The Sitting Man

6 hrs. 15 min.

Language Russian

Author Alexey Fedyarov

Narrator Anton Kobylko

Description

The author tells about the years he spent as a prisoner—first in a pretrial detention center (SIZO), and then in the Tagil correctional colony for former law-enforcement officers. The author immerses the reader in the world of lawlessness, where prisoners strive to survive, while guards try to squeeze as much out of them as possible. The book consists of documentary essays written on the basis of the author’s own memories.

Its heroes are “sitting inmates” with different fates and characters, with different abilities to remain alive physically and morally under total captivity, constant humiliation, hunger, forced labor, and separation from loved ones. All names and surnames have been changed.

Why you should listen

— These are real stories of ordinary people who ended up behind bars.

— Many details about prison life, about the system that breaks people’s lives, and about how to survive in this world.

— The author is a human-rights defender who ended up in prison by the will of fate. “A man sitting” is not a protest manifesto, but a dispassionate statement of facts. Some stories are very bitter, others funny, others philosophical—but all of them are honest and clear to any resident of our country.