I don't remember on which date and which month it was that I finished my previous diary. I presume it was at the period when the court trial started. I supposed that the trial was quite an informative event. Besides, I didn't have the time and I didn't feel like writing anything apart from what could be used at court. A court trial, while deep inside you are convinced of your innocence; what's more, you feel as if you were Prometheus who wanted to help people, and now is getting his liver devoured by some scum - such a trial is a tough experience. I'm looking at other guys - residents of the remand prison (sometimes we meet while being convoyed), I listen to them, and I don't perceive the same feelings, that I am full of, in them. However, there are quite some stories round here.

I won't be sticking to chronology now: whatever my memory brings - it's for us. Take, for instance, Kana (diminutive of Kanat). He used to be a rapper. He says he was number one in Kazakhstan.  We met and talked to each other when we were being convoyed: on the prison truck plus a couple of minutes at the depot, in the "sluice" (where the prison truck arrives - similar to a garage-hangar with a gate at either end).

In his youth he did time, and now it's his second time here along with his brother. It's been a year and a half - the trial, the appeal. He and his brother were both convicted on the basis of Art. 179 - robbery. He says that he and his brother weren't even at that place, and that the "vic" (victim) recognized him by sight. The assailants wore masks. He has an alibi - five people confirmed that he was at a TB dispensary (he's sick, you can tell that), and his brother wasn't with him at all. His brother got 7 years, and he - 10; his brother - regular prison, he - in a high security institution.

I saw him after the appeal proceedings were finished, we rode on the prison truck together from court to prison, and later at the depot we talked before the guards came. I can hardly describe his condition. On the way he flung heartfelt curses over the convoy guards' heads, without any consideration for his choice of expressions. He needed to vent his emotions, to cry out. The guards kept silent.

There's one more side to all of that - the same guards who take us from prison to court and back are also next to our cage in the courtroom. They see it all, hear it all, understand it all.  Human fates, tragedies pass through their hands, and as for the lawlessness of the judges - they also witness it. If any of them have more humane emotions than necessary, they won't be able to take it for a long time - they'll leave. Obviously, there are murderers, rapists, thieves. They're just where they should be: that's their environment, their choice. These criminals feel at home here in jail or in the courtroom. And what about those who do not fall in that category? Those who had no money to bribe someone for their freedom, who had no connections to get them out - their share is the pain, hatred for all this, theirs is … wherever, however and whoever gets the muck splashed on them.

The convoy that took me and Kana was a special convoy. There were guys (commanded by a captain) who failed to requalify to serve as policemen. They said the price for a positive decision could reach 5 thousand dollars. In the evening they were convoying us even though they were no longer policemen: with no weapons, no police ID's - they had to surrender them within 15 hours - that's the way life is. And still - they were delighted! Yes - they had a problem, yes - they had to find new jobs, but on their faces there was an expression of relief. And we said to  them: 'Ak zhol, you guys' (Kazakh: "a shiny path", have a bright future), they were lucky they wouldn't  flies in uniforms squashed between two wet camels running towards the throne...

Meanwhile Kana yelled his profane rap to avoid weeping, in the prison hall he went at the young guard who addressed him informally as if they were on first-name terms: "Kindly stop addressing me as if we were on first name terms, sir. Would you deign to be polite to arrestees." The guard, a decent chap, understood it all at once, he stepped back and the conflict faded. It was all so outspoken, so comprehensive, so palpable - it wasn't even a tableau beyond forgetting, it was a sensation of pain resulting from the unavoidable and an understanding of that I will be glad if anyone now reading this will give a second thought to  their ideas and lead their lives in a more responsible way.

That sort of education had better be extramural. It can take longer, it can be poorer - but it's still better that way... All that I've now described has no relation whatsoever to fair justice, just as something real is not related to something that doesn't exist in nature. Even if a guilty person is tried and they get what they deserve, it's not because of justice, that the guilty one had no possibility (or wish) to evade it. A "good" policeman, a  "good" prosecutor, a "good" judge is just as utopic as delicious shit. Got that?

That's the right impression of our system of justice. The system is as crooked as a pig's dick, as a winding ass hole, and nothing straight can get into it, and even if it does get squeezed in by accident, it will be destroyed by it or smashed out in order to protect the very system.  The people nearby should be only those who are like everyone else: those who bribe, are bribed, use connections, commit crimes and maintain silence. Others are a threat, because there's nothing that could be used against them, they cannot be controlled, they can't be put where they belong.

Basically, in all, you can sometimes come across those who have automatically retained something human about them, somewhere very deep inside, for themselves, and sometimes it transpires. Or the newcomers  who can be sergeant-controllers. Their relatives have painstakingly put them there having paid a high price, and they still don't understand it all. Once they come to understand, some individuals will leave and others become just like everyone else. And there is no one and nothing that could possibly persuade me to the contrary because that's the essence. Just like the truth that the sun shines and heats, and that pain is when there's a cry, and only then is it a word. Even when you can't hear the cry. That cry exists just like the other side of the moon, which we cannot see.