Founder of Pussy Riot on experience in Russian prison

Brut America

"They treat you as their property. They treat you as their slave."  This former inmate and founder of Pussy Riot spoke out about her experience in the Russian prison where Brittney Griner spent 10 months ... Here's what Nadya Tolokonnikova told us.  Thanks to PussyRiot.

Transcript

00:00They would just call me a witch, a whore, a slut.

00:04And so I would imagine that being a person of color,

00:07being a queer woman, and also not being able to speak the language,

00:13it created all sorts of difficulties for Britney.

00:26So you wake up at 5.30 in the morning,

00:28they scream, get up, f***ing whores.

00:32And that's how your day starts.

00:33It's not just about living conditions,

00:35but it's also about the prison guard's attitude to a prisoner.

00:39They treat you as their property.

00:43They treat you as their slave.

00:45And this is what they tell you openly in your face when you enter the facility.

00:50It's something that stays with a person for their whole life.

00:59It's basically living 24-7 in a boot camp.

01:10You wake up, start cleaning everything.

01:13Everything has to be sparkling clean.

01:16If the guard comes in, finds a little bit of dust on the doorknob,

01:23then everyone is going to get punished.

01:25So you just stand outside freezing cold for five hours in a row.

01:31They tell you, you need to create me a f***ing summer b***h.

01:36You need to remove the snow and bring hot water and salt to unfreeze the ice.

01:47So it appears like this is summer.

01:49You go to breakfast, which is a terrible rotten food,

01:53because everything is so corrupted.

01:54They just pocket all the money and they feed prisoners with just trash.

02:01Then you go to a factory, which is basically a sweatshop.

02:07You have to work there from 12 to 16 hours a day.

02:13Sometimes you don't have breaks if you don't fulfill enough quota.

02:18And quotas are really, really high.

02:20For the most part, you produce police uniform and military uniform.

02:26Medical help in prison practically does not exist.

02:31And living conditions are horrible and terrifying.

02:34The goal of the prison administration is not to give you a second for yourself

02:40to actually work on your mental health.

02:46This is time that you just simply don't have.

02:51I couldn't believe that just for a simple, nonviolent art protest action,

03:07you can actually go to jail for seven years, because that was what we were facing.

03:12I realized that it starts getting real when it was two months

03:17and there was no signs of us getting out of it.

03:31Definitely being anyhow different creates all sorts of difficulties in penal colony.

03:38I would imagine that being a person of color,

03:41being a queer woman and also not being able to speak the language,

03:46it created all sorts of difficulties for Brittany.

03:55So happy for her and her family, because that place in Mordovia is actually a hell on earth.

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