Who is afraid of prison? Is it us or those who ordered our detention here in an attempt to shut us up? One step away from the ascetic actionist life to prison -- and one step away from owning all the riches of the world. Who has the advantage? “He who knows how to be content, is content,” the Taoists say, and if they are right, so are we. 

My life, my experience -- my property, my world, have been mastered and cultivated by me. I give thanks to the haters of civil politics, punk, feminism, actionism for making us richer. We have become stronger. I never used to be able to do push-ups like a guy, with my chest to the floor. I have learned how to do this here. I wear myself out during recess with hundreds of exercises, after that I go work out in a gym, I lift weights and get on exercisers, I teach the zechki [female inmates] to box, I master a fighter’s tumble.

Yes, it's been only one month. But we see people here who spend a year or two in isolation chambers. My cellmate, whose cop-of-a-husband committed perjury against her, during divorce he wanted to take away her apartment which she had earned and which was rightfully hers as per their prenuptial agreement, without any evidence of having committed a crime and based only on the testimony of her now ex-husband, she has been detained in SIZO No. 6 for already 1 year and 7 months. She is angry at her cop-of-a-husband and the investigator with whom he had made a deal. But not at her fate, nor at God. She believes that prison is a great test of patience. She is alert, cheerful, energetic, and does not allow her cellmates to feel dejected. She is a very serious reason why I cannot ever get upset here. I am inspired by examples of the women who have been unjustly put in prison, and yet who remain strong, refuse to give up, and who are ready to be tested. Contrary to the Russian judicial system, which acquits in only 0,7% of cases, I see that that there are many more people in prison who have been lied to and who are here because of someone’s evil will.
 

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova