TAMBOV, 08. PART 1

The 7-hour car trip is tough. I try to sleep in the car but wit little luck.
Tambov is a very rural and in many ways still very Soviet. Radio is playing early 90s tunes like Modern Talking, Alisa etc. The architecture is made up of wooden huts and Stalin era buildings. Grim.
We drive to the court, a formal looking building over a green alley. We drop off Ivanovich, the attorney and go to the jail. As we’re driving I tell Tolya all the details about me and A. and he now doesn’t outrule the set up of the situation. We sit in front of the jail store. On its window it says ‘vodka beer’ on, but neither is on sale.
‘Shall we try to get me in to see him?’ I ask.
‘We’ll see” says Tolya.
About 25 men and women in uniform march into the prison block. There will be searches.
A call from attorney, the case will go back to court, as we wanted.
We pick him up and drive back to prison. He suggests we try to get me in as his assistant. Tolya goes to pass my parcel, sausages, cheese, sweets, while Ivanovich and I decide to embark on our little show, hoping to pull it off. I am tired yet alert.

Judging by the colour of their faces most people who work here seem to be on a drinking binge. Every room and passage is dark and smoky. Everyone is puffing on their terrible quality Marlboros or Parliament (I know, I’ve tried them). The ongoing sound of heavy metal doors angrily being shut and large dogs barking. I later see it is, as I expected, German Shepherd. It is all pretty much like in the movies.
With each step the feeling is heavier.

We go to 3 more dusty, smelly offices, where I endure many more eyes staring back at me with suspicion as attorney and I are playing out our ‘I will fire you if you will forget your pass again’ scene, before my ten times stamped slip becomes my pass inside.

After our bags are take from us and another set of metal doors are slammed shut behind us and we climb a set of stairs.

‘Turn left here’, says Ivanovich. We come to a row of numbered doors.

‘ You can go to number 3’ the guard said.
We enter. The room is empty except for a wooden bench table and chair and a peanut can used as an ashtray. I pretend to be ok. It’s a kind of pretending I am used to.