Former Belarusian political prisoner Mikalai Dziadok describes in his new book the mechanisms of pressure that have been honed for years in the Hrodna prison — one of the most severe not only in Belarus but also since Soviet times, writes DW.
The building of Hrodna prison. Photo: DW / A. Burakow
On May 31, a presentation of the book "Stories from Pockets" by former political prisoner Mikalai Dziadok took place in Vilnius. In it, the author collected stories and observations made during his imprisonment in the Hrodna prison, which is considered the harshest in the Belarusian penitentiary system. At the meeting, Dziadok spoke not only about his personal experience but also about how suppression mechanisms are structured, why some people withstand pressure while others break, and also mentioned the death of artist and political prisoner Ales Pushkin.
What helped preserve oneself in prison
Speaking about the book, Mikalai Dziadok highlighted three things that helped him survive years of imprisonment.
"The first is the category of meanings. When you are driven by an understanding of why you are sacrificing time, health, and life, it becomes much easier to endure what is happening," he said.
According to the author, a person is capable of enduring difficult trials if they perceive them as part of a fair exchange.
In confinement, it is especially important to understand why one has to endure hardships and restrictions.
Dziadok also emphasized the importance of a sense of community and solidarity: "It's the understanding that behind your back there are people you are connected to. I compare such a connection to mycelium, which invisibly stretches for many kilometers underground. When you are connected to thousands of other people, the burden of suffering is distributed among everyone and doesn't seem so unbearable."
Mikalai Dziadok. Photo: DW
That is why, Dziadok believes, the administration strives to maximally isolate political prisoners. They are sent to disciplinary cells, their contacts with other convicts are restricted, and sometimes they are even punished for attempts to talk to them.
The main goal of such a policy is to convince the person that they have been forgotten and are needed by no one.
Dziadok's third pillar was faith: "For me, faith in God became an important foundation. When you realize that your actions and sacrifices matter not only on an earthly level, everything takes on a different meaning. This is a continuation of the sense of community, only on a spiritual level." According to him, faith allowed him to perceive what was happening not as senseless suffering, but as part of a broader path that extends beyond prison walls.
"When the zone is hungry, people are ready to agree"
Dziadok is convinced that the Hrodna prison remains the harshest in Belarus.
"After serving 5 years in a colony, I thought I had seen everything. But Hrodna surprised me. Highly professional methods of psychological destruction are used there," he stated.
According to him, while in an ordinary colony a person simply serves a sentence in harsh conditions, in Hrodna prison, the system itself is initially oriented towards inflicting suffering. Moreover, the nature of the pressure is chosen individually.
"If you are an introvert and love silence, they might put you with 11 aggressive neighbors. If you are an extrovert, they will send you to a solitary cell. The degree of suffering is regulated depending on your psychological profile," the author explained.
He named manipulation of basic human needs as one of the main tools of influence.
"The entire system is built on controlling security, the hope of going home, food, cigarettes, and tea. When the zone is hungry, recruiting informants and provocateurs becomes much easier. A person is ready to agree to things they would never do under normal conditions," Dziadok said.
The former political prisoner said that an artificial deficit is maintained in Belarusian colonies and prisons. According to him, this allows the administration to control convicts and elicit desired behavior from them.
Sometimes it even comes to confessions of crimes that a person did not commit.
"For two blocks of cigarettes or a kilogram of tea, a prisoner can write a confession with repentance for an old unsolved case. Sometimes such cases later fall apart in court, but the person has already received the 'goods'. This is a cynical exchange that exists due to artificially created need," the author asserts.
The situation is made especially difficult by the widespread addiction to nicotine and strong tea. According to Dziadok's assessment, the vast majority of prisoners experience severe withdrawal symptoms when deprived of their usual stimulants. As a result, even small privileges become a powerful tool of pressure.
Prisoners with "low status"
Separately, the author focused on the work of operatives — "they professionally know how to find a person's weak points and use their dependence on the system." According to Mikalai Dziadok, prison staff actively use conflicts, ambitions, and resentments within the inmate community. He argues that the same mechanisms are applied outside of prison — in relation to public and political groups.
A special place in this system is occupied by convicts with so-called "low status". The author said that the administration uses people who have experienced humiliation and violence for moral and physical pressure on other prisoners, including political ones.
Why do some prisoners still not break under pressure? "For political prisoners, it's ideological convictions. Among ordinary criminals, there are also people who hold on out of a sense of self-dignity. For some, it is fundamentally important not to show weakness to those who try to break them," he said. According to the author, the presence of internal principles often becomes the last barrier between a person and complete submission to the system.
Mikalai Dziadok believes that the special reputation of the Hrodna prison is connected with its history. In Soviet times, the institution functioned as one of the strictest regime facilities in the USSR, where criminal authorities were brought to suppress the influence of the criminal underworld. Today, he says, the old methods have been preserved, although the object of their application has changed — now it is political prisoners.
The death of Ales Pushkin did not change the behavior of the prison guards
On July 11, 2023, artist and political prisoner Ales Pushkin died in intensive care; he was taken to a Hrodna hospital from prison. According to human rights defenders, the cause of death was a perforated stomach ulcer. "After Pushkin's death, the security forces did not become less harsh. He died because he did not receive timely medical care. No serious conclusions were drawn after this story," Dziadok stated.
Ales Pushkin (archive photo). Photo: Privat
He emphasized that cases of death in places of deprivation of liberty are not perceived by the system as an emergency. "During my two and a half years in Hrodna prison, at least 5 people died. For the administration, this is not an emergency. Ales Pushkin died already in the hospital, so formally one can always say: we hospitalized him, he did not die with us," the former political prisoner said.
According to Dziadok, the news of the artist's death caused anxiety and many rumors among the prisoners — everyone imagined that they too might not receive medical care. "Pushkin never complained about his health. Therefore, his death generated both many rumors and fears among the convicts," Mikalai Dziadok recalled.
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