Posted on 10/01/2004 10:57:44 PM PDT by struwwelpeter
Television journalists from the capital go to 'places that are not so far away'
TV crews from the capital spent last Tuesday on the other side of the wire. The journalists received this unusual request from the Karaganda (Kazakhstan) criminal justice committee (UKUIS). We observed just how our guests from the southern capital got along with the prisoners doing their time in the men's and women's prisons.
"Right now there are about 600 prisoners who have lost all contact with their relatives. It should be obvious that everyone needs contact with someone. We're trying to find their relatives, we're sending requests to city administrations and address offices," says Natal'ya Gorina, chief specialist in the UKUIS education department. "Not long ago our management decided that we should contact (Kazakhstani TV channel) Khabar, and its program Barmysyn bauyrym? ('Brother, where are you?')
The idea struck a spiritual chord with many prisoners: 21 women and 50 men wrote and sent their stories in to the program - the twin sister of the Russian television project Zhdi menya ('Wait for me') - so it was hard to refuse. A film group then went to a 'place not so far away' (from Karaganda).
WOMEN
The village of Koksu. A low wooden fence, with barbed wire on top and observation towers in the corners. On the other side of this freshly white-washed barrier is the 'zone'. AK 159/9. Here is where almost one thousand women motayut (criminal jargon: squander) away their prison terms.
Three at a time through the check point. Two mesh doors scrape closed behind us. If you did not look back, where several lengths of barbed wire stretch one on top of the other, you might think that you were in a Pioneer camp (Russian summer camp). Asphalt paths, flowerbeds, little alleys of maples and poplars. This impression is strengthened by signs along the path, each with a slogan. Something along the lines of 'to freedom with a clean conscience', and 'a person can fix anything'. One unique 'bulletin board of honor' bears several names. Some of the inscriptions that follow are cheerful: 'Early release on parole!' or pessimistic: 'The shame of the returnee'. There were no photographs.
Accompanied by UKUIS prison workers, we enter a huge sewing shop. Women and girls in kerchiefs of various colors fold, cut, and stich male work clothes. They steal glances at us.
"Do they get some kind of a wage?" I ask our guides.
"Of course. Not a big one, itt's true - about 6 thousand tenge ($42) a month. A certain sum is deducted for their clothing and food, but the rest is theirs. Usually about 3 thousand," says the production foreman willingly. She explains that 'real live money' is not given to the prisoners. The figures are entered on a special sheet which is kept in their local 'store'. And so, using this cashless accounting, the prisoners buy cigarettes, tea, soap and sweets - the most popular goods in the penal colony.
A little farther and we come to a club with the romantic name 'Girlfriend'. There sit those who await the Khabar TV people, those who want to search for their lost relatives. Some women are dressed in something similar to sport clothing, others are in short-cut dresses. They are packed into the small assembly hall, watching our delegation silently. A person can get a little nervous from all these tense, unsmiling faces. In a few minutes, each woman in turn hastily introduces herself and quickly states for whom they are searching.
"I am Kotova Larisa Nikolaevna, I am searching for my daughter Kolbasova Ol'ga Yur'evna, date of birth 1972. On 31 May 1983 at 3 O'Clock she went to the store and never came back. Since then, no one has seen her," says a short woman in a leather jacket, holding up to her breast a black and white family photograph.
Larisa Kotova appeared in prison two years ago. She was sentenced to eight years behind bars for selling narcotics. Her husband committed suicide not too long before this. The prisoner has no other relatives. Olya, if she is still alive, would now be 32. She is Larisa's only daughter.
"Back then she was placed on the nationwide missing persons list. It was useless," says Larisa Nikolaevna, lowering her eyes. "But I haven't lost hope. It just doesn't feel to me like she is dead. Maybe she'll respond."
Another prisoner, Natal'ya Kuts, came here in 1998 for swindling. According to prison rules, the women toss their coats into a room of the two-story barracks. Natal'ya does this, and the men accompanying us almost fall into a stupor: under her coat she is dressed in a vivid light-green dress with black polka dots, very tight and extremely low-cut.
"Natasha, be a bit more modest!" scold the people in uniforms.
Natal'ya explains the reason for her stay in the penal colony: "Well, it so happened that they gave me $16 thousand, but I didn't return it on time." She once again puts on her outer garments, and continues: "I'm searching for my mother, Valentina Aleksandrovna, and my sister Oksana. They used to live in Astana, but they've moved. Supposedly they now live in the village of Sabunda, not far from the capital. A few years before my arrest, my mom and I got into a fight, and so we lost touch. If they see me on TV, I hope to ask their forgiveness, and say that I love them very much."
In parting, Natal'ya expresses her sincerest hope that, after she is set free, she finds her relatives.
A few words about the dormitory. In the bedroom there are no bunks, but the usual cots, carefully made up. Between them stand floormats and throw rugs. Everywhere there are variously colored pots of flowers. Everything is spotless. In the sitting room there is a nice, comfy corner sofa set, a stereo, and a color television. Compared to the conditions we endured in our college days, when we had to go out to the countryside and do compulsory farm work, this was a lot more decent.
Soon the flow of those desiring to pose before the TV cameras subsides, and the Khabar people have packed up their equipment and are heading for the exit. It was already noon, and the penal colony is heading for the dining room. They silently walk past the journalists. A few pull shawls over their faces, while others cast curious glances at us. In the crowd a few ladies stand out, dressed like men - in pants, tennis shoes, sport jackets. Instead of shawls on their heads they proudly wear baseball caps.
"We've got some non-traditional love here. What can you do - the women are here for many years. Physiology is physiology," says one of the female guards. "Sometimes the prisoners hammer together strong 'families'. And they are jealous. Sometimes there are brawls."
MEN
In Karabas, in the men's 'zone' to where our brigade headed right after Koksu, everything was different. At the entrance to AK 159/18, our eyes met a high, concrete barrier, crowned by large spirals with iron thorns. In contrast to the female penal colony, every building here is secured with iron bars and chicken-wire. Between these sets of metal-work there are narrow asphalted paths. One has the feeling that they are in some kind of a zoo. Only there are only no animals in the cages here, but people, all dressed the same in black.
The prison workers prepared for the journalists' visit much earlier. All the prisoners were sent to their barracks, and from the windows and balconies heads would pop out and shout something similar to greetings as we passed by. Sometimes something indecent, or they whistled and clucked their tongues.
We were first conducted to the dining room, then to the assembly hall. On the stage of this hangar-like building, a local vocal and instrumental ensemble was playing. From roaring speakers poured a lyrically composition about how a 'zehk' (criminal jargon: prisoner) will soon be released and return home to beg forgiveness of his mother for his sins. After listening to another three songs from this 'blatnoy' (criminal jargon: underworld) repertoire, we continued our excursion to the infirmary. The prison patients greeted us politely and settled onto their beds, allowing the cameraman to film them.
Under the letters Barmysyn bauyrym?, we met with the prisoners on the sport grounds, through the center of which a volleyball net was stretched. Five men briefly told the Khabar TV crew about those whom they wished to find: father, daughter, mother. And they filled out forms that the television people held out to them. Only one, however, agreed to an in-depth interview.
In 1998, twenty-three year old Ruslan Kuriyev of Osakarovka beat someone badly. Back then he was charged under article 103 part 3, 'Causing grievous bodily harm'. "But I got scared, so I decided to go to Chechnya," Ruslan shyly smiles. "My mom lives there in Daragorsk village. In 2002, I went see my brother in Lipetsk, but while there the Russian police detained me and sent me on prison transport back to Kazakhstan. I tried to tell my brother about it, but I'm not sure that he got my message. It's possible that mom still doesn't know where I'm at and what happened. So here I decided to write a letter for the show."
At the end we looked in on one of the cellblocks. A broad-shouldered fellow with a black rosary in his hands met us.
"You couldn't make up on one of the bunks, could you?" a lady journalist asked him. "We need some pictures."
"Right away," the fellow turned and called to someone in an adjacent room. Within a minute, several men had turned the barracks into a hive of activity. Someone was making the bunks, someone was washing the floor, someone else was reading a letter from home. The prisoner with the rosary, very pleased with himself, watched them all from the threshold.
The men's barracks was very different from the women's. The rooms were much smaller. The order was somewhat ideal, but there was something missing, just like in a bachelor's apartment.
And the prisoners' faces. They were looking at us, as if we had arrived from another planet.
"Oh, you haven't seen the HIV patients yet. You go to them, and you'll want to run out of there as fast as you can. The appearance of a woman for them, it's like a holiday," the head of the UKUIS education department said to us later.
* * *
And on that note, so ended the TV people's journey to 'places that are not so far away'. Ehl'mira Zhaytapova, editor of Barmysyn bauyrym?, told the 'NV' correspondent, that if a relative of one of the prisoners is found, Khabar TV will certainly return to our penal colonies in order to catch on tape the touching scenes.
"We are very grateful to the workers from the Karaganda UKUIS for their invitation," says Ehl'mira. "Prisoners are people, too, just like we are. We will be very glad to help them."
As 'Noviy Vestnik' wrote in our last edition, Barmysyn bauyrym? is shown in the Kazakhi language. But a pilot program is ready to be broadcast in Russian. It will be called Nadeysya i zhdi ('Hope and wait'). It only remains for the TV channel's management to prepare the required documents. Soon the Khabar TV people plan a cooperative venture with their Russian analogue Zhdi menya ('Wait for me').
"The Russians already have global experience in searching for people. We'd like to learn from them," said El'mira Zhaytapova in farewell.
| Irina Moskovka |
A Dead City
She only knows her name
Soviet tankers learned to drive on the bones of the dead
To Beslan to her son's grave
Who am I?
Whose cow is mooing there?
(ping)
Thank you for your ping to me.
How sad, what life does to us, during our trip thru it.
I am amazed at how the ethnic Russian journalists in the this crumbling highwater-mark of Russian central asia still manage to remain upbeat and optimistic.
There is a book called Two Captains, by Benjamin Kaverin, that was popular a few decades back, especially among Russian teenagers. Sort of a communist Harry Potter without the magic. It was made into the play that the Dubrovka theater audience was watching in Moscow, shortly before falling into Chechnyan captivity two years ago.
In the book, the hero's motto is: Borot'sya i iskat', naiti i ne sdavat'sya (to struggle and search, to find and never give up).
I like that attitude.
And I like people who still believe in humanity. "Even prisoners need someone."
In the book, the hero's motto is: Borot'sya i iskat', naiti i ne
sdavat'sya (to struggle and search, to find and never give up).
I like that attitude.
And I like people who still believe in humanity. "Even prisoners need
someone."
Ping!
Some mildly blatnaya music.
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