The leading analyst of the Moscow Federal Penitentiary Service Anna Karetnikova was fired with a scandal: I had to leave

At one time, when Anna was hired by the Federal Penitentiary Service, all this, on the contrary, was welcomed. And in general, then the department hoped with this gesture (after all, the unheard of happened – a human rights activist who had been checking the prison for many years as a member of the PMC was hired) to show the Federal Penitentiary Service “with a human face”. But the tasks are changing, and it seems that the penitentiary system is not afraid to lose face.

Moscow prisoners were orphaned. Anna was the only human rights activist (albeit in uniform) who visited the pre-trial detention center daily and received complaints.

I’ll make a reservation right away: I’ve known Anna for many years, and at one time we were in the same composition of the PMC, we checked the pre-trial detention center and temporary detention center together. These were difficult tests. If you go with Karetnikova, then know that you will not be free before 6-8 hours. She attentively, meticulously listened, peered into everything. And I learned by watching her. For example, here are a few sketches from our first checks with her:

“Why did we spend so much time in this cell? The prisoners say that everything is fine with them,” I asked. “It’s not good at all there,” Anna answered. Did you see the boy in the corner? He is clearly under pressure. And we paid special attention to him and told him that we would come again. After that, the inmates will be afraid to beat him.”

– Anna, do you think this prisoner was beaten? He says he fell.

– Injuries are of such a nature that they cannot be received after a fall.

– And why did we ask to transfer that prisoner to another cell?

– Because it was clear that otherwise he himself would be transferred to a low social status.

Even in the most silent cell, Karetnikova knew how to win over the prisoners, and they began to talk about everything that disturbed them. Thanks to her, prisoners began to trust human rights defenders in principle. And when she put on the uniform, then, perhaps, for the first time they began to trust the employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service. And finally, Anna Karetnikova reconciled human rights activists and jailers, showing by her own example that they should have the same tasks – to help those who are behind bars.

– Anna, how did you end up in prison?

– At that moment, public monitoring commissions were created. Then no one really knew what it was. We needed volunteers who were ready to go into this new and unknown. And since I don’t particularly know how to refuse, I agreed that my candidacy was put forward.

– Before that, as far as I know, did you have experience as an investigator?

— No, I didn’t work as an investigator, I just practiced. I have a legal education (I graduated from the Faculty of Law at the rate of criminology). I practically did not work by profession, so it was immediately clear to me that, unfortunately, at the current moment there was no place for special idealism, and I was an idealist.

– Why was”? Not anymore?

– Now I am also an idealist … But no, in the current conditions, there probably cannot be idealists.

From the very beginning, I took my work in the POC very seriously, because, apparently, it turned out to be in tune with my aspirations and something corresponding to both of my educations (legal and literary). I could help people and I could write about it. It was an important experience.

– The second experience – work in the Federal Penitentiary Service. Now do you regret that all the last years you were not a human rights activist, but an employee?

– No way. On the contrary, I am grateful to my leadership for giving me the opportunity to continue helping those arrested and convicted for so long. I have absolutely no regrets, this is also an invaluable experience that I received while working in the system.

– Did you make any discoveries for yourself when you already worked in the system? What didn’t you expect?

– A difficult question … I learned how the system functions, I began to better understand its troubles and flaws, I tried to make some adjustments to its work. I began to better understand the psychology of employees, why they are like this and not others in some situations, what can be corrected and improved for them.

If earlier I saw what was happening either through the eyes of an observer or through the eyes of my wards (associating myself with them due to empathy), then working in management, I could associate myself with employees.

– Have you succeeded a lot?

– In private specific situations, in helping people, a lot was possible until the very last moment.

On a global level, it seems to me that lately there has been a big rollback from everything that we have managed to achieve. I feel it, and it’s very hard for me. This is also due to a change in the vector that the Federal Penitentiary Service sees as fundamental for itself.

We are moving away from the policy of publicity and openness that the Federal Penitentiary Service declared when I went to work there. We are going in the direction of maximum closeness and demonstration of all sorts of “Potemkin villages”. I’m afraid we’ve been generally moving away lately from the kindness we’ve dreamed of. This is partly due to the general situation – with the problems of supplying things, providing medicines, low wages.

– It seemed to me that at some point you were between two fires. Liberals considered you almost a traitor, they criticized you for becoming part of the system. And the employees were wary of you, they saw you as almost an enemy. “Own among strangers, a stranger among his own.”

— I do not agree. Not all liberals took up arms against me, though many did. And the employees have not seen any enemy in me lately, especially since I tried to solve their problems as well. But the fact that I remained a foreign element for the FSIN system is unequivocal.

– What is it connected with?

– With the change in the policy of the Federal Penitentiary Service, which I spoke about. That is, any coverage of what is happening within our walls, including positive, has become unacceptable. I wrote mostly positive things. But without shadow, there is no light. And I cannot write that SIZO No. 4 is as beautiful as, say, SIZO No. 5. Any publications were perceived with hostility. Where does it come from? Of course, from above, because the system is vertical.

– I know that half a year ago, in the Moscow pre-trial detention center, your book “Route” about your activities when you were in the PMC was banned. Moreover, I even saw the corresponding document, which was sent to the isolation wards.

Yes, they banned it, removed it from the libraries, removed it from the cells. Naturally, they caused the opposite effect: the prisoners began to hide it from the eyes of employees and at the same time appreciate and distribute it more.

– What other complaints did you have?

– From time to time they began to call me to the department of my own security (I was already afraid that I would be there more often than at work). Questions were asked in two directions. The first is just blogging, whether that is covered by my job description. And the second is dedicated to the fact that I brought various things to the pre-trial detention center for distribution to prisoners. It was about glasses, notebooks, pens and, for some reason, threads. Here are the four items.

I was warned before by employees that they were required to report – what, to whom and under what circumstances I gave. To their credit, they, on the contrary, tried to avert trouble from me: “Since this is the case, let’s inspect and give back to those under investigation what you bring.”

But, apparently, there were scammers. When I was interrogated in the OSB, they called specific dates and places: “We have confirmed facts that you gave glasses to such and such a prisoner in such and such a pre-trial detention center.”

– Why did they care about glasses the most?

– Not only glasses. At the same time, according to the Internal Regulations, the obligation to issue paper and pens for writing statements, as well as threads, lies with the administration. But in most cases, we simply don’t have anything like that in the pre-trial detention center. No funds are allocated for this. First of all, I tried to make sure that we (the employees) comply with the legal requirements in this regard and give what people are supposed to. That is, I tried to eliminate the violation on the part of the administration of the pre-trial detention center.

– Maybe you didn’t like your analytical notes that you wrote based on the results of the checks?

– I’m not sure that these notes fell into the central office of the Federal Penitentiary Service. They were written in the name of my direct supervisor in the Moscow office. But, of course, if I wrote on the blog that we don’t have something, then it acted defiantly, like a red rag on a bull. Because we are all obliged to say that everything is fine with us, there are no complaints, there is enough of everything. And prisoners suffer from this approach.

– Is the ONC paying attention to this?

– Unfortunately, the new composition of the PMC did not prove itself. Often the prisoners complained that no members of the PMC came to them, and they had no one to turn to but me. They were very upset when they found out that Andrey Vladimirovich Babushkin had died, they were very worried that you were no longer a member of the PMC.

I’ll give you an example. We have the most difficult pre-trial detention center No. 4, the most overcrowded. There are many problems in every cell. And it is truly surprising that, as a rule, members of the PMC wrote in the journal of visiting the PMC of this detention center that there were no complaints or applications.

– How did you understand that criminal prosecution is possible against you?

– I was told about this by the staff of the Office. They said that they were dissatisfied with me in the “higher spheres”, that there were many questions from the OSB, the prosecutor’s office. And the very next day, I was asked questions in the RSD, which showed that they were trying to find abuse of official authority in my actions.

The next day, I was suspended from work and simply not allowed into pre-trial detention center No. 1. I asked my boss a question, he answered something indistinctly. But at that moment I realized that he was unlikely to be able to solve something, since it was not he who was dissatisfied with me, but these very “higher echelons”.

I am still strongly impressed by the arrest of Kravchenko, the doctor of the Matrosskaya Tishina hospital, who certainly had nothing to imprison.

“The good news is that the bribery charges against him were dropped. It turns out that justice is possible.

– But he still has an article for exceeding official powers. I think it would be charged to me. Therefore, I went to the station, got on the next train and left Moscow.

“Are you really afraid of the prison where you spent more time than any other prisoner?”

– Not afraid. But since there are already so many people there now, my being in the role of prisoners will only increase the burden on the staff. However, they probably would have put me in Lefortovo, fearing that the employees of other pre-trial detention centers would not have put me in sympathy for me. We do not like to put employees in the places where they worked so that they do not intersect with former colleagues.

– What are you going to do now?

– To be honest, I have absolutely no idea yet, because I still live in prison, I dream about it. In the head of the unfinished business that was. So far, I am still in this prison, she did not let me go, and I do not know when she will let me go. And it is especially hard that with all the threats I had to leave the country, which I was not going to do. If I had not been suspended, I would have continued to work until the very end, until I was sent to prison.

Are you talking about unfinished business?

– Well, for example, one guy (I found him before leaving) was thrown from cell to cell, they wanted something from him. But it seems that the head of the pre-trial detention center promised to solve all the issues and figure out who is extorting money there again.

The story with Kurbatov from the economic detachment of SIZO No. 7 is not over yet. About whom in one popular telegram channel they wrote that he was from an orphanage and that he died because allegedly rich prisoners used him as their slave. Muddy history. I didn’t know about this telegram channel, but for some reason the OSB decided that I “leaked” the information.

— What? After all, in the end he turned out to be not an orphan, and in general he is alive, I found out.

– That’s it. My father, mother, sister of the “orphans” call me. They dream that if there is a minimum opportunity, he would remain in his 7th detachment and from there he would then apply for parole (his deadlines have come up).

– If now they say that you are a traitor, what would you answer these people?

“I wouldn’t answer. What for? What did I betray? Whom? Betrayed the system? No, I applied for resignation at the moment when the system itself decided to get rid of me.

Did I betray the prisoners? It seems not, because I was suspended from work, and I do not believe that I would be returned. Still, this is a trend, a vector. The system wants to be closed, it does not need external people, and the defeat of the PMC speaks of this. And I just got next.

I hope that my experience and my knowledge will be of some use at least in the future. I believe that sooner or later, openness will become acceptable again in the Federal Penitentiary Service of the future and we will again stomp towards the Era of Mercy.