Nadia's Spending Time With Daughter After Months in Stalinist Gulag-Style Prison

As the teachers say in kindergarten, "Gera was an adult from the beginning." When your mother is in prison -- adulthood comes quickly.
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Now, Nadia is spending a few days on the Volga River with daughter Gera, husband Petya and another family member, Elena. They figure skate, sled and ride a "military snowmobile" on the frozen Volga, and in the evening they eat salad and shurpu.

Gera will turn six in three months. She has never really been a child. As the teachers say in kindergarten, "Gera was an adult from the beginning." When your mother is in prison -- adulthood comes quickly, especially if you have a name like a Greek goddess, the wife of Zeus!

gera pussy riot
Nadia's daughter Gera, 5, as a budding activist

"Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is a first woman in the country's history whose confrontation have been erected into the ranks of the state politics."

(A statement by Alexander Nikitin, Historian)

"How are things in Mordor (meaning prisons in Mordovia)?" This is what the prison admistration says to Vika Dubrovina about the activities of Nadia Tolokonnikova and Maria Aloykhina: "As long as your girlfriend will keep talking about Mordovia, you will rot in the punishment cell!" they promise to Vika.

However, things are not what they seem to be to the prison administration. So far everything has worked out for Nadia. Do they try to scare Nadia? Does the past history with Nadia not teach them anything?! When Nadia was four years old, she used to say: "Do not be angry, little dolls!"

Putin, the dwarf of Kremlin, did not think that he will lose face and a larger share of his masculine power in the world and will be awarded a satirical image of himself on the cover of Forbes magazine as supposedly the most powerful man in the world. But he has lost it, fighting against " little dolls " like Nadia and Maria.

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Nadia and daughter Gera share a Christmas moment

Nadia's last article was about evidence that prisoners Vika and Kira gave. Now, we want to share a story from Oksana who was just released from prison. Oksana came from the legendary prison "two" - -camp Mordovlaga (Mordor).

Oksana speaks: "Mordovia -- among prisoners of Russia, is considered the most horrible place. Hell of Gulag! When women prisoners are transported from one colony to another, they sing songs. Only when they are transported to Mordovia - no one sings songs and guards sympathetically say, 'Do you want some more hot water for your tea?'

"Upon arrival at the prison" number two, the women see the dark sullen faces of prisoners. The first thing they hear, 'We were ordered to kill you! Nail kerchief to your head. You will work without complaints. This means you work 16 hours a day.

"In the office of the prison chief, there are boxing gloves and the so-called legendary 'Argument,' meaning a stick. On the stick, a word is written: 'Argument.' It is the size of a machete. The prison chief beats you up with boxing gloves and the stick called "Argument." Also, it is not hanging there to beautify the wall. :Can you sew? Did you see the gloves and the stick on the wall?:

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Nadia plays with Gera in the snow, following her release

"What is PROMKO? The shop foreman comes in and says, "You are too quiet." (The foreman probably means the sewing machines do not work, as needed) . PROMKO, is the territory of hell. Quota for a brigade is to turn 250 suits a day. But in reality only 180 suits can be made a day, because the quota of 250 simply cannot be done, it is overstated. People are so tired that they fall asleep at the sewing machines. One woman with epilepsy, she would fall in a convulsion on the floor. When it would stop, she would sit for an hour and then go back to work . A woman would say "I cannot"' but the shop foreman would say, "I do not f***ing care. Once you are released and at home, that is where you will take care of yourself." They use obscene language, despite the fact that our caring state government, "Duma," banned four of the popularly used swear words!

"SEWING THROUGH YOUR FINGER. It happens often when the needle passes through the nail and goes through the lobe of the finger. The speed on the new sewing machines is so fast that the prisoner says, "I do not see the needle." Prisoners sew overalls for companies such as Vostokservice, Viuga, Baltika. For railways, they sew outfits for train conductors -- black with red trim, the ones you see now on each conductor in Russia; also insulated gloves and special hats.

Nadia adds: "There are no spare parts. I would find a needle on the floor and insert it into the sewing machine. There is a strict accounting of time. The quota is defined as follows: "Divide 500 seconds among each seamstress." Oksana says that in prison two she realized what a second means: "We have to go for lunch, 10 seconds and you are standing in a coat and still sewing because if you don't meet the quota, you receive a punishment."

Oksana speaks: "PUNISHMENT. Bendeshka is when you are beaten by a stick on the back and legs. There is a whip with an iron knob . The woman shouts, "Mom did not beat me in childhood." The foreman replies, 'You are fools and all of you will die here." But more often you are beaten with a stick.

"Or you are kicked outside (Mordovia temperature in the winter may be as low as -40 Fahrenheit). And the prisoner is naked, no tights, pants, dress, bra with only a coat, standing outside on the street with arms stretched out. And only after spending some time like that outside will the prisoner then be placed int a solitary confinement -- a punishment cell. The administration says, "You must earn to be placed from outside into the punishment cell." One lady was outside for three months. She lived there as a homeless person would on the street in Paris (only no one would give her anything at all). She slept on the ground. She would be outside and only come in to warm up in the kitchen when she would be ordered to peel the potatoes . She did not take a shower for three months.

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Head of Mordovia Prison, drawn by Lusina Dzhanyan

"For the slightest fault, they make you lay on the cold floor for several hours. The guards would say, 'Lie down on the floor -- it is good for your immune system." Sometimes they won't let you take a shower. Won't let you make tea. They can shave your head completely. They may put a lock on the toilet door. If they don't let you pee, you use a bag.

"There is also a room called 'Americanka' or 'VIP-CAMERA .' During the winter, it is monstrously cold in there. The door to the outside is always open, because women enter though it when they are hauling snow from the patio.

"Prisoners used to sing one song called 'There is a soldier walking in the city.' They used to require us to sing this song when we went to the cafeteria and to the toilet. Prison administration no longer requires prisoners to sing it. Now prisoners only talk among themselves saying, 'We will die; they will kill us.'

"Here is a series of endless facts: Nurses to prisoners' babies in prison number two have hepatitis C. There are instances when dirty baby diapers were removed from one baby and put on another one. Just now, 13 prisoners' children were diagnosed with tuberculosis and are in Saransk town hospital.

"Prisoners were beaten to death in a so-called 'forbidden room.' There was a legendary rapist, Chief C. Ones, who was in a so-called 'beskonvoyka' -- meaning better treatment, but it does not mean better treatment. Women who are prettier are led into prostitution."

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Nadia and Gera play dress-up at home

In conclusion -- from Twitter of Nadia Tolokonnikova: "In Mordovia prison nail polish, for example, is one of the the most severe bans. Punishment for nail polish is up to 15 days in a punishment cell. When a check happens in the prison, and you're hiding SCARY things -- headache tablets or five chocolate -- they are SCARY because if they are discovered, you will be punished. Seasoned traffickers sentenced to prison during checks would say, 'It was easier to carry heroin in Moscow than three chocolates in prison.'"

All these facts seem to come out of stories by Varlam Shalamov, (Editors note: Russian writer, poet, journalist and Gulag survivor), do they not? But this is not the Stalinist Gulag, not Kolyma (Editor's note: Region of Russia known for Stalin's Gulags). This is our time. Year 2013 -- Russia! Maybe Guantanamo Bay is worse; the girls (Nadia and Masha) were not there.

So what? The fact is that Nadia Tolokonnikova and Maria Aloykhina will have to do something with all of this.

Win! For that purpose we have "Justice Zone."

justice zone logo
New logo for Nadia's "Justice Zone" campaign to reform prisons

Andrey Tolokonnikova, M.D., father of recently released Pussy Riot prisoner, Nadia Tolokonnikova, shares with The Huffington Post his journal from the weeks following his daughter's homecoming from prison in Siberia. Nadia was freed under an amnesty bill passed by the Russian parliament. Translated by Natasha Fissiak, a producer of the documentary Free Pussy Riot!

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