LONDON (AP) — WNBA star Brittney Griner has begun serving her nine-year sentence for drug possession at a remote Russian penal colony that human rights advocates say is known for harsh conditions and violent criminals. It’s in a region once synonymous with the Soviet gulag.
Griner was convicted Aug. 4 after customs agents said they found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. The all-star center with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had been prescribed cannabis for pain and had no criminal intent.
After a Russian court rejected her appeal last month, her lawyers said she was taken to the IK-2 colony in Mordovia, a region 350 kilometers (210 miles) southeast of Moscow.
Here is a look at what life looks like at Russian penal colonies, and at Griner’s prospects of being freed in a U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange.
WHAT IS A PENAL COLONY?
Penal colony is a term used to describe the most common type of prison in Russia, where inmates are housed in barracks and engage in menial labor for symbolic pay.
Under Josef Stalin, forced-labor camps in farflung locations dotted the entire USSR; some well-known ones were in Mordovia.
“In Russia, Mordovia is known as ‘the land of prisoners.’ Its colonies descend directly from the Stalin-era camps, and have a reputation for being particularly strict,” said Zoya Svetova, a Russian journalist and human rights defender who previously worked with the Public Monitoring Commision, a state-backed prison watchdog.
The gulag system and its czarist predecessor, which saw criminals and dissidents dispatched to remote regions of Siberia, provided prisoner labor to develop industries such as mining and logging, and to build highways and railroads. While conditions vary among modern-day penal colonies, Russian law still allows for inmates to be put to work, with most sewing uniforms for the Russian army and law enforcement.
Mordovia is home to over 15 similar colonies, including the IK-17 facility where American Paul Whelan, a retired U.S. Marine detained in 2018, is serving a 16-year sentence. Whelan was convicted on spying charges, which he and Washington deny.
WHAT IS LIFE LIKE AT IK-2?
The IK-2 is an all-female facility for first-time offenders, according to Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service. Its over 800 inmates are housed in barracks.
But Svetova said IK-2 holds mostly women convicted of murder and assault, as well as a rising…