5 life hacks that will help you not lose your mind, health and sense of humor in prison

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-13 00:26

Excerpts from Oleg Navalny's book “3½. With prisoners' respect and fraternal warmth”about how to usefully spend time in prison and not go crazy.

How to keep fit? Plastic bottles will help

According to Oleg, the self-instruction book by Paul Wade (a former American prisoner) "Training Zone" is one of the most popular books in the Oryol colony. Navalny owns the statistics because he worked in the prison library, where prisoners often visited for this book.

Indeed, knowledge of how to develop muscle and dexterity is highly sought after in captivity. However, for serious training, you will need special tools. This is how Oleg describes how to get it or make it with your own hands in prison:

“In the SUS, unlike the residential area, there are no sports grounds and sports equipment, so making various sports equipment has to be handicraft (and illegal). Actually, I had two of them.

• First, the intricate pull-up ropes on the bars of the prison courtyard. Each rope was woven from eight strips of a pre-cut sheet - I learned this skill by studying a Dutch manual for knitting knots and ropes, which was supplied to me by a St. Petersburg friend.
• Secondly, a tank for drinking water (for which a special backpack was made from a bath towel).

In addition, we had a dumbbell - it was repeatedly made by Tolya Mogila. It was done like this: in the prison yard (or in the cell, if the floor was raised), a fertile layer of earth was extracted. This layer contained bricks, stones and other unnecessary artifacts, so it had to be sifted through a mesh washcloth.

The sifted earth was hammered into the form from the sheet pre-sewn into the bag, then it was tightened with cords, once again wrapped with a cloth from the sheet and stitched - for tightness and so that the fertile layer did not spill out. Handles were added to the resulting sports sausage, and voila - the weighting dumbbell was ready to serve the goals of a healthy lifestyle."

How to study? By correspondence

In prison, Navalny began studying Spanish, Portuguese, English, German and Japanese. Not all classes were successful, but it helped pass the time. A group of like-minded people who call themselves the "University for Political Prisoners" helped him with his studies. In addition, Oleg tried to master programming (which is extremely difficult to do without a computer), he taught people by correspondence and received a second education.

“In the summer of 2015, I entered the second higher education. The university is a terrible lime tree, a Moscow office that has an agreement with the Federal Penitentiary Service, so they own almost exclusive higher education for prisoners. Basically, dudes take the money from you and give you a diploma in return. Probably, I could pass the state exams 15 minutes after I signed an agreement with them. After all, I had a good legal base thanks to my first higher education at the Financial Academy. But this went on for two years.

Of course, I first chose criminal specialization, but then I realized that all criminal law is three codes and nothing else, so I quickly switched to civil law. All the training is just a series of tests that the university constantly forgot to send, so I had to send my lawyer, Kirill, for them.

Studying gave me the opportunity to have an unlimited number of textbooks, and most importantly - an e-book.

At first they sent me a book from the institute, but it was terrible, it was absolutely impossible to read on it. And then I asked to buy me a normal e-book so that the same Kirill would write down all the necessary books on it, take it to the institute, and from there it would be forwarded to the cops.

A Kindle comes to me, and I find that it has wi-fi. Bro generally wanted to buy a model with a built-in SIM card, and then I would have been on the permanent Amazon Internet, but I got it mixed up.

As a result, I still got the Internet, but rather limited. I could not ask the thieves to share the signal - they would hand me over to the cops, because there was a clear instruction from the administration: there should be nothing in my cell. I had to secretly negotiate with a reliable dude so that he would give me the Internet at a strictly defined time."

How to fry a kebab? With a towel

The ingenuity and resourcefulness of the prisoners is amazing. For example, a tattoo in a prison can be done with a sewing needle sharpened on a tile, instead of paint, taking soot from a burnt-out disposable razor mixed with soapy foam. But is it possible to cook barbecue in prison? Yes, and how exactly to do this is described below.

“Perhaps the most striking event in the month of my BUR [high security barracks - approx. ed.] was the manufacture of barbecue. How to heat or fry meat in a hut? Let's say a mutton is in your gear. It will most likely be boiled, and if even fried, it will be for a long time. In general, not a kebab at all. How to be?

First you need to prepare the dishes. Take some bowl. It will smoke on the fire, so you need to cover it with toothpaste so that it is easy to wash it later. But you won't be holding the bowl in your hands - you need to insert it into the cracks that form when you fasten the bunk to the wall.

Now the fuel. You take an ordinary waffle towel (only in prison it should never be called "waffle" - only "in a box", like "waffles" should be called "cookies in a box"). Cut the towel into strips and fold them into folds to form a tube with an oxygen supply. It turns out that towels burn perfectly, and without any additional impregnation, and, unlike paper, they do not smoke or stink.

Put a container of water next to you. Take a towel like a torch and set it on fire. After all, it is rolled into a tube, there is good traction and burns perfectly. You just need to throw the burnt parts of the towel into the water from time to time. From this, the fingers become all yellow."

One small hand towel is enough to fry a huge bowl of meat. It turns out a real barbecue, the smell is amazing. Similarly, you can, for example, boil a mug of chifir.

How not to work in prison? Do not take a rag

Prisons have their own alternative hierarchy: with its help, thieves resist the state of affairs established by the administration. It is in the interests of the administration to make sure that the maximum number of new arrivals cannot join the ranks of the thieves.

There are many ways to break a person, but most of them are associated with a decrease in authority - through discrimination through an act. Under the threat of beating, prisoners can be forced to brush the toilet bowl, crow and perform other actions, after which the attitude of the thieves towards them will be quite unambiguous. The most common tool in this business is a rag.

“A rag is a kind of filter. The zone is managed formally (by the administration) and informally (by thieves).

The rag is like the red and blue pills that Morpheus suggested to Neo. Took a rag - renounced claims to informal leadership. Didn't take a rag - showed that you deny the cop law.

This, of course, needs to be checked, so they are forced to take cleaning tools, subjecting them to torture and beatings. But there is an important point: taking a rag, you do not become "red" or "offended." You live quietly as a "man", but you cannot be a thug. If you took a rag, after that there is no point, for example, to give up work."

How to turn your camera into an art workshop? Paint

In captivity, Oleg learned to draw - in fact, with sketches from different places of detention, which he changed in three and a half years, and the book is illustrated. However, the prison leaves its mark on such seemingly harmless practices.

Drawing is the best way to kill time. It turned out that any dude with a lot of time and pencils can draw. And that, and that was in stock.

“All colors except shades of black, blue and purple have been officially banned. So at first I only drew with a simple pencil. Then it turned out that a revolution had taken place in the world of fine arts long ago, and there are all sorts of innovations and tricks such as graphite watercolors, water-soluble coal and others.

And Lena from FBK opened a new universe to me by transferring (naturally, in an extremely cunning way) white gel pens and colored charcoal covered with a black shell. At some point, the stupid bloody law was canceled in terms of the prohibition of the color spectrum, and then I turned around: there are much more advancements and tricks in the color world of artists.

Thanks to drawing, I killed a lot, a lot of time, and besides, my bright hut became like a free artist's studio, which infuriated the cops and made me happy.

From time to time I painted on the walls - but it was sad. Mainly because the next morning the drawings were painted over. But this way I could do local cosmetic repairs of the walls."

These and other useful tips on how to diversify your life in prisons are in the book by Oleg Navalny “3½. With respect for prisoners and fraternal warmth."