Вил Мирзаянов - State Secrets - An Insider's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program

Another fellow spoke in turn, about his murders, which were a mere trifle, in comparison with what Stepa had done.

“You know who I am talking about,” he added. Then he concluded with a hint of envy, “And Stepa got off, escaped a death sentence because they recognized he was crazy.”

I tried not to listen to these heart-rending confessions, but there was no place to disappear to. I realized that if I got up from my seat I would lose it forever.

Soon it became so crowded in the cell that it was no longer physically possible to walk or lie down. I understood that a lot of prisoners among us were brought to Moscow for forensic psychiatric examinations. These people were sharing their experience, about how to pass those exams successfully, in order to avoid execution.

Despite the lack of space, a group of young people formed a circle on the floor, pulled a few tea packages out of their large bags, and put the tea into a large mug. One of them moved between the human bodies, making his way to the toilet. There was no waste tank there, and water was just pouring continuously from the pipeline into the toilet. The young prisoner wasn’t bothered by that at all. He put his tin mug to the outlet of the pipe and scooped up dirty water with a habitual movement. Meanwhile, another man was tearing his towel into strips and braiding long wisps from the shreds. They poured the water from the toilet into the mug with the tea and set fire to the wick. The cell filled with terrible smoke which was extremely irritating to my eyes. It became impossible to breathe at all in the cell. “Thank goodness, the window glass is broken,” I thought.

Soon the water started crackling and gurgling. It was leaping up, over the brim of the mug, burning the hand of the prisoner who was holding it. They exclaimed in excitement, “That’s it! Oh, Baby!” Through the smoke and burning, I smelled an unusual odor that reminded me of strong tea. They wrapped the mug in the towel, let it stand for a while, and then started drinking. They were slowly taking tiny sips, holding the liquid in their mouths for a long time. This was the famous “chefir” (a very strong brew of tea used as a drug).

Soon the eyes of these chefir drinkers started to sparkle, and they started laughing and talking, interrupting each other, telling about their conquests of sluts. It was clear that they didn’t care about this jail, the incredibly stuffy and cramped cell, or the strange people around them. One of them turned in my direction and exclaimed, “My goodness! What are you doing here, Father? People of your age don’t go to jail!”

Apologetically I tried to explain the essence of my case. They got interested. Probably they remembered something. One of them muttered that he had heard about some chemist.

“Well, then it is all wrong!” he concluded. Our cell door opened and a stocky elderly bald man appeared. The prisoners immediately gave him a spot on the bench and were very attentive to him. My neighbor saw my surprise and explained that this was famous Nikolai K., who had spent 29 years in jail. Now he “had come back” to jail after a few years “on the outside”, because he failed to adapt to a life of freedom. He had killed his mistress with a knife in a drunken brawl. She had also served a few terms in prison. When Nikolai looked at me with almost reptilian indifference, I closed my eyes unable to turn away from his experienced glance. It seemed to me that he understood who I was, and his practiced eye had determined that I was a first-timer and an intellectual. He didn’t need to disguise his disdain. I had heard a lot of stories about fierce criminals who bullied intellectuals in jail, and I was expecting something horrible. Maybe they would test me, then beat me. Time stretched out forever, and I was terribly thirsty. I didn’t move from my place. My feet had become numb a long time ago, and I tried to rub them. I had to get up and try to stomp them. It helped a bit, but my place was immediately occupied. I thought that, after all, other people were standing around and nobody had fallen down yet, so somehow I would get through this ordeal.

One guy had managed to keep his watch and told his neighbor that it was 3 A.M. I was appalled that it was so early and that we would have to wait so long before we could be moved to our cells, get a bed, and get a little rest. Most of the prisoners around me were sleeping. Some slept sitting or stretched out on the floor, and some slept standing up. The electric light wasn’t dimmed at night, so it was very difficult to determine the passage of time. The only difference was that at night the voices in the yard were more audible. The prisoners explained to me that the cells exchanged the latest prison news with each other – about who was placed in which cell, when, and whether there were untrustworthy people or “authorities” around. Later Aleksei Kostin explained it to me in detail. During his preliminary four-year confinement in Matrosskaya Tishina, Aleksei had become familiar with the full details of prison life.

Finally, the door opened and security guards appeared. They looked very sinister and were holding batons and handcuffs in their hands. The eyes of the first guard who entered were red, and along with his unshaved mug this was evidence that he hadn’t yet recovered from a drinking spree the day before.

“Stand up!” he bawled out, although without exception we were all on our feet as soon as we heard the door with the iron bars opening. The man from Caucasus Region, whose hand was wracked with pain, was closer to the door than everyone else. He was just getting ready to ask something when the baton came crashing down on his head with crippling strength. The man crashed to the concrete floor without a sound. “Bastards! Damned bandits! Fuck you all! I will shoot you all. Lie down!” the guard shouted, flying into a rage and grasping at his automatic pistol. I had no doubt that he would open fire upon us. We instantly lay down, sometimes on top of each other, because there wasn’t enough floor space for everybody. “Mongrels! Live for the time being!” the red-eyed one finally relented, enjoying our implicit obedience. He paused for a few minutes, then turned and opened the door. The other security guards left with him, and the door closed. The storm had blown over for the time being, and the morning rounds were over. The slumped-over man was groaning near the door. One of the prisoners tried to stop the blood that was trickling from a dark spot under the wretched fellow’s shiny black hair.

An hour later the door opened again, and some people dressed in dirty white overalls appeared, accompanied by a guard. One of them announced, “Breakfast!” They started scooping pearl-barley porridge onto the tin plates. They had also brought water. When my turn came, I drank some water and got a plate of porridge, but there was no spoon. Probably they supposed that a decent prisoner should have brought his own. One of the other prisoners saw that I was at a loss and offered me his own. I accepted it with gratitude and tried to eat something. The porridge was utterly loathsome, disgusting, and it was absolutely impossible to eat it. I saw that many people took margarine or some seasoning out of their bags and put it into the food, trying to turn the mash into something edible. Since I had nothing of the kind, I quickly gave it back to the men who were dishing it out, after a few spoonfuls of porridge. I wanted to use the toilet, but I was warned that no one, not even a sick man, was allowed to go there until the last man in the cell had finished his breakfast. So I waited patiently. I went only after one of the murderers had finished his meal with gusto. He was the last obstacle on my way to the toilet. This time I wasn’t nearly as ashamed as I had been in Cell 81 of Lefortovo Prison, in October 1992. “I am making progress!” I thought bitterly.