“Land of Prisons”
Brittney Griner in Penal Colony #2 – a “hole” for “particularly dangerous” prisoners
Brittney Griner in a cage in a courtroom during a hearing
© Evgenia Novozhenina / AP / DPA
US basketball player Brittney Griner was transferred to a Russian penal colony. What awaits them there and what people in the region think of the imprisonment.
Penal colony number 2 is set in a landscape of snow-covered forests and swamps. “Prisoners who are considered particularly dangerous usually come here,” says taxi driver Vitaly Dojne, who was himself imprisoned in one of the notorious labor camps in the Russian Republic of Mordovia for six years. The US basketball player Brittney Griner has also been imprisoned here in the village of Jawas for a few days. Dojne is surprised that such a well-known athlete was put “in such a hole”.
Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was sentenced to nine years in prison in August. The Russian judiciary accuses her of drug possession and trafficking because she was picked up at Moscow airport with a vaporizer with a small amount of cannabis oil. Griner says she used it to treat pain in consultation with her doctor.
Her supporters see her as a geopolitical hostage, allowing Moscow to haggle with Washington in the midst of the war against Ukraine. An exchange of prisoners is currently being negotiated.
Colony number 2 a “relatively normal prison”
At the Jawas market, most say they don’t know about the basketball star in the local detention center—if they even speak to the reporter. Svyetlana, a red-haired woman in her 50s, is willing to speak as long as her last name is not given. “The law is the same for everyone, for those at the top as well as for the little people,” she says. “If she goes to jail, she deserves it. If she behaves properly, she will be released early and with a clear conscience.”
The village of Jawas is 400 kilometers south-east of Moscow. It was founded in 1921 when the Soviet Gulag penal camp system was created. To this day, the majority of residents work in the region’s prisons. There are more than 20 prisons throughout Mordovia, which is why the republic is called the “land of prisons”.
Colony number 2 is a relatively “normal” prison by local standards, says Olga Romanova. She heads the organization Russia behind bars, which campaigns for the rights of prisoners. Romanowa is currently living in exile in Germany. Some inmates reported being beaten there, and the working conditions bordered on slavery, she says. “But there are much worse prisons in Russia.” According to her, the pecking order in the women’s camps is not the same as in the men’s.
Basketball player endangered by harassment for several reasons
Romanova assumes that Griner will be treated better as long as Moscow is negotiating a prisoner swap with the United States. “But if the negotiations should be broken off, it is in danger.”
The fact that Griner is “lesbian, American and black” is another cause for concern, according to Romanowa. This makes them a prime target for harassment, as homophobia and racism are rampant in Russian prisons and the US is viewed as a mortal enemy. “It’s good that Brittney Griner doesn’t speak Russian, at least then she doesn’t understand what people are saying about her.”