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'."