The Diffident Turnkey

Charter97.org continues to publish extracts from Andrei Sannikov's book Belarusian Amerikanka or Elections under Dictatorship

The beginning of extracts is available here.

- Col.Orlov, the head of the KGB pre-trial detention center, was my most frequent “interlocutor.” Not only mine, but that of all political prisoners. And not only those who wound up in the Amerikanka after December 19, but others. The anarchist Igor Olinevich, with whom we had sat in the “quarantine” together at the “10th” (colony No. 10) also told me about his chats with Orlov. Igor considered him an unusual psychologist, well-trained for working over arrestees. Most likely that was the case. Igor in general loved to “place” a person in the system and thus determine the motivation for his behavior and possible ensuing actions. Likely that was the point, but I didn’t try to figure out Orlov. I perceived him on the basis of his behavior and actions.

Orlov was appointed head of the Amerikanka on December 20, during the very height of the arrests. It was understood that he was appointed especially for those of us arrested on the Ploshcha. When for the first time I was taken to him in his office situated on the lower floor of the Amerikanka, he amazed me with his absurdity and his unsuitability for the Amerikanka. I saw a short, little, nervous -- even fussy man, dressed “civilian style” who would now and then jump up from the table, run around the office and then make himself comfortable at the table, depicting importance. His greasy hair, thin lips, large nose and feebleness did not correspond in any way to the image of a threatening force, in whose thrall I was.

Orlov offered me tea, and I declined.

“Are you afraid we’ll poison you?”

“Oh, no, I simply disdain it.»

“You’re right to be afraid,” Orlov said, preferring not to hear my answer. “We have this sort of thing down pat. So perhaps you will have some tea? I don’t like to drink it alone…”

I asked for some water.

Orlov loved long chats. Often he would go out of the office, apparently in order to monitor the reaction of the arrestee he had left there. It was understandable that all the offices of the KGB were outfitted with audio equipment and video surveillance. The phone often rang in the office. This was also some kind of game. In the majority of cases, Orlov would let you know that he was talking with the chairman of the KGB. When he talked with Zaitsev, he was fairly independent, not especially bowing, demonstrating to me that they were apparently on equal terms.

Orlov’s outward experience and manner of behavior clearly indicated that he was burdened with a large number of complexes. He would often get hysterical, then suddenly fall into some kind of deep fervor. Several times he said he would go off into the forest with a gun if such types as we came to power. I replied to him regarding this that he was a danger to society but we in fact were convinced advocates of non-violent resistance. “But my hand wouldn’t shake,” Orlov replied, evidently imagining himself in a trench in a papakha with binoculars and a smartphone.

Orlov talked a lot and lied constantly. He had no separation between a lie and the truth. Therefore, I had neither strength nor desire to analyze his verbal torrents. The information that was useful for me somehow fell out of his speeches. I suppose that Orlov was the only source of at least some information, and in fact not only on my criminal case. From the very beginning, he said that he was not at all interested in the investigation or the criminal prosecution itself. The head of the pre-trial detention center openly admitted that his duties consisted of preparing prisoners for interrogations – their physical and psychological work-over. Whether he provided useful information during this work-over on purpose or accidently didn’t matter.

Thus I learned that Danik was home with his grandmother and grandfather, that the processing of the foster care was continuing. I learned that Irina was in the same cell as Nastya Palazhanka; that my colleague-presidential candidate Mikalai Statkevich had ended his hunger strike (I hadn’t known that he had declared one), and that yet another presidential candidate Vladimir Neklyayev had had a hypertensive crisis.

Orov tried so hard to convince me, that everyone had forgotten us, that the elections were recognized by the whole world and the OSCE, that at best we were regarded as hooligans, from which I understood: the pressure on the regime was rather serious. Orlov never rested and once brought to the cell to me personally the statistics from the sociological surveys of the Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies headed by Oleg Manayev. According to this poll, which was conducted after the elections, Lukashenka had won by gathering 51% of the vote. The figure itself is so cowardly that it does not need any comment. I had long believed that the activity of Manayev was controlled by the government, and here became convinced of it yet again. What other survey except one advantageous to the authorities could the head of the KGB pre-trial detention center bring?

When the “masks” appeared and began to impose their beastly order in the Amerikanka, after a day of increased activity, when they worked me over very hard, Orlov, somewhat frightened, informed me that some of the guards in the detention center were acting rather autonomously. I realized that he wanted to disassociate himself from the violent behavior of the “masks,” and all but stated to me openly that they were not subordinate to him.

When I told Orlov that the compulsory watching on the internal television of programs of a fascistic and anti-semitic nature, the endless scenes of violence, were not only torture but a criminal offense, Orlov readily informed me that the program created for our “re-education” was made by the Institute for National Security and he was obliged to keep to the Institute’s curriculum. The inauguration of Lukashenka was repeatedly shown about five times. When I couldn’t stand it any more and asked Orlov, “how much can one take?” he replied, “Well, you keep looking away.”

The head of the prison loved to discuss the behavior of the other political prisoners. He evidently had such chats with everyone, trying to determine more clearly what relationships we had among ourselves. I immediately decided for myself that Orlov was lying and therefore did not react to his persistent attempts to gossip about others, and reacted only to news about Irina. Here, I could tell lies from the truth.

Sometimes I managed to find out something useful. Dazed from the garbage that “Orlov TV” was broadcasting, I suggested to the head of the prison that he show us something that would qualitatively praise the work of the KGB agents; otherwise we were already getting sick of the low-quality fakes on the detection and capture of spies. They began showing us some pseudo-documentary films about the valiant agencies. I suggested they show us The Apostle, a 12-series Russian film about infiltration and work in the enemy’s rear guard. The attempt worked, and for several days, we watched a really good movie, one series a day. To be sure, here, too, they couldn’t get by without some nasty KGB tricks: they never showed us the final series with the denouement.

There was one more curious incident with the “movie shows.” One evening they showed Sherlock Holmes. For some reason, we turned on the TV when half the movie was over already. I really wanted to watch the whole thing, and I told my cell mates that I had some important information about that film, but I could only tell it if I watched the film from the beginning. The next morning, the film was shown again at an unscheduled time. After watching it to the end, I told my cell mates that the bosses had made a blunder again. Jude Law, the actor who played Dr. Watson in the movie, and who had actively supported political prisoners in Belarus (I had learned this from my lawyers) was put in the “black list,” and films in which he played were forbidden to be shown in Belarus. The bosses thought for a day, and that evening, once again, Sherlock Holmes was shown again. I was happy to watch it even a third time.

Jude Law found it really hilarious when I told him about this story later, when we met.

Orlov often provoked me into a conflict, suddenly starting hysterics, clearly counting on my reaction. As a rule, an excuse for his hysterics would be something I would say about the dictatorship, or the servants of the regime. This would really send him into a rage. He would run around the office, making threats, but then would let slip some facts from his own biography. Thus I learned that before the KGB prison, he was an officer of the army’s special department, that is, counterintelligence, the most hated category of servicemen in the army. He had been to the “hot spots,” and lamented the fall of the USSR, and hated his predecessor in the position of prison director, and enjoyed having power over people.

Orlov displayed his sadistic tendencies toward me when I was seized with a severe attack of gout. I first encountered this disease at the Amerikanka. My right foot grew swollen, growing to twice its size. Fever broke out and I was in great pain. I couldn’t walk, so I hopped on one leg. And I had to walk to the toilet, there was no toilet in the cell. The pain made my eyes black out, and I wasn’t given treatment at first. Frankly, I was afraid, because I couldn’t understand what was wrong with my foot. I even wondered if suddenly I had gotten gangrene. I had only the vaguest notion of gangrene and gout. I demanded to be put in the hospital. It was not easy to bear the pain without having the ability to keep to a regime of bed rest. They refused to hospitalize me, and instead prescribed a diet and gave me some tablets.

During this period, Orlov liked to summon me for conversations. Somehow, I managed to crawl up the steep iron staircase in handcuffs, then hop to his office, and then not hear much of anything he said to me then: I tried to somehow rid myself of the pulsating pain. Orlov would sympathetically ask about my health and say he was very worried about my illness, but refused to hospitalize me. To be sure, he promised to order that our cell would be taken to the toilet on the same floor for several days, and not force us to go downstairs (at the Amerikanka, there were two toilets for the detainees on different floors.) Orlov also “took such care” about my health that he ordered that the package of food that my mother brought to me be banned. I can imagine my mother’s state, when she brought the package to the prison, and they told her that they couldn’t accept it and wouldn’t give her a reason. What was she to think, when for several weeks, she had had no news from me? Then, to be sure, they took pity on her and allowed her to send me some boiled sausage and pot cheese. That way she could at least find out that I was alive.