Prisoner OG 98/3

Kommersant visited the correctional facility where Platon Lebedev is doing his
Yesterday, the medical office of the Correctional Facility of Minimum Security No.3 in Harp for a first time received from the attorneys Evgeny Baru and Konstantin Rivkin the medicines for inmate Platon Lebedev. And guards arrested Kommersant's photo reporter Vasily Shaposhnikov, when he tried to make a shot of the fence.

Uniformed Hat

In the morning, attorneys Baru and Rivkin went to the market. They were looking for a hat for Platon Lebedev. This task was not simple, however. In the correctional facility there was no hat of the right size for Platon Lebedev. The lawyers were permitted to buy a hat and to give it to the inmate, but the hat should meet all necessary standards. It cannot be from expensive fur. It has to be black and not tall -- so inmate Lebedev while standing in the row would not look different than other inmates. In stores and markets of the village Harp there was no such hat. However, the prison doctor took the medicines for Lebedev, which for some reason Moscow prison refused to take. The doctor signed for the medicines and promised to give them to Lebedev every time when he would write a request for the medicine. In other words, in order to get a pill the inmate should ask a written permission.

After long negotiations with the head of the correctional facility Alexander Zadorozhny, the attorneys received permission to send a watch and shaving safe razor to Lebedev. Also, the attorneys could buy a TV, but they cannot give it directly to the inmate, but to the whole 12th Regiment, where Lebedev would be living and working. Also, the lawyers have a right to subscribe to newspapers and magazines for Platon Lebedev. On the local post office Baru they subscribed for the inmate several political and entertaining publications, as well as a collection of Japanese crosswords, which Lebedev likes a lot.

Problematic Prisoner

"We subscribed the newspapers and magazines for you for the first quarter of 2006," Attorney Baru told his client through the glass during the evening meeting.

"Why did you get so greedy?" asked Lebedev from behind the glass. "Why only for one quarter?"

The lawyer just shrugged his shoulders. This short subscription probably shows the resolve of the attorneys to get Platon Lebedev to some other correctional facilities in a warmer place.

Then, the lawyers started to show Platon Lebedev through the glass some documents. They were pressing papers against the glass and Lebedev was reading them. Especially he was interested by the statement of Vladimir Putin. For easier reading Lebedev took off a temporary hat made from the felt.

"You look like a skin-head," Baru said.

The lawyer complained to the head of the correctional labor facility Zadorozhny that it is very difficult to work like that, when he had to press every document to the glass for his client to read. And the head of the prison showed lawyers a scale model of tank and self propelled cannon artfully made from the semi-precious stones and also complained. First of all, the prison head complained that it takes a lot of time for upbringing a good master with the stones. Unfortunately, today's prison terms are less and less. Second, he was complaining that he would like to provide normal conditions required by the law for the meeting with the attorneys' client (a separate room and a desk), but he doesn't have neither. Baru had even impression that Zadorozhny is not really happy with appearance of inmate Lebedev --there are too many problems from him in correctional facility and in the village as well. And the main problem is the journalists.

The Guarded Territory

Yesterday, for instance, the photo reporter of Kommersant Vasily Shaposhnikov got up early and went to Harp hoping to make good shots there. In the entrance to the village Shaposhnikov made a shot of the pole with the plaque "Harp -Northern Lights -Welcome." In the village he made a shot of the fence with the barbed wire and then another fence like that. Actually, it was the same fence only the long one. Shaposhnikov decided to make a third shot of the same fence, but, this time, it was a mistake. He took a position next to a indiscrete fiv-story building. However it was not a residential apartment building but the local office of Federal Penitentiary Service. There was a security camera. Actually all the houses in Harp have these security cameras.

A patrol arrived immediately and asked Shaposhnikov to get out of the car. The cab driver had o get out as well and the patrol convoyed both of them to the entrance of the correctional facility. The cab driver was complaining that he gets paid for the time and for that reason he can't go to jail, so he was quickly interrogated first and then released.

The interrogation of Vasily Shaposhnikov was enthusiastic.

"Are you first time in Harp?" the officer was asking.

"No, we were here yesterday," said photo reporter.

It was true. We came to the village yesterday to the local writer Pyotr Kozhevnikov and asked about the place. Shaposhnikov, unfortunately, did not remember name of the writer.

"Who did you visit? What was the goal of the visit?"

"I don't remember, some sort of guy. The correspondent was talking to him and I left because they were smoking there too much."

"Tell us the number of the house and the number of the apartment."

"I don't remember," Shaposhnikov answered. "Honestly, the cab delivered me there."

"Do you remember what the floor was, at least?"

Shaposhnikov didn't.

While answering the questions of the officer, Shaposhnikov named me, and gave my name and my address in hotel. Also, the Kommersant photo reporter said that the attorneys of Lebedev were traveling with us in one train and they live in the same hotel too, but he couldn’t remember the names of the lawyers.

The photographer was allowed to make a phone call. He called me:

“Valery, I was arrested. Now, I am with Lebedev in the same jail. Come, get me out.”

I went to save the comrade. And the officer decided that there is not much of a use of Shaposhnikov, so he started to tell him what to write on the explanation paper so he wouldn’t get criminally charged.

“Write that you came without any preparation and made shots from unprepared earlier points,” the officer suggested. “Otherwise, it might look as the prepared operation. Write that you did not have an agreement with the cab driver how to drive, or it would look like a conspiracy planned by the group of people.

First, they wanted to transfer photo reporter to the local police precinct, but then, the senior officer came and ordered Shaposhnikov released because of his first time being arrested. According to the photographer description, the senior officer was Zadorozhny himself.

Four hours after I arrived to the gates of the correctional facility. Shaposhnikov was brought to the gates by a mean-looking officer. He told me: “This is specially guarded territory. There are dangerous criminals kept in here who are doing 25 years. Photography is considered as a preparation for escape and can be pretty heavily prosecuted. Do not try to shoot again. There are patrols and cameras all over here.

We got in the car. Elderly cab driver turned his head to Shaposhnikov and asked him: ”So, sonny, you did your time? Congratulations. I have a bag in the back sit. There is some food there. Help yourself.”

by Valery Panyushkin

Kommersant, 11.2.2005