Read & Riot by Nadya Tolokonnikova

Author:Nadya Tolokonnikova
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

PENITENTIARY NEW YEAR RECIPES

OLIVIER SALAD

Instant noodles (substitute for potatoes because boiling potatoes is restricted)

Pickled cucumbers

Canned peas

Onion

Mayonnaise (a lot)

Canned fish/beef (instead of popular Doktorskaya sausage)

NEW YEAR’S EVE CAKE

Cookies

Butter

Condensed milk (a lot)

Put the ingredients in the mayo container (there are no other bowls anyway) and combine.

Enjoy your meal! Happy New Year!

* * *

The court was surrounded by people who supported us. And by some who hated us—Orthodox Christian activists who were asking for ten years of prison for us and were walking around in “Orthodox Christianity or death” T-shirts.

Our judge complained that she was being publicly shamed for fulfilling her duties. Indeed, activists who saw her walking the corridors of court would start to scream, “Shame on you! Shame on you!” The day before the verdict in the Pussy Riot trial was announced, our judge was assigned a personal government security detail.

The cells are located in the court basement, where you wait until guards bring you to the courtroom. These cells are always outstandingly dirty, dark, and small. So you’re sitting there chewing your crackers, reading notes that have been left for you by other prisoners: “Russia will be free,” “Sun shines for thieves, sun does not shine for cops,” “ACAB,” prison love poetry (the whole genre).

You sit on a dirty bench. Guards are shooting idiotic comments at you and you’re swallowing it. You’re trying not to lose a sense of self-respect, though. You’ll be brought to your friends, relatives, all your supporters who wait outside. You don’t want to show them how humiliating and discouraging your whole experience in jail is. You’re smiling and your smile is an act of resistance. It’s a matter of principle, if you wish. It’s tough and gloomy here in jail, but you don’t give those who put you here joy in observing your sufferings. Fuck you, dear government. My smile is my ultimate weapon.

It’s awkward to hear your own sentence being read out. I’d only seen things like that in movies before. You’re expected not to sleep the night before your sentence. I resisted this tradition in my own fashion and slept like a baby. If you’re about to be transported to a prison camp where you’ll have to work as a slave, you’d better get some good sleep while you have the chance.

When they read your sentence, you have to be handcuffed. For four hours you stand, handcuffed, listening to the bullshit that your judge did not even write herself. This kind of decision comes from the administration of the president. You’re listening to your sentence and know already—from your interrogators, from prosecutors, from Putin’s comments on your case, and from TV propaganda—that you won’t get out of prison soon.

“Defendants’ behavior cannot be corrected without isolation from society,” says the judge, and you know what this formula means. You’re going to a labor camp. And then she adds, “Two years.” It sounds like forever. Every day in prison lasts forever.

We were transported back to the detention center surrounded by five police cars and a couple of police buses.

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