Consultant under Article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. "This is the Klondike. How I went on 228 15

HELLO!!!
I am writing everything as it was. One of my acquaintances asked me for a month to get him some shots; he was under surveillance (telephone wiretapping) so that he could contact me.
On February 8, 2013, I finally agreed and handed over 1 package of buds (5g) on ​​the street. The cops didn’t know the specific meeting place, so they didn’t have time to detain me, but they slapped him. They scared me so much that he ratted me out, after that he didn’t even warn me.
09 Feb In 2013, drug control detained me and showed me a warrant. Further, I refused voluntary extradition. They found 20 packages containing 200 packages. 5 gr. (buds) and 1 cup of hemp grains. All in different places (house in the village). In general, almost 1 kg (pure buds), the quality is good, everything for yourself to relieve stress. Immediately after this, I confess that on February 8, 2013, I handed over 1 package (5 grams) of buds to a friend. There was no point in denying this fact; they had a testimony from my friend.
Opera says that you only get 228 part 2 according to the old version and 228.1 part 1. A protocol without cultivation is drawn up. According to my words, they wrote down that I found 5 hemp bushes during the summer. That's all. Then they take me to a narcologist, the test shows that I use marijuana. I don’t hide it, I didn’t show amphetamine and heroin. The opera knows about this that I don’t indulge in this. They bring it to their place and ask if there is a chronic illness. I say, hep C, I’m registered with a narcologist and have been in prison since 1995. There was a conviction for 228 parts 2 and 3 in 1997. served for 3.6 years total. pre-bell mode. Released in 2001 and for more than 12 years he was not charged under any article. Married, son 1 year 6 months. (pretty). We live with my mother, disabled group 1 - metastatic cancer, she is 75 years old. I'm not officially working. I didn’t sign the act of cooperation, they made an offer. everyone))). I'm not fucking!!! They took my passport and phone. My phone is clean, all the numbers are in my head. They released me at night, without any written notice not to leave, saying, God forbid, you won’t come to the investigator when first called. The 5th day has already passed. They said that they would return the investigator’s passport and phone number so that they could go to the office. I got a job, so far everything is quiet.
This is my problem.
I have the following questions:
1. Can I count on the Conditional, or am I getting ready to start the zone while there is time?
2. Should I hire a lawyer during the investigation, or is everything clear?
I live in the provinces, there are very few experienced lawyers, I don’t know any lawyers
3. realistically, approximately how much time can I face in such a case?
4. maybe there are any moves? tell.
5. Does it matter that I didn’t receive money for the sale, even though my friend indicated the amount, because he was forced under pressure, and I agreed with it. he is ready to say this in court.
6. What should I do with the special order? I read a little about this.

The opera says that I can get 4-5 years probation. The court decides everything. I'll definitely let you know. Really looking forward to the answer. Thanks in advance. I look forward to any comments.

If you think about it, it was in vain that you gave recognition for distribution. You never know that the detectives have your friend’s testimony. There are no witnesses, there is no seizure - they would say that he lied to you, it was quite possible to fight off the article due to insufficient evidence. We would have received only 228 part 2. Now we will have to comply with 228.1 part 1; it is almost useless to refuse. As I understand it, things are going the same way for you? Then, according to Part 228 - from 3 to 10 years in prison. According to 228.1 part 1 - from 4 to 8 years in prison. So the 4 years promised by the operas are nothing more than promises. Fortunately, you don’t have a relapse, since your previous conviction has already passed. You can get it for 5-6 years. Conditionally, this is problematic. The court decides, and for such articles they rarely give probation.

You have one mitigating factor - having a child. You also need to try to collect as many positive characteristics as possible; witnesses who will characterize you positively in court are also not included. The court must take this into account and, accordingly, reduce the term. You have nothing else. It would be possible to fight back from 228.1, but there is not even a police provocation here and you personally carried it out, so according to any part 1 of Art. 228.1. The special order will give no more than 2/3 of the maximum punishment. But, to be honest, they won’t give you more than 2/3 without it. It’s better not to take it - often they give less without much than with it. You can try to insist that you gave the drug under pressure from another person - this will not remove the article, but it may reduce the sentence.

I'm glad to welcome you. In the comments there are people who are trying to accuse me of copy-pasting, I will not prove anything, for all those accusing - proof of the source from where I copied everything to the studio, otherwise such accusations will not be rolled out at all. Also, for a bunch of experts who “have been working in this system for a thousand years and know everything,” I explain that I am writing as it was. I do not seek pity or justification for my actions. Are there lies in my narrative? It's up to you to decide. I try not to use value judgments, if you notice, so that readers can decide for themselves what is bad and what is good. Adequate people themselves understand, but inadequate people have to prove anything... In short, there will be no throwing of beads, because it’s simply not interesting. If I don’t suit someone with my writing, well, ignore me or give me a downvote, why start shitting in the comments, especially if there’s essentially nothing to cover up with. Sorry, it's boiling. Links to previous posts at the end. Let's drive on. So, we arrived at the White Swan. We were led in a column to the sanitary inspection room. I knew roughly what to expect, because the reception was almost exactly as described. I’ll tell you a little about what a sanitary inspection station is. As the name implies, in this place the prisoners undergo sanitary treatment. Bathhouse, haircut, medical examination, etc.. This is a building in which, down in the basement, there are a bunch of cells without windows, in which they hang around and are simply held until they are taken to the bathhouse. On the ground floor there are showers themselves, there are several of them, a room in which they do haircuts (I don’t dare call it a hairdresser), a room in which there is an oven (I don’t know exactly what it’s called, maybe an autoclave) for frying things, a fluorography room (we didn’t have it done, but I had a chance to visit the office) and also ordinary cells in which prisoners are waiting for any procedures. In the sanitary inspection room the goats were already busy with us. There were a lot of them at first, about ten people, but later only three “main” remained. They were taken into the cells that were below; few people passing by these daring guys remained without a slap or a kick. They forced me to strip down to my underpants. The cells were built in rows. The first row rested its forehead against the wall, its toes against the baseboard. The second row rested its forehead against the back and its toes against the heels of the first. They told us to stand like that, closed the cell and left. Someone immediately broke the “order” and sat down, someone moved away. Immediately the cell opened again, good fellows flew in and beat all the “violators.” Built again. Now the line stood a little longer, after which the “violators” appeared again, the cell was opened again and they thrashed me again. This happened several times. The goats said that if we stood there like this for an hour, they would immediately take us to a search party and beyond. But no one stood like that for an hour, because it was impossible to trust these people, and for some of the prisoners, and among them there were older people, it was hard to stand in this position for an hour, which is why the executions were repeated over and over again. It may sound ridiculous that so many men cannot stand for an hour, or, for example, fight back the goats. It was as it was, I'm just stating a fact. There is no desire at all to understand the reasons, nor to remember all this, to be honest. After 2-3 hours they began to take us out for a search. The goats were also messing around. They messed around thoroughly. They shook out all the junk. Everyone was asked if he was carrying money or SIM cards, everyone answered in the negative, and those who the goats suspected of lying were bullied. Fortunately for me, everything turned out to be a couple of slaps in the face. After the shmona they began to lift us to the bathhouse. They placed me in a cell, inside of which there was a window in the wall, connecting to the adjacent room where things were fried. We handed over all our clothes, except for the shorts we were still wearing, to be roasted. Due to the huge stove in the next room, it was very hot and stuffy in our cell. The window was tightly closed. They lined everyone up again, just like in the basement. The second series of “standing” has begun. Just like in the basement, everything was repeated. Every 15-20 minutes the door opened, all the disobedient ones (and others too) received their portion of pussy and everything continued. I don’t remember exactly how long it all lasted, but at least 3-4 hours for sure; for me (and for everyone else, I think) then every minute dragged on for a very long time. The heat was melting our brains and, of course, they didn’t give us any water. Then they took us to the showers. These were standard prison showers. A dressing room, and the shower itself with jets from under the ceiling. When everyone entered the shower room, the door was closed behind us, so it was impossible to go out to the dressing room. The hot water was turned on. Not scalding, just hot as it should be. While we were waiting to be taken to the bathhouse, everyone naturally began to sweat, so the bathhouse was just in time. But there was a catch here too. Time passed, hot water flowed, but the door was still not opened. It became hot, like in a steam room, but luckily they didn’t abuse us like that for very long. After some time, the water from the shower changed to cool, everyone washed under it and they took us out. By that time our clothes were already fried. I don’t remember whether I already said why this is being done or not. This is done in order to kill any possible infection in clothes, including linen lice and similar nasty things. All the plastic buttons on the clothes melted and could not function as intended. I didn’t care about this, because it was the lesser of two evils. After everyone got dressed, we were lined up in the corridor, this time facing the goats. Several people were brought into the “barber shop” at a time, and while they were getting their hair cut, the goats “communicated” with the others. They asked who was coming from where, what they were imprisoned for, etc., and those who did not please them were beaten with an answer. They didn’t beat us as much as at the very beginning, but rather weaker, or rather, they showed less initiative in the beatings, apparently they were already tired by that time. Everyone had their hair cut to zero with a clipper, so the procedure was completed fairly quickly, and besides, not everyone needed a haircut, because they were already shaved. One of the goats selectively offered to go out to work on the following days. He offered this mainly to young and strong-looking guys. He offered it to me too, I decided to agree and, as it turned out later, it was not in vain. Before me, no one refused, but after me, one refused, which with him there was no need to describe, I think. Of the entire stage, which was about 70-80 people, 15-20 were selected for work. The reception ended and we were taken to the building where the Chamber of Commerce and Industry is located, where we were taken to cells. Because I agreed to go to work, I ended up in a working cell. As it turned out later, the working chamber, compared to the others, had a number of “privileges”. There were working sockets in it, that is, you could use a boiler, everyone was given mattresses (they weren’t issued to other cells), and in general, those who were in the “working cell” were treated a little more leniently than the others, this was expressed in the fact that that we were practically not beaten. The cell had bunks instead of beds. For those who don’t know, it’s just a solid wooden deck on two levels, with no division into sleeping areas. The cell was small, but there were relatively few people in it, about 20, so it wasn’t particularly crowded. After all these adventures, I slept like the dead. In the morning the balancer woke me up. We were given breakfast. It is worth noting that the food in this institution was good. In the morning they were given mainly sweet porridge, a piece of bread and sweet tea or compote. At lunch, since during the day we were busy almost all the time at work, we were taken to the kitchen to eat. This colony had a huge kitchen, as there were many guests. We ate not in the dining room with the permanent residents, but in the meat or vegetable department of the kitchen. We were led in, there were large pots of first and second courses on the tables, several loaves of bread and tea. You could eat as much as you wanted. The food was quite normal, there was some meat in the dishes, and overall it was satisfying. When you ate at the vegetable shop, you could peel an onion and eat it as a bite, dipping it in salt. In short, those who worked were well fed. The jobs were different. Mostly I worked in the sanitary inspection room. Several showers were being renovated there. First they knocked off the tiles and took them out, then sawed and sanded the pipes for new showers. The walls in the cells were whitewashed. In short, ordinary manual labor. I would like to note that I never was and did not strive to be a thieves, but lived, as they say in those places, as a peasant. Work for men has never been considered some kind of squalor. In the morning, goats took us from our cells to work. They communicated with us relatively normally. They didn’t beat me without a reason. Each of them recruited a “brigade” of 3-5 people from their cell in the morning and controlled them all day. A goat named Leva always took me into his brigade. In everyday communication, he was an almost adequate and reasonable person. He didn't insult or yell. He immediately said that if we don’t “fuck around” and do everything normally, then everything will be fine with us. This was fair and logical, in my opinion. Every day he gave our “brigade” a pack of Prima and a pack of “filters”. Also, during the work process, we were brewed a large jar of chifir. In addition to working in the sanitary inspection room, we were taken to “snow” and “bread.” I think everything is clear here. We removed the snow, of which there was a lot, and compared to my native Stavropol Territory, there was just a ton of it, there’s no other way to put it. We also carried bread. As in other similar institutions, it was baked by prisoners in a local bakery. We were given a Kamaz, this is a box welded from metal sheets. Like a construction stretcher, only long and deep. The empty Kamaz was heavy enough, even for two people, and when rows of it were filled to the brim with loaves of bread, it simply became too heavy to lift. There was nowhere to go and we carried it. Once, when approaching the end point of the bread route, I asked a friend to help me, because I couldn’t feel my hands anymore, he agreed, but they didn’t let him do it, and I got hit on the back. Not fatal, but not pleasant either. So I spent 10 or 12 days in this famous colony. Apart from the reception, on the other days there was almost no hitting, but sometimes it still arrived, as in the case of “bread”. Overall, I escaped with little blood, one might say. One day, instead of taking us to work, we were told to get ready for the transfer. It was a relief on the one hand, and fear of the unknown on the other. Surprisingly, before departure we were taken to the bathhouse, this time normally, without local jokes. As always, no one said where they were taking us. And they took us to Nyrob, to the so-called “Red Swan”...Part 1. https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_ya_poekhal_po_228_chast_1_531294...Part 1.5. https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_ya_poekhal_po_228_chast_15_53142...Part 2. https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_ya_poekhal_po_228_chast_2_531490...Part 3. https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_ya_poekhal_po_228_chast_3_531819...Ch part 4 https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_ya_poekhal_po_228_chast_4_532079...Part 5. https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_ya_poekhal_po_228_chast_5_532337...Part 6. https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_ya_poekhal_po_228_chast_6_532537 ...Part 7. https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_ya_poekhal_po_228_chast_7_532786...Part 8. https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_ya_poekhal_po_228_chast_8_533210...Part 9. https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_ya_poekhal_po_228_chast_9_53367 1...

It all started with a can of beer. Vank (Shvedov - MZ) and I walked to his house, grabbed some beer along the way, and already on the way to the entrance I opened my can. Before I had time to take a sip, two policemen came out of the entrance and stopped a meter away from us. “You’ll have to come with us,” they greeted me. First, they took me to a stronghold in a neighboring house, they kept me there for about an hour, forced me to strip down to my underpants, and they called it a personal search. I was a little worried that they might find hashish on me, although, given the current circumstances, it would have been better if they had found it then - perhaps everything would have turned out differently. Be that as it may, he was not found. I got dressed and waited for the police officer to call me. They put me back in something like a trunk. It was cramped, two welded chairs, I got the left one, on the contrary - a man who was twitching and shouting insults at the police, for which, apparently, he was handcuffed to the chair. It was so cramped that the knees painfully rested on the peasant’s knees. There was nowhere to move.

They brought me to the police station and started searching me again. I assured that they had already examined me, and suggested that they contact those who brought me here, but no one cared. They forced me to undress again, this time completely. With a bare bottom, I still had to do ten squats. All this was disgusting, but they assured me: the faster you follow the instructions, the faster it will all end; they were lying. They took my passport, carried me around the offices, and discussed something. Then they said that I was a persistent offender, who had repeatedly exceeded the speed limit and fled from justice, and they were very happy. No one paid attention to my arguments that I had neither a car nor a license. They took away my laces and shirt - I was left in a sweater on my naked body. Closed. The cell was double. A cellmate who woke up from the clanging of steel doors and bars explained to me why they were taking away his shirt: “Recently, a man hanged himself on a parachute here. He tied a noose from the sleeves and hanged himself right on the corner of the door, so the shirts were banned.”

So for the first time I found myself in a cell with an area of ​​seven or eight square meters, where two bunks fit and a toilet separated by a steel screen. The remaining space is barely enough to move between these locations. The state was discouraging, a lot changes in an instant, the moment is no longer enough to realize it all, the postulates are going to hell.

About four hours later - it was already night, but I didn’t even try to sleep - the door opened. “Veretennikov, get out,” the sleepy policeman shouted as if he were a hundred meters away from me. Again the same office, they returned my passport, they said that the computer had messed something up, I wasn’t supposed to sit here, for me it was only a fine for drinking. They threw things on the table: “Free.”

It would be too easy if the story ended there. That night I finally got to Vanya, the party was still going on, everyone was happy to see me. He told me everything that he had experienced, we drank beer, smoked hashish and the anger from what happened faded away - anything can happen. A week later, I paid a fine of 500 rubles through the government services website and completely forgot about that incident. But life is tougher.

A couple of months later, a local police officer called me on my mobile phone - at least, a person who introduced himself as him. He asked why I didn’t pay the fine. I was surprised, I didn’t understand what kind of fine we were talking about, I assured him that I always paid for everything that was.

It’s strange,” the district police officer hesitated and continued confidently, “then you now need to go to the Electrical Engineering Department (police No. 4 in Naberezhnye Chelny - MZ), write an explanatory note that you paid for everything, so that there are no more questions.”

At that time I had a fever, and I had just taken some medicine and planned to sleep. He said that I was sick and that I would come back in the next few days when I felt better. The district police officer said that it was better not to delay and that he would come to my home himself.

Half an hour later the bell rang. There were two policemen outside the door and they immediately entered the apartment. I said hello and pointed to the kitchen, where a table and chairs had been prepared. “Dress warmly,” said one of them, not paying attention to the gesture, “you will come with us.” I said that we talked about the explanatory note and I can write it at home. I called the local police officer, described the situation, he said that I still needed to drive up, write to the department, and then they would take me back. I stopped understanding the situation and panicked a little. I called my father, but couldn’t really explain anything, just something like “The police came, they took me to the department, they talked about warm clothes, something about an unpaid fine, but I don’t know what they were talking about.” Either the employees were worried about the call, or they were simply tired of waiting, but they pushed me into the entrance, allowed me to close the door and took me to the car.

It was obvious that all this was not for the sake of explanation. The phone was taken from the car; there was no one to consult with. They drove around the city for an hour, filled the car, and brought five people to the department at once. An hour later it was my turn. A plump man was sitting in the office; from his voice I understood that he introduced himself as a district police officer, but most likely he was not one. “You haven’t paid the fine, and you’re lying,” he said, leafing through some papers, “undress.” I began to object: “What fine are you talking about? Everything I received was paid for a long time ago and on time.” “Do you have the receipt with you? Well, that’s all, I’m not going to figure it out, everyone can say that they paid for it, why should I believe everyone now?” For another twenty minutes I tried to prove that I had paid, that there was a receipt, so that at least they would give me a phone number and I would find text messages from the bank or a receipt for government services. Instead, he collected his papers and left the office. Instead, two people came in and ordered me to take off my laces and put all my things on the table. They put me in a cell again - the same one.

This time I came across a nice cellmate, a guy a little older than me, who forgot to pay for screwdrivers at Megastroy. I believed him: he was dressed respectably and introduced himself as a foreman of a construction company. He said that he came to Megastroy by car, filled two baskets of building materials worth fifty thousand and forgot to put a set of screwdrivers on the belt. And by chance I came across the evil head of security at Megastroy. In general, the feeling that I was not the only one getting into stupid situations was reassuring. In the evening, my parents gave me a bag of food, we had dinner, and for the first time I fell asleep in my cell. The next day we were informed that in the cells we were waiting for the trial, which would take place via Skype in the order of priority, and we were the last in line, there were five more departments before us. On the second day our turn never came. It was boring. Reading the writings on the walls, I wondered what they were doing. In the cracks between the board and the wall, I found pieces of white stone that looked like chalk. I spent the second half of the day on patterns with palm trees and birds on the wall in which there was a doorway - when the door was opened from the other side, the wall was not visible.

On the third day, after lunch, we were transferred to another cell, it was also a double cell, and there were already two people there. They explained that there were not enough places for new visitors, but we were already being let out today anyway, so we’ll be patient for now. There was just enough space for everyone to sit - two people per bench. But it was already difficult to get up, take a couple of steps, stretch, or go to the toilet. After a few more hours, two more people were brought into the cell: an elderly man took my place on the bunk, and I leaned my elbows on the front door. A pale guy from the new party took a place behind the wall of the toilet. Several more hours passed like this, there was not enough air, if there was any there at all, there was no desire to communicate, everyone took turns taking deep breaths and waiting. It seemed that I was about to lose consciousness. I was the third to be called - it was about six in the evening. They took me into another cell, without benches; there was a TV with an attached webcam hanging on the wall, with a system unit underneath it. The entire screen was occupied by a woman's face against the background of flags - as I guessed, judges. The whole process looked like this:

Last name, first name, date of birth.

Didn't pay the fine, do you admit guilt?

No, because I paid the fine, I can provide a receipt as soon as I am given the opportunity.

The court retires to make a decision.

They kicked me out into the corridor, and a minute later they gave me a printed decision. The court decided to impose a double fine. The resolution stated that I admit guilt and repent.

I returned home again, again there was a reason for anger. Before my eyes stood a cell full of people, and a feeling of helplessness and despair. I met with a lawyer friend, told him about what had happened, and asked for advice. After listening, he shrugged his shoulders: “Well, yes, it’s harsh, of course, it’s offensive, but it’s quite normal, this is not uncommon, you can challenge the court’s decision, but you won’t achieve moral compensation, and you’ll spend more on lawyers than a thousand rubles in fine.” In the end, having calmed down a little, I finally decided to just pay a new fine and forget about it. This time I paid through a Sberbank branch - right opposite the police department.

And a couple of months later I received a summons to appear in court. It said that I was a malicious repeat offender who evaded paying fines.

July 29, 2015

I collected all the receipts and was going to take them to court. But the day before, with shouts of “drug control!” They grabbed me by the elbows and threw me face first into the grass. They put handcuffs on. One of the men dressed in black got on my bike. Having been bent in half, they put me in a car and took me to the nearest hotel, where they conducted a search, during which they tore and broke half of my things. They even tried to disassemble the bike, but, naturally, they found nothing.

Next was the Federal Drug Control Service department, located in a typical kindergarten building. They took me inside. From the threshold I saw Arthur (Zhuravlev - MZ), he was sitting in handcuffs on a bench, with abrasions on his face. “We were screwed,” he said, trying to spread his hands. They took me further and sat me on a chair. Ivan's girl sat next to her, with empty eyes; whispered: “They promise him eight years.” Ivan himself was sitting at the other end of the corridor, his gaze also went far away - through the walls of the kindergarten. When he noticed me, he moved a little closer and spoke in a loud whisper. The speech was abrupt: “They have already decided everything, we need to adhere to the legend that I am an accountant, Arthur is a director, and you are a supplier, we must recognize this legend and sign everything, they have already agreed with Arthur, it cannot be denied, otherwise it will be worse.” To the question - what does it mean: “It will be worse”? - he replied that then they would tell their parents everything. Vanya had been there for ten hours already. I don't know what was going on there all this time, but my best friend, the director IT-firms, an athlete and a man who has seen a lot in life has clearly lost his mind.

According to the text of the verdict, around the beginning of April 2014, a resident of Naberezhnye Chelny, Artur Zhuravlev, had an intention to sell drugs - “new synthetic drugs with a complex chemical composition, the narcotic drug hashish and the psychotropic substance amphetamine” - both from hand to hand and through "bookmarks".

In the same month, Zhuravlev involved his acquaintances Ivan Shvedov and Evgeniy Veretennikov in the activities of the criminal group, and in December 2014, the document states, R. A. Sagitov joined the group. All of them were aware of the illegal nature of Zhuravlev’s plan and wanted to illegally enrich themselves for drug sales account, the verdict said.

Then, having secured the consent of the group members, Zhuravlev assigned roles. He himself decided to be responsible for general management and coordination: he bought synthetic drugs from an unidentified person in St. Petersburg through bookmarks, transported them to Naberezhnye Chelny, ensured their storage and packaging in his home and in the premises he rented, was responsible for supplying drugs to his accomplices, distributed substances among them, set the price and made bookmarks, distributed income, provided security measures and personally looked for buyers.

They started taking me around the offices. First they took me to “beat” me. Three people stood in front of me: two were laughing, one, with a menacing expression on his face, was waving a baton, and I was sitting handcuffed on a chair in the center of the room. The employees didn’t demand anything specific, the ones without sticks pushed you on the shoulders and asked “what?”, and the one with the stick said: “We are ordered to beat you.” First I asked: “Why?”, then the absurdity of what was happening dawned on me and I was surprised: “Ordered?” The man hesitated, put the stick away and said: “Well, if you do everything right, we won’t.” No one knew what “correct” meant.

The “beating” ended there. The door was opened by a balding man - I later learned that this was operative Albert Degovtsev. He asked: “What is your witness doing here?” and took me to another office. Then there was a long night interview, I already wanted to sleep, but it was only four in the morning. First, they put surveys of my friends in front of me and began to quote places where they were giving me up, although I knew from Vanya that he had not signed anything yet. I already realized that it was useless to hide anything, I admitted that I was an experienced drug addict, I tried a lot of things, I told how and on what site I bought it, but this was not enough. The balding operative often repeated my name - for two or three hours straight, he just sat and repeated. Then he said that I had to sign everything he said, then they would leave me as a witness. Then he started typing something and asking me questions. I tried to understand every word, but everything was in a fog. He asked me to confirm that my friends were earning millions, that he had seen them sell, but I refused.

July 30, 2015

By morning I was already in despair. There were no windows in the office or in the corridor - it seemed as if more than a day had passed. The operative said that I would no longer be a witness, the chance was lost. For the last couple of hours he has been describing my future in vivid colors. I no longer wanted to sleep, or drink, or live any longer; by that time I already believed that this was the end. In the end, he printed almost the same thing as in the surveys he showed me. He told the truth: that he found stores with illegal substances on the Internet, that we chipped in and bought ourselves some drugs, that he had known Vanya and Arthur for a long time, and that we often smoked together. I admitted all this orally, using exactly these phrases, but in the printed text everything was somewhat different. Because of fatigue, it was difficult to understand what was written, besides, Albert did not shut up for a second and convinced that these were details of legal language, formalities, and in essence everything that I said. The operative went home, and they took me out into the corridor again. This time there were no friends in sight, there was no way to find out the time.

The defendant Ivan Shvedov, according to his assigned role, was supposed to purchase “electronic devices,” install “software” on them, buy SIM cards and open accounts in payment systems. In addition, Zhuravlev assumed that he was supposed to, acting together with Veretennikov, pick up drugs from caches in St. Petersburg and transport them to Naberezhnye Chelny, and there, together with the leader of the group himself, package them, pack them, and, “through targeted communication on the global information network Internet, using various electronic identifiers”, look for buyers, negotiate sales with them, “report the type and quantity” of the drug buyers need, participate in setting prices for them and transfer the money received to electronic systems, in the future cashing them out.

Veretennikov, according to Zhuravlev’s plan set out in the verdict, was supposed to “play the role of a courier” - pick up drugs from stashes in St. Petersburg and, together with Shvedov, transport them to Naberezhnye Chelny for subsequent transfer to the head of the group, participate in setting prices for drugs, and look for drugs among his own. acquaintances of people who use drugs, negotiate with them about illegal sales, personally meet with buyers and sell them hashish at a price of 1,000 rubles per gram, retaining “as a reward a part of the drug received for the illegal sale for personal use.”

Sagitov’s role was that, using a tablet provided by Zhuravlev, he had to get drugs from stashes, or personally receive them from the head of the group, and ensure their storage in safe houses, as well as sell drugs and transfer the proceeds to QIWI-wallet, “retaining your share of the criminal proceeds in the amount of 150 to 300 rubles.”

I asked a man passing by for water.

Has there already been an interrogation? - he asked. - After the interrogation everything will be fine, just wait. For now you can only go to the toilet.

This turned out to be another challenge. It’s hard to believe in the power of the law, in human rights, in the fact that you have any rights left at all, when you’re trying to go to the toilet with handcuffs behind your back and drink rusty tap water with them, while law enforcement officers look on and laugh. .

When I saw the operative again, I assumed the day had passed. This time he had my mobile. He described the situation like this: “I need two witnesses who will say that they personally bought drugs from you. It's better that you choose two people yourself. If they do everything correctly, we will let them go, otherwise we will take turns taking everyone with whom you spoke on the phone and corresponded on VKontakte and work with them harshly.” He immediately named the first five people with whom he threatened to “work.” After thinking with the rest of my consciousness, I agreed to his proposal, already knowing what it means to “work hard,” and also realizing that more than half of my friends use drugs. I indicated two people from the notebook who, I was sure, did not have anything prohibited with them. Before the interrogations, they were led past me so that I could tell them what to say. I treated them to hashish, they don’t know anything else. Then I already realized that I was seriously hit, so I tried to simply reduce the blast wave.

For a short period of time, I was taken out of the building - to the GND, to take a drug test, and home for a search. There was no one at home - it was the summer season. The employees had my keys. Here everything was as usual, they found neighbors who were witnesses, one of them turned out to be my godmother, and they began to turn over the apartment. They warned me that it was better to give everything away myself, otherwise they would come with a dog and upset me even more. I followed the advice, they even wrote down in the protocol that I voluntarily showed where I kept it. I kept it, without further ado, on the table. Operatives found and seized a couple of splashes and a piece of paper with traces of white powder. They also took a box of mints - one, at the operative’s request, I ate in front of him.

I remember the interrogations almost as vaguely as the night operational interrogation, and they were not much different. The same Albert stood at the door, the investigator demanded to put another signature under the same words, and the operative corrected me if I said something differently. I remember that the investigator constantly smiled, often clicked his tongue and repeated “hard”, “hard”. They explained to me that the silent woman in the corner is my lawyer, that I do not have the right to remain silent, since the interrogation has already begun, that any deviation from what I said earlier will only increase my sentence, because it will be considered false testimony. My lawyer nodded her head. The investigator asked if I remembered what I said earlier, I answered: “Vaguely.” “I’ll remind you now,” he said, turned to the monitor and began to read.

The text was twice as long. I noticed many additions, tried to challenge them, said that these were not my words. The investigator replied that I cannot refuse this testimony, because this is actually proven operational information, and I can only supplement it. The lawyer nodded. At the moment when the story began about the comrades I named, the investigator wrote down that they were consistently and a lot purchasing drugs from me. I said: “We didn’t agree like that, I treated them only once.” The lawyer stood up for me and asked me to write down my words. The investigator refused. In fact, during the interrogation, I admitted, just as before, that I bought drugs with Ivan, that for some time my drugs were kept by Arthur, that I smoked them with friends. New absurd proposals appeared to transfer money, either to Arthur, or vice versa, the wording was unclear. The investigator insisted that I couldn’t change anything, that these were just quotes from other interrogations, the lawyer nodded, and on the line “I admit my guilt in selling, I repent,” she said that this was about the fact that I treated him - they say, in fact, this is considered selling , and admitting guilt is the only opportunity to reduce the sentence. When the investigator finished, I asked: “How can I supplement this interrogation, why am I here?” The lawyer explained that I could agree in part and explain what I disagree with. I didn’t agree with the fact that the interrogation said “sold”; I didn’t say that. The investigator added from my words: “I was not involved in selling drugs,” showed it to me and the lawyer, and then added “but sometimes I sold it to people I knew,” explaining this by saying that he could also make additions. The lawyer nodded. Everyone signed up.

In fact, it was like this: I found online stores, we went to St. Petersburg, hung out there, chipped in and bought drugs from the stores we found - high-quality and cheap. They brought it to Chelny, divided it, and, of course, constantly used it at various parties. In reality, everything looked different: at first I didn’t understand why they added details like the insignificant “... fulfilling my role...”, I didn’t attach any importance to these wordings, even though some of them looked threatening. We were convinced from the very beginning that the crime had already been proven, the article would not change, and the only question was whether our testimony would agree. Only on this depends whether our guilt will be mitigated.

Confrontations were not much different from interrogations: they sat us opposite each other, asked whether we recognized each other and whether we hated each other and all that, after which they read out the interrogation of one of us, asked whether these words belonged to him, immediately clarifying that the words belong in any case - here is the signature, nothing can be changed - then they read out the interrogation of the second. The investigator explained that we sign not because we agree, but because we listened. The confrontations were the same, government lawyers: the parents found out that we had been detained a day later and did not have time to hire anyone. Here I learned that Arthur was found with a couple of bricks of hashish, a bag of pills, amphetamine and a whole collection of psychedelics, which he gave out voluntarily and kept in his office - the “2/18” business center, in other words, in Tyubeteyka, he had There's a recording studio there. I found out that there were two more people in the case with whom I had not personally communicated - they were Arthur’s friends. There were no bets between me and them. I also found out that they want to put me under house arrest. The senior investigator said that I was lucky - I would have time to say goodbye to my family and get ready, and that I would have a whole week to do this. Maybe even two.

According to some sources, we spent a day there, according to others, two. I myself cannot say with certainty, but when we were taken to the isolation ward, it was evening. The team turned out to be quite good: a kind adult Armenian and two guys - one for drugs, the second for attacking a taxi driver. The Armenian was accused of fraud. None of them were angry or aggressive. Only one denied his guilt - he claimed that he was riding in a taxi with a drunk friend and he refused to pay, and the taxi driver asked him for the full price. As a result, friends drove up to the taxi driver and beat the guy in a crowd; they themselves filed a statement and identified themselves as witnesses. An offensive story, if everything here is true, although quite predictable. The rest did not deny that they had played a prank, and were simply preparing to respond. After listening to my story, they said that I was unlucky, they briefly discussed places of detention and my experience of communicating with law enforcement and judicial authorities, and did not return to this topic again. They drank tea and argued about the moment of the birth of life and energy in the universe.

At the first trial, a preventive measure was chosen for us. We were sent to a detention center: the judge did not give me house arrest until all the owners of the apartment, including my grandmother and sick grandfather, appeared in court. A week later I finally found myself at home. I was forbidden to use any communications; I was not even allowed to call my parents - only the investigator, inspector and lawyer. They put a bracelet on his ankle and gave him a tracking device that looked like a rotary telephone with four buttons: “call”, “do not call”, “information” and “call the police”. I signed for the devices more than 20 times, and then every week they demanded a receipt that I remembered everything, didn’t violate it, and had no complaints. In total, I put almost five hundred signatures on various papers over the course of a year and a half. The court determined the walking time for me - from 10 to 11 am - at this time I could go outside.

August 3, 2015

The first day was tiring. The state was depressed and still as desperate. Mostly, I was busy putting away my belongings for long-term storage and packing a bag that I would take with me to prison. Relatives came and expressed opinions. We communicated with notes, fearing bugs - in the detention center they said that this is a common practice, they place them during a search or in advance, when coming to check, for example, a fire alarm. I then heard a strong phrase: “Death is scary, but you yourself died once. It's a grief for your loved ones, but you can get used to it. And your situation will kill both you and your loved ones for years, and it’s impossible to get used to it.”

On the first day, I learned about the camera on which the employees recorded all the searches - after mine they forgot it in my room. It contained a video from the search of Arthur's apartment and several others not related to my case. After consulting with a lawyer, the father decided that it was worth returning her: without her, the case would most likely have been delayed a little, and there would have been no benefit from it. He went to the Federal Drug Control Service and gave it personally to the chief.

I didn’t have to think long about what to do with my time at home: the next morning at seven o’clock the doorbell rang. “You are coming with me,” the operative said. - We have to talk". I spent the next months in the Federal Drug Control Service - they let me go home in the evening and took me back in the morning. No one really said when this would end and when there would be a trial - everyone promised day after day that there was about a week left. They also said different things about the term - on average it was eight years. The article (228.1, part 4, paragraph “d”) suggested from 10 to 25, but then they accused me only of attempted trafficking, which took 20% of the term. On the very first day, they explained to me that it is a common practice to leave one of the defendants under house arrest, and that there is still a chance to mitigate your sentence by identifying a couple of friends who will have substances with them. The lawyer insisted on the same thing, only he urged him to do it officially, in the form of a test purchase, and said: “Every one and a half rents.” It was proposed to admit all guilt and hand over someone. In this case, you are guaranteed and officially receive a piece of paper stating that you have ratted out the person. At the trial, she seems to give a discount of up to 25% for the term.

Weeks passed. Most often, I spent time in the same office, with Degovtsev, and every day I listened to different stories about prison, about the fate of people who “did wrong.” I tried to talk to him rationally. He proposed cooperation - to de-anonymize some sellers from the open Internet, noting that they focus on natural substances, maybe someone grows them at home, but they are not paid for spice. I understood that I could easily find sellers, they are not particularly good at hiding, but I was surprised by something else - why the Federal Drug Control Service themselves don’t do this, don’t look for them, don’t close them and, in fact, don’t do what they are there for. In general, to the offer of cooperation, I replied that I could find and show some sites, which, in principle, they could do themselves, but I flatly refused to hand over and substitute living people, with whom I had nothing in common.

Sometimes Albert was not in the department, then I was assigned a nurse from the rest of the operatives, who, as a rule, were not happy about this. Basically, I still listened to the description of the future that they were preparing for me. “There’s no shame in giving up, everyone does it,” repeated every second person. One nevertheless turned out to be inventive - having found out that I was an artist and knew English, he set me the task of designing a sweatshirt for him with a picture and an inscription - so that it would clearly say that he was a drug policeman, but so as not to scare away drug addicts. I hope this guy managed to drive around with a red marijuana leaf all over his chest and a signature Staff Ranger.

There were repeated confrontations, little changed, there were already hired lawyers, they advised not to deny what was said, just to add “did not sell drugs,” and if the text was significantly changed, they could add an article for false testimony.

The lawyer continued to insist on practice: he himself worked for a long time as a senior investigator and asserted with confidence that this was the only way it was done. It was also from him that I heard for the first time that if I had killed a person, it would be easier to work - there are many more acquittals and it is more difficult to prove, but here just words are enough. Almost every conversation with him ended with the phrase: “The decision, of course, is yours, but think carefully about what is more important to you.” I definitely believed him in one thing - if they took a person, they would put him in prison. This, again, is practice, and according to practice, if a person is arrested, the verdict will be guilty.

September 2015

Suddenly I had a second lawyer - it turned out that my uncle hired him on the advice of friends. The new one was younger and, at a minimum, agreed to consider different options for the defensive line. Having two lawyers turned out to be expensive and unproductive, so I decided to give up the first one. The second, by the way, was the former deputy head of the Federal Drug Control Service.

He also did not deny that the entire investigative structure is based on market relations, but I convinced him from the first time that I would not rat anyone out, and he never returned to this topic. He and I went to the current deputy chief, and he proposed a new option: first, with the department’s money, make a test purchase on the ramp ( RAMP, Russian Anonymous Market Place- the largest Russian-language market on the deep web - MZ), where I bought the substances, and then go to St. Petersburg and show them the bookmark. We almost agreed on this, but after consulting, he realized that this would not help in any way to catch the sellers. He suggested another option: since they need more high-profile cases and seized weight, I can voluntarily give them a certain amount of drugs; This is not punishable, and in return I will receive a positive reference for the court from the Federal Drug Control Service. Essentially, I was required to buy 100 grams of cocaine, amphetamine or a kilogram of marijuana or hashish without any warning and officially give them what one could say “found.” I thought about it for a while, but in the end I refused the offer: my conscience did not allow me to accept it, and the voluntarily given kilogram of grass did not fit into my line of defense.

Time passed, the house arrest period was ending, and from different sides I began to hear about bribes. No one named specific amounts, but we were talking about the sale of cars, apartments and large loans. Of course, they didn’t offer me anything; they contacted my parents. I asked them to ignore such proposals. According to rumors, my friends’ parents also had enough such opportunities. I was killed by despondency, nothing really happened, nothing changed, tension and bustle made me helpless and depressed. I was angry at the thought that those who are going to imprison me, in addition to their salaries, want to cut down as much as possible. Everyone said that for money you can only reduce the punishment - the law specifies a range of terms for this, you cannot change the article for money - only for “big money”. From that time I remembered the phrase “The official price list will be posted before the last trial - there’s no need to rush yet.”

October 2015

Two months later, my house arrest period ended, and I thought that this would be the end of my red tape. But no: at the next trial they simply extended our preventive measure for another two months. The investigator told the judge that he needed a little more time - a couple of weeks.

As autumn passed, the despondency grew stronger. They no longer brought me to the Federal Drug Control Service - I had to get there myself. We were allowed to come by bicycle. It was a strange feeling - freedom, movement, wind in my face, sunset over the river, but at the same time I was going to the investigator for another interrogation. Or from the investigator, and at the same time I wait until everyone finally completes their bureaucratic formalities. And then they'll put me in jail.

In another conversation with a lawyer, an absurd circumstance emerged. The fact that they didn’t find anything criminal on me either on me or at home (for two failures from the search I faced a maximum of 15 days or a fine) did not play into my hands; on the contrary, it greatly aggravated the situation. “Understand, you should be imprisoned, this is a practice, now it is only decided for how long and under what article,” the lawyer explained, “and if they found you had enough weight, you could bargain and go to “storage”, get your four- six years". Now, the only thing left for which I could be imprisoned was “sharing criminal intent with an organized criminal group intending to sell drugs on a large scale.” It sounded funny; I did not understand how this could be proven with only words, but I knew that they would prove it.

As stated in the verdict, acting in accordance with their roles, in the early summer of 2015, Shvedov and Veretennikov went to St. Petersburg in an unidentified car, where, on Zhuravlev’s instructions, they contacted an unidentified person on an unidentified website on an unspecified day and bought 166 grams of hashish from him through bookmarks , 11.27 grams of mixture containing MDMA, 0.0189 grams DOB, 49 grams of a mixture containing amphetamine, 21.6 grams of a mixture containing methylenedioxypyrovalerone, 10.6 grams of a mixture containing mephedrone and 0.34 grams of a mixture containing 2-CB, which were transported to Naberezhnye Chelny and began to be stored in Zhuravlev’s personal apartment and in his office.

In June, the verdict says, Zhuravlev gave Sagitov 2.47 grams of hashish, which he sold on July 17, 2015 to Ishmanov D.F., previously convicted of drug trafficking, for 3,000 rubles, having met him at the entrance of his house. In turn, Ishmanov sold hashish to E. S. Polyakov, who had already been convicted of drug possession. Subsequently, hashish was seized from his apartment.

On June 24, 2015, the verdict says, Zhuravlev agreed with intermediary I.N. Vasilyev to sell drug user R.D. Safuanov two grams of a mixture with MDMA and 3.6 grams of amphetamine mixture. Safuanov transferred 22 thousand rubles to Vasiliev’s card, and he, in turn, gave him the drugs that he took from Zhuravlev. They were later seized from Safuanov’s apartment. In the same month, Zhuravlev gave Sagitov 0.82 grams of hashish. On June 28, he agreed on the sale with his acquaintance V.S. Kurin. Having met him on the same day at a grocery store, Sagitov gave him the drug and received a thousand rubles for it.

They started calling me less often, sometimes I stayed at home for the whole day. In the mornings, while walking, he walked around his complex, sometimes going out onto the boulevard. I drank tea for a long time, looked out the window - life was seething there, children were playing, people were leaving the house and returning home. I started feeding the birds, and soon they were waiting for me on the windowsill in the morning. I remembered that shortly before my arrest I bought hammocks for outdoor parties. The next morning I hung one of them on two trees in the yard and for two whole weeks I watched how social relationships formed between the children. At first they were afraid of someone else's thing, then the owners began to appear, then, to prove whose hammock it was, they even began to fight. But the main thing is that it was never empty, and it was interesting.

November 2015

They almost stopped calling me from the Federal Drug Control Service; they still spoke vaguely about the timeframe: a couple of weeks, a month at most, almost everything is ready. I started watching films that I haven’t had time to watch for a long time. Suddenly they came for me. “Dress,” they say, “comfortably and warmly, shoes without laces are better, just take your passport with you.” I panicked a little, I didn’t expect such suddenness, I hoped that they would warn me in advance. I called the lawyer, he said that this was not the final trial, it was something ordinary, and he had no need to be present. The operatives were kind and explained that the tests had come from the State Inspectorate. For being a drug addict, I was given two days or a fine, and I was taken to court. The verdict had already been printed and was not even announced - they simply handed out a piece of paper. On the way, the police took me to a store, advised me to buy water, cigarettes and tea, then took me to the isolation ward.

I've been in cells before - this was the fourth one, this time for ten people, with a table and bunk beds. We played chess, told stories, in two days I almost read a book - something about the flight of the Valkyries, science fiction about Russian politics. My cellmates, hearing my story, patted me on the shoulder and said, “That sucks, man, that sucks.” I’ll tell you about my previous experience of being placed in an isolation ward, shortly before this story. Back then it made me very angry - to the point of shaking my hands and gritting my teeth, but now it is perceived quite adequately, it’s just the way it is.

November 2015

At the end of autumn, I was suddenly taken from home at seven in the morning and taken to a familiar kindergarten building. First, I found out that the investigator in the case had been replaced - the new one was noticeably older, but this did not bring me any practical benefit. He said that the results of the examinations had arrived, and there were a couple of discrepancies in them, and since an inspection was to come to the city tomorrow, most likely led by Putin himself, it was necessary to put all matters in order. It turned out that the experts were unable to determine the composition of the mints from my iron box. The investigator explained: “It says here that 63 white tablets were seized, the substance was not identified, and was completely consumed. It turns out that I can’t send it for re-analysis or attribute it to you, so I just need an explanatory note in which you state that it was candy.” I was angry that even at such an official level as an examination, where the rules must be observed especially strictly, they simply stole my thing. I liked these candies, they were dear to me, I was hooked by the investigator’s phrase that they still couldn’t charge me with the substance, and in the explanation I wrote that I kept 63 tablets of pure cocaine in the box. The investigator became worried, took the phone and left the office.

Five minutes later, on my “Ufsin-mobile” - that’s what I called the push-button folding phone by which the investigators and the inspector were supposed to find me - the lawyer called. “I appreciated your joke, but it’s worth thinking about it carefully. If you leave everything as it is, most likely, a couple of people will get hit on the ears, perhaps even a criminal case will be opened against some expert, but how will this situation help you? You’ll just make enemies who, if they get angry, will easily find the missing 63 cocaine tablets.” As a result, a line remained in the file: “Basically, I explain that the experts ate my candies.” At the next meeting with the investigator, the lawyer recalled the joke with cocaine and, on occasion, told a story about a camera that was forgotten during a search. In those days there was a different lawyer and a different investigator; for today it was a legend. “Why didn’t you exchange anything for the camera or for the examination, I would have jumped out long ago if I were you,” the investigator turned to me in surprise. “Eh, you don’t know how to bargain.” It was true.

Winter 2015-2016

Time passed, I was sitting at home, there was nowhere for new circumstances to appear in the case, we did not understand what the investigators were waiting for. Four months later there was another trial to select a preventive measure; in practice, it is not changed, and I continued to remain under house arrest. There were always rumors about the proximity of the trial - they always promised “a week or two.” There was also a rumor that everything should be finished by the end of the year, but instead there was another extension, just before the New Year. At that meeting, the lawyer asked to increase the walk to two hours, the court granted the request. There I also heard that cases are not submitted at the end of the year because the report has already been generated and they simply will not be counted in the solvency statistics. Now they were talking about January. It became clear that I would celebrate the New Year at home. New, 2016.

The rest of the drugs - that is, 163 grams of hashish, 9.27 grams of a mixture with MDMA, 0.0189 grams DOB, 46.2 grams of a mixture with amphetamine, 21.6 grams of methylenedioxypyrovalerone, 10.61 grams of a mixture with mephedrone and 0.34 grams of a mixture with 2C-B- were seized by FSKN officers. Some of them were seized from Zhuravlev’s apartment and his office, and some from Sabitov’s apartment, the verdict says

In a two-hour walk, I could have done much more - for example, I visited exhibitions at the city history museum, saw the new embankment, jumped in the trampoline park, photographed gophers on the first road, and even skied in the forest with my mother. Although, over time, the walk began to get boring: I went to bed late, it was hard to get ready in the morning, and I had run out of ideas - I already knew the surroundings by heart. Later, I only went for walks on weekends with my mother, and sometimes a girl took me out for a walk. She helped me not to lose heart and not go into complete loneliness. A couple of friends came to visit once or twice a week, one of them a witness. Over time, it became more and more difficult to find topics for conversation; nothing new happened to me. It was difficult to figure out what to write in letters to my friends in the pre-trial detention center; they were sitting in Chistopol.

Closer to March, the Federal Drug Control Service was disbanded. There was no longer a structure, but nothing had changed for me: the case was open, the investigator was the same. He called me to look at the case materials. The investigator was noticeably upset by what was happening to the structure, my lawyer made a couple of jokes about this, saying that I should have left a long time ago - it’s calmer in civilian life and there’s more money. Exhaling heavily, the investigator summed up: “As soon as everything got better, they went into the wrong pocket again.” Back to business.

There were 11 volumes, each half a brick thick, the entire stack was about half a meter high. There was little interesting information there - I doubt that anyone read it in full. There were many printouts of bank transactions, call lists, search reports, and examination results. Meanwhile, there were still new details. For example, I thought that we would be defined as a group of persons by prior conspiracy, it turned out that they were organizing an organized crime group after all - the term now varied from 10 to 25 years.

From the case, I learned that it all started with a local police officer named Evgeniy Sergeevich Polyakov, a police captain, who smoked hashish. In June 2015, he was tracked down and detained by Federal Drug Control Service officers, and 2 grams of hashish were confiscated from him on the spot. Judging by his testimony, he repented, agreed to hand over and frame the person from whom he bought. That's what I did. The district police officer himself received a year's probation. He was repeatedly summoned to court in our case as a witness, but he never appeared. I saw his face only on the official website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, judging by which he continues to hold his position.

District police officer Polyakov handed over a certain Ishmanov, who also made a deal with the investigation - he gave confessions that helped expose other criminals. I know nothing about his further fate. So another person appeared in the chain: he bought hashish from a certain Sagitov, who is also in Chistopol, and is indicated as a member of a criminal group. Sagitov was followed, his telephone conversations were tapped. As far as I know, he was arrested at the same time as Arthur. There was also a certain Kunin, who, judging by the materials, also bought hashish from Sagitov.

A certain Safuanov also appeared in the case; he bought the pills MDMA from Vasiliev, who, in turn, took them from Arthur. Safuanov was arrested on the way to Kazan and drugs were seized. He confessed and received six years probation. Vasiliev was given a written undertaking not to leave the place, and he is also identified in the indictment as a member of a criminal group. Total: the size of the criminal group reached five people.

Ivan was arrested at home; he lived with a girl in a rented apartment. They called him on his mobile and asked him to move his car. They tied me up in the entrance.

There was no mention of me in the case until the moment of my arrest - I suspect that they decided to take me after the arrest of Ivan and Artur. I called Arthur’s phone many times when he disappeared, at that moment the operatives had his mobile phone, and my name, surname and photograph periodically appeared on the screen. In the evening of that day, his girlfriend called me in tears, saying that Arthur’s car had been taken away, and he was lying unconscious and she didn’t know what to do, I rode a bicycle to the meeting place, where I was twisted. She was taken from the street in the afternoon along with her sister and dog; according to her, they forced her to call me, threatening her and her younger sister with prison. Officially, this was called an operational search event. The file contained transcripts of Arthur’s calls, including our conversations with him, but they have nothing to do with the case.

Spring 2016

At the next meeting with the investigator, I was formally charged. They charged me with the sale of hashish to Polyakov and Kunin and the sale of tablets to Safuanov. I didn’t know these people, but they accused me of a general criminal intent to sell them drugs. I also didn’t know the people who actually sold them the substances. I was also charged with “sharing a common criminal intent in the attempt to sell drugs to residents of the city of Naberezhnye Chelny who need their use.” So it is written: he shared the intention of preparing to sell to those in need. Only with a bunch of colorful additions, like “he foresaw the possibility and inevitability of the onset of socially dangerous consequences in the form of harm to public health and public morality and desired their occurrence, that is, he acted with direct intent.” The house arrest was extended and the case was sent to court. It was May.

The first meeting was scheduled for June 8. It was scary: I didn’t know what to expect, and from previous communications with the court I was sure that the verdict had already been published - the rest was just formalities. On the other hand, I was already pretty tired of living through these last “two weeks”; I wanted some kind of clarity. Although many people said, “Be glad that you are staying at home,” this did not make me happy at all. The lawyer warned: they are unlikely to do it in one day, there will be several meetings.

In court I saw my friends again for the first time in almost 10 months. They looked good, but the fatigue and excitement on their faces were noticeable. The first meeting did not bring practically any clarity; they began to read out the case materials, and it was difficult to understand anything from the quiet, monotonous speech of the prosecutor. I had already read the case, so out of boredom I looked around the room, the prosecutor, the judge, the lawyers, my friends, looking for interesting details. As a rule, the hearing lasts two to three hours, and closer to 12 the judge announced a break... for almost three weeks! That is, at least three more weeks of so-called freedom. Summer was starting, I took out my bike again.

Summer 2016

Now it was clear that nothing would change in the matter. The procedural details remained, things became a little calmer. I decided that three weeks were left because the court had not yet had time to make a decision, and after that there would be several hearings in a row and it would all be over. Now the end was seen more clearly, and this made me rejoice at the last young days in freedom. Sometimes it was possible to forget about the future for a while and simply greet the sun and wind with my hair. Then the alarm clock notified that there were 15 minutes until the end of the walk, and it was time to return home. Some things evoked depressing, scary, cruel thoughts.

For example, I had two dogs then, one was already old. Considering the dog's age, I understood that when they took me away, I would never see her again, never. There was something more terrible: two old grandfathers, one grandmother. Most often, I managed to avoid heavy thoughts. No less melancholy was caused by thoughts about my personal life, the fate of my relationship with the girl and her fate. Many times I wanted to make radical decisions, break up, so that I would suffer less later, but something held me back. We bypassed these thoughts and learned to enjoy what we have, the present.

The days before the trial passed almost unnoticed; I can even say that I lived them in the present tense, and not in the usual anticipation. This time the trial was denser - two days in a row, although in the end nothing changed again. But by the standards of a boring life under house arrest, the trials are still a significant event: I saw friends there, I saw, albeit sluggishly, the flow of life outside the apartment. Lawyers waiting for the judge usually discussed manicures or a new iPhone, but sometimes they also told interesting stories.

Vasiliev, accused of complicity in the acquisition of drugs on a large scale, admitted his guilt in full, with the exception of the charge of participating in an organized sales group. The remaining defendants admitted partial guilt. Sagitov admitted that he purchased hashish from Zhuravlev for personal use, confirmed the fact of sale to Ishmanov and Kunin, as well as the storage of the substance seized from his apartment. Zhuravlev, the verdict says, said that in April 2014 he, Shvedov and Veretennikov bought hashish in St. Petersburg and brought it to Naberezhnye Chelny, where they divided it among three. A year later, they began to discuss the possibility of buying drugs on the Internet: Veretennikov showed which sites this could be done on, and Shvedov “found an opportunity to pay for drugs.” After this, Zhuravlev, according to his testimony in court, told Sagitov about his upcoming trip to St. Petersburg, he decided to buy drugs along with them and gave about 20 thousand rubles. Upon returning, Shvedov and Veretennikov handed them over to Zhuravlev. He took them to his home, and then gave the shares due to them to Veretennikov, Sagitov and Shvedov. The defendant did not deny the fact of sales to Safuanov through the mediation of Vasilyev.

“These drugs were intended for personal use, but not for sale. He did not admit participation in an organized drug trafficking group, as well as the leadership of this group, testified that all the prohibited substances found in their possession were purchased and stored exclusively for personal use, he gave these drugs to Sagitov, Shvedov and Veretennikov at their requests,” - Zhuravlev’s testimony is retold in the verdict...>

For example, I learned that we are not alone: ​​firstly, 80% of all prisoners in Russia are imprisoned under Article 228. This is a user-friendly article that has a lot of practice and is easy to prove. In total, by 2016 there were 646,000 prisoners in Russian prisons. This is like the entire population of Naberezhnye Chelny. Prison staff are another 300,000 people. Well, another 304,000 are serving a suspended sentence or are under house arrest. However, despite the fact that the total number of prisoners decreased over the year, nine new prisons were opened in the country and 15 additional buildings were built in existing ones. The reality is that some Russians simply live in prisons.

I heard a fresh and graphic story about catching drug addicts, which happened after the disbandment of the Federal Drug Control Service. We caught two guys, young and ambitious, with one joint between them. There was not enough weight for a criminal article - only an administrative charge, up to 15 days or a fine. Investigative measures were taken in this case: they were interrogated. First they asked if they had smoked the joint. The tests had already shown everything, so the guys didn’t deny: “They smoked.” Then they asked whose it was originally. The one from whose pocket they took it says: “Mine.” They began to find out how he then got to the second one, to scare the 229th (theft of narcotic drugs). The second replied that he took it from the first with his consent. But the joint was confiscated from the first one, which means he returned it. The major says: “Well, you were afraid. Everything is voluntary, no one stole anything, no money was paid to each other, sign and you can go home, I’ll write you a fine, even your parents won’t find out.” The guys exhale with relief and sign. Bingo! Sale by a group of persons by prior conspiracy! Article 228.1, part 3, paragraph “a”, term from eight to 15 years. Any transfer is a sale, from two people is considered a group, they both knew that it was a joint and passed it on deliberately. It couldn’t be simpler - a protocol without flaws. Guys even without criminal charges leave for 10 years. They say they were lucky - they could have gotten away with 15, and even with a fine of up to 500,000 rubles.

Four meetings took place over two days. I don’t remember how many volumes I read. A new break was announced for a month, even a little more - in July there were no meetings at all. Again, I tried to live in the moment, not to think about what I couldn’t change, but over time it became more and more difficult. A new thought was alarming: I couldn’t imagine a situation in which I wouldn’t be imprisoned. I believed so much in the inevitability of my conclusion that I simply didn’t see any other option, and the worst thing was that I didn’t want to. There are no more ideas, plans, ambitions left, no desire to live. I was just counting down the days until the end, this time I was given 33 of them.

After the meeting, I received a letter from Vanya. Trying to hold on and not lose heart. He spent all this time in one ten-bed cell, I think it’s even harsher than prison, because there is still life in it, but here there’s just waiting and a very small space. It turned out that there were quite a few acquaintances there: they sent greetings. What was upsetting was that there was a greeting from Edik, a friend with whom we rode bicycles after my arrest, to whom I told everything in detail. They imprisoned him under the same article. Apparently, we only learn from our mistakes.

Shvedov and Veretennikov confirmed at the trial that they actually went to St. Petersburg to buy drugs because they were cheaper there. After chipping in 45 thousand rubles, they transferred the amount into bitcoins, then sent it to the seller and took the bookmark. There were more drugs than expected, which is what the seller warned them about - during this time the Bitcoin rate fell slightly.

“Upon arrival [in Naberezhnye Chelny], he handed over a package of drugs to A. Zhuravlev, and E. Veretennikov was present. They did not have any conversations about sales; the drugs were purchased exclusively for personal use. He was not a member of an organized group. From the specified batch, he received his share in full, which he then smoked, but he was also owed part of the drug that was found on A. Zhuravlev, since these were additional drugs from the batch received as a bonus,” Shvedov’s testimony is recounted in the verdict.

“He purchased the drug hashish in St. Petersburg for personal use. He does not know the exact circumstances of the acquisition of drugs, since Shvedov I. took them, then they returned with the drugs to Naberezhnye Chelny, where Shvedov handed them over to Zhuravlev A. After some time, near Zhuravlev A.’s house, he took the latter’s share of the drug due to him hashish in the form of a handful of foil, which he used himself. He did not deny the fact that he treated his acquaintances to these drugs - they smoked them together, and also used drugs together with Zhuravlev and Shvedov. He denied involvement in independent sales and sales in the group,” it also says about Veretennikov’s testimony...>...>...>

Around mid-summer, the district police officer who started it all ended his probationary year. It turns out that we smoked the same hashish, only I was still waiting for the court’s decision, and my punishment was much more severe.

Over time, a person gets used to everything, but it is impossible to get used to waiting. When you wait for something for a long time, you begin to become it yourself; through time, your present appears there. In prison, people live in anticipation of freedom, try to become it, prepare, strive, plan, dream. I became my own prison and I still live like that. My physical condition also deteriorated: in addition to the fact that I began to move very little and did not care about my physical fitness, I almost stopped eating. I don’t remember what it’s like to feel hungry; thoughts about food make me nauseous. I’ve been eating food lately just so that my stomach doesn’t hurt from hunger. A little fear remains in me, I’m afraid of changes, but the desire for all this to end soon is much stronger. I know that in prison I will begin to get better, I will begin to dream.

The next courts did not add any news. We finished reading the case materials and began interviewing witnesses. Basically, these were witnesses from detentions, inspections, and searches. Several people were invited, two or three people came to the meeting, sometimes just one for the whole day. Elderly people also came, some were brought by bailiffs. The expediency was questionable - they all had already signed the protocols. As a rule, everything followed the same pattern:

Witness so-and-so, were you a witness during the search?

Did everyone understand there?

Got it.

You can go.

The lawyers asked routine questions: “Do you know anything about the involvement of any of those present in criminal activity?”, everyone, of course, answered that no. One guy was brought in in shorts and flip-flops; I think he was on something. He agreed that the search took place in July, but insisted that he was wearing a winter jacket, and therefore stated that July was winter. Having heard about liability for false testimony, I took my words back. Hearing that there were no more questions for him, he sat down next to me in the dock. There were 42 witnesses in the case. The trial was like a circus, only it was a sad circus.

The verdict lists the evidence of the defendants’ guilt - first of all, their testimony given during the investigation, in which they allegedly spoke about “the circumstances of their activities related to [drug] trafficking,” the composition of the organized group, sales methods and prices, the use of technical means, buyers, conspiracy methods and specific sales circumstances. In addition, the verdict says, the guilt of the defendants is confirmed by the testimony of witnesses. With the exception of police officers and witnesses, there are four of them in the case. At the court hearing, none of them confirmed that he knew anything about the involvement of the accused in the sale of drugs, after which, due to “significant contradictions,” the state prosecution announced the testimony of these witnesses given during the investigation.

Thus, the protocol of interrogation of Zhuravlev’s cohabitant Larina described under what circumstances her young man and his friends Shvedov and Veretennikov decided to sell drugs in Naberezhnye Chelny and how they began to go to St. Petersburg for them. The testimony of Shvedov’s cohabitant Pashutina said that she knew about “some common earnings” of the defendants, about how often she heard from Ivan, who was constantly talking on the phone, the phrase “let them throw it at QIWI”, and that sometimes Zhuravlev gave her young man money in “bundles”. Witness Usmanov told investigators how he bought hashish from his old friends Zhuravlev and Veretennikov. The testimony of another witness, Plokhotnov, says that he bought hashish and stamps from Veretennikov three times.

“The defendants and witnesses at the court session confirmed the above and read-out testimonies partially or did not fully confirm, while showing the court that they gave these testimonies under pressure from employees of the Federal Drug Control Service, in a sick state, in a state of drug intoxication, and also in a state that did not allow be fully aware of their actions in connection with the presence of a mental disorder,” the verdict says. FSKN officers and operatives were invited to the court to check, but they refuted the words of the witnesses, the document notes.

From suicidal and simply difficult thoughts, I found salvation for myself in escapism - I went into the world of imagination. Movies, TV series, books, and mainly computer games and sleep. At first, waking up in the morning was torture. I opened my eyes, found a bracelet on my leg, I didn’t want to believe that it was real, I didn’t want to open my eyes anymore. But over time I caught the rhythm: I slept as much as I could. When I woke up and managed to fall asleep again, my dreams became more vivid. Sometimes it was even possible to control them, draw them, and continue the previous ones. And when my eyes could no longer close, when reality began to choke me, I crawled to my laptop and launched Heartworld. Fortunately, people have come up with survival games that perfectly replace real life. The point is that you start the game from scratch, naked, on uninhabited land, find a branch, another, then a stone, make a hatchet and try not to die from hunger, cold, wild animals, then build a house one stone at a time. A month later you are already protecting your castle from other players, participating in wars, and making alliances. In general, there is always enough to do there so that thoughts about the real world do not appear at all. He played until his eyes were drooping and he only had the strength to take exactly two steps to the bed.

So, unnoticed, several months passed in real life. I almost didn’t communicate with friends and relatives, meetings were superficial, any topic was boring, I wanted to quickly return to my world. My mother literally pulled me out for walks on weekends. Sometimes by this time I was still awake and after returning I sat down to play, thinking over in those two hours a plan for building a new tower. Several ships passed this way. Sitting on them with a notepad, I designed buildings, divided borders, and during a three-hour lunch break I managed to come home and repel the attack of enemies. But over time, I got tired of this too. Having played 1,500 hours in one game, wandering around my domain and realizing that I had already done everything a long time ago, I felt the lie of what was happening. I looked for other games, dived into other worlds: 500 hours in a new world, and 500 in another, in GTA-5 online, according to the plot, I even maintained marijuana plantations and cocaine warehouses. Judging by the game, it's fun. This went on for another couple of months, until in one of the Steam games I got an item that could be sold for in-game currency - a golden rocket launcher. For the first time in a very long time, I had a plan that made me smile sincerely. I have a goal.

Autumn 2016

It took almost a month to implement the plan. I was still sleeping and playing most of the time, but at the same time I felt that something real was happening, interesting, mine and, most importantly, the task was not easy. It was necessary to transfer game money into cryptocurrency - ultimately into bitcoins. I won’t describe all the actions and steps, there were a lot of them. I will only say that after a month there was hashish on my table. Forgotten and downtrodden memories came flooding back like a warm wave: I remembered friends, our sleepovers in the open air, travels, parties, trips, quarrels, problems, solutions, time, the rhythmic sound of wheels, the smell of waves on the Gulf of Finland. I wanted to live again.

Taking out the turntables, I collected my favorite music, found my photographs, albums with drawings. I brewed a bun and returned to my reality, step by step. Games weren’t so attractive anymore, I wanted to sleep less, heavy thoughts returned, but I didn’t run away from them. I felt the strength: to move, to fight, to live on. Over time, I pieced my world together, almost stopped waiting and started preparing, I decided to write my story, leave it on paper. Then I realized that I could only deprive myself of my freedom myself, and I also remembered that until the verdict was announced, I had a choice.

Thoughts about escaping had appeared before, but then they were desperate, rude, illogical: “Run, without looking back, hide, see no one, run.” Now I decided to think about them. The main question was: “Where to run?” From whom - it’s clear; why - it’s clear; but where? And, basically, the question was not of a geographical nature - I had no goal. Technically, I went through many options - not a single good one, every decision had bad consequences. Escape itself is a crime, this time I can really and consciously become a criminal. Any option to start a new life - falsifying documents, crossing the border - new crimes. There is no statute of limitations; according to statistics, 80% are found in the first 2 weeks, the average search period for the rest is 20 years. For a particularly serious crime, the data is sent to Interpol. All kinds of political asylums are for the Khodorkovskys and Snowdens, those who have something to offer in return. All relatives will be tortured, friends too, but now I know very well how they treat people. In addition, a fine is added for each day on the run. The safest option was to live alone in a rented apartment without leaving it. It's not much different from prison, at least in a better way. Conscience is also not on the side of flight: I want to face those who bring accusations against me, express and defend my position. As a result, my choice was determined by a clear thought: “At the conclusion, I will know the deadline, there will be something to strive for, and I will remain honest, first of all, with myself. Running is a lifelong thing.”

The trial continued, more interesting witnesses appeared. The friends who told the Federal Drug Control Service that they bought hashish from me stated in court that we just smoked together, and that I didn’t sell them anything, they took it from the table themselves, and the drug control officers forced them to incriminate me. However, there were now two versions of their testimony in the case, and it was up to the judge to decide which one to believe.

Investigators were also witnesses, and even the head of the department was called. To the lawyers’ questions “what is the basis for the assertion about the stability of the criminal group?”, “how long did the surveillance and development last?” everyone unanimously answered “secret operational information.” There were also holes in their testimony. For example, Albert Degovtsev said that he read text messages from the seized phone, but at that time the phone was sealed and he had no right to touch it. Basically, everyone wisely avoided answering and nothing that could help us appeared in the case. At one of the hearings, I recognized the guard who led Vanya into the courtroom - this guy in the eighth grade tried to take my cell phone away and tore off the sleeve of my jacket.

Winter 2016-2017

At the end of December, the older dog became paralyzed and had to be given a lethal injection. It was a significant event - my dog ​​died in my arms and fell asleep forever. I managed to say goodbye to her and was glad about it. I tried to take time off for an extra hour of walking to help my mother bury the dog. The inspector said that he did not consider this important, but I could petition for this at trial. I didn't ask. I have one young dog left - with sadness I realized that after the verdict I most likely will not see this one again, because I face a sentence longer than a dog’s life.

Celebrated another New Year at home. I stopped smoking hashish, I got tired of it. And it was time to gather my thoughts and become more serious. Now I didn’t really worry about the illegality of smoking - that’s not what I’m being judged for at all, and I’ve already served a lot of time for smoking.

After the next trial, on December 16, I waited until the guys were taken to load them back into the car. It is forbidden to communicate in the courtroom, but on the street they could shout something to them. The guards with the dogs pushed everyone off by 20 meters, which means the guys will now be led away. Seeing the top of Ivan’s head, I shouted:

Happy anniversary!

With which?

The 25th meeting is over!

Happy anniversary to you too!

Everything dragged on for a very long time, meetings were rarely scheduled. For various reasons: either someone was on vacation, or a judge was on a business trip, and choosing a convenient day for all seven busy people (five lawyers, a judge and a prosecutor) was not easy. I also saw other reasons for this delay - all these people received money for their time. Delays are especially beneficial for lawyers. My lawyer cost 150 thousand rubles for a year and a half, and by general standards this is an adequate price. The first lawyer cost another 50 thousand. But most lawyers charge money even for months when nothing happens, and charge more for months in which there are meetings. There are also those who need to pay for every meeting, every signature, every volume of the case. In general, everyone in this crowd knows each other well. Many studied together - now formally on opposite sides, but in the end they still do the same thing. In general, all good lawyers are former investigators or prosecutors. It turns out that for them it is not so important which side to be on - what is more important is where the conditions are better.

The debate began in court. I arrived early; so far there were only lawyers in the room. The prosecutor entered - judging by the documents, “Deputy Prosecutor of the city of Naberezhnye Chelny, Counselor of Justice O. E. Ulyanchenko.” He sat down at the table, smiled and asked the lawyers: “Well, are you ready? Doesn’t anyone want to fully admit their guilt?” Several people immediately answered something like: “Are you kidding, should we recognize the group?”, and Arthur’s lawyer asked a counter question:

Don't you think that the charges brought against them are too harsh, since it is obvious that there is no organized group here? Do you yourself believe that young guys can be corrected by a long sentence in a Russian prison?

Well, you yourself understand everything, you have to go to jail, you have to work somehow,” the prosecutor continued to smile. - Well, they don’t shoot, what can you do! We love Section 228. Like the 210th.

There was silence for a while. The smiling prosecutor was the first person in a year and a half that I felt disgusted with. I clearly understood that the law enforcement and judicial structure is a big business with its own rules and procedures. Drug addicts are the basis of this business, the prosecutor confirms this. And this man accuses me of “causing harm to public morals.”

Of all the people responsible for my situation that I have encountered during this time, I sympathize with most. I feel sorry for some: they played their small role in the system, some really believed that they were fighting evil. Others simply didn’t think twice and did their job - earning money. Many understood that what was happening was not entirely correct, but believed that it was not in their power to change anything. Only the prosecutor aroused real disgust in me - with his statements, undisguised indifference, behavior and actions. It was he who signed our indictment and it was he who was responsible for the content and wording. An investigator told me about this a year ago, complaining that he suffered for two weeks rewriting our indictment (it is prepared before sending the case to court), and in the end he wrote it with the prosecutor over the phone.

The debate began. In essence, this is a clear indication of the positions of the defense and the prosecution: the prosecutor requests punishment and provides evidence, the lawyers list evidence from the defense line, the defendants can also say something, but usually they simply support the words of the lawyer. The prosecutor asked me for 14 years of imprisonment in a maximum security colony. Arthur is six months older. Vanya is 13.5 years old, Sagitov is ten, and Vasiliev is suspended for four years. In my opinion, everyone was surprised by the deadlines, including the judge - although he didn’t show it, he asked to repeat the deadlines. After the words “the evidence is,” the prosecutor listed 45 points. I believe that none of them proves my guilt in the crimes that I am charged with; moreover, outright lies are given as evidence: for example, that during a search of me “devices for packaging narcotic drugs were discovered and seized, as well as equipment for the sale of narcotic drugs." Nothing similar was found or seized, and the documents in the case confirm this. Perhaps the prosecutor simply made a mistake when he included evidence in the charge and, on the basis of it, asked me for 14 years, but I think he did it on purpose, to throw dust in the judge’s eyes - suddenly he will take my word for it.

Lawyers denied the validity of the evidence and the wording of the charges, for example, that the use of personal phones to communicate with each other is least likely to resemble the conspiracy that is colorfully described in the charges. In general, many of the same facts were listed, many of them essentially abstract, the prosecutor stated that they proved guilt, the lawyers argued that they did not prove anything. Considering the amount of things listed, my head was left in a mess. We finished in about an hour, a break was announced for more than a month, but this time it was already decided that the last word would be on March 10, the verdict on the 13th.

14 years - the figure was announced and could not get out of my head, mathematics played a cruel joke on me - I was facing not only 14 years, but also, for example, 168 months or 5,000 days. Of course, I understood, and everyone was talking about it, that they wouldn’t give me 14. It’s also a practice to name large numbers, then reduce them, then a little more, but they won’t reduce them much. I read a little about this, psychologically a person can be crushed so that he will be glad that he ended up getting 10, really glad to get 10 years in prison. I tried not to think about it.

Spring 2017

It was difficult, but I still believed that the last word meant something to the court and could influence its decision. I saw the judge as an intelligent person, perhaps the smartest person present in the room, so I wrote the text of my speech with all my heart and all the logic that I have. My friends in the pre-trial detention center were also preparing - it was obvious. They talked about the propaganda of soft drugs in the media and popular culture, cited the example of Konstantin Ernst, who laughed at jokes about drugs in KVN on Channel One, and explained that such things contribute to a frivolous attitude and a lack of understanding of the danger. We talked about violations of our rights during investigative actions, that imprisonment, especially for a long period, does not correspond to the goals of punishment and a person who has made a mistake for the first time and found himself in a criminal environment for a long time, although he is aware of his guilt, risks leaving with an altered value system . They explained that repentance and the desire to never commit criminal acts again occurs after six months to a year of imprisonment, and the pre-trial detention center, in which they had already spent one and a half years, is the most stringent measure according to the standards of the Penitentiary Commission. Everyone said that they realized how bad drugs are and regretted that they did not understand this earlier. Sagitov also thanked all the participants in the process for the time spent together and called the assistant judge “amazing.” Everyone asked to give them a chance, and explained that they wanted to live an honest life, to create a “healthy unit of society.” I recorded my performance on a tape recorder.

Today is March 12, Sunday, a sunny spring day. In the morning I walked with my mother, friend and dog along the banks of the Kama River. The ice begins to melt, the sun makes you squint out of habit. The verdict is tomorrow. I didn’t particularly prepare for prison; I’ll go to the announcement as usual: in a plaid shirt, jacket and bell-bottom trousers. Further - time will tell. In the afternoon I cleaned up the room and put my things away. There was only a laptop left on the table, on which I am finishing this text. The emptiness that has arisen around resonates perfectly with the inner state; the unnatural silence is sometimes enlivened by the howling of the wind behind the curtains.

Over the course of a year and a half, I experienced the same moment many times, hundreds, thousands of times. The moment when I leave the house for the verdict. Thousands of times I saw my mother's tears, heard my father's deep sigh. This moment was racking my brain - here I am, at home, and I am leaving, on my own, consciously, voluntarily. And no one knows when I'll be back; Most likely, everything will be different, the world will never be the same.

It's already morning, the 13th. I don’t feel anything like that, I’m in a little hurry to finish the story. I didn’t sleep today, but it’s not scary - in any case, I’ll still have time to sleep. I just decided that I shouldn’t take everything to heart. I only know that this day will end, and then there will be another, and after that another. Life goes on.

The verdict was announced on March 13, 2017. Because of the drugs found in Zhuravlev’s apartment and office, the court qualified Veretennikov’s actions as an attempted sale by an organized group on a large scale (part 3 of article 30, paragraphs “a”, “d” of part 4 of article 228.1 of the Criminal Code). The court excluded from the scope of the charges against Veretennikov the small amounts of amphetamine and hashish found in his apartment, and acquitted him of all three counts of sale in July 2015 “due to his non-involvement in their commission.” As a result, Evgeny was found guilty only of involvement in the episode with drugs found in Zhuravlev’s office and apartment, qualifying him under Part 3 of Article 30, paragraphs “a”, “d” of Part 4 of Article 228.1 of the Criminal Code (attempted sale of drugs as part of an organized large groups). He was given seven years and six months of strict regime.

“[Veretennikov’s] arguments that he only treated his acquaintances with illegal substances, liked to make a large portion of drugs, which he then smoked together, but did not sell them for money, in accordance with the current legislation, do not exclude the presence in his actions of a sign of sale,<...>since obtaining material benefits is not a prerequisite for this crime,” the verdict says. Shvedov, Zhuravlev and Sabitov were found guilty of all charged episodes of sale and attempted sale. They were given 13, 13.5 and 9.5 years of strict regime, respectively.

The full diary of Evgeny Veretennikov is published on the website

All such cases appear in a journalist’s work in the form of a stack of protocols, where the participants are just stereotyped figures with names and no faces. And while they are all on paper, everything is very simple - they are guilty. But sometimes these individuals find a face and a voice - those who have been released come to the editorial office, those who have not yet been freed write letters from the colonies. And in many cases, these are obvious provocations on the part of the police, and the most important thing in the verdicts is omitted, and for some reason key material evidence has evaporated. But people’s sentences are considerable, and prison is real.

Here are just a few stories.

The case of Evgenia Shestaeva

In April 2016, 27-year-old Evgenia Shestaeva was sentenced to 13 years in prison by the Butyrsky Court in Moscow. She has no previous convictions, has positive characteristics, and has been a personnel donor since 2008. Along with Russian citizenship, she also has Israeli citizenship, because of which she even managed to serve in the army. In Moscow she was engaged in business - together with her partner they opened a small lingerie store.

In July 2015, Zhenya did not return home. A few hours later, it turned out that she was detained at the Otradnoye metro station during a meeting with a certain Ruslan, who was supposed to develop a website for the store. We met and exchanged documents. At that moment, people in civilian clothes approached them and asked to come with them. In the presence of witnesses, Shestaeva and Ruslan were found to have plastic bags with the substance - Ruslan had one, and Shestaeva had two. An examination by the Ministry of Internal Affairs at the metro established that this substance is “spice”, the size is especially large. Ruslan testified that it was Shestaeva who allegedly sold him the bag found on him for 1,600 rubles and generally sold it on a regular basis. This means, Tatyana Konchakova, senior investigator of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Internal Affairs Directorate at the Moscow Metro of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for Moscow, concluded that Shestaeva sold one bag, and intended to sell the remaining two.

According to Zhenya, the substance was planted on her after her arrest. Of course, nothing can be established now for sure, but the text of the verdict itself leaves questions.

Thus, Evgenia’s testimony in court that an envelope with a substance was planted on her was rejected by the court for the simple reason that she offered as many as three versions of how it could have been planted on her. Apparently, such things need to be known for sure. The verdict also says: “if we rely on the second and third versions ( from proposed by E. Shestaeva. — Ed. ), then all participants in the inspection should be recognized as involved in falsifying evidence in relation to Shestaeva E.Yu., which is clearly not true.” This is the reinforced concrete justification.

Fingerprints were not taken from either the envelope or the plastic bags during the investigation, and there is not a word about this in the verdict. But “there is reason to doubt that it was precisely those seized from E.Yu. Shestaeva that were submitted for research and then for examination. two packages with the substance, the court does not have.” It’s just “not available”, that’s all. As Zhenya’s mother Svetlana told Novaya, these envelopes and bags, despite numerous requests from the defense, were never even shown to them, let alone fingerprints taken.

As further evidence of guilt, there is a video recording from the subway, which shows her sitting on a bench with a courier. There is no recording that would show her handing the courier something wrapped in paper or a bag.

Ruslan will receive probation, Zhenya will receive real 13 years. The operative part of the verdict states that she was found guilty of “sale of narcotic drugs on an especially large scale” and “attempted sale on an especially large scale.”

By the way, investigator Tatyana Konchakova, who was in charge of the case, had worked in law enforcement for 19 years by that time and, having the rank of lieutenant colonel, was preparing to retire with the rank of colonel. Which, in fact, was not hidden from the suspect’s mother. She retired in September 2016.

During the appeal on December 6, 2016, the Moscow City Court reduced Evgenia’s sentence to 8 years. “We, of course, will continue to appeal the verdict,” her mother told Novaya.

During the preparation of the issue, unconfirmed information was received that, based on Svetlana Shestaeva’s complaint, the prosecutor’s office was preparing a cassation submission against the verdict and an appeal ruling in Evgenia’s case. Also, in the time that has passed since the beginning of the story, the appointed lawyer, who “worked” with Zhenya immediately after his arrest, was stripped of his lawyer status precisely for his work in this case.

The case of Karina Pozdnyakova

The 34-year-old Muscovite has been in prison for three years now and will be there for another five years. In 2014, judge Petukhova of the Cheryomushkinsky Court of Moscow gave her 8 years. The article is an attempt on “illegal sale of psychotropic substances in a significant amount” (part 3 of article 30, paragraph “b”, part 3 of article 228.1 of the Criminal Code).

In February 2014, Karina received a call from an old friend with whom she had not communicated for a year, Anna Radimova, and asked to buy “amphetamine” for her, Karina’s mother Marina Antonova told Novaya. A friend said that she was in trouble, that she felt very bad. Karina did not agree for several days. The criminal case contains call details that show how actively Radimova called Karina. A few days later, Karina gave up. I bought it as a bookmark ( without contact with the seller, the money is transferred to the account, in exchange the buyer is told where to pick up the “bookmark”. — Ed.) a certain package and brought it to where Radimov asked. After this - detention and arrest. According to Marina Antonova, the FSKN employees staged a pure provocation, on the basis of which Karina was convicted: “Radimov was detained a few days before my daughter, they demanded to hand over her real supplier, but she refused. Then she was released on bail, and she immediately began “bombing” my daughter with text messages. It’s clear that Karina was simply framed!”

Anna Radimova, who made a deal with the investigation, received a suspended sentence of 2 years and 8 months in the same Cheryomushkinsky court in the same 2014. Moreover, the event for which Radimova was convicted occurred on February 13, and Karina was detained on February 20 - just seven days after Radimova’s arrest. Evidence confirming Karina’s guilt is Radimova’s testimony and her statement of desire to cooperate with the investigation. Not counting the testimony of the police, of course. But, despite these white threads sticking out from all sides, Judge Petukhova sentenced the young woman, who had not been previously convicted, to 8 years in prison.

Case of Alexander Borisov

Sometimes operatives fail to provoke provocations. But when their victim refuses to cooperate, they are punished even more severely. Example - case Alexandra Borisova. In September 2016, judge Lifanova of the Timiryazevsky Court of Moscow gave him 4.5 years for “storage on a large scale” (Part 2 of Article 228 of the Criminal Code).

Elena Otts, the sister of 27-year-old Alexander, told Novaya about the background to this verdict. In August 2015, Alexander received his first sentence - 1.5 years probation for “storage” (Part 1 of Article 228 of the Criminal Code). He did not deny that he sometimes smokes weed, especially after a divorce - his wife and two small children left Alexander, who at that time worked at a defense enterprise as a specialist in anti-corrosion treatment of parts. After a suspended sentence, FSKN operatives began to harass him and demanded that he participate in “control purchases” for them. He refused. It was possible for almost six months, but already in February 2016, Alexander Borisov was detained and, according to his sister, asked to confess to buying narcotic substances from one person. When Alexander refused, the head of the task force went somewhere to get “his” witnesses. “When he returned with witnesses, he put his hand into the breast pocket of Sasha’s sweatshirt, took it out, unclenched his fist, and there were two packages in it - look, they say!” - Elena said. The investigation did not want to remove fingerprints from the packages; after the trial, this evidence disappeared.

The appeal, which the brother and sister really hoped for, did not change anything - the Moscow City Court upheld the 4.5 year sentence.

Harutyun Azaryan case

Harutyun Azaryan was identified as a possible drug dealer in March 2015. He was detained and five months later he was sentenced to 8 years. And three months later in the pre-trial detention center, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the lymph nodes.

- I'm not saying that he should be released. Harut is guilty, and he understands it. But not for what he was imprisoned for 8 years! - says Harutyun’s grandfather Garnik Azaryan.

Garnik says: Harutyun had friends - brothers Alexander and Dmitry Anokhin. In the spring of 2015, they began calling Harutyun with a request to “get something,” knowing that he had once tried amphetamine. Harutyun allegedly did not agree for a long time, but they pressed, in the end, the young man promised to “find something.” Dmitry transferred 3,000 rubles to Harutyun’s card. Harutyun went to a certain Pavel, obtained one gram of amphetamine, tried it himself on the way and brought 0.83 g to Dmitry. While handing over the substance, Azaryan was detained by police officers from the Yakimanka Department of Internal Affairs. At the police station, Harutyun did not deny guilt, he admitted that yes, he was a fool himself, he went, brought it, and understands everything.

An investigation began, then a trial. For some reason, no one was interested in Pavel, from whom Harutyun took the substance, and no one looked for him. The prosecution was based on the testimony of Dmitry Anokhin. What’s interesting is that Anokhin lived in Kuntsevo, but for some reason he came to write a statement that he was ready to provide assistance in exposing a person involved in drug distribution to the Yakimanka police station. And, surprisingly, he was immediately accepted there, and not sent to the police department at his place of registration. At the request of the police officers, Anokhin called Harutyun with a request to get the drug, then, when he agreed, the officers organized a test purchase and supplied Dmitry with money. Moreover, at the trial the police had to admit: they had no evidence that Azaryan had ever sold drugs before. This was the only case.

Witnesses - private security company employees from Cheboksary and the Bryansk region, who were present during the search - could shed light on the crime. But their testimony, allegedly given on different days to the investigator of the department on Yakimanka T.V. Dubrovskaya, are similar down to typos and incorrect commas. The bottom line: Dmitry gave out the package with the substance, saying that Harutyun sold it to him. At the trial, one witness no longer remembered anything, the second did not appear at the trial at all.

Harutyun was given 8 years of strict regime for “preparation for a crime” and “sale of a psychotropic substance in a significant amount.”

“But this is not sales, but assistance in acquisition,” says Harutyun’s lawyer Inna Buntina. — There is a resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court No. 14, where this is qualified as complicity in acquisition. After all, he did not sell his substance. He went for it as a courier. We asked to qualify his actions as “assistance in the acquisition, possession of a psychotropic substance without the purpose of sale” and to take into account his repentance and sincere confession. But they lost the appeal and cassation in the Moscow City Court, then in the Supreme Court.

Harutyun is now serving time in a Mordovian colony.

Case of Patimat Nukhova

A native of Dagestan, Patimat Nukhova, a widow and mother of three children, also lost in all courts. As follows from her letter sent from the Oryol women’s colony, in June 2014 she received 10 years of general regime for “illegal possession of drugs on a particularly large scale.” She says: she agreed to take for storage things from her seemingly good friend Gulbahor Kozlova (they worked together in cosmetics distribution companies), who did not have a permanent place of residence in Moscow. “Therefore, I was not surprised that she asked to take her things for storage for 2-3 days. I asked: “What are these things?”, to which she explained that these are things “related to law enforcement agencies.” This answer did not arouse my suspicions, and I did not doubt the legality of my and her actions.”

And despite the fact that Patimat saw several more folded packages in the package, this did not alert her; she put them under the closet in the apartment. Soon, a friend asked to return one of the packages. At a meeting in a public place, they were detained by FSB officers. It turned out that the bag contained heroin.

“When the staff told me this, I immediately stated that I had two more packages left at home, and they could contain similar contents.” The woman drew a diagram of the furniture in her apartment, indicating exactly where she put the packages. This was confirmed in court by operatives. That is, it turns out that she gave it up voluntarily. Moreover, there was no search of her apartment; they only listed the items whose location she reported. She was promised a “voluntary extradition.” But they threw it away. And the court ruled that her guilt was confirmed by the testimony of that same friend of hers. And the court could not distrust them - after all, there was “no hostile relationship” between the ladies, which means there was no point in slandering Patimat from her friend. But the court was not convinced by the fact that the friend simply wanted to shift some of the responsibility from herself. Both were given 10 years. Palimat - for storage on an especially large scale, Kozlova - for preparation for sale by a group of persons by prior conspiracy. True, a number of people with whom Kozlova entered into a conspiracy remained unidentified. The court was not embarrassed by the fact that the operatives lost somewhere all the records of telephone conversations between the two women, which would have confirmed that they were preparing and committing illegal acts related to drugs. Although it seems like material evidence of ORM.

In the colony, Patimat became legally savvy. Only now all her appeals about provocation by the Federal Drug Control Service, of course, receive replies.

Case of Aydin Mirzoev

21-year-old serviceman of the Strategic Missile Forces Aidyn Mirzoev received 2 years of general regime in December 2016. The 235th Garrison Military Court found him guilty of acquiring and storing amphetamine weighing 2.27 grams without the intent to sell.

Aidyn’s father, a former opera singer himself, who knows firsthand how such cases are conducted, came to the editorial office along with an attesting witness in the case. Mirzoev Sr. said that the amphetamine was planted on his son by a colleague named Denezhkin, who was on the hook of FSB operatives Kuzov and Volkov for some of his sins. However, the father believes, Aidyn is also to blame - he pretended to be a major: “Denezhkin heard a lot of his son’s stories about how our family is very rich, after which he, Denezhkin, being Kuzov’s agent, informed him about this, and he told his friend the opera Volkov, and they decided to extort money from us.” On June 30 last year, Aydin was inpatient at a military hospital. The same Denezhkin was lying in the same room with him. During the day, sitting in the gazebo, he will suddenly unfold a small package in front of Aydin, explain that it is amphetamine, and offer to try it. Aydin will refuse (two official medical examinations will not find psychotropic substances in his body). Unfazed, Denezhkin allegedly saw someone from the authorities in the distance and asked Aidyn to hide the bag with him for a couple of minutes, while he himself ran away somewhere. Aydin will hide the bag in her pocket. In 5 minutes, the opera will approach the gazebo and conduct a personal search of Mirzoev Jr.

Gadir Mirzoev, who became his son’s lawyer, will find out that the operational search activity “Surveillance” of Aydin began an hour before his arrest. Moreover, at the trial, Volkov will be forced to admit: at the time of the operational investigation, there was no sufficient evidence to believe that Mirzoev had drugs or psychotropic substances on him, there were only “assumptions.”

The court did not even try to establish connections between Denezhkin, Kuzov and Volkov. “I’m sure it was Volkov who gave the amphetamine to Denezhkin. In order to establish this, it is enough to request their numbers and billings. But the court did not do this.” The court did not request Aydin’s billing to understand whether he contacted the dealers. And neither the investigation nor the court identified this dealer, who in theory could continue to sell drugs in the hospital, as well as the person who sold the amphetamine to Aydin. The investigation will only bring two witnesses for the prosecution - military personnel to whom Aydin allegedly offered drugs. Although these are people from completely different departments and have never met Aydin. Father is sure that they are also agents. And the court wrote in its verdict that neither these two nor Denezhkin are freelance employees of the FSB. At the same time, the court did not request operational records from the regional garrison FSB and the Federal Drug Control Service. For Mirzoev Sr., the reason for the lack of requests is clear - all the indicated persons appear there: “And I am sure: they were informants not only for a specific situation, but agents in general.”

It is noteworthy that the time in the personal search report of Mirzoev is incorrect, and the document is filled out with different pens. The opera said that they conducted an inspection from 16.00 to 18.00. But in reality - from 23. to 23.20. The discrepancies in time were explained by “workload”, but the difference in the color of the pen paste could not be explained. Aydin’s father says that they completed the personal search protocol “after they failed to shake money out of us.” The court refused to conduct a handwriting examination.

By the way, witnesses Gusev and Dolaan are also military personnel. Dolaan, who came to Novaya, said that he was simply forced to submit to his senior in rank, the initiator of ORM Kuzov.

The material was prepared with the participation of Anastasia Ivanova.