The case of the doctor: what is the ex-head of the hospital “Matrosskaya Tishina” Kravchenko on trial for?

This story began a year ago. The arrest of the head of the only prison hospital in Moscow, Alexander Kravchenko, shocked, without exaggeration, all prison doctors. Kravchenko was not just a boss, but he himself treated difficult patients. Kravchenko did his best in the cramped conditions of the Matroska Tishina hospital. And there is no MRI, CT, and in general any diagnostic equipment, except for ultrasound, there are not enough doctors and orderlies, medicines, the wards require emergency repairs, periodically breaks through the sewer pipe (which is why there is a stench), the elevator does not work (seriously ill prisoners are dragged around the floors on the hands), etc..

Kravchenko is convinced that a seriously ill prisoner should have a chance to either survive, or at least die in a home (and not prison) environment. I note that this is exactly what the law guarantees: there are two lists of diseases approved by the Decrees of the Government of Russia No. 3 and No. 54. The first contains a list of ailments that prevent detention, the second – serving a sentence. There is a difference in how the examination is carried out according to these Resolutions: according to the “third” it is carried out in a civilian hospital by free doctors, according to the “fifty-fourth” – in the FSIN system by prison doctors. But the main thing is that in each case the final decision is made by the court.

And here is how events developed in the Kravchenko case.

On October 26, 2021, the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the city of Moscow initiated a criminal case under Part 3 of Art. 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, part 1 of Art. 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in relation to unidentified officials. They, according to investigators, received bribes for the issuance by medical commissions of conclusions on the identification of diseases in four convicts and four remand prisoners, which prevented the serving of sentences and detention.

All eight inmates were released, as the security forces believed, illegally. And the investigation also believed that unidentified officials placed prisoners in the hospital “in the absence of grounds for this, thereby improving the conditions of their detention.”

In fact, it is unlikely that the prison hospital can be considered an “improvement”, because the conditions in the Matrosskaya Tishina hospital are, in fact, the same as in the pre-trial detention center. The wards in the prison hospital are ordinary cells, and some of them look much worse than in individual isolation rooms. It turns out that they “improved the conditions of detention” by simply treating them? But even this seems debatable, because the capacity of this hospital for the treatment of serious diseases is minimal.

Be that as it may, on January 18, 2022, Alexander Kravchenko was detained. It was he who turned out to be those “unidentified persons” (except for him, no one was identified, although searches were carried out at the homes of several doctors and the head of the Medical Unit of the Federal Penitentiary Service).

I remember the first time I saw Kravchenko in the temporary detention center on Petrovka. The doctor was completely bewildered. He could not believe that he could be arrested on the basis of the denunciations of one of his subordinates and the report of the “curator” of the prison hospital, with whom he had a protracted conflict.

Kravchenko did not believe in guilt. But the management, it seemed, quickly “surrendered” it. So they said in the management that, they say, “there is no smoke without fire.”

And then the smoke began to dissipate.

Investigators could not get confessions from Kravchenko. Find evidence of bribery too. As a result, the heaviest article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “fell off”. But there were “exceeding” and “abuse of power” in 8 episodes (eight inmates).

And then an accident happened! The investigation unexpectedly found out that Kravchenko did not conduct an examination of the four defendants, because, according to the law, he did not even have the right to do so. Examination according to Decree No. 3 is carried out by civilian doctors. They tried to impute that he sent prisoners to the commission to the free hospital without sufficient grounds. But if so, then the civil commission should have recognized that these people do not have diseases that prevent detention.

“The investigation put forward a version that free doctors could have been involved in the crime,” says a friend of Kravchenko. “However, the examination carried out on each of the decisions of the commission proved that all prisoners had serious diseases included in the list. That is, the commission gave the correct conclusion on them.

As a result, four episodes with prisoners were removed from the criminal case. What’s left? Only episodes with four convicts. Their examination took place in the hospital “Matrosskaya Tishina” under the chairmanship of Kravchenko.

Who are these patients? Their names are known – Goryunov, Nazarov, Rubinov, Tsifirov. Two of them were diagnosed with a brain tumor. Another has a heart defect. I do not name names, as this reveals a medical secret. But I can tell you about Tsifirov in detail, because he agreed to this.

We, human rights activists, have been following the story of the former investigator Tsifirov for many years. He served his sentence in the Mordovian colony. At each meeting of the Public Council of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, a well-known film producer, member of the PC, Yuri Mityushin, delivered a fiery speech. Tsifirov was his ward.

“He had a stroke in the Mordovian colony,” Mityushin said. – He stopped moving. Some people offered the mother to pay 2 million rubles for the release of her paralyzed son. That one has no money. She turned to me. I made a fuss. But the Mordovian prison doctors refuse to release him due to illness!

Finally, after Mityushin’s demands, Tsifirov was brought to Moscow to be examined at the Matrosskaya Tishina hospital. It didn’t happen quickly, I must say. We saw Tsifirov, who was in a wheelchair. He complained of pain, that they could not cure him and did not want to release him. I remember how we were interested in Kravchenko: “Why is he not examined in any way?” Well, he testified to his misfortune …

Mityushin is dead. Tsifirov’s mother was taken abroad for treatment.

What happened to the other three?

I managed to find Viktor Goryunov.

– I received 5 years in prison by sentence and stayed to serve my sentence in the SIZO No. 7 detachment, – says Victor. – He served almost 4 years, the term for parole (parole) was already suitable for me. But here, apparently, against the background of stress or something else, the muscles began to fail. It was difficult to walk and even chew.

I am a former athlete, but here I lost weight from 120 to 70 kg. For the last month (before I was taken to the hospital), I didn’t even drink anymore – the water went into my lungs. And in SIZO No. 7 they dragged me to the last. Then they were sent to the Matrosskaya Tishina hospital.

Kravchenko ordered me to be transported to the city intensive care unit (he actually saved my life by doing this). They pumped out, rescued. And when I was returned to SIZO No. 7, the management initiated my release due to illness. They understood that I could not work and generally needed serious medical care. And Kravchenko was not even on the commission that made the decision. There were 8 or 9 doctors there.

Already at liberty, I underwent a course of treatment, now I feel good. But I don’t work. They do not take anywhere with my illness. And then suddenly I was called by the investigation. I have been with them three times. They inquired whether Kravchenko took money for his release. I will not blame anyone. I was surprised to learn that the episode with me was included in the final accusation.

The story of the convicted Nazarov is also interesting. He was given a year in prison for petty theft (before that, he had already been involved more than once, so the court sentenced him to a real term). A man has a number of diseases associated, let’s say neatly, with his lifestyle. One of them falls under the List of diseases that prevent serving a sentence.

Nazarov was brought from the court to the pre-trial detention center, from where the man was sent to the Matrosskaya Tishina hospital. Medics tried to get him to his feet, but in vain. As a result, he was examined – otherwise there were not many chances to survive on the road in the “Stolypin carriage”.

Whether Nazarov is alive now is not clear, I did not manage to get through to him. But here’s what is clear: firstly, the person had a short term, he would have been released so long ago. Secondly, given his low social position, he could hardly offer a bribe.

Kravchenko, during a single interrogation, said that these people would have died in a hospital due to the impossibility of rendering assistance to them. They needed specialized treatment, which is impossible to provide in the SIZO hospital.

“And you know what kind of absurdity they came up with here? – says lawyer Dmitry Roshchin. – In the accusation under the article “abuse of official powers”, the motive is indicated that he “falsely understood the instructions of the management on the distribution and reduction of the number of convicts held in FKU SIZO-1 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in Moscow” and, wishing “to receive praise and encouragement from the management , promotion” initiated medical examinations in order to release prisoners from punishment.

But the head of SIZO-1 was never the head of Kravchenko. And the decrease in the number of prisoners in SIZO-1 does not affect the assessment of Kravchenko’s work. Kravchenko could not receive praise from the head of SIZO-1, in whose subordination he had never been, and promotion in the service did not depend on the opinion of the head of SIZO-1. He worked at the Federal Penitentiary Service for more than 12 years, had many awards, and actually set up the work of the “Hospital” branch.

The motive for “exceeding official powers” was that allegedly Kravchenko wanted to “enlist support from the remand prisoner, who enjoys unspoken authority among the criminal element.” Why did Kravchenko need authority in the underworld? Unless we assume the unthinkable: he knew in advance that he would be imprisoned, and prepared the ground for his comfortable stay behind bars.

Sounds like nonsense, I agree.

Moreover, FSIN officers never sit with the general mass of prisoners. Kravchenko was immediately placed in the federal pre-trial detention center “Kremlin Central”, where there are no criminal movements and everyone is kept under the same conditions.

There are two remarkable moments in this story that generally characterize the work of the investigation.

The first is pressure on doctors who were Kravchenko’s subordinates and were members of the commission. They were required to testify that Kravchenko actually forced them to make “unfounded and objectively unverified diagnoses” and to sign medical reports in relation to Goryunov, Nazarov, Rubinov, Tsifirov. But they insisted that Kravchenko did not exert any influence on them, and he was not even present during the medical examination of Goryunov (he was on vacation).

The second is pressure on Kravchenko himself. The prison doctor has seen a lot during his years of work in the pre-trial detention center. But even he gave up at the moment when the investigator put forward an ultimatum: either he is recognized under 285 and 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, or he will return 290 of the Criminal Code, and even in the sixth part of it (especially large size).

As a result, the doctor agreed that he did not control the completeness of the necessary examinations of persons from among the special contingent indicated in the charge. It was this that was later presented in such a way that it turned out that the doctor allegedly confessed to everything.

Throwing a person behind bars today seems to be as easy as shelling pears. And neither past merit, nor a good name, nor the absurdity of a motive count. And the notorious “no smoke without fire” will sound …

When this happens to your colleagues or acquaintances, ask yourself the question: have you seen this fire? And not the fact that the smoke will soon dissipate.