What Russian prison life could be like for Brittney Griner

Deep in a snow-covered forest, a few hundred miles removed from Moscow’s bustle and noise, is a bland stretch of Mordovian road with a grim claim to fame. This is Russia’s land of prisons, known for little else besides its nearly two dozen penal colonies and the tiny villages formed around them.

Russian authorities transferred Brittney Griner to one of these dreaded Mordovian prisons last month after her last-gasp appeal of her drug smuggling conviction went nowhere. She could serve the remainder of her nine-year sentence behind the tall fences and razor wire of Female Penal Colony IK-2 unless the U.S. can negotiate a prisoner exchange with Russia to bring her home sooner.

A few days after Griner arrived at IK-2, the American basketball star’s Russian defense lawyers visited her and reported that she was “doing as well as could be expected and trying to stay strong as she adapted to a new environment.” Attorney Maria Blagovolina did not respond to an email from Yahoo Sports on Monday seeking an update and further details.

To better understand what day-to-day penal colony life is like and what challenges Griner may face, Yahoo Sports combed reports from human rights groups and government agencies and spoke to attorneys and researchers who have visited inmates in IK-2. They paint a bleak picture of corrupt guards, military-esque rules, exhausting workdays and extreme isolation.

Griner’s first indication of the hardships ahead likely came when she arrived at her penal colony last month and had to surrender her civilian clothes and belongings in exchange for a prison uniform. Experts say prisoners can face discipline if they don’t button their uniform to the neck and wear a headscarf at all times.

Whereas Griner lived in a cell at her pre-trial detention center in the Moscow suburbs, inmates at IK-2 share a communal dormitory with up to 100 other women. Petty thieves sleep alongside drug offenders and murderers. First-time lawbreakers bunk next to hardened recidivists. None of the prisoners are allowed to display any personal items atop their bedside cabinets, not even pictures of their loved ones.

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“It really struck me as an incredibly sterile, almost sad environment,” said University of Oxford professor Judith Pallot, whose current Gulag Echoes project is the culmination of nearly two decades of research on Russian prisons. “These colonies seem to eliminate the differences and the individuality of the women there.”

After IK-2 prisoners rise from their beds at 6 a.m. each morning, they sit down to a breakfast of stale bread and porridge and then begin a long day of forced labor. Most are required to make uniforms for the Russian police and armed forces, a tedious job made worse by the combination of high production quotas and decades-old Soviet-era sewing machines.

The shifts are long, the breaks are short and the rewards are meager, but women who complain often only make a brutal situation worse. Prison…