The cell door slams behind you.

Come in, buddy, feel at home.

No use standing by the door. You don’t owe anything to anyone here. Nobody has the right to pry into your soul or ask about the reasons that brought you behind bars. In the “places not so remote” excessive curiosity is considered bad practice, so those who intend to live long don’t suffer from such excesses. It is there, upstairs, that cops would go out of their way to get the information out of you. Here, in the cell, we’ll be happy just to know the category of offense and your name to be able to address you. The rest is up to you. You can either keep silent if you feel like it or talk if you want to. Feel free and act as you think is proper.

I don’t know about you, but to my mind there is nothing unusual in the fact that we have met behind bars and not in the box of the opera house. It is absolutely normal for this country. There is hardly a citizen of Ukraine who hasn’t spent at least one night in a cell. And it’s not surprising at all. We were born and grew up in a country that has always been ‘a place not so remote’. Prison is just its miniature replica.

We must have sinned gravely in our past lives to be born in this country. No matter how one looks at our present motherland it does not appear the most attractive area of the once powerful Russian Empire. People here have a very vague idea of what a law-abiding state really means.

Ukraine is not America or Europe, not even Russia. Only a patient of a mental institution can hope for positive changes in this country in the near future. Traditional question for a citizen of a civilized country “How are things?” when addressed to an average Ukrainian sounds stupid and most improper. It’s difficult to think of something more tactless to ask. What’s the point of asking anyway? Can’t you see? The person is still alive, he is all right, no need to ask silly questions. Nobody will tell you the truth anyway.

Arriving behind bars in Ukraine is quite a simple thing. No special efforts are required, no taking the trouble of hard thinking and scheming. The interesting thing is that ‘guardians of the law’ put people to prisons with undisguised pleasure but release them with such evident reluctance as if setting prisoners free is an insult to the civilized humankind.

A few more words about releasing prisoners. It is not just an unforgettable event in a prisoner’s life. It is an epic which starts from the first moments of imprisonment and drags on for years and in some cases decades. Apart from being a very long-winded process it is an extremely costly one as well. Nobody, no matter how world-wise is ever prepared to face such turn of events. So as the famous song by Vladimir Vysotsky has it ”those who survived the cataclysm are in deep pessimism”.

Many people once they find themselves in the cell start literally banging their heads on the wall. I don’t think it helps anyone to think more clearly. Besides, no matter how hard you try prison walls always end up being much stronger than riotous heads of prisoners.

While in prison I saw many different people at the lowest point of their lives. Buried alive in prison cells, deprived of any human rights, tormented by other prisoners normal people slowly turned into badgered clods of human clay. They felt as if life had come to an end; the nicest things like joy, light, love - everything that makes up Happiness, seemed to be in the past and only thick darkness, emptiness and hopelessness lie ahead. There was no life in the eyes of my cell-mates, they were the eyes of the dead.

- Wow! - I told myself. - This place is not for me. Time to get out.

This was the first thing that came to my mind the moment I saw the people I had to share the cell with. They looked very much like a gang of tramps brought to the police station after the usual round-up.

The distinctive feature of my fellow-prisoners was their blind indifference to their fate and health. Many of them had stopped looking after themselves (what for?) and lived a primitive animal life: ate what they were given, relieved nature and lay the rest of the time on their bunks staring at the ceiling. Other prisoners, in contrast, showed remarkable activity pacing non-stop up and down the cell. The flame of pioneer camp-fires seemed to be still burning in their asses. They liked to pose as prison authorities and utter stupid phrases like “Prison is our home” or “There is nothing to do outside prison” to the mute assent and servile nodding of heads.

Most prisoners, however, realized the truth of the opposite: there was nothing to do in prison. They fussed, pushed on and bit their nails nervously. They tried their best but only succeeded in making things worse. Their energy splashed out onto the dirty walls of the cells intensifying the negative climate of the prison.

Practically not a single day passed without somebody going on hunger strike against the tyranny of the prison authorities. Poor naive and trusting creatures! They assumed something could be achieved this way. In this country, where nuclear reactor explosions in the immediate vicinity of the capital pass almost unnoticed, who will pay attention to the hunger strike of a prisoner? Refuses to eat? So what? Let him be hungry. No one really cares to ask what the prisoner is protesting against. No one is going to satisfy his demands. He won’t be set free or given a big box of trotyl to blow up the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Some prisoners were more radically minded and instead of long hunger strikes preferred to cut their veins. I wondered: why would people choose this way of settling their score with life? Suppose hara-kiri is a bit problematic in the insanitary prison conditions. But cutting one’s throat or stabbing it with a sharpened spoon is by far more effective. However, prisoners prefer cutting veins. I think subconsciously they still hope that they will be saved, rebuked as in childhood and certainly be pitied. In fact many are really saved but no one feels sorry for them. Without any anaesthetic or a word of comfort metal staples are put into wrists followed by a few heavy kicks on the kidneys and the prisoner is returned back to the cell. The jailers believe that the more pain is caused to the prisoner when bringing him back to life the less he is likely to make another attempt on his life. The saved ones, however, had a different opinion and continued to look for a simple and more reliable way of quitting.

Not all people can stand the sight of blood, especially if it is their own blood. I discovered that most people are not indifferent to how they die. Writhing in convulsions or choking with blood are not very aesthetic, don’t you agree? Maybe for this reason some prisoners prefer to hang themselves using torn shirts and pants.

Thinking of committing suicide and actually committing it are two different things. Among my fellow-prisoners there was only one who carried out his plan to the very end. He was a tall stocky guy of twenty-five, a bricklayer by profession. He never whimpered or complained, never talked about suicide. For days he would lie on his back staring at the ceiling.

- Are you going for a walk? - we would ask but he would never leave the cell.

Yura, that was his name, was accused of killing his wife on the grouds of jealousy. They used to work together, she as an accountant, he as a bricklayer doing odd jobs on the side for extra income. The two had more than enough money for food and clothing. They were not in a hurry to start a family and their needs were far from extravagant. Yura as a typical working class representative was only concerned to be ‘no worse than the others’.

Every morning he and his wife would go to work together and in the evening come home together. On holidays and weekends they visited relatives and friends. They were a very ordinary couple living a standard life in a standard small apartment.

- We loved each other, you know - Yura once said when we were having tea after the evening call. That night he was wearing a warm hand-knitted sleeveless pullover. - It was her present for our first wedding anniversary, - he added pensively.

It is difficult to judge now if it was just love or something else as well. For Yura a divorce meant not only the loss of the woman he loved; he also had to part with the car and the apartment both of which belonged to her, not him. He had come to Kiev from a small village and had nothing apart from a handsome face and a few years of technical training. They decided to separate on the occasion of their third year together.

- Please understand, Yura, we have to try living apart for some time to sort things out.

It will be better for both of us.

She was sitting in an armchair opposite him sipping champagne. He was silent, a cup of coffee in front of him, a cigarette in the unsteady fingers, a grim stare into the TV screen. The news was not that unexpected for Yura. He knew that for over a year his beautiful wife had been spending a lot of time with her boss, fifteen years her senior. He was aware of that but pretended he was not.

Before going to bed, at about midnight, his wife kissed him gently on the mouth and said softly:

- Thanks for being so understanding.

Yura did not feel like going to bed yet. He followed his wife with indifferent eyes and shuffled in his slippers into the kitchen to look for some sandwiches. Bad luck again - there was no bread left. However, he found a bottle of vodka in the fridge and soon its content was filling Yura’s stomach with pleasant warmth. He doesn’t remember how the axe that was kept in the tool box on the balcony got into his hands. But when he opened the bedroom door he had the axe with him.

His wife was sleeping peacefully, her head on the green toy elephant, her godfather’s Christmas present. Yura tiptoed quietly and stopped at the head of the bed. He was so strong physically that he could have easily broken the bed into pieces with one blow. But at the last moment his strength had failed him.

- Can you believe it? I nearly stopped.

The axe cut the skull but did not kill. Yura shrank back horror-stricken watching his wife choking with her own blood that was slowly spreading on the sheets and blankets. He was frozen with fear but could not take his eyes off the terrible scene. As if in a haze he covered the woman with a woolen blanket and sat down on a chair. The body had been writhing in convulsions for hours as if electric current was put through it. God only knows what Yura had been thinking about that night. In the morning he went to give himself up to the police.

The police officer who was on duty at the Pechersk police station of Kiev smiled broadly and patted Yura on the shoulder:

- Good of you to come and tell us everything! Don’t worry, there will be many more broads, you have your whole life ahead!

After a few words of reprimand the officer asked Yura to come later when he would go off duty. He obviously did not feel like writing a long report, going to the crime site, interrogating, finding out the details. Yura did as he was told. He spent a couple of days in his village and upon return to Kiev went straight to the police station.

That’s how Yura found himself in the cell. Soon he discovered not without a certain surprise that prison was not exactly like what they showed on TV. Outwardly, Yura’s behavior was not different from other prisoners. He told stories from his life, made jokes. Never whined like some others. Only sometimes he would ask weird questions addressed either to himself or to his fellow-…

- Do you think she is waiting for me up there? - he once asked his neighbor, Zhora, excessively active guy, covered from head to foot with red freckles who preferred to visit other people’s apartments in their absence and through the window.

- Are you nuts? - said Zhora taking a toothbrush out of his mouth. - She couldn’t have boasted of being too faithful to you in earthly life. How can you expect her to be loyal in the other world?

- Shut up! - Yura sounded offended. - I know she is, - he said stubbornly. - I have been talking with her all night.

Zhora rinsed his mouth and put the toothbrush back into the case.

- Yura, you found the way to divorce your wife here, on earth, - he smiled. - But how would you divorce her in heaven? I don’t think there is an axe there.

At ten the following morning Zhora was called upstairs for a meeting with his investigator. At about eleven Yura climbed the upper bed to fix the rope. We thought he was going to hang up some clothes to dry. But he hanged himself instead. Yura jumped from the upper bunk bed and I still wonder how the makeshift rope didn’t give way under Yura’s heavy weight. I remember turning round abruptly to a strange and unpleasant sound as if somebody had broken a handful of pencils. That was the fracture of Yura’s cervical vertebrae.

Zhora was more upset than anyone else. By the time he returned to the cell Yura’s body had already been taken away.

- Just my luck! - Zhora couldn’t hide his disappointment. - The most interesting things always happen when I am out.

Our cell was dispersed. I was lucky to get into the same cell with Grigorij Stepanovich, a well-known financier of about sixty whose financial prosperity caused other people insomnia. Uncle Grisha was surprisingly perceptive. As if reading my mind he said:

- Everyone has his own way home. He made his choice, we make ours.

We have to hold out.

I knew what he meant. By then I had my goal clearly defined: to get out of prison with fewest possible losses, mentally and physically fit. Yura disliked prison and found his way of quitting it. Whatever one might think he found his freedom.

I was running my fingers through the beads made of stale prison bread, peering into the faces of my cell-mates. Are we all destined to leave prison walls same way as Yura?

Uncle Grisha’s words helped me to overcome my rigidness. I realized clearly that my way was different. Suicide is for the weak or the sick. I chose life no matter who or what surrounded me.

There is little pleasure in seeing the person you have just been talking to dead. Especially if it happens right in front of you. Death itself is rotten, you can’t get used to it. It always means pain, sharp, piercing, like a mute cry tearing the ear-drums to pieces. All those abstract reflections about death being an integral part of life become absolutely useless when you meet with it face to face.

Behind the barbed wire the nerves are on edge. Any imprudent word or action can cause an outburst among prisoners. Needless to say what the death of a prisoner, even self-imposed, meant for the others. I was aware of that and realized how important it was to keep presence of mind. Any fussiness could only exhaust and wear me out. My mind had to be clear and precise. I badly needed a detailed practical program of survival in the extremal circumstances of imprisonment. Such program was non-existent in prison, let alone outside it. Prisoners acted on intuition knocking their heads again and again on the same prison walls. It could have been easily avoided provided they had an understanding of what was going on. A decision inevitably came to my mind: if a survival program was unavailable I had to work it out myself.

I searched the depths of my mind for any information on survival in extremal circumstances trying to recall how other people had acted in similar situations. My military service experience came in handy alongside with the experience of long-term prisoners and those who were at war or in Stalinist camps. There is no denying that among prisoners there happened outstanding and interesting personalities.

While I was working on my survival program I decided to change my initial plan and write a book about life in prison the way I saw it. I had to change some names and events to avoid any unpleasant consequences to people I had described.

I often wondered if I should postpone writing the book until later when I was out of prison and free. I am sure the book would be much better because it would have been written more clearly and objectively. However, it would be a different book. Besides, I was not sure if after getting out of prison I would want to go, even though in my mind, through that experience again.

Those who had put me behind bars tried their best to eliminate in my heart any hope to be free again. I am writing these notes totally isolated from the outside world. Correspondence and books, apart from the Bible, are forbidden. Meanwhile provocations, false evidence and juggling with facts are everyday attributes of prison life. It is impossible for outsiders to understand what it really was like. Ex-prisoners don’t like to talk about their time in prison. The usual answer to the insistent questions is: “You’ll see when you get there.” Such an answer is not totally meaningless. There are no words capable of describing what a prisoner really feels at the sound of a key in the cell’s lock and metal striking against metal at the end of the prison corridor.