About 460 km north of Moscow, in the Vologda
province, a small lake rests among a sprawling woodland. The lake is called Novozero and its middle
stands an island called Ognenny Ostrov. Despite its name meaning “Fiery Island”
or “Fire Island”, it is surrounded by ice most of the year, connected to the mainland
only by a narrow bridge. Fire Island is home to one of the most desolate
prisons of the Russian penitentiary system. Its official name is Prison No. OE 256/5, but convicts and guards call it
simply “Pyatak” – or “slash five” in Russian. At least until 2009, the high security prison,
known as “Russia’s Alcatraz” housed 170 convicts, amongst the most violent criminals
in the Country. Unlike other prisons in the Russian Federation,
like the infamous ‘Black Dolphin’, Pyatak is not the scene of violent clashes amongst
rival gangs, rape or drug abuse. Sure, violence is still present, although
not as frequent. Life is relatively calm and slow paced. But there is something about ‘slash five’
that drills into the minds of its inmates. Something subtle, and yet as brutal and soul
destroying as constant bullying and abuse of power. It is the relentless regime of isolation,
the absolute pointlessness of an empty life that can make the most merciless men beg for
death. This is the island where your very soul deteriorates
– if tuberculosis doesn’t get you first. Welcome to Pyatak, the most terrifying prison
in Russia A history of Pyatak
The first recorded settlement on the ‘Fiery Island’ was not a place of punishment, rather
a place for prayer and meditation. In 1517, a local Orthodox cleric, Cyril of
Novozero, later St Cyril, witnessed a column of fire descending upon the island, hence
its current name. Interpreting the apparition as a divine sign,
Cyril decided to fund a monastery. After four centuries of secluded prayer, the
October revolution put the Bolsheviks in power. Their militant atheism put them at odds with
the Orthodox faith, which led to the confiscation of much of the Church’s wealth and possessions. Thus, St Cyril’s monastery was seized by
the Government and converted into a prison to lock up the enemies of the Revolution. The prison maintained its political function
throughout the 1930s and 1940s. This is when Stalin’s regime used it as
penal colony for the victims of the Purges, which had struck at the Party and Military
elites of the Soviet Union. In 1953, following Stalin’s death, Khrushchev’s
process of de-Stalinization led to the closing of many secure facilities dedicated to political
dissidents. In the case of the Island Prison, this was
simply converted to a ‘standard’ penitentiary housing ordinary criminals – albeit the
most violent and dangerous ones. Fast forward forty years: The Soviet Union
has collapsed, replaced by the Russian federation and the Confederation of Independent States. Up until the mid-1990s the death penalty was
till part of the Russian judiciary system. Capital executions were carried out by means
of a pistol shot to the back of the head. But on the 16th of May 1996 a decree by President
Boris Yeltsin ordered a gradual reduction of the death penalty, in preparation for Russia’s
entry into the Council of Europe. In September 1996 authorities carried out
the last capital sentence on Russian soil, even though the death penalty was still enforced
in Chechnya until 1999. A 10-year moratorium on death sentences was
then extended up until today. But what happened then to those criminals
that would have previously been sentenced to a gunshot to the back of their heads? Following Yeltsin’s decree, 681 convicted
criminals awaiting execution had their sentences commuted to life – or at the very least
25 years – in prison. Many of them were condemned to the next possible
harshest punishment: to spend the rest of their lives in the unrelenting white Purgatory
of Pyatak. Desolation
Let’s now look in detail at the structure and surrounding of Pyatak. The Prison buildings occupy almost all of
the surface of the tiny Fiery Island. The edges of the Island are entirely contained
by two concentric sets of walls, with watch towers at every corner. Armed guards and police dogs patrol the perimeter. There are only two ways in and out of Fiery
Island: either by foot, along a narrow wooden bridge, or by prison boat. All around are the waters of Lake Novozero,
also known as White Lake. Despite the sinister reputation of its Island,
this lake is one of Russia's most beautiful. The water is rich with fish and waterfowl,
its shores surrounded by acres on end of tundra. The natural beauty of the area is undisputed,
as is its desolation. To give you an idea, one of the most important
inhabited centres in the area is the town of Belozersk. The administrative capital of the Belozersky
district, it counts barely 9,000 inhabitants and the population has been declining steadily
since 1989. If you were an inmate at Pyatak and somehow
you managed to climb both sets of walls, evade the guards and their German shepherds, you
would still have to swim to shore in icy waters. Or alternatively, run the length of the wooden
bridge as the wardens take easy aim from the watchtowers. Even if you made it to shore, you would still
have to survive a trek of kilometres in harsh climate and unforgiving environment. And even if you made it out of the woods,
you would have little chance to make yourself inconspicuous amongst the small towns and
villages in the region. No wonder then, that nobody has ever escaped
from Pyatak. Isolation
We have now looked at Pyatak from the outside, but what is life inside like? What is it that makes it so terrifying? The prison’s regime, its rules, are simple,
yet effective in achieving their goals. The main weapon of choice used by prison authorities
to punish convicts and break their spirit is ruthless isolation. Upon arrival, each prisoner is placed in a
small cell with another inmate. Few distractions are allowed, certainly not
TV or books. During the daytime the bed is stowed away,
and the inmates are forced to stand, or sit on a tiny wooden perch a few inches wide. This goes on for 22 hours and a half a day,
every single day. Infractions are punished with even starker
isolation. Misbehaving prisoners are sent to be locked
for a minimum of 15 days in small, dark rooms with only a metal bucket as company. For the first 10 years of the convicts’
sentence, they are allowed only two visits a year. Each visit can last no longer than two hours. After the 10 years have expired, men are allowed
two additional visits per year, but of shorter duration. Convicts are able to receive parcels from
family and friends, but again, these are limited to only two per year. It is no surprise then if by the time a decade
has passed most of the prisoners have lost all contact with their families. Due to huge size of Russia’s territory it
is common that most of the convicts’ families would have to travel for days, to then spend
only a couple of hours with them. Valery, a Siberian multiple murderer, interviewed
by The Telegraph in 2004, told how he had asked his wife to seek a divorce upon learning
he was being sentenced to Pyatak. He had realised that maintaining their relationship
would have been impossible: “When I came here I told my wife to get
a divorce. She cried a little and we've never seen each
other since." Sanitary conditions are also dire. The prison structure is devoid of any proper
washing facilities, nor lavatories. Inmates have to make do with just a bucket. What of exercise, or walks in the yard – a
staple of life in every prison across the World? Technically, men at Pyatak are allowed some
of it, but it’s almost a cruel joke. For an hour and a half a day they are permitted
a walk in the open, but this is more like the pacing of a trapped predatory animal,
in cages sized only 2 metres by 2. With no room nor equipment for physical activity,
only the most determined manage to maintain decent levels of fitness. This situation surely contributes to the deteriorating
health of most inmates, most of whom were already ill when ending behind bars. According to a human rights report from the
U.S. State Department AIDS and drug-resistant tuberculosis are endemic. In general, conditions at Pyatak are deemed
to be "extremely harsh and frequently life-threatening." Earlier I mentioned that there are only two
ways out of Pyatak, by the bridge or by boat. But there are other ways out: one of them
is with your feet first, inside a body bag. When a man dies, if his body is unclaimed
by relatives, then it is taken to a small village graveyard near the island. Bodies are buried with little ceremony, under
markers bearing serial numbers instead of names. All in the presence of just one or two of
the guards. No prisoners can attend the burials. Another option used by prisoners is self-harm. Prison officials claim that convicts frequently
swallow metal objects, such as teapot handles, spoons and bundles of nails, in the hope that
they will be sent to the relative peace of prison wards in hospitals. The harsh conditions, the crushing feelings
of loneliness and emptiness have prompted many of the hardened criminals to seek solace
in religion. But guards are sceptical of these late conversions. Chief Warden Vasily Smirnov, interviewed by
the Houston Chronicle in 2005, declared that finding religion is just a means for prisoners
to receiving money and parcels from foreign evangelical groups. He stated that
"Many use the pages from religious books as toilet paper"
The inhabitants of Pyatak But who are the residents of Pyatak, and what
crimes have they committed to deserve a life of nothingness? One tragic, exemplary case, is the one of
Vyacheslav Sharoyevsky. During the last days of the Soviet Union,
Vyacheslav was a rising star in the Soviet judiciary system. Aged just 29 he was a top prosecutor in the
Smolensk region of Russia holding almost God-like powers over the locals. He had even been called to investigate, and
then bust, a large-scale corruption ring in Uzbekistan. But one day, in 1989, something went deeply
wrong inside his head. He was overcome with boredom, he had grown
weary of his life and wanted to feel alive again. So he decided to kill. He grabbed a knife and stabbed to death two
women he barely knew, a book-keeper and a cashier, also stealing their money. Vyacheslav was sentenced to death. The day in which Vyacheslav’s head was due
to meet the cold muzzle of a pistol, a prison official came to the execution cell and told
him his life would be spared. It was May 1996, the year of Yeltsin’s moratorium
on all executions. He declared to British journalist Julius Strauss:
"I expected the executioner and instead Jesus Christ came. Since then I have prayed to God every day. I thank Him for the sun, the sky, life and
our bread." Another inmate interviewed by Strauss, was
one identified only as Vladimir. In 1994, in St Petersburg he had killed two
men and two women. The plain motive for the killing? "I was drunk". Not all of the residents of the Island are
psychopaths or occasional murderers. There are reports of at least one terrorist
being held there: Nur-Pashi Kulayev – who may be Pyatak most notorious convict. Kulayev was the only survivor of a militant
cell of Chechen insurgents that in September 2004 attacked a school in Beslan, in North
Ossetia. On the 1st of September Kulayev and other
31 terrorists stormed the school, taking more than one thousand hostages, including primary
and secondary school children, their teachers and parents. The hostages were herded into the school gym,
which was rigged with explosives. After two tense days, explosions from the
inside prompted Russian security forces to launch an all-out assault against the insurgents. Their response was disproportionate, including
the deployment of flamethrowers, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. In the ensuing battle, 333 hostages, many
of them young children, died at the hands of the Chechen terrorists and possibly by
friendly fire. All the insurgents were killed, too, except
for Kulayev. He survived the gunfight, but was almost lynched
by a local mob. At the ensuing trial Kulayev denied killing
anyone, but in May 2006 he received a life sentence for terrorist acts. His sentence was to be served inside Pyatak. The following year, he was rumoured to have
died in custody, a likely outcome considering the usual harsh conditions of Fiery Island,
plus potential retribution at the hands of other convicts. News about Kulayev and about Pyatak in general
after 2007 are hard to come by. However, in 2014, Kulayev resurfaced in a
documentary aired by Russia Today. The documentary identifies the penal colony
in which he is being held simply with the number ‘18’, however in one shot he appears
to be pacing inside one of the 2 by 2 cages in which prisoners are allowed to walk at
Pyatak. In the documentary Kulayev reads some letters
sent to him by parents of Beslan’s victims. He appears confident, dismissive of the letters
and generally unrepentant. But Alevtina Luchnikova, senior psychologist
at the detention facility, attested to Kulayev’s deteriorating mental state:
“When I talked to him, he confessed he often has nightmares. He sees blood coming from the walls”
The Psychiatric Effects of Solitary Confinement Back in 2004, another psychologist at Pyatak,
Svetlana Kiselyova, had described to The Telegraph the effects of the prison’s enforced isolation:
"This place destroys people. The first nine months or so they spend adapting. After three or four years their personalities
begin to deteriorate. There is no way anyone can spend 25 years
in a place like this without being psychologically destroyed.” Curiously, she added:
“The homosexuals are the ones who come off best - at least they are not starved of physical
and emotional contact." Which sounds peculiar, as solitary confinement
would apply also to homosexual detainees. These remarks aside, Kiselyova made an important
point: the lack of human contact, the lack of any form of mental stimulus, may cause
one’s personality to gradually break apart. What are exactly the psychiatric effects of
solitary confinement, in a structure such as Pyatak? According to a paper published by Dr Stuart
Grassian of Washington University in 2006, solitary confinement and institutional isolation
can bring about a very specific psychiatric syndrome. To clarify, a ‘syndrome’ is a set of symptoms
which consistently occur together. The symptoms identified by Dr Grassian are:
Hyper-responsivity to external stimuli. In other words, the inability to tolerate
external stimuli, such as the most ordinary noises. Perceptual distortions, illusions and hallucinations. Dr Grassian interviewed inmates across 200
penitentiaries in the US, almost a third of whom reported hearing frightening, whispering
voices. Panic attacks, which occurred in more than
half of the inmates interviewed. Difficulty in thinking, concentrating and
retaining memories. Once you are in a position where you start
losing your memories, and you don’t have the opportunity to create new ones … that’s
when your whole personality, your own self begins to fade away. Obsessive thoughts, mainly associated with
violent fantasies of torture and mutilation. Feelings of paranoia and persecutory fears,
often deteriorating into overt psychosis Loss of impulse control, resulting in acts
of random violence or, more often, self-harm and suicide attempts
The syndrome identified by Dr Grassian was, in his own words, ‘strikingly unique’. That is, some of the symptoms described here
are found in virtually no other psychiatric illness, especially the perceptual distortions. In lay terms: isolation does not just make
you crazy. It makes you a very specific kind of crazy
– a kind of crazy observed in only another medical condition: delirium, an acute organic
brain syndrome characterised by abnormalities in EEG’s and brain scans. This means that the symptoms brought about
by isolation are consistent with those of a neurological, rather than just psychiatric,
disorder. Trying to simplify again: they are consistent
with the symptoms typical of a disease of the brain as an organ, rather than a behavioural
disorder. This seems to suggest that isolation and solitary
confinement have an impact on the neurological structure and organic functioning of the brain. Dr Grassian’s long-term studies of former
prisoners of war, kidnap victims and prison inmates have demonstrated that many of the
symptoms outlined above tend to subside after release from confinement. However, there are also some long-term effects
which may persist for decades. These include persistent symptoms of post-traumatic
stress: as flashbacks, chronic hypervigilance, and a constant sense of hopelessness. In addition, these individuals also experience
long-lasting personality changes. The most alarming is a pattern of rejection
of any social interaction: survivors will feel socially impoverished and withdrawn,
even angry, or fearful, when forced into social interaction. In general, they have displayed patterns of
behaviour dramatically different from their mental states prior to solitary confinement. If any of the convicts from Pyatak – or
similar institutions around the World – were to make it back to society, they would be
utterly incapable of interacting with it in a functional way. Dr Grassian concludes by highlighting the
paradox of isolation and solitary confinement as a correctional tactic:
Most of the prisoners housed in long-term solitary confinement facilities such as Pyatak
are undoubtedly a danger to the community, as well as to fellow convicts and to prison
staff. But in most cases, they are a danger not because
they are coldly ruthless, but because they are driven by impulse, internally disorganized,
riddled with paranoia and volatile. Isolation, and its associated syndrome, only
contribute to feed this volatility and potential for explosive violence, in a self-perpetuating
circle. Light at the end of the tunnel? It is not up to us to judge whether Russia,
or other States, should entirely reconsider their prison system. A penitentiary like Pyatak, ‘slash five’,
may be the only alternative available to the death penalty – or to more traditional and
violent prisons; the only alternative available to act as a deterrent to the most violent
elements of society. Or at least, the only alternative given existing
resources. What is a fact is that Pyatak is for sure
not only the bleakest and most impenetrable prisons in Russia – it may be one of the
bleakest and most impenetrable places on Earth, period. To quote again chief guard Vasily Smirnov:
"It's necessary to understand one thing. The difference between this prison and others
is that in other places, prisoners see the light at the end of the tunnel”
“Here?” “It's all darkness”
But even among the darkness, a glimmer of hope can be found, a minuscule spark of a
mind on a resistance mission against total deterioration. Do you remember Vladimir, the drunken murderer
of St Petersburg? Unlike other fellow prisoners, he found a
way to cope with isolation and to prevent the breakdown of his psyche. Soon after entering Pyatak, he took up oil
painting, transforming his cell is a gallery of rural Russian landscapes, painted from
memory. Perhaps the only one to say so, he declared
"I don't want to leave here, I've made this room my home. One day it will be my mausoleum. Who knows, perhaps after my death I will be
famous, and people will come and visit this cell. They'll say of me, 'He might have been a murderer
but at least he was a fine painter'."
