Mandarins And Apples, Cell Type Rooms And Punishment Cells

• IRYNA KHALIP
• 18.10.2024, 13:53

Once again about Palina.

When Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk is released, I will stop writing about her, I promise. Except for one interview – naturally. But as long as she is imprisoned, as long as she is given more and more terms under the same damn Article 411, I will not stop writing about Palina.

Recently, my friend, an author who wrote a documentary novel about Belarusian emigrants in the Balkans, told how she traveled to the places where her characters once lived in the twenties. She said she wanted to go their way. I often find myself mentally trying to get past the dear Sharenda family. And every time I freeze, terrified.

New Year's Eve – December 31, 2020. The year is running out, but there is still hope for a quick change. Andrei Sharenda celebrates the New Year in the Brest detention center: on December 29, he was sentenced to 15 days. Andrei is familiar with this, he is not surprised. It is a pity, of course, that he will not be able to spend New Year's Eve with the family, but only 15 days! He'll be free exactly before the Old New Year, and still taste Olivier salad.

That year, at the end of December, it got very cold, and Andrei tried to keep warm on the second tier of a plank bed in jail. He was alone in the cell, and 15 minutes before midnight, the "feeder" opened, a prisoner said "Happy New Year, Sharenda!" and gave him two mandarins. It was a good sign, Andrei thought. He didn't even eat mandarins right away – he smelled them and imagined a home holiday. And three days later, in the corridor, he heard the voice of Palina. And he realized that hell begins.

And here is June 2021. Palina refuses to stand up in court with the words "I do not stand up in front of bandits." She has a piece of paper in her hands with the inscription "Go Away!" ("Убывай") and two dots above the letter "б", so everyone understands who and where should immediately go. Palina receives a sentence, and in June, Andrei Sharenda escapes from house arrest with his two sons, crosses the border at night, through forests and swamps, on the eve of his own trial. He understands that he will also be sentenced, and the children will go to the bloodthirsty state.

The next stop is December 2021. Palina is in jail, it's very cold there. She doesn't even have a comb – just a bar of soap and a toothbrush. Every morning at five o'clock, a radio is turned on, on which the internal regulations are read. Here Palina leaves the punishment cell for a short time and writes down the names of the companies with which the prison administration concludes contracts at the factory - she, harassed and exhausted, conducts an investigation. But she is "on the carpet" with the deputy head of the prison Kovalev. Palina says to him: "See you at the Museum of Punishers!"

2022, Palina is again in pre-trial detention in a new criminal case. They bring her a "transfer" in the form of a bag of rotten apples. 30 kilograms – and so, the norm is fulfilled, relatives are asked not to worry. Here it is taken once again to Navinki Psychiatric Hospital for examination. They takes her from Homel to Minsk for 18 days. No one knows what sidings this unheated Stolypin car stood on for many days. If she had any food, if she could wash herself, we'll find out later.

And here is the new prison, in Zarechcha. Palina, who has not even left the quarantine, is placed in a punishment cell. The chief of the detachment comes there, and Palina says to her: "You are not my boss." By doing so, she signs another verdict. Then 200 days in a cell type room and months in a punishment cell. So the next term passes. Then another one, the same one: cell type room - punishment cell - cell type room. Former prisoners from there explained later, when it became known that Palina wrote a statement on the renunciation of the citizenship of the country with the Stalinist coat of arms on her passport: "She wrote exactly in a cell type room, because in the punishment cell they do not give paper and a pen, and when prisoners are beaten and tortured, they can not even write a complaint – nothing at all."

Spring of this year. The police come to Palina's relatives, at the place of her residence in Brest, and strictly asks if they are ready to accept a recidivist rebel, because preventive supervision will be established for her, which means constant visits of the penitentiary inspection and inconvenience for the household. And everyone understands that now she will definitely be released, otherwise why should the police be driven back and forth? It turns out, just like that, for fun, so that it would not be boring to carry out the service. And Palina again the day before the deadline is taken to the pre-trial detention center.

And finally Monday, four days ago. Again the trial and again the verdict: another year and one day. One day – because Palina was taken to the pre-trial detention center on the eve of her release, and, from the point of view of the punishers, she did not serve that day in prison.

And then I can't imagine the path of the Sharenda family. Because I am scared and cold, although I do not freeze in that punishment cell and do not run at night with the children through the swamps. I'm just sitting and writing about Palina. I write about Palina again and again.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org