Maria thought she knew a lot about life when, at the age of 35, she was sent to prison in Moscow. But she didn't know about Russian prison food until then, writes the editorial staff of Radio Free Europe (RSE) in English.
"I didn't know people could feed on such things," said Marija, who was in prison for 17 months in 2021-22. based on, as stated by the human rights group Memorial, politically motivated accusations.
However, every day, hundreds of thousands of prisoners in Russian prisons and detention centers are fed such things: uncooked porridge, unbaked bread, rotten meat and many more such dishes, former prisoners told Current Time (a Russian-language media project run in cooperation with RFE/RL with Voice of America (VOA)). At the same time, they say, lack of vegetables and limited opportunities to prepare or purchase healthy food are common.
Marija, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, tried to replicate prison gruel, which she called "saliva," in an experiment after she was released. She didn't succeed.
In Russia's vast prison system, it's not about taste, it's about whether the food is even edible and can keep prisoners healthy, according to the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Current Time's report shows that this is often not the case.
"You won't get far on bread crumbs"
The menu in the prison in the Arctic city of Norilsk, a former Gulag, seemed "very tasty", recalls ex-prisoner Ivan Astašin. With rules prohibiting prisoners from being fed the same meal more than two or three times a week, the menu promised a variety of meals such as ragout, roast meat and potato soup. But what arrived on the plate was always the same: potatoes with game meat, a common local dish.
Astashin, a prisoner rights advocate, has spent nearly a decade in three Russian prisons and five detention centers on terrorism-related charges that he and his supporters say are politically motivated. He was released in 2020, and left Russia with his wife in 2022.
His memory of prison food has not faded.
Breakfast was always wheat, oat or barley porridge with water or milk, and sometimes with so little cereal that it was "only water", recalls Astašin.
Lunch was "mostly potatoes" and sometimes with cabbage or barley groats and mystery meat or something "like meat". Compote or some kind of sour berry jelly with cereals was a side dish.
Dinner was again either potatoes, cabbage or barley groats, with "a piece of fish or a fish cutlet".
Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) stipulates that inmates receive 100 grams of meat, Astashin said, but the black, frozen game at the Norilsk facility looked "scary," often smelled strongly and "was impossible to eat," he said. is he. Inmates and staff said she was in freezers for "decades" before being sent to prison.
Astašin said that his total daily calorie intake - officially set at 2.600 to 3.000 calories - in prison was "more or less sufficient because (the prisoners) are given quite large pieces of bread". But he said they weren't always well done.
In Moscow's infamous Matroskaya Tishina prison, where Astashin spent several years, kneading a crumb of bread produced something "like plasticine", he recalls.
"We cut off the skins and dried them so they could be eaten and our stomachs wouldn't swell," he said.
However, former prisoner in Moscow Marija said: "You won't get far on bread crumbs. You crave vegetables."
FSIN regulations also mandate 500 grams of fresh, frozen or canned vegetables per day, but Marija says that vegetables can only be obtained if someone brings them to the prison.
"I never knew you could actually get into a state like drug withdrawal, where you crave vegetables so much that you climb walls," she commented. "God forbid there's a spoonful of sauerkraut once a week. If you get it, it's such a celebration!"
In June 2024, the FSIN told the Moscow Komsomolets tabloid that the "diet" for all prisoners "meets the requirements of a balanced diet in terms of energy content and the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates."
Maria does not agree. "If a woman doesn't have someone on the outside, of course she's not going to survive on that prison food," she said. "Because it's not edible."
Supa u kofi
However, getting food from outside does not necessarily result in a good meal.
Former inmates say that in prisons and detention centers there are almost no dishes for inmates who try to prepare their own meals. Nor do they usually have access to stoves.
If an inmate wants to make a "decent soup," Astashin said, he will buy a plastic bucket at the store and then "cook the soup in a plastic bucket" with water from the kettle.
Knives for preparing the ingredients are not available, but, Astashin said, inmates can find a solution – in a remand prison, paid guards will bring whatever they need, he claims.
"If there are corrupt employees, they can bring a knife. If there are none, you can sharpen an aluminum spoon or some other object yourself."
Closed market
FSIN understands that there is a demand for different foods. In Moscow and its suburbs, detention centers have a restaurant called "I sit, I eat", which is a play on words that roughly translates to "I eat in prison".
However, FSIN food prices reflect their customers' lack of alternatives.
Cookies, dried bread, "and, if you're lucky," some sausages are sold, but the higher prices indicate that the prisoners are "paying for their sins," Marija said.
Prison online stores, such as FSIN's Zona Mag and the e-shop for detainees, "Peredaj v sizo", offer ready-made meals, vegetables, fruits, canned meat and various confectionery products, but their prices also tend to be more than in regular grocery stores.
Prisoners use personal money orders and access to these goods can vary. One defendant in a case in Moscow in the 2010s said that getting decent food in his prison was "very difficult".
"A large number of people were not able to (receive) deliveries. They had to eat what was given to them," said the man, who asked not to be named. "For this reason, people who ate only prison food looked bad. It's food that doesn't digest well."
Suffering in solitary confinement
Access to edible food worsens if a prisoner is sent to solitary confinement, according to statements by political prisoners, including the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
One former solitary confinement inmate who now works for the prisoners' rights organization Russia Behind Bars alleged that guards put food in dishes used by inmates who had been raped or otherwise abused. Eating from those bowls brought the same status, the lowest in prison culture, said the activist, who asked not to be named.
In solitary confinement, he said, he ate only bread and lost 42 kilograms.
Kevin Lik, a German-Russian student sentenced to four years in December 2023 for treason and whom the Memorial said was a political prisoner, survived with the help of a package of instant noodles sent by his mother. When he was released as part of an August prisoner swap involving Russia, the US and other countries, Lik, who is 19 years old and nearly six feet tall, weighed 72 kilograms.
He doesn't remember the first thing he ate after his release, but he was sure of one thing: "Normal food brought me a lot of happiness."
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