"In summer, it's like a greenhouse." A former prisoner spoke about the new pre-trial detention center near Minsk
At the end of April, the pre-trial detention center-1 at Valadarskaha in Minsk was disbanded and closed. The detention centre moved to a new building complex near the village of Kaliadzičy (near the village of Paškovičy) in the Minsk region. Zerkalo talked to one of those who visited both detention centres. A former prisoner told how the prisoners were transferred, about the conditions in the cells and the attitude of the guards in the new pre-trial detention center.
- SIZO-1 building in Kaliadzičy
"They organized a 'brilliant' search and a convoy of prisoner trucks took us to Kaliadzičy"
In the fall of 2023 Veniyamin (name changed) was sent to the capital's pre-trial detention center under a non-political article (but he shared cells with political prisoners). The man says that at that time, rumors about the transfer of the detention centre to the Kaliadzičy area had been discussed for more than a year.
"Before the New Year, they began to take away TV-sets from the cells, and somewhere in March they took books that we borrowed from the library. Before the transfer itself, they organized a 'brilliant' search: they tore off both the curtain in the toilet, and the oilcloth from the table, and the shelves from the wall, where there were some things for washing and shaving", the man recalls.
"They transferred me in early April. There were about 300 of us at that time. Everyone was taken out of the cells, searched, and then taken away by a convoy of prisoner trucks to Kaliadzičy”.
According to Veniyamin, the new building is three-storeyed and shaped like letter Ж.
"It feels like the prison is not fully working yet", he explains. "Many cells were in a pitiful state then, as everything was built hastily. By the way, people came to us at Valadarka who told us that they were building Kaliadzičy. And we said to them, 'Well, now you're going to do time there. Congratulations'" (laughs).
According to Veniyamin, the yards for walking are right on the roof of the building. Now prisoners have to look at the sky not only through the bars: above them, there is a layer of polycarbonate.
"In summer, it's like a greenhouse," says Veniyamin. "It's just unbearable to be there."
"The mattresses on the bunks are thin, you sleep mostly on iron"
“There were new mattresses on the bunks. No one had slept on them before, but they were thin. And the gaps between the bars of the structures are too big, and everything soft from the mattress falls into those gaps, and you mostly sleep on iron.
There is a TV on the wall in the cell. At first it was just paradise, bliss: 25 channels! We watched channels like Men's Cinema, Comedy Film, Kinohit, Europa Plus, all sorts of others. And then those 'wonderful people' closed the access and they left Belarus 1, 2, 3, 5, NTV, and ONT.”
"The toilet is constructed in the best traditions: a hole in the floor. But there was hot water! That's a wow!"
The former prisoner says that in his building several cells were combined into blocks, each with its own shower, unlike at Valadarka, where there was one shower room in the basement for everyone.
"They took us to wash once a week anyway. Another difference is that there were toilet bowls in the old building. And here the toilet is constructed in the best traditions: a hole in the floor. The sink was separate, but it had hot water! That's a wow!"
This is how the ex-prisoner describes the look of the cells and the furniture in them:
"I don't remember the color of the walls, but looking at them, I didn't want to bang my head against them. The floor is tiled. Others said that everything was done unevenly, with large gaps between the tiles. When we entered the cell, we realized that there was dust left from the finishing work."
"A boatload of surveillance cameras, and more searches"
As the former prisoner noted, there was a problem with personnel in Kaliadzičy in the spring. The new detention centre itself requires more staff. At the same time, according to the man, not all employees were transferred from Valadarskaha, since some decided not to renew the contract.
"One guy had been treated before his detention, and had medicine put in his tooth. He had it for three or four weeks, and then wrote a statement to the dentist that he was ill. Soon, it seems, they even showed him to a local doctor, but then they said bluntly: 'We don't have enough people to take you to the hospital.'"
In the corridors of the detention centre, Veniyamin saw the pictures with the layout of the premises. According to him, they showed a prayer room, rooms for long meetings, and even gyms. He adds that the attitude of the administration has become stricter than it was at Valadarka prison.
"There are more searches here. A boatload of surveillance cameras everywhere. Even in the cells themselves. There was no such thing at Valadarka," says he. "The educational department told me that in the old detention centre there were 20 violation reports per week, and here it's 200. Most of them are for sleeping during the day.
In general, there is no ban on sleeping and lying on bunks during the day, but allegedly there is an oral order from the heads of the administration. One person received a violation record for sitting sideways to the 'feeder' with a hood over his head and thinking about something there. They told him: if we don't see your eyes, then you're asleep, get a violation record.
And there's not much to do in the cells there. There is nothing to watch on TV: 'wonderful' news, or TV series about cops, prison, and priests. The books were given on the third or fourth day. We wrote an application for new ones, but only a month later we received a response: 'The books have not yet been unpacked. You won't get the ones you want, or we'll bring the ones we choose ourselves.'
So the problem with the new pre-trial detention center is that the conditions there seem to be better, and the regime has worsened for everyone because of these 'improvements'.”
