The law is harsh and does not spare anyone: any criminal, be it a woman or a man, is punished. Although, of course, it is worth noting that the Criminal Code provides for certain relaxations for the weaker sex. Thus, women are not shot, they are not sentenced to life imprisonment, and very rarely they are sentenced to more than twenty years in prison (the maximum term provided in Belarus is 25 years).
Women commit different crimes, but personally I came across mostly murderers or drug dealers. Moreover, judging by the stories of prisoners who came from the stages, they also mainly encountered these two categories of representatives of the fairer sex among the prisoners.
To each his own
In general, as I understand it, in order for a woman in Belarus to get into a zone, she must commit a serious crime, but in other cases, judges try to confine themselves to “chemistry” (an open correctional facility) or a colony-settlement (something in between a zone and “chemistry”) . Therefore, the camps are mainly filled with murderers, drug dealers, robbers and repeat offenders.
Moreover, among the murderers, the majority are those who took the lives of lovers or husbands out of jealousy, betrayal or beatings.
I remember they told me about a woman who, in order to take revenge ex-lover, burned down his house while he was on a business trip. And along with the house - and all his relatives: mother, brother, brother’s wife along with their newborn child. She simply arrived at the house with a can of kerosene, propped the door open, doused the walls with fuel and set it on fire. It was said that this woman was given one of maximum terms in Belarus - more than twenty years, but even after hearing the verdict, she screamed ex-lover that will come out and take revenge on him. The deadline did not bother her, but when she heard the amount of the claim, the woman fainted.
There were enough among prisoners and women who cut off their beloved manhood because they used them on the side.
And there were a lot of those who killed their husbands and cohabitants due to constant beatings. Moreover, the stories of these crimes seemed to be written according to the same patterns: the husband or lover beat-beat, beat-beat, beat-beat... The woman endured and endured, sometimes tried to contact the police, but in this area our legislation is very poorly developed, and it’s good if the man was imprisoned for “a day,” after which he often began to beat his wife even harder. And our women are resilient people and usually endure to the last, but then, sometimes, they can’t stand it and kill their torturers.
In general, I believe that the state should tighten penalties for “domestic” violence and control the situation more seriously, since relationships in families where a man beats a woman over time develop into a kind of race: who can kill their partner the fastest! Not only were there many women who killed their husbands for assault, but also men who beat their wives to death.
But there is a category of murders common among women, which I practically never encountered in men's areas. This is the murder of their young children. Of course, men also took the lives of their offspring, but they killed mostly adult children during joint drinking sessions or when they took pensions from old people.
For women, it was the opposite: they predominantly took the lives of newborns and small children, whom they either miscarried or strangled. Most often, this was done by young single mothers who accidentally became pregnant, missed the time for an abortion and had absolutely no idea what to do next. In the women’s zones they were despised and “lowered”, making them “pickers” (akin to “lowered” in the men’s camps - the lowest caste, the type of their main occupation is clear from the name).
As prisoners told me, the drug trade among the gypsies was organized in a unique way: in families, women and children usually sold the potion. And even if men were involved in the sales, wives tried to take the blame, many of whom were sent to prison as if they were going to work.
"Pickers" and more
In women's areas, as in men's areas, there is a strict division into castes. As prisoners told me, these are “thieves” or “blatnyachki”, “cobles”, “dumpsters” and “pickers”.
According to the stories of the same prisoners, in women’s pre-trial detention cells and zones there is much more cruelty and lawlessness than in men. Perhaps this is due to the greater emotionality of women, which bursts out in such a hysterical way, but humiliation and sexual harassment, for example, towards “picking” women are much more cruel and sophisticated.
The prisoners themselves do not hide in their conversations that lesbian relationships are common among them. Sometimes “cobles” (active lesbians, practically men in skirts) start whole harems of “pickers”, whom they then become jealous of and because of whom they sort things out. Women need love, feelings and emotions, the lack of which they try to compensate for in such a perverted way.
As far as I know, the transition from lower to higher castes is just as impossible for women as it is for men.
Love and children
Women in prisons really lack male warmth, so, for example, when a prisoner receives a package, the guards cut sausages, cucumbers, and carrots into small pieces. Women put them back together, putting them in bags.
It used to be that in the summer, men in the pre-trial detention center, coming from the temporary detention center, where they were taken for questioning by the investigator, told how the police, in order to make the cells less stuffy, opened “feeders” (small windows in the doors where food is served). And if women were sitting opposite, they would happily demonstrate what they pay a lot of money for in strip clubs. In return, they wanted to see only one thing, which the prisoners willingly showed them.
On Volodarka, a huge number of women’s “malyavs” (notes) that prisoners exchanged along the “road” (inter-chamber communication) were love notes. Men found “girlfriends” in women’s cells and became involved with them whirlwind romances by correspondence.
One convict could flirt with a huge number of men. In the letters they were all young and beautiful Gurias, but most often such correspondence was carried out by aunts who had passed more than one term, old, seasoned and who had seen life. Although the men, for the most part, were a match for them.
In addition to plans for a bright future, the ladies sent their erotic fantasies in letters, which the prisoners kept and read behind a curtain in a specially designated place.
Many women in the zone tried their best to get pregnant, since children are the most reliable way get an amnesty and go on parole. Much has been said and written about seducing security guards. But few people know how prisoners, having read women’s revelations, sealed what they got after reading them in bags and sent them to their “beloveds,” and they used these bags in attempts to “get pregnant.”
The fate of children who were born only in order to be freed as quickly as possible is, in most cases, unenviable. Of course, there were women who maternal instinct won. But there were also many who, having been released, left their children at train stations, near shelters, or simply abandoned them wherever necessary, because many were alcoholics before imprisonment, and prison rarely cures this weakness.
The men's and women's zones are practically similar in terms of the regime of detention: they say that women, just like men, do not even have hot water in taps. And, naturally, such a “school of life” leaves deep scars in the soul. But, looking at the prisoners serving out their sentences after prison in women's "chemistry" (it was relatively close), I saw that they all wanted to be attractive and were trying to become women again. And despite all the efforts of the penitentiary system and the fact that they lost much more in the zones than men, some succeeded. Although they were much less shy about everything.
Girls from a punk band Pussy Riot Today, the most popular women are prisoners in Russia, and perhaps throughout the world. Many are worried about their fate: what will it be like for them to live these two years away from home and family?
After all, despite political beliefs, musical preferences and profession, the most important part of any woman’s life is love and family.
About how it turns out personal life representatives of the fair half in Russian prisons whether their husbands and loved ones are waiting for them and whether a woman in prison manages to remain a woman, the MK correspondent found out.
Two years have passed since I walked out onto the street with a certificate of release. But still, when I hear the word prison, everything inside me turns cold,” says Elena Sorokina, who served 2 years in a pre-trial detention center and 3 in the zone. - Places of detention intended for women are different from men's - there is practically no division into castes, and thieves' laws and concepts are not much in use. But it’s still incredibly harder for a woman behind bars than for a man.
Elena is 34, “she went to prison” (that’s right, she didn’t sit down, but “drove in,” the prisoners themselves say. - D.K.) in the prime of life, at the age of 27 - for fraud on an especially large scale.
If you ask any prisoner (former or current) what was the worst thing, then each will answer - arrest. Especially if he is the first. They picked me up right at the restaurant where I celebrated my birthday. In a light evening dress with a bare back. The stole in which I wrapped myself against the cold was taken away during the search with the motivation “suddenly he will hang himself.” For the first two days I simply lay there in oblivion, the attendants periodically checked whether I was alive or not. When I came to my senses, I myself was very surprised that I was alive. And honestly, if my scarf had been with me, I might even have committed suicide. The women with whom I ended up in the same cell did not touch me and periodically offered me tea. They let me cry to my heart's content. Later I myself saw such “first movers” many times and, remembering myself, was sympathetic to their condition. However, constant whining, tears and depression are not welcome in prisons. As a rule, from 20 to 40 people live in cells. And if everyone, or even half, is whining and depressed, then the situation will be the same. So we have to go through everything in silence. Although the prisoners have more than enough reasons for tears.
My husband ate too many pears
Lena had a fiancé with whom she for a long time lived together and were already planning to get married.
My beloved and I have always dreamed that now we will buy an apartment and have a wedding. Although in fact I was the only one who earned money for housing, I didn’t think about it, we had a good time together. When I was hired, he was on a business trip in Cyprus. I didn’t tell him (I kept hoping that they were about to let me go, stupid). And when he returned and found out, he immediately wrote me a letter that everything was over between us, and passed it on through a lawyer. And even his mother sent me a note: oh, how could I allow a fraudster and a thief into my house! And she wished me to rot in prison. Later, all my girlfriends and friends slowly turned away from me (or simply forgot, I don’t know). And only my mother continued to write and visit. Do you know how poorly they treat in prison those women whom no one expects to be released? They are not respected and can be humiliated. This is all because they are disgusted with themselves, they simply have no reason to live.
The way Lena’s fiancé acted is how 90% of life partners behave. While wives most often wait for imprisoned husbands, men are much less patient. And the longer the period, the less chance of saving the relationship.
“Men can’t live without sex for a long time,” says Elena. - And long visits are very rare (once every six months, meetings with loved ones are provided for three days in a special prison hotel), and even then not everyone is entitled to them, and only in the zone. In a pre-trial detention center while you are sitting, this is completely impossible. Lord, how many tears I shed in my own way, how many letters I wrote to him. And I didn’t receive a single answer. Then I found out that he got married almost immediately after my imprisonment, and by the time I left, he had already acquired a couple of children.
In our Mozhaisk colony there is even a legend about a man who waited for his woman,” says prisoner Marina on the pages of an online forum for female prisoners. - The story is this: they were lovers and could not get married because the man had a seriously ill wife. He promised everything: his wife would die, and then.... But the lady did not have enough patience, and she, disguised as a nurse, came and injected her lethal injection. But she did not die (either the dose was not lethal, or her health was not so bad) and went to complain to the doctor at the clinic that after that injection she felt bad. Appoint someone else, they say. It was then that everything came to light. And the mistress, when she showed up for the second time to finish what she started, was caught red-handed. She was imprisoned for many years. But while she was sitting, this man did not forget her and visited her all the time. His wife actually died soon after, they got married in prison, and he helped ensure that his beloved was quickly released on parole. Nobody knows whether this is true or not, but everyone knows this story and loves it very much.
Other relatives also don’t really like to keep in touch with prisoners - except perhaps their mothers. But a woman can’t live without a family. So they have a sort of similarity to families in places of detention.
Cellmates unite in small groups (families) and run a kind of joint household: they share food with each other, drink tea together, share secrets, says Svetlana Proshkina, a warden at penal colony No. 7 in the Kaluga region. - And it is not at all necessary that these families are built on sexual principles. Rather, they are each other's comrades and friends. We try not to break up such associations or separate them from each other. At the same time, there are, of course, openly lesbian families.
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Women remain women in all conditions and continue to take care of themselves, even if they are in a zone where no one is spoiled by male attention.
The prisoners themselves monitor hygiene and cleanliness in women's prisons and colonies! - says Elena. - Soap is not only an item of high demand, but also a very popular in-prison currency (after cigarettes and tea). It’s very simple - if you stop taking care of yourself and your underwear, you’ll immediately catch such a disease that no medicine (and certainly prison medicine) will not help.
But cleanliness is one thing, but beauty is another. Both employees of places of detention and the prisoners themselves unanimously assert that the longer the term, the more carefully the prisoner takes care of herself. All kinds of face and hair masks (the most popular is oatmeal), peelings and massages, haircuts and manicures - none of these joys are alien to women behind barbed wire. Surprisingly, specialists in one or another area of the beauty industry can be found in every chamber. Government robes are altered, shortened, T-shirts and scarves are decorated in every possible way with embroidery, etc.
In the summer, the girls and I went for walks and sunbathed in one underwear, - Elena recalls with a smile. - Some had the same skin color as if they had just come from a resort. One of my cellmates, who had already served 5 years in prison (she had 4 more left), generally liked to repeat: no matter what year I’m here, I’ll become younger and younger. But those who have only been in prison for a year, have not yet settled down and are not accustomed to their situation, and often look like downtrodden homeless people.
Women usually need beauty for love, but the number of male staff in women's prisons can be counted on one hand. And any of them becomes the object of adoration of at least several dozen ladies. Few people can stand this - that's why they don't exist. It turns out that prisoners sometimes don’t see men in person for years. Colony employees say that after a long period of abstinence, some female prisoners began to experience a violent orgasm just by touching the hand of a young man or even just at the sight of him.
In the absence of a genuine feeling, it is common for a person to look for a surrogate. Wardens claim that “pink” love covers at least half of the inmates of women’s prisons. And it is clear that the longer the sentence, the greater the likelihood that the prisoner will embark on the path of lesbianism, from which it can then be extremely difficult, and sometimes simply impossible, to leave:
I saw the first lesbians after only a week in the pre-trial detention center,” Elena recalls. - I woke up one night, and a couple was squirming on the top bunk (bed in prison jargon. - D.K.). I was so terrified then! Then I saw a lot of them, I got used to them and wasn’t surprised. But contrary to all the rumors, no one in women's prisons forces anyone to have sex or rapes them with a mop handle. Everything happens entirely voluntarily. Several times such “new people” came that it was not immediately clear whether it was a woman or a smelly, unshaven man. Hairy legs, rough voice. A real kobliha (male, koblikha is an active lesbian. - D.K.). Immediately in the “hut” flirting, jealousy and other love games began. The situation became tense, and after some time the cobble was transferred to another cell. So he/she walked around the prison.
Prison administrations, of course, do not welcome such relationships. But this is not prohibited by law, and we cannot do anything about it,” continues warden Svetlana Proshkina. - But such couples need an eye and an eye, because terrible scandals happen between them: she looked at you the wrong way, smiled at the wrong person, and that’s it - fights and massacres ensued. They also part so that everyone knows, - with loud scandals and dividing up his simple property.
But the prisoners themselves believe that lesbian couples even play into the hands of the guards. They are easier to control - threaten separation from your love (transfer to different cells), and they will immediately calm down and do what they say. And for good behavior sometimes there is a bonus - a night together in a “solitary room”.
“I met my Lyuba in a pre-trial detention center,” says one of the former prisoners, Rita Belkina, nicknamed Belka. She was once the most scandalous and principled prisoner in Matrosskaya Tishina. Such inflexible individuals, who spend most of their time in the schizo (a punishment cell, which is a bare cell made of stone), are called “deniers” in prison jargon. “We were together for nine months, and then she was transferred to the zone.” And I still had a trial going on. I dreamed of going to prison with her, but I was given a suspended sentence. Upon release, I moved to live in Mordovia, where my beloved was imprisoned. She constantly visited her, warmed her (carried packages, provided her with everything she needed. - D.K.). Then she left and we began to live together. So until now, already 8 years.
It turned out that Lyuba had a husband and a son before her imprisonment. Her husband immediately left her, and her grandmother took her son in to raise her. Rita also had a daughter, who was kidnapped by her father after the divorce. Her story is sad - at first she spent all the money on lawyers and courts to return her daughter legally. When this failed, she gave the apartment to the bandits, who promised to find the girl. They found her and returned her, but less than a month had passed ex-husband kidnapped the child again. There was no more money, no more housing, Rita moved to live with her long-time friend Lena, an experienced drug addict. Unbeknownst to herself, she got involved and was later caught for theft. So she ended up on the bunk. Having already been released, she nevertheless found and returned her child.
Why were you kept in solitary confinement all the time?
She fought and made trouble. I have a violent character. I'm like new camera got caught, never obeyed the elder (supervisor). She came, threw things off the best bunk and said: “Now everyone here will listen to me.” Well, of course, I killed child killers terribly. Only the cops with dogs could tear me away from them.
Kids in a cage
The worst awaits child killers in prisons and zones. Separated from their families and children, women simply go berserk when they learn that their cellmate is imprisoned for the murder of a child. This is the most terrible “female” article, and in the zones they try to hide it - employees sometimes meet halfway and “cover up” the child killer with another article.
But is it really possible to have a child while in prison? It turns out it's real.
Those who have already received their due date and are in prison become pregnant during long-term dates,” says Elena Sorokina. - Sometimes on purpose to make it easier to sit. Sometimes by accident. It is almost impossible to get pregnant in a pre-trial detention center. Only if from security, but I don’t remember such cases.
Indeed, pregnant and lactating women in the colony have many privileges: walks on fresh air without restrictions, improved nutrition, including dairy products, increased amounts of fresh vegetables and fruits. Plus regular medical care. In a pre-trial detention center, it is much more difficult for pregnant women - they live like everyone else.
Where do fathers of children come from?
Differently. I know a case when one persuaded her husband, who abandoned her, to have a child. She had to sit for a long time, her biological clock was ticking, she was afraid she wouldn’t make it in time. So he took pity on her. She seems to have given birth to a boy. And then, when he turned 3 years old and his grandmother took him home (children “serve” their sentence with their mother only until they are 3 years old), how she cried! And she was denied parole. But this one was responsible, she looked after the child, ran to him 6 times a day. Most of those who give birth in the zone immediately forget about their children. Drug addicts and degenerate individuals give birth to friends with the same past just for the sake of favors from the administration. And now 80% are imprisoned for drugs. Now this is called the people's article.
In men's prisons there is the concept of “absentee”, i.e. a woman who met a prisoner, fell in love through correspondence and is waiting for, in fact, a stranger to her. Do women serving time do this?
Hardly ever. Few people manage to lure a man in absentia while in prison. It’s the romantic young ladies who are imbued with the bitter fate of the prisoner, but why does a man need a girlfriend behind bars? In my memory this never happened. But romances often begin in the pre-trial detention center between prisoners - after all, they are all transported together to the courts in the same paddy wagon, both men and women. While they are taking you, while they are delivering you - through traffic jams, congestion - it turns out that they spend so many hours together that they have time to fall in love. Then a stormy correspondence begins. And if they are in the same pre-trial detention center, then they also pass the little ones to each other along the “road” (“road” is a prison, illegal way of transferring letters and things using long ropes stretched between windows or holes in the walls. - D.K.). Such novels are spinning...
Extraordinary fertilization
Not only letters are transmitted along such “roads”. Several years ago, an extraordinary incident occurred in one of the Moscow pre-trial detention centers - one of the women became pregnant. Began to find out how? From whom? It turned out that on the “way” her lover gave her a condom with sperm. Is it possible? It turns out yes! Gynecologists say that in an aggressive environment, sperm remain active from 15 minutes to 3 hours. This woman successfully carried her immaculately conceived child, although in court she was not given any concessions in connection with pregnancy and childbirth. Her further fate was lost. And what later happened to her and her child is unknown.
A separate story concerns the tragedies of mothers who were separated from their children by prison. Alas, young children quickly forget their parents. And when they are released, they very often feel like strangers to the grown children. Moreover, it is not uncommon for children to be helped by their caring relatives to forget their mothers.
Elena Kulikova, who served 6 years for abuse of power, has not been able to bring back her adopted daughter Madina (the girl’s name has been changed) for two years now. - D.K.). Temporary guardian Native sister Lena Irina agreed to take in her five-year-old child while she served her sentence. But for 6 years the girl forgot her mother, and her Aunt Ira contributed to this in every possible way.
“She revealed the secret of adoption to the child,” says Elena, “she said that I was not her mother, that I was a criminal!”
But most importantly, Irina became a real mother for Madina. And now the 11-year-old girl never wants to go live with some unknown Lena, she is afraid of her and cries when talking about returning to her.
Having been released from behind bars on parole, Elena again ran to the courts and prosecutors, trying with all her might to get her daughter back. But what does the courts have to do with it if the girl now considers another woman to be her mother? You cannot order love by a court decision, and without love a family is not a family, but the same prison. “I don’t know what to do,” Elena almost cries, “probably it would be better if I Orphanage I gave it my time!”
Such cases, unfortunately, are not uncommon. So it turns out that a woman’s life after the desired release turns out to be far from smooth.
This is the biggest problem for prisoners,” says human rights activist Pavel Chudin. - It’s not clear who needs them here, in the wild. They don’t get good jobs, housing is often deprived while they are in prison, loved ones disown or simply forget. So it turns out that the only way out is back behind bars, where it’s more familiar and calmer. Some prisoners, when released, say to the operatives: “Well, see you soon!”
Dina Karpitskaya, Moskovsky Komsomolets
In the criminal universe there is a special galaxy - women's prisons. The “concepts” by which the world of criminals lives are absent in women’s colonies.
There are unspoken rules that everyone must follow. For example, in each cell there must be a “senior” who keeps order, so that there are no prohibited items and that the inmates maintain order.
Hierarchy in the cell
Women's crimes are different from men's. Women are less likely to commit mercenary crimes, robberies, and robberies. They commit murders more often and cause serious domestic harm to health. This is explained by the fact that women are more emotional, and reason does not always guide a woman’s behavior, especially in moments of rage.
Victims female violence become husbands, lovers, mistresses of the husband. When arrested, women do not resist or run away.
Relations between prisoners are, as a rule, neutral. This is not a men's chamber where there is a struggle for leadership. The hierarchy in the cell is like a beehive - there is a queen - the “elder”, assistants to whom the elder delegates her unspoken responsibilities, and the rest of the girls.
Most cells are designed for 40-60 people, with beds in two rows called “bunks”. There is a bed that is at the end of the cell, without a second shelf. It is called a “clearing” - the “elder” sleeps on it. The cell also has a kitchen and a toilet with shower. You can use the kitchen and toilet for an unlimited time, but you can wash things only on certain days. The cell is cleaned daily, three times a day.
The cleaning schedule is drawn up in advance, and it is impossible to refuse duty - the only exception is those who “sit” for a long time. Poor duty is punished additional days cleaning Duty can be “sold” for two packs of cigarettes or for food. Girls are not allowed to enter the kitchen if the “elder” and her assistants are there. In order to maintain a calm atmosphere in the cell, girls are prohibited from swearing and using derivative words, so there is often absolute silence in the cell.
The eldest is responsible for “training” the new ones. The process of getting used to the new life takes a week or two. The eldest in the cell distributes places, and the new ones get places near the entrance, the so-called “brakes”.
Hierarchy in the zone
After the verdict is passed, the woman is transferred to a pre-trial detention center. This is a huge stress for the female psyche, because it is impossible to prepare for a prison environment. “Having arrived at prison,” women lose their sense of reality.
An operational worker is responsible for the distribution to cells. Usually they try to “pick up” a camera for a new arrival, but this is done not for the sake of the woman, but for the sake of the peace of mind of the employees - there are fewer conflicts, which means it is easier for the administration to work. Therefore, accountants and officials are in one cell, “collective farmers” are in another. This principle is violated only if accomplices are put in prison - always in different cells.
In the zone great importance has "who you are", your position in society before prison. For example, whether you are a Muscovite or not, how often you receive broadcasts, how many letters they write to you, what you wear and what you eat - your own food or prison food. Thus, the attitude of the prison society is formed. Although the status is formed not only with the help of the “pre-prison” situation, it also depends on the individual.
Conflicts end in a raised voice, but there are practically no fights, and if they happen, it is without serious damage. Murders are generally a rare occurrence in a women’s cell. If the prison administration finds out about the conflict, the culprit will be punished, and it is easy to find the instigator. Therefore, they try not to conflict without a good reason.
Disgusting men have a clear passion for exploring the bizarre, the hidden and the fringe. The phenomenon of “waiting” is just that case: it is connected with the world of people who are on the very outskirts of society and at the same time has long drilled its own hole into the world of Internet culture. And we, in turn, cannot simply pass by this.
Relatively recently, the general public discovered the existence of “zhdul” - women who wait for theirs. Users of the Pikabu portal, one relatively popular video blogger and a couple of publications laughed at the waiters. But the topic is much more interesting than a banal source of jokes. Even in the wake of recent interest, almost no one singled out from the waiting society a separate group worthy of special attention - “absentee students.” This is the name given to girls who met prisoners remotely and then started a relationship varying degrees intimacy: right up to marriage and children.
The well-being of many prisoners depends on correspondence students: they receive packages, purr compliments into the phone, and come on dates (including for sex). And if the behavior of ordinary waiters can still be understood - even though he is a prisoner, he is a husband - then the reasons why women are ready to disappear into an unfamiliar prisoner are completely vague. We studied the universe of correspondence students, tried to understand the motives of these girls, and even talked with those who served prisoners for years.
Correspondence students are far from a new phenomenon: before the Internet, they met by telephone, and before the telephone, through newspaper columns like “Looking for You.” In the surrounding world, this category has existed since the last millennium; One of the early songs of Ivan Kuchin, respected in painting circles, is dedicated to the difficult life of such girls.
Now prisoners find absentee women through dating sites or simply by calling numbers at random. For most girls, the story of their ensuing love is described by the same type of sentence: “We wrote each other, then found out that ZK, we called each other, liked the voice, went on a long-term date, got pregnant, got married, he’s in jail for another 8 years.” Surprisingly, women come on dates to a man whom they have seen, at best, in a photo. Which, however, does not prevent you from returning married to your DS.
The typical life of an absentee student swings like a pendulum between endless correspondence with a prisoner, rare trips to the zone and hard work, diluted with childcare. Usually an already unenviable existence is covered with a dark dome financial factor- in addition to the gallery of loans and debts, the correspondence student also bears the burden of maintaining the loan: the man needs to “replenish the balance,” give money for cigarettes and collect the transfer. Expensive DS are usually also paid for out of the woman’s pocket. In the endless supply of the prisoner, the correspondence students do not see anything shameful - after all, when the loved one is released, all the suffering will be rewarded a hundredfold.
If you don’t go deeply into the topic, you might think that a typical correspondence student is old, scary woman with two children and a hopelessly tortured look. Or a 16-year-old ugly girl, plunged into the whirlpool of thieves' romance. To put it mildly, this is not so: once you look through the photographs of activists of the “Overheard in Prison” community (and similar ones), the illusion will dissipate. Absentee students are different: without education and with a degree, flabby and with a gallery of selfies from a fitness club, unemployed and managers, elderly and minors. Some look so striking that not every free man would dare to make an acquaintance - and would choose his words while the girl sent declarations of love to a 55-year-old resident of IK " White Swan», last time who was released under Gorbachev.
In an attempt to understand why this happens, Elena Omelchenko, director of the Center for Youth Research (CYR) at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, interviewed several dozen former and current correspondence students. “Easy prey, as the study showed, are women who feel unhappy for one reason or another and have low self-esteem"- says Elena on the website opec.ru. Basically, it is difficult for such women to find a man in the wild, but rather the women themselves have convinced themselves that ordinary partners do not need them: children, old age, exhausting work, bad appearance. Usually, deep down in the souls of absentee students, ancient psychological trauma gathers dust; Unable to heal it (in Russia it is not customary to go to psychotherapists), they are given into slavery to the prisoner. Who usually has basic psychological skills - on the Internet you can easily find guides on seducing a correspondence student, written by the prisoners themselves. The result is a rather unpleasant scheme: a woman gives all of herself for the sake of an often unfamiliar loved one, in the hope that the newly acquired man will someday give her happiness.
Elena Omelchenko notes another interesting effect that explains the habit of women signing with prisoners almost at the first meeting. Most of the absentee women who married convicts chose companions with double-digit sentences. Usually, such women already have a couple of departed husbands in their anamnesis - so they subconsciously (or even consciously) choose men who will definitely not go anywhere for the next ten years.
Over many years, living in absentia with a prisoner, a woman builds an eerie ersatz family - at the home of a married absentee, photographs from a wedding, “souvenirs” from prison, a telephone always ready to talk, trunks collected for shipment lie on the floor. At work and to many of their acquaintances, the correspondence students tell them that their husband works in the North; This also explains the regular 3-4 day vacations. As Omelchenko notes, on dates a woman drags as many things as possible from her apartment in order to create the illusion of a “free”, homely life during the DS. Thus, a woman exists in parallel in two worlds - prison and family - neither of which fully belongs to her. What goes on in the soul of a correspondence student when the veil briefly falls away, one can only guess.
Of course, one should not discount the romantic aura hovering around the criminal world. Contrary to stereotypes, not only teenagers fall for it, although they are primarily. Adult woman may also be tempted by stories about the intricacies of the prison hierarchy, the principled refusal to work and the prisoner’s exclusive ability to love. “If you haven’t sat, you’re not a man” - in some circles these words are spoken in all seriousness, and a woman who grew up amid such rhetoric has very little chance of getting a husband who has never been on the other side of the barbed wire.
Also, absentee students are united by the holy confidence in the innocence of their loved one. Almost all prisoners ended up in the zone either because of meanness law enforcement(“garbage was hung”), either by accident or while protecting the lady. The latter is especially popular: “thugs attacked a girl, he hit one, he was the son of a prosecutor, he gave him five years.” Many prisoners are imprisoned for selling drugs - but in the eyes of those in absentia, this is not a crime, but only the desire to live well and provide for their family. On one of the thematic forums, a girl shared a fascinating story: her man was imprisoned for gang rape of a minor. Usually tolerant of other people’s deadlines, they “waited” could not stand it here and still expressed a little bewilderment. The rapist's wife waved it off: the girl, they say, was also to blame.
The day of departure of the beloved student is awaited with impatience and apprehension: the established relationship “he is there - I am here” is in the past, and not everyone is ready for everyday life. Former prisoners have great difficulty socializing, even if they really want to integrate into a world where they don’t have to march in line. But not everyone has such a desire: after living for many years among specific concepts, a former prisoner often becomes infected with thieves’ ideas (“to work against his suit”) and firmly occupies the sofa of his new partner. In especially severe, but very frequent cases, parasitism is added different kinds addictions – and, as a result, aggression. “He came out, he drinks all the time, he beat me up, I don’t know what to do” is a very, very common review in the “Breakup” topic on one of the forums dedicated to prison relationships.
What correspondence students say (some names have been changed)
Christina, 30 years old, real estate agent:
— We met when he got the wrong number. I called a friend, but dialed the last digit wrong, and it ended up on me. I liked the voice. We called in the evening and admitted that he was sitting. It didn’t scare me away, because the communication was pleasant, and we immediately liked each other. Actually, a month later I went on a short date with him, and then we fell in love with each other. Then I married him. Now you are not together - you broke up: I wanted to develop, but he didn’t really want anything. In addition, a person who has been there a couple of times will continue to return to this lifestyle.
Marina, 27 years old, cashier:
— We first contacted each other on the website, then we talked on the phone, then he said that he was in prison. Then it turned out that he had a wife in the wild - he said that he signed just to get the time off, but he doesn’t love her. Then I found out that my wife was pregnant - he said that this did not change anything, and besides, it was not a fact that the child was his. We broke up.
Svetlana, 43 years old, teacher:
- I don’t want to talk about it... There are too many bad memories, even though we separated a long time ago. I understood one thing - there is a lot dark people, and they lie constantly. But I still love him.
Anastasia, 22 years old, student of Belorussian state university:
— I met a guy, I go on dates with him. The acquaintance somehow started on its own, at first I didn’t even know that the guy was sitting there, but after a while he told me, and so it sunk into my soul, we began to communicate every day. We fell in love with each other, drew up documents that I was his common-law wife. I don’t know what attracted me, maybe some kind of romance, it’s hard to say.
In general, the world of “waiting” is an almost unexplored and unfamiliar territory for us. It’s not that the whole mechanism is so difficult for an outsider to understand. The prisoner’s motives are crystal clear and even trivial. But the aspirations of women who decide to connect their lives with an obviously marginal and already imprisoned person are little understood, most likely even by themselves. Apparently, there is some kind of romance in this.
