Of course, the best way is to beat a person with a baton on the thighs and heels. It hurts terribly and works very well. In my penal colony, that’s usually what they do to anyone who is unhappy about something. But what do they do with people they’re not allowed to beat? Or not allowed to beat yet. Russian prisons have invented plenty of options for that too. The simplest is to keep a person in the SHIZO (punishment isolation cell). And if SHIZO by itself no longer “breaks” him, they can start by throwing a homeless man into his cell. Which is exactly what has now happened to me. In prison slang, this is called a “chyort.” But let’s put it more properly: a convicted inmate with serious problems maintaining basic hygiene. If you live in a cell, and someone is within arm’s reach of you 24/7, and both of you are also 24/7 just one or two meters from the toilet—and the toilet is a hole in the floor—then hygiene becomes absolutely fundamental. An inmate with problems in that department will make your life unbearable almost instantly. But all perfectly legal. Which the administration informs me of with cheerful smiles. By prison rules, I’m supposed to drive this guy out of the cell—by beating him or threatening him. But beating him would mean, first, immediate criminal charges; that’s the whole point of the provocation. And second, beating up a miserable, sick, lame, long-term alcoholic really does not pass the all-important test question: “What would Jesus do?” Still, the unwashed poor soul soon began demanding to be transferred to another cell himself, and even filed a written request. This, too, is one of those sacred prison rules, and it is written into the law: if a person feels threatened, he must be transferred “without delay.” But in my case, they refused to move the poor man, saying: “We gave him a medical examination. You’re not beating him, so there’s no danger to him.” All the other SHIZO cells are empty. What especially infuriates me is the instrumentalization of a living human being—turning him into a tool of pressure. A combination of threats, shouting, and appeals to his conscience got him to wash up and brush his teeth. I gave him laundry detergent, and he washed his clothes. We now wash our hands with soap several times a day. I feel like some kind of strange preschool teacher in a kindergarten where, instead of children, there are homeless people who live on heating pipes. Well, what can I say? Pedagogy is not a simple science, but it works 😉