Life and death in Putin’s gulag

The wake-up call in cell number nine of the IK-6 prison colony in the Siberian town of Omsk comes at 5am in the form of the Russian national anthem blasting from a loudspeaker. Vladimir Kara-Murza, a journalist and politician, knew as soon as he heard the opening chord that he had only five minutes to get up before prison guards would take away his pillow and mattress. By 5.20am his metal bed frame, attached to the wall, would be locked up so that he could not use it for the rest of the day. Kara-Murza’s cell, painted in bright blue, was five metres long and two metres wide. In the middle, a table and a bench were screwed to the floor. The only objects he was allowed to keep were a mug, a tooth brush, a towel and a pair of slippers. The light was never turned off. Later in the morning a mug of tea and a bowl of gluey porridge made from an unidentifiable grain would be pushed through a small hatch in the cell door. At some point Kara-Murza would be permitted a 90-minute “walk” – a stroll around a concrete courtyard the same size as his cell with a metal grille in place of a roof. He was obliged to keep his hands behind his back. Often the sub-zero temperatures made it impossible to keep going for the allotted time. The loudspeaker in his cell blared throughout the day, sometimes playing the local radio station, sometimes a monotonous recital of the penal-colony rules. CCTV cameras were trained on Kara-Murza around the clock. Even so, the guards would take him to an inspection room at 9am and 5pm each day. He had to strip naked while they ran a metal detector over his clothes and underwear. Every time he is addressed he has to identify himself in the official formula: “Kara-Murza, Vladimir Vladimirovich, date of birth September 7th 1981, convicted under criminal code articles 284.1 part one, 207.3 part two, 275. Start date of sentence, April 22nd 2022. End date of sentence, April 21st 2047.” (Abstract by The Economist)