Tales From The Gulag

Since my Russian arrest I’ve had the world’s press and media contact me for interviews. Piers Morgan, Joe rogan, Pravda etc. have all come knocking. However, one of the rules of the Thieves In Law is that we don’t talk to the media unless it's Babushka’s Secrets. And they aren't interested. But I can finally tell you guys the real story of what actually happened in the Siberian prison for the first time here…

The esteemed Babushkas's Secrets

When I was arrested by the pretty police-officer Katya Smolenskaya in Birobidzhan on that sunny August day some three years ago, I was bundled into the back of a black-Mariah and driven out of city along a road which snaked through dark impenetrable forest and stubby open farmland. We passed semi-abandoned kolkhoz farms and rotting Soviet infrastructure as we bumped along the old concrete highway. The occasional local peasant that I glimpsed through a crack in the door bowed their head when we passed, no doubt fearing to make eye contact with the occupants of our vehicle in case they too were taken.

Katya Smolenskaya. Firm but fair

I remembered the words of a local man I had met on a train in Siberia once when I had told him I had just seen the barbed wire of a prison camp in the woods we were passing through. 'The entire country is a prison camp,' he had replied matter of factly.

My Siberian Gulag

Throughout the ride I was thinking to myself ‘What would Chuck Norris do in this situation?’ and for a minute I considered elbowing my guard in the face, unlocking the door and making my escape before the driver had a chance to realise what was going on behind the metal plate which separated us.

But where would I run to? The Chinese border was a day’s travel away and the forests of the region are populated by numerous Amur tigers and bears that would rip me apart. Anyway, with my dodgy ankles it would be difficult to make safety by nightfall. ‘No Ben, now is not the time,’ I thought to myself, and Instead I stayed put, my mind racing with images of what might lay ahead at the end of the journey.

Siberia. My involuntary home for many months

Eventually we turned off the soviet built road and passed along a straight gravel driveway at the end of which on the brow of a hill loomed a large grey bricked building with barred windows and surrounded by rusting barbed wire.

We parked up in front of the building and I was pulled out of the van. I scanned my surroundings making mental notes of the lay out just in case I needed the info for an escape bid one day. What sticks in my memory the most from that moment is that outside the building stood a statue of a dolphin. I don’t know why it was there. ‘Are there dolphins in the Amur river?’ I thought to myself. If there were that would be good since maybe I could ride on the back of one to China should I need to.

Do they have dolphins in Siberia?

We climbed a few broken concrete steps and entered the grey prison beneath a large portrait of a familiar face I'd known since the year 2000. I was led along a green corridor to a waiting-area where a pretty female guard took my fingerprints on a machine. Then she asked me to stand against a wall as she took my photo. I gazed heroically into the distance in a Che Guevara pose in case the photo was leaked to the press. The pretty guard asked my name and nationality and when I said Ben and from Brighton in England she didn’t believe me. ‘You’re just saying that to impress me,’ she said in a seductive Slavic accent whilst playing with her hair and blushing slightly. ‘Believe what you want to,’ I replied stoically.

Suddenly a couple of heavily built guards In blue uniforms came in to collect me. As I was led out of the pretty guard’s room she mouthed to me, ‘I’ll never forget you Benjamin from Brighton’ and a small tear ran down her cheek and dripped onto her MVD uniform. I turned to her. ‘Don’t shed a tear for me devushka, I'll be out of here soon enough. These walls cannot hold me.’ 

Me wiping a tear from the female guard's eye

The big guards took me to a small damp room and handed me some clothes I was to change into. They were grey pyjamas and not my style at all. Zero drip in a Russian prison it seemed. Then I was led to another room to collect my bed roll which was basically a thin mattress filled with rough horse hair, a pillow and a rough blanket covered in stains from previous prison nights. I was then led back into the corridor.

A metal door made of thick bars you see on construction sites separated me from the hell I was about to enter. I took a deep breath as we got closer and started to hear the noises from the cell block. This was my first time in prison and I knew I would have to fight to survive should I need to.

Welcome to the jungle

A guard suddenly barked at me in Russian. I didn’t understand his order and without warning a truncheon hit me on the back of neck and another on the back of the leg. I saw black for a second but refused to take a knee in case someone thought I was a BLM supporter. The guard barked again and I as I returned to my senses I realised what he wanted me to do. I was to walk with my head bowed.

‘I am an Englishman old boy’ I said, ‘and we do not bow to anyone but the Queen.’ The guards no doubt confused by my indefatigability and realising I was a feared opponent in any realm of human endeavour just pushed me along the corridor until we reached my cell.

Me 

The door was unlocked by a large set of keys and pulled open. I was shoved inside and the door slammed shut behind me. What I saw was a scene Solzhenitsyn would have recognised.

I've stayed in worse Air BnBs to be honest

A concrete room with a small window high up at one end covered in thick rusty metal bars. A dirty hole in the ground in one corner with an old Soviet sink above it. Surrounding this area was a concrete wall about three feet high to give the prisoner some privacy in which to shit. On the high ceiling was a light which was never going to be switched off, night or day. There were three bunk beds made of the same metal bars that were in the window. A small metal desk was cemented into the ground at one end with some metal benches around it also cemented into the ground. On the wall was a locker with shelves in it for personal belongings. And then there were the prisoners themselves.

David Kutaiski, leader of our cell

Sat on the benches were 4 men of various sizes and complexions all wearing striped vests. To a man they were covered in rough tattoos of stars and churches and shoulder epaulettes. Curled up in the far corner of the cell however was a thin shirtless man. His tattoos were different than the others. A couple of eyes on his waist and some Russian script tattooed on his forehead. He gave me a look I recognised from nights out in Brighton. My bum cheeks instinctively clenched.

My bum cheeks when Cockerel looked at me

I walked over to the bunk beds and threw my roll onto an empty one. It automatically unfurled itself emitting a cloud of dust and a swarm of bed bugs in the process. The guys at the table turned away from their game of cards to watch me.

At this time I have to be honest and say I was somewhat apprehensive about what I was going to do. I had read Sharlamov and and therefore knew that there are rules to Soviet prison life. I didn’t want to do the wrong thing and get off on the wrong foot with my cell mates straight away. Should I go shake their hands? Introduce myself? The decision was taken for me.

Kolya Tambovski. A bloody nice lad

As I prepared my bed I heard one of the men say in a Russian accent from the Caucasus ‘Come join our table for tea.’ I walked over to the table, sitting down next to a man of Georgian complexion. ‘Cockerel, make tea!’ One of them shouted at the man laying in the corner who immediately jumped up and began brewing a kettle.

The four men introduced themselves. There was David Kutaiski from Georgia, a barrel chested man who seemed like the leader of the cell. Vlad ‘the knife’, a lean man covered in scars. Kolya Tambovski who was the oldest and Denis Japonchik ( the Japanese ) who had the eyes of a Buryat. 

Japonchik in his younger days

‘What do they call you?’ Kutaiski asked me. I’m Ben from Brighton I replied.

‘Вen Braitonski listen up’, said Japonchik, turning to me with his grey eyes, ‘What you in here for? Murder? Robbing?’

‘I criticised Putin’ I said.

‘Ah you’re a political, not a thief’ Tambovski said with some barely hidden contempt. I would have to earn their respect to survive I thought to myself. I didn’t want to end up like the guy in the corner.

Cockerel on the day of his arrest

Cockerel brought sugary tea over in metal cups. A husk of bread was taken from the shelf and divided up among the five of us. Cockerel didn’t get tea or bread but instead returned to his damp corner of the cell. I drank and chatted to the guys for an hour about prison life until it was clear my presence was no longer needed at the table and I went and lay down on my bunk.

Me dreaming of doshirak

Just as I was nodding off a little while later the cell door flew open and four guards walked in with truncheons. ‘Cell search!’ one of them barked before they started searching the shelves and bedding for contraband causing a mess. From under one of the benches a guard found a prison crafted pack of playing cards. Suddenly the guards started smacking Kutaiski with a truncheon. ‘We told you about playing cards in here! Now you’ll pay dearly for this Kutaisi!’ Seeing the assault on the cell boss, Vlad suddenly pulled a shank from his shoe and stabbed the attacking guard in the leg and suddenly in the flash of an eye a mass brawl commenced in the cell.

Video footage of the bitch-war in cell 24

More guards poured in through the door and attacked the men I had just an hour before been drinking tea with. Fists and feet flew from all angles. Blood and shards of teeth teeth were splattered up the walls. Even Cockerel was getting involved in the fight, although he did more grinding on the policemen than actually punching them for some reason.

Two dogs demonstrating Cockerel's fighting style

I sat on my bunk thinking if I should help out my cell mates or if I should just stay out of it when suddenly one of the guards in the fight accidentally stepped on my dodgy ankle. ‘Pizdets’ I shouted full of rage. Insulted, he turned and punched me straight in the face. I rose from my bunk and punched him back. Suddenly Blows rained down on me from other guards but I didn’t care. ‘This is the ultimate soviet experience!’ I shouted happily as blows rained down on me.

Vlad the knife. Bloody funny bloke

For half an hour the battle raged. I jumped on the back of a guard who was attacking Tambovski and held him whilst Japonchik punched him unconscious. Prisoners in other cells down the corridor cheered their encouragement and banged the radiators with metal plates in support of us. Eventually we gained the upper ground, the guards were pushed out of the cell and the door was slammed shut.

Through the feeding hatch one of the guards said through a bloodied mouth: 'You were the best fighters in the world.'

'You were better,' Kutaiski replied.

The battle of cell 24 had been hard but despite the odds and the injuries, we had won. They would not dare to search our cell unannounced again.

The five of us sat on the cell benches, bloodied but bonded by victory. Cockerel brewed tea.

Japonchik and the Vori inducting me

‘You proved yourself today Benjamin Braitonski’ they said almost in unison, slapping me on the back. ‘We the thieves in law don’t forget such actions of loyalty.'

That night after the battle as I lay on my bed dreaming of doshirak and nursing a black eye and a sprained ankle, the four guys sat at the table discussing something important which I was not privy to. In hushed tones they talked into the night under the bulb that was never extinguished. When morning came they invited me to join them on the bench.

‘Benjamin due to your help in the bitch-war with the guards yesterday, we are inviting you to join the The Thieves In Law,’ Kataiski said offering me his big bear like paw of a hand. I was to be the first Englishman invited into their brotherhood. It was going to be the start of a big adventure.

To be continued...