now you can still go to the country, which is also good. I took my mother there for quarantine so that there would be fewer contacts, and I go there periodically, because either the water freezes, or the gas does not work, or something else, and food needs to be transported. That's how we live. Bye. Further it will be seen.

QR codes and fines for leaving the house are overkill, of course. At least now, when the dynamics of the spread of the virus is low. Well, what are the fines when people have no money for food? Do not do this. The measures introduced are quite enough to limit the movement of idlers, and those who need to take food to the pharmacy, store or parents will still go, go and take it anyway. And if draconian measures are introduced, then only on the condition that the state takes care of citizens: it is necessary for everyone to pay some kind of guaranteed allowance, which is enough for the delivery of food and medicine, as well as for the medicines and food themselves, so that you can not leave home . And now everyone is counting pennies, saving and not understanding what to live on.

I forgot to say that I spent a lot of time under arrest writing a book about the events leading up to my arrest. But he didn't write it down. Maybe I'll do it right now. I love to write, so as a piece of advice, do what you love and didn't have time for before. And also, as I understand it, the treadmills have already been sold out, and rightly so, because it was thanks to her that I kept my shape under arrest and even lost weight. 5-7 km daily at a fast pace is enough for a healthy lifestyle, and sometimes it is desirable to move away from the refrigerator.