"Disgust disappears, but there is no shame": Kira Yarmysh about 25 days in the women's chamber
In late May, press secretary Alexei Navalny Kira Yarmysh detained, accusing of organizing the rally "He is not a king to us" on the eve of Vladimir Putin's inauguration, and sent to a special reception center for 25 days. Having served time, Kira told us about the administrative arrest, hygiene and leisure in the women's cell.
In the dining room each camera is taken separately. Balanders, that is, those who distribute food, are usually also from among those arrested - they are offered to work in exchange for the opportunity to go to the shower every day (it is put once a week) and more often make phone calls. If there is no one who is willing, then the police have to work there.
Every day you sign a piece of paper that you have eaten for 136 rubles 95 kopecks: you always eat for the same amount. For breakfast, give porridge. In the dining room I most often just took boiling water, brought it in a bottle to the cell and brewed tea to drink it all day. This was a great advantage of my special receiver, because in Biryulyovo tea was given along with food, which was passed through the feeder at the door, boiling water was nowhere to take.
In general, the food there is not as terrible as one might think. It is even quite diverse, the soup is new every day. Probably, the food is like a hospital one. But always everything is either over-salted or under-salted. If you do not eat meat, then you can eat this food too, just ask them not to put it. Once I was brought to dinner, but by that time all the food was over, apparently, those who laid it out, did it just by eye. The police were terribly excited, several people offered me their lunch, but everyone was interested in the main thing - would I write a complaint about this situation, because the complaints are very scary for them, this is a big problem for them.
After breakfast, they take you back to the cell. Then a detour: the clerks pass all the cameras, ask how you are doing, if there are any wishes. I usually didn't have them. And then you left to yourself, you do nothing. All that awaits you during the day is lunch by the same principle, walk and dinner. The walk takes place in the courtyard. This is a walled space. The yard is long but narrow, about three meters wide. Top grill and glass roof. This summer is just a steam room. In the courtyard there is one shop that can be moved so as not to sit in the sun. In winter, when snow falls on the roof, blue twilight is always in the yard, so it's hard to call it a street. They walk, like eating, also in the cells. Since almost the entire arrest I was serving alone, I just went out with a book, I didn’t care, I read in the cell or in this yard.
There are still calls - they put 15 minutes a day. To do this, they give you your phone, which all the rest of the time is in a bag in the storage chamber. He is taken when you are brought to a special receiving room. The calls are also punctually, so if there are ten people in your cell, everyone will call at the same time too. These 15 minutes you can simply use the phone, respond to email or check social networks. We (employees of the Anti-Corruption Foundation) do not take personal phone numbers with us for security reasons so that they do not lie in the police all day without supervision. I had a simple push-button telephone. I called mostly mom and colleagues from whom I had to find out something or ask them to bring it. Although in general they came to me quite often.
With visits, such a system: during one of your terms, one person can come to you once for one hour. It seems like it should be a relative, but, as far as I know, this is not very strictly monitored: they told a story about a neighboring cell, where a man under arrest could not decide who to call to the special receiving room, his wife or his mistress. The mistress turned out to be either faster, or more impudent, and she came herself. Therefore, he had to call his wife and say: "No, no, you do not come, I’ll go out in five days." If you have a public defender and a power of attorney is issued for him, he can visit you an unlimited number of times.
Most often, people find themselves in a special receiving station for driving while intoxicated or without rights. In my cell for 25 days there were three of them. There was another girl who tried to steal two bottles of brandy from the store, she was given three days. Another girl, according to her, beat a policeman - she was given five days. It was funny to listen to this, because I sat for 25 days at tweet. Kira Meyer was also sitting with me, this is an instagram model, about her “Medusa” even wrote that she was put in jail for 318th (the use of violence against the authorities). When she was detained, it turned out that her rights had been revoked, but this did not prevent her from driving for the previous nine months. When she was arrested, she scratched the policeman’s hand.
In the cell can be smoked. I do not smoke, but overall it was tolerable. When I drove in, there were five people in the cell, three of them were smoking, but they were smoking through the window. Before the first time I was in the camera, I had some images from a movie or books, I thought about how I would need to behave. But in reality, the camera in a special receiver looks like a very cheap pioneer camp or a bad hostel. All these women were quite pleasant, there was something to talk about with them. In addition to violations with driving, there was one woman who did not pay child support to her child, despite the fact that she was deprived of her parental rights four years ago. For all this time only one girl was sitting with me, who had been in a colony before, she was serving a term for theft. All the rest even under administrative arrest turned out for the first time.
I was surprised that almost everyone I met there is embarrassed that they are there, they don’t tell their young people about it, many don’t tell their parents because they find it humiliating. To me, since I was there for other reasons, it did not seem demeaning.
In the chamber there are bunk beds. In general, it is important for me to leave on which mattress I sleep, but then I did not think about it. Again, everything is known in contrast, in the special receiving room in Biryulyovo the pillows were so thin that they had to be folded four times, they were like a blanket in thickness. This time I was more embarrassed by the bedding: they give you a pillow case and two sheets, but they are small and thin, they cannot be tucked under the mattress, they instantly roll off. The next day I was brought bed linen, so this problem was solved. It can be transmitted.
You cannot transfer dried fruits to a special receiver, but no one explains why. Only apples can be made of fruit - it turns out that it is possible to pump up alcohol in all other fruits. By the same logic, it is allowed to transfer carrots, but cucumbers and tomatoes are not.
I didn’t assume at all that they would arrest me, so I hadn’t collected any bags for this case. But in our foundation this has already been more or less worked out. After the court’s decision, my colleagues went to the store and bought me everything I needed, which can be transferred to the special reception center, plus or minus. Although it seems to me, it’s time for us to make a memo where it will be written that it is absolutely meaningless to transfer - for example, aluminum cups are not accepted there, it will just lie in a bag in the locker room.
The most useful is rubber sneakers for the soul, because they don’t want to stand there with bare legs. Still need sweatpants and t-shirts. From food - sweets and doshiraks, although they are not accepted everywhere. And water - in the cells there is no drinking water. The problem is that for the whole period of arrest there is a limit on the weight of the transfer: no more than 30 kg can be handed to you. When you have 15 days of arrest, it is still normal, when more is more difficult. Some shifts of the Special Receiver employees consider bottled water per kilogram, some not. In my case, the water was not counted and I brought it enough. Some shifts weigh books - this is also a problem, because they often weigh a lot.
I was given a comb, but it turned out that for some reason the brush is also impossible, you can only comb. At the same time, my cellmates had brushes, because they were “settled” in other shifts. All cosmetics and hygiene products should be in transparent packages, so at first I was allowed to take only shower gel from the bag, but no hand cream and deodorant.
The toilet is located inside the chamber - it is a hole in the floor, fenced off by a screen. The squeamishness quickly disappears, but another thing is that my shame did not disappear. It was awkward for me to use the toilet myself. Why it is impossible to make at least a toilet in the chamber, for me a big mystery. But on the other hand, this toilet in the cell is much more decent than the toilets in the ATS where I was. There is even scary to go. In general, police cells for administrative detainees - this is perhaps the most terrible. In the chamber where I was, there is nothing at all except a small elevation on the floor, covered with planks, on which you can sit or lie down. There is practically no light there either. And nothing is heard, just a stone capsule. To get to the toilet, you need to knock on the door for a long time and continuously, so that at least someone will hear you. Once I did not open the hour. On the other hand, I had a feeling that the policemen treated me still quite well, because I am a girl and in politics. I don’t even know how they would react to a drunken migrant without a passport.
Shower in a special receiver, as I said, is laid once a week. In the summer it is quite unpleasant. But on the whole, the officers of the special detention center meet women: if you ask to take a shower, you will most likely be allowed. I managed to go to the shower once every two days. But every time you humbly ask for it, and you can be refused every time.
Nail scissors, nail files - it's all impossible. If you suddenly got a razor, then it is stored in your bag, and before you go to the shower, you need to ask to get it. Well, if you forgot to ask him, then return for him will not work. You need to keep all this in mind.
The hardest thing is that time goes there in a completely different way, not like here, much slower. Hard to do nothing. If you choose to sit with someone or one, then it is easier for me alone. I enjoy reading. During my arrest, I read the last Zygar, Tobol, Jun Li, a book on art history, Nabokov in English. But reading at some point is annoying. Also in this special receiver is a centralized radio. Each camera has a radio point, closed by the grid, it can not be turned off or change the volume. Radio is turned on at ten in the morning and turned off at ten in the evening, and there is simply no chance of not listening to it. At first, I thought that there was nothing worse than Russian Radio, then it turned out that there was also Radio Chanson. When they turned on "Business FM", I was delighted - the news is the same. My inmates began to bang on the door, demanding to switch "these terrible boring news." But then I learned that this radio is no better: the news is there every fifteen minutes, but they are very rarely updated, and you listen ten times the same. Being in silence is almost impossible. True, earplugs save the situation a little.
As for the good, in a sense it’s really a reboot, you have plenty of time to think about something or write down your thoughts.
I agree that earlier, after large uncoordinated rallies and other political activities, mostly men were fined and arrested, but now the situation has changed. I think that in our case this is simply due to the activity of women in the Navalny campaign, we had many female coordinators. That is, if the task is to block the work of the headquarters, then the coordinator will have to be arrested, regardless of whether he is a woman or a man.
I have been working as press secretary for Alexei Navalny for four years. Before that, I worked in the press service of the Pushkin Museum, then in the press service of Utair. She studied at MGIMO, enrolled in the "Clever Man and Clever Man." One of my games was judged by Dmitry Medvedev, it was some kind of anniversary year of the program. I wanted to work at the Foreign Ministry, because I wanted to go to work in Africa. I already wrote a diploma about rallies.
If I were asked a question, why do I do all this at all, I would answer: it seems to me that this is my civic duty. If in our country there is a turnover of power, then all of this will only be better.
