Yekaterina, 29. Sentenced to eight years. A colony for first time offenders.

Olga, 27. Sentenced to six years. A colony for first time offenders.

A dormitory for new arrivals at the colony. Dormitories are designed to accommodate about fifty people.

In the enclosed space of a prison, a woman is always under surveillance, without any semblance of privacy.

In Russia, there exists, in almost equal parts an enthusiastic romanticization of prison life with all of its underworld sentimentality, and a disdainful rejection of the convicts’ way of life.

Khavva, 30. Sentenced to six and a half years. A colony for first time offenders.

The prison community follows the main lines of tension in modern society, but perhaps in a more vivid and explicit way.

Oksana, 43. Sentenced to six and a half years. She has two daughters, 22 and 11. A colony for first time offenders.

Years of complete “nakedness” and the loss of intimate space deform the personality of a person placed in a community that is as cruel as it is dangerous.

Anastasia, sentenced to eight years, and Maria, sentenced to two years. They have been together for only a little while. A colony for repeat offenders.

Irina, 38. Sentenced to twenty years. A colony for repeat offenders.

Ellada, 52. Sentenced to five years. She has an adult daughter. Her son has been killed. She has four
grandchildren. A colony for repeat offenders.

Oksana, 30. Sentenced to five years. She just learned that she has been denied parole. Oksana has a nine-year old daughter. A colony for first time offenders.

Nadezhda, 29, and Anna, 25. Sentenced to sixteen years and three years and nine months, respectively. They have been together for about a year and a half. A colony for first time offenders.

The provision of psychological and medical care is a major problem.

Nobody is protected against anything. On the macro-social level, control is enforced through laws, regulations and the orders of prison authorities, and on the micro-social level, through a complex system of unwritten rules and tacit covenants.

All things personal and intimate are subject to public observation and judgment. All prison underwear is of the one-size-fits- all variety.

Yelena, 40, sentenced to two years. A colony for repeat offenders.

Larisa, 47. Sentenced to five years. The complex system of rules and regulations includes an array of punitive tools of different degrees of cruelty. A colony for repeat offenders.

Irina, 37, sentenced to two and a half years, and Natalya, 38, sentenced to ten years. A colony for repeat offenders.