The appearance in a Russian court on Tuesday of American journalist Evan Gershkovich, accused of espionage, constitutes a rare break with his isolation in the Moscow prison of Lefortovo, a symbol of repression since Soviet times.

This infamous Moscow detention center has hosted a long list of well-known figures within its walls and is used by the Russian security services (FSB) to keep prisoners in near total solitude.

“It’s a frozen prison. They isolate you as much as possible from the outside world and from other prisoners, with the exception of your cellmate”, testifies Igor Roudnikov, former prisoner and journalist.

“It’s hard to describe… Imagine, you are with the same man all the time, in an eight square meter cell, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” continues Mr. Roudnikov, who passed near ten months in Lefortovo in 2017 and 2018.

AFP spoke to Mr Roudnikov, as well as to lawyers, activists and families of detainees, to get a glimpse of life in this prison.

Inside this pale yellow building dating from the 19th century, daily walks are taken in pairs, in a space the same size as a cell but with an opening in place of the roof.

“Even a husband and wife in love cannot spend so much time together, so imagine people who have just met,” says Mr. Roudnikov.

For him, this is a “means of exerting psychological pressure”, just like the artificial light and the constant noise in the building.

Much of Lefortovo’s four-story internal structure is metal — stairs, doors, floors, and trolleys — so the building constantly “clicks and rattles.”

The system preventing inmates from seeing anyone as they move around the prison adds to the noise. To warn others to stay away, the guards loudly snap their fingers or jingle their keys as they lead the prisoners.

“It’s the particular noise of Lefortovo, which you hear when you walk in its corridors”, explains Maria Eismont, a lawyer who regularly visits the Moscow establishment.

All those interviewed by AFP, however, acknowledged that the material conditions were better in this establishment controlled by the FSB than in other Russian prisons.

Lefortovo is an unusual establishment, as it hosts well-known personalities under investigation for serious crimes such as “high treason”, “terrorism” or “espionage”.

Former US Marine Paul Whelan was detained there in 2018 before being sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage and transferred to another prison.

In Soviet times, Lefortovo briefly hosted writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Mathias Rust, a German aviator who made a surprising landing near Red Square in 1987.

Across Russia, the name Lefortovo instantly conjures up memories of Stalin’s purges, and at that time it was rare for prisoners to leave the premises alive, according to the NGO Memorial.

Times have changed, however, and lawyers interviewed by AFP have not heard of physical abuse in recent years.

“It’s a very harsh, but correct detention center,” summarizes Ms. Eismont, who is currently defending three clients locked up in Lefortovo.

“The main thing is that people are cut off as much as possible from the outside world,” she adds.

Ksenia Mironova, a 25-year-old journalist for media outlet Helpdesk, remembers being laughed at for asking to buy credit for a phone call for her imprisoned partner Ivan Safronov.

“They said to me: How can you be so naive to expect to receive phone calls?”.

Mr Safronov, a respected journalist, spent two years in Lefortovo before being sentenced to 22 years in a penal colony for “high treason”.

For the couple, the handwritten letters have become a vital means of communication.

Ms Mironova remembers being “drowned in tears” after first receiving a letter from Mr Safronov. “I used to have this letter with me, in my bag, all the time.”

Then, in Mr. Safronov’s second year in Lefortovo, the letters stopped. The investigators, who read each letter and decide whether to send them or not, have obviously decided to retain them.

Ms Mironova says she felt “weird” walking down the street near Lefortovo, so close to Mr Safronov, who was “in a completely closed world”.

“One day, however, we will open this fortress,” she says.

04/18/2023 11:48:17 –          Moscow (AFP) –          © 2023 AFP