In the oldest prison in Russia, prisoners sit in the places of Razin and Pugachev

The legendary SIZO 1 in Cheboksary is the oldest operating prison in our country – this year it turned 375 years old. But some experts believe that it is more correct to report age from 1555, in which case it is almost five centuries old. In the near future, the isolation ward will be closed, the prisoners will be transferred to a new one, the construction of which is already underway. A museum will appear on the site of the pre-trial detention center.

But the “near future”, as the employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service joke, may come in 5-7 years. And all this time the insulator will function in the usual mode. The status of “the oldest in the country” does not give him concessions and the right not to comply with the regulations.

In what conditions the prisoners are now sitting in the pre-trial detention center, whether their rights are violated – this was found out by members of the HRC Eva Merkacheva and Igor Pastukhov (our material is a public report on the results of the audit).

– How are you doing? – we ask the prisoner of the oldest prison in Russia.

– In prison as in prison. They feed, treat, guard. Conditions are normal. I’m lucky that I’m here and not in another isolation ward.

– According to legend, Stenka Razin and Emelyan Pugachev were sitting here, – we enlighten the prisoner. “Maybe even in this cell…”

– Wow! Cool. But it would be better if I came here of my own free will on an excursion, and not in handcuffs in a judicial order.

Any visit to SIZO No. 1 in Chuvashia involuntarily becomes an immersion in history (no matter how you find yourself there – as a prisoner, lawyer, investigator or human rights activist). There are many old prison institutions in Russia. For example, the famous Moscow Butyrka is already a quarter of a century old. But neither it, nor any other prison in terms of age can even come close to Cheboksary.

In general, they talk about the two years of the founding of the prison: 1555 and 1647. There is no disagreement here, it’s just that in 1555 it was wooden, burned down, and in 1647 a stone building appeared with walls 82 cm thick (the stone was placed on a solution in which chicken eggs were added) . And the prison owes its creation to Ivan the Terrible, who ordered the construction of the Cheboksary Kremlin as a defensive structure. As usual in Rus’, a dungeon would always appear next to the houses, the church, the trading areas and the voivode’s courtyard. It happened here too.

And then the prison became a transit point – convicts stopped here, who were driven along the infamous Great Siberian Highway. So many Decembrists visited here. But most of the talk among historians is about a possible “visit” here of Stenka Razin and Emelyan Pugachev. According to one of the legends, the Don Cossack and the leader of the peasant rebellion Stenka Razin, together with his brother Frol from the Cheboksary prison, went to Moscow for execution in 1671. According to another, in 1774, Emelyan Pugachev was here, who was also taken to the capital for execution. But is it true – no one can say for sure.

And now centuries have passed, and we are in Cheboksary, at the gates of that same prison, together with the supervising prosecutor and members of the PMC.

“This isolator has only one problem. He is a monument,” one of them remarked. And it was, as it turned out, not a joke. Before we entered the territory, we noticed a beautiful cathedral across the road.

– Here is SIZO No. 1 – the oldest prison in Russia, – says the acting head. – But opposite the temple – the oldest in Cheboksary. They appeared with a difference of only three years. Were always connected with each other in the truest sense of the word – an underground tunnel. Prisoners were led along it to pray.

What is now with this underground passage is not clear. Perhaps it will be dug up (if it is buried), restored and shown to visitors of the future prison museum.

But here we are on the territory of the isolation ward. One of the buildings has a basement where they tried to recreate the atmosphere of a pre-revolutionary prison. Instead of bunks – hay bedding.

“And you check if the prisoners have fresh hay,” members of the local PMC joke. The life of the prisoners of the 16th-19th centuries, of course, was strikingly different from the modern one. Then there were no wash basins or sewage systems (the need was discharged into a wooden barrel). But this certainly does not mean that today it is possible to justify the administration of those prisons where the cells have holes in the floor instead of toilet bowls (and we have seen such in some regions).

There are several buildings in SIZO-1, and each, in fact, is a historical continuation of the previous one. The oldest is where the prisoners sit. There were 146 of them at the time of the check (once it reached 2.5 thousand). On average, about 500 prisoners enter the pre-trial detention center per year. And there are almost 200 employees.

First floor. There are 10 cells here (there are 36 in total in the isolation ward). And they are authentic, that is, as they were originally in the sense that they are the same size and shape. But, of course, repairs have been made dozens of times inside.

We open the first one. Inside, only vaulted ceilings indicate that this is a historical building. However, there is a peculiarity in the toilets (the toilets are located, as it were, on a hill, which looks strange), associated with the sewerage system. Everything else is like in an ordinary pre-trial detention center: iron beds, bedside tables, a table and a bench.

Four prisoners say that the conditions are normal, there is nothing to complain about.

In the other chamber the same picture. It is noticeable that the renovation was recently done, the walls were painted, the ceilings were plastered.

In general, it was logical to expect that in such a centuries-old building there would be traces of dilapidation. But no. Everything, apparently, was done by medieval builders to the conscience. Something, but they knew how to build prisons …

Employees say that for many years they tried to fight the fungus that corroded the walls. He didn’t care at all. And then they picked up a special paint, and the fungus no longer appeared on it.

In the next cell, the prisoners say that they were at the dentist and that there are doctors here and they treat. As we later saw, the medical unit even has a much larger stock of medicines than in the colonies we checked. According to the journals of examinations of prisoners, one can track who and what doctors received, what they prescribed.

– What are your conditions of detention? – we ask the prisoner who sits alone. Turns out he was sentenced to life. He does not agree with the verdict, he asks how to achieve justice. We have explained.

“And everything is fine here,” he says.

It’s time for lunch. Borscht and porridge with meat were not very popular in the cells. And they don’t look very attractive either.

And we keep going. Again, iron doors, behind which one of the famous prisoners must have been sitting. But who exactly? Documents (magazines, camera cards) have not been preserved. They were destroyed during the February and then October revolutions.

On the second floor there are chambers from a later period of construction. But they look the same, only without vaults. TVs and refrigerators are only in half of the cells. Prisoners say they are periodically brought in and taken away.

FROM THE MK DOSSIER: “Since 1842, the prison began to be called the Cheboksary arrest house. Since 1871 – the Cheboksary prison castle. In 1888, the prison acquired the status of a county prison. In 1912 it was called Cheboksary zemstvo arrest house. At that time, prisoners were kept here, whose foreheads were branded with the mark “kat” (which means “convict”) and “thief” (as the one who committed theft). In the Soviet years, the prison was called a pre-trial detention center. It was under the jurisdiction of the GPU, the NKVD, and the MGB in turn. After the transfer of the institution from the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Federal Penitentiary Service, it became officially known as SIZO 1.

In all the cells that we went around, they asked about the attitude of the employees. The prisoners readily answered that no one was beaten or insulted here. “They do not practice such lawlessness,” they said. It’s not like they’d be afraid to say if it wasn’t. And the last suicide was here a long time ago – 7 years ago. Three cells were empty.

“This isolator has only one problem. He is a monument, ”the words came to mind again. God grant that it be true and remain so. We could state that at the time of the inspection no complaints were heard. Of the recommendations that were made – to provide all cells with refrigerators and TVs and improve nutrition.