"This is the most humiliating: you have to go to the toilet with almost everyone"

The detainees at rallies throughout Russia told Medusa, in which (inhuman) conditions they were serving their arrest

January 23 and 31, as well as on February 2, 2021 (when the Simonovsky court of Moscow replaced the suspended term of Alexei Navalny real) throughout Russia reached protests. Almost 10 thousand citizens were detained, hundreds - sentenced to administrative arrest for a different number of days. The places in specialists quickly ended not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also in other cities. Many had to spend the first few days of imprisonment directly in auto -zaks or in crowded cameras (such as, for example, the chief world of “Mediazones” Sergey Smirnov and his other cellmates in the center of isolation for migrants in the village of Sakharovo). Medusa journalists talked with people from different cities about the conditions in which they had to sit.

St. Petersburg: From crowded city specialists-to the field

According to Fontanka’s estimates, by February 4, 2021, 1403 cases were received in the courts of St. Petersburg in St. Petersburg according to the results of three protests (January 23 and 31 and 2). Of those that managed to consider, 354 ended with the verdict for arrest for different terms. The special receiver on Zakharyevskaya Street was quickly overflowing, and many detainees had to spend the night in the frozen auto -zaks. Those who did not have enough space on Zakharyevskaya and in city insulators began to be transported by specialists in the distant cities of the Leningrad region - Luga and Volosovo.

In the special receptionists and temporary detention centers themselves, the conditions can be called excellent - if you compare them with what you have to endure before that. “Before getting to the insulator, the detainees have to go through all the torment of Hell,” Activist Ivan Ostapchuk tells Medusa. -In the early days, when the special receptionist was just filled on Zakharyevskaya, the only one in St. Petersburg, did not know where to take the rest. Therefore, from evening to morning in the cold, there were autozaks near Zakharyevskaya. People were kept all night in these trucks. Near some departments [the police] there were whole regular buses with detainees. Three buses were taken to Kolpino, and while at midnight they made out the first bus, two buses simply stood on the street. ”

From time to time, the detainees were taken to the toilet to the police department, says Ostapchuk. Others were simply kept in the departments a day or two before the trial. “People were brought into the basement, they slept all night on the floor on their jackets, without food and water. Once every three hours they were taken to the toilet if the detainees were completely yelling and shouted, ”the activist continues. -In the 33rd department, the detainees were brought into the cells so that seven people had to per bed (a board sticking out of the wall). They sat down on each other and so much slept at night. "

Marina Matsapulina, who was detained on the evening of January 31, tells Medusa that the “main tin” was before accommodation in a special cost. “In the 49th department, I was held about 12 hours before the drawing up the protocol, that is, all night,” she says. - We immediately seized all personal things, documents, telephone - without a inventory. I tried to call the lawyer, but after four minutes they told me to round, I did not even have time to finish. For any word that was not liked, everyone threatened to send everyone to Monkey. There was a lie in the protocol, they gave three days. After the trial, I was again taken to the department, there they kept another seven to eight hours. And at that time it was even worse in the department: they sat in a “monkey”, iron beds, stinks everywhere. And only after that they finally taken to the special receiver. ”

Kazan: cold water in the shower, hot - only for lunch

It was hard to be in a specialist in Kazan, said Oleg Emelyanov, the local headquarters of Navalny. The last one and a half weeks - from January 25 to February 2 - he spent in a four -seater chamber with two more neighbors. “The neighbors were not political,” recalls Emelyanov. -Someone stole vodka, someone quarreled in a store with a guard. But everyone was surprised what rallies were planted and fines. ”

“I got the old camera, obviously for a long time I have not seen repairs,” Emelyanov describes in a conversation with Medusa. - The blanket and the mattress were, of course, in a terrible state: they were clearly not erased for a long time. The prisoners simply left them on beds, then the next came and took refuge with the same blanket. ” The battery barely warmed, and only ice water came from the tap: there was no hot water there at all, and there was only one crane. Water is given out only with boiling water during meals in the mug.

“The toilet is also a separate song,” continues Emelyanov. - A hole in the floor, that is, a floor toilet. Fortunately, at least there were partitions. But the drain did not work. I had to type water in a basin - and only then wash off. ”

At the same time, the management of the special receiver forbade the prisoners to transmit water. ““ It is not supposed to. And in general, you have a crane in the cell. ” This is the one that is with muddy water, ”adds the activist, retelling the words of the administration. “And we also wear tea and jelly for you.”

After the defender Emelyanov complained about this ban, it was allowed to transfer bottled water to the special cost. “But, according to the idea of ​​the administration [of the special receiver], it needs to be poured somewhere. Where - it’s unclear, ”says Emelyanov. -In the cells are two or three empty two-liter boxes of juices where tea or compote is poured for lunch-these boxes, by the way, are used daily: we used the same 10 days. Apparently, you need to do the same with water. ”

Members of the Public Supervisory Commission (PMC) were not allowed to prisoners, Emelyanov recalls. “The administration did not let them in. Say, we have a coronavirus here, we are against it, ”the Medusa activist retells. - But when the prisoners were taken to telephone conversations every day, they were placed in a small box. Seven or eight people stood in a small concrete box, rubbing against each other. ”

Samara: an unreasonable special receiver, the programs are prohibited "because of the coronavirus"

Sergei Podsnik, deputy coordinator of Navalny’s headquarters in Samara, served seven days of arrest after January 23, and he simply did not reach the place of action on January 31, because he was taken away for interrogation in the criminal case of road overlapping. Now, in the Special Reception of Samara, his colleague, coordinator of headquarters Marina Evdokimova, as well as volunteers with terms of nine to 25 days, is serving the arrest for 28 days.

“In Samara, all detainees are in the unfinished building of a special detention center. The special receiver was urgently returning to his building on January 30, right before the rally, because the building in which he was during the repair stands right in the center of Samara, ”said the Meduza Displex. “Where the detainees are now, there is no quality water, absolutely unsalted food and instead of the toilets - the bowl of“ genois ”[floor toilet], fenced off by a small wall from the rest of the chamber room, there are also a lot of cockroaches there.”

The main problem, says the sendingman, is that by decree of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Samara region, Alexander Vinnikov, in Samara special receivers, banned all the programs-supposedly because of the pandemic. At the same time, according to the head of the Samara headquarters of Navalny, when registering in a special projector, the tests for Covid did not do anyone. “The repair continues in the building itself. When we were brought there, builders worked there with might and main, - the Sender is indignant. “The rights of non -smokers are also not respected, people are planted together both, they smoke directly in the cells, the ventilation does not work, so it is very difficult for non -smoker people there.”

Perm: a traffic jam from a sheet to plug a hole in the toilet

There is only one special receiver in Perm - and it is almost always crowded, Meduza was told by Sergey Ukhov, coordinator of Navalny’s headquarters in Perm. “But this time he was especially scored,” says Ukhov. - People came - and even bedding was not enough. First, blankets, and then everything: some only with a mattress went to our camera. ”

In total, almost 100 people detained the Perm security officials on January 31-unlike the 23rd, when there were only two detainees, including Sergey Ukhov.

In his six -seater cell, the ear spent five days; They managed to condemn him right on the day of the action on January 23 shortly before midnight - so late the court was opened specifically for him. “It was terrible [in a special cost]: on the day of the action we had a terrible frost, minus 25 degrees,” recalls the ear. - The guards sinned on the fact that "well, they drown like this, we can’t do anything." I tell them: “So the thermal power station is across the road, you will send an outfit there, put things in order that you are only running in stocks!” From the windows, the muzzle is strong - they asked for an extra blanket to hang them. But this was not allowed to do. ”

Bed linen, at the impression of a shit, "found still royal times." “Half is not just blankets, but flaps. The mattresses are all in spots - black, yellow, brown - and all laid, ”the activist rises merrily.

“I sat in two cameras-and in the second hut, shit along the walls was slightly smeared. Someone from previous residents tried, and no one wanted to clean it, ”adds the volunteer of the headquarters of Navalny Evgeny Klimov, who spent five days from January 27 to 31 in the Perm special receiver. - And there were midges - they appear when keeping potatoes at home for a long time. And they [in the chamber] became more and more - we were looking for the reason, but never found. ”

But most of all the shit was struck by the bathroom. “Not a hole in the floor, but such an iron shell, concreted on the floor,” the interlocutor of Medusa describes. - And from the rest of the camera’s space, only a small wall of one and a half meters tall separates it: for example, she did not hide me at all. And if you go to the toilet, then it is still on the pedestal, there are three steps - and from there you can see you to the waist. This is the most humiliating: you have to go to the toilet with almost everyone. ”

“And from there the terrible smell comes,” the ear continues. -I sat in this special reception in my life in three different chambers-and everywhere the same idea: so that the smell does not come from there, they tie half a liter package from under the sour cream to the rope to the pipe, put something heavy in this glass, tie everything in the package-and this “cork” every time you go to the toilet, you have to get it for the rope from this one holes, and then back there. These “traffic jams” have been hanging there for many years - all black. ”

In the cell near Klimov, such a “cork” was built from a folded sheet.

Authors: Lilia Yapparova , Irina Kravtsova and Anastasia Yakreva

Editor: Alexey Kovalev