Prison, At the Prison, In the Prison (part I)

Gorgasali Street 83, Ortachala District, Tbilisi.  This is a place that is always crowded.  Sad people, holding heavy bags, are waiting for something.  If you look at some of them carefully, you will notice tears in their eyes.  There is a bus stop nearby.  A person looking at them might think these people are waiting for a bus.  But, the vehicles keep passing, and people keep waiting in line…

From time to time, they ask about the time and glance in the same direction.  They ask for the hundredth time, “Have they not opened, yet?”  These people standing in line are prisoners’ relatives, who are waiting to see their loved-ones at Tbilisi Prison # 5.  They form a line to hand packages to prison officials who will then pass these to their loved-ones.

It’s 3:00 PM on January 5, 2007.  There are many people near the prison.  They are behind the bars, and from there they should enter a brown, iron door.

“Parcels can be received until 5:00 PM.  On Sunday, parcels are not accepted except for minimum security prisoners,” a barely legible sign reads on the door.  Prisoners watch the prison door expectantly to see if a person approaching the prison is simply a passerby or will drop something off.

Prisoners stare at every person approaching and ask each other, for which prisoner the visitor has come. “How can I know?  This is the first time I’ve seen him.  Maybe he is a new prisoner’s relative,” says an elderly woman who answers in a strong Kakhetian accent.  The others simply shrug their shoulders. 

“Excuse me.  I am a journalist writing an article,” said I.

“Where are you from?” the prisoners demand.   They are neither ashamed of journalists nor their television cameras.

As soon as they learn who I am, they all begin to speak at once, naming their many problems.  The noise arouses an elderly woman, who was so tired that she fell asleep where she was squatting.  “Has the door opened?” she asks in surprise and goes back to sleep.

“Knock on the door.  What are you afraid of?  If you won’t dare, let me go up, and I’ll do it.  What misfortune this is.  I have been standing here since eleven and have not been able to enter.  They are breaking the law themselves and blame others for it.  Let them die,” says a pleasant-looking, fifty-year-old woman who is scolding prison employees.  She is so hungry that she has eaten her lipstick off her lips and is now applying it again.

Everyone began knocking on the door at once.

It is now 3:25 PM.  The prison door is still shut.  Some people are eating sunflower seeds, while others smoke cigarettes and jump in place to stay warm.

“The prison guards follow neither the law nor their schedule.  They are dishonest people.  May these officials who torture us all die one day...” curses a woman with others chiming in.
 
A man approached me.  “I want to give you some advice.  It is nothing comparing the reality. I beg you to keep here for a little time. You will see the most terrible things when the door opens. The people are stepping on each other. There is no queue then and you may be injured too. Mostly the strongest wins.”

-Knock on the door…

-People were let in at 1:00 and they promiseდ to open it again at 15:00, but as you see they have not kept promise,” said the woman who was sleeping.

“I have been standing here from six a.m. and cannot enter the setting yet…” said the second woman.

“They are violating the order themselves. Should not they be punished? I have been here since 12:00. Similar things occur each time and sometimes even the worse. They let their relatives and close people without any problem. I do not know whether they bribe the officers here or not. You will see how many people will enter without turn when the door opens. Relatives enter without any turn and are not we poor things?” the others started to complain.

“I have spent six months in these conditions. I have to come here four-five times a month. The fact that we have detained relatives is one problem for us and how can they torture us in addition to it? It is winter now and food does not spoil, but in summer the things go wrong. We throw spoilt food here in the bin. I want to give my son warm food but it is impossible. If I stand in the queue during twelve hours the food freezes.”

-We are cold, at least let us in and sit on those dirty chairs.
-Who wants hot bread?-a young man from the queue asked the others. Many people just looked at him; the others took the offered bread.

-Take some bread, aunt, you have been standing since the morning and you are for sure hungry. I will buy some more, I know everybody is hungry.

The woman in tears is shy and the young man handed out the bread himself.

-God bless you and keep you have from the prison,-the old woman was shy saying it and started to cry.

It is 15:35 and the door is still closed.

-Do you know when this door opens?-I asked a well-dressed forty-year-old woman in the middle of the queue. Her perfume attracts everybody in the area.

-The door must open several times a day on 9:00, 12:00, 15:00 and 17:00. However, they do not open and you see what we are enduring here. The prisoners are isolated from the society as a punishment and they should not be doomed to inhuman treatment, hunger, mess and illness. 70% of them are ill with tuberculosis.

-My daughter do you know what happened with me at the New Year? I arrived here on December 31 but could not enter at all. On the second day on January 1, I was allowed in. That is their order and law.

-“Let me say something too,”-one of the women cried out. She seemed to be very poor. She was wearing light summer shoes which were torn and the sock was seen in the hole. She was stepping on the place to get warm.

-My son is in the cell for six people. However, there are forty men in it. They sleep in turns for two hours. At least they must be given some linen. Unless we bring food to him, they are hungry and they sleep in mess if we do not give them clean linen. You should see how black linens when I take it home. 6-7 prisoners sleep in one bad and just imagine how tidy their cell can be.”

-I think the door is going to open, there is some noise inside,” said one young man standing forward.

Everybody got ready and grabbed their bags however, the door did not open. The people started to use foal language and put their bags on the ground.

People in the queue are of all age. There are young handsome boys and nice girls, middle-aged women and men and some elderly people among them. Nobody wants to speak about his or her prisoner in order to avoid further problems.

It is 15:55 and the door opened. A great fuss started. Some of them are keeping their turns the others are not. The latter crawl under the bar and get in. Everybody sees them however, there is no sense to start quarrelling there; nobody will listen to you.

-You come too and see what is going on inside- one of the men told us.

Behind the brown door you enter so-called ‘hall’ which has no windows and only frames are left instead of the glass. There is a terrible smell of mess there. It is dark and little light is coming from a few bulbs in the hall. Unless you open your eyes wide, you might fall.

As soon as you enter, you have to climb several steps and turn to the left; there you will see another life queue. So-called hall is a waiting room where relatives should sit and wait for their parcels be accepted. In soviet regime, evidently there used to be chairs and tables but now there are only dirty green boards, instead. Dirty stone tables are still on the place.

The queue lasted too long here as well…

(part II) http://www.humanrights.ge/eng_/articles.php?id=545

Eka Gulua