The City of the Condemned. An Honest Report on Seven Colonies for Life-Sentence Convicts

Journalist and human rights activist Eva Merkacheva visited all seven Russian colonies for life sentence convicts - places where no one wants to end up voluntarily. She interviewed staff members and inmates, and in her book, she honestly and candidly described everything she managed to see and learn. The author detailed the daily routine in the colonies, the life of the convicts, their personalities, and how prison changes people, the realization of the gravity of the crimes committed, and that they will not be released for the rest of their lives. Eva Merkacheva spoke with killers, maniacs, pedophiles, and other criminals who committed acts so horrific that society chose to permanently exclude them from its life. She tried to understand what drove them, once completely normal individuals, to commit crimes, what turned them into monsters in human guise; do they repent, or on the contrary, do they regret that they cannot continue to do evil? The book includes unique documentary photographic materials from the author's personal archive.