Inside the four dank walls of Russia’s notorious Black Dolphin Prison reside some of the most terrifying monsters on earth. Serial killers, cannibals, pedophiles and terrorists. If the blood on the walls of the 282-year-old prison isn’t literal, there are gallons of it figuratively. Black Dolphin is reputedly one of the world’s most brutal and inhumane prisons.
But insiders claim the harsh regimen inside its battered walls has a purpose. “The main crime committed by the convicts here is murder. But we also have maniacs, pedophiles and terrorists,” guard Denis Avsyuk said in a National Geographic documentary.
“To call them people, it makes your tongue bend backwards just to say it. I have never felt any sympathy for them.” THE PRISON Black Dolphin was first opened as a jail in 1745. The prison — operated by the country’s Federal Penitentiary Service — is located near the southern border with Kazakhstan. To move anywhere in the compound you have to be handcuffed and bent in half. RT It is home to around 700 inmates and 900 guards and prison staff. Since 2000, all its inmates are serving life sentences.
HOW BRUTAL IS IT? When they arrive, prisoners are blindfolded. Anytime they move from building to building, they are again blindfolded. They are handcuffed and walk bent in half. Exercise is 90 minutes a day. They are fed soup and bread four times a day and there is no TV. Books, newspapers and magazines are fine.
View the profiles of people named Nikolai Astankov. Join Facebook to connect with Nikolai Astankov and others you may know. Facebook gives people the. Nikolai Astankov, a prisoner at the Black Dolphin, said, “If you constantly think about how you are here, what is waiting for you, that you won’t ever get free, that you are left here alone, you simply won’t make it” (Youtube).
The Dolphin is so harsh that many prisoners want Russia to bring back capital punishment because it’s more humane. Some of serial killer Mikhail Propkovs victims.
He copped to 81 murders. RUSSIAN FEDERAL POLICE THE GUESTS — Cannibal Vladimir Nikolayev was arrested in 1996 where cops discovered a pan of roasted human meat cooking on the stove. Another dish was roasting in the oven.
Cannibal killer Vladimir Nikolayev is one of the maniacs at Black Dolphin Prison in Russia. RUSSIAN FEDERAL POLICE — Serial killer Mikhail Propkov, one of the worst in history, is a con in this brutal joint. He confessed to 81 rapes and murders. Russian media called the former cop “The Werewolf.” Mikhail Propkov, serial killer. He copped to 81 murders.
RUSSIAN FEDERAL POLICE Igor Astankov murdered a family and burned their bodies in a forest. — Nikolai Astankov butchered five family members then burned their bodies in a forest. — Gangster Igor Tischenko was involved in a wild Moscow shootout that left seven people dead and eight others injured.
His father is also in prison for the slayings. “You ask me if I would do it again? I’ve thought about it. It would have been better if I had died with them. I probably wouldn’t do it,” he told Russia Today. Igor Tischenko murdered 7 people in a gangland shootout.
— Oil company security head Alexey Pechugin is banged up because of a quartet of murders in 2002 against business rivals. He’s a former KGB man. FACT: The 700 inmates have killed more than 4,000 people. Only one jailbird has flown the coop. QUOTE “ The most important thing is to avoid becoming embittered. It is so easy to turn into an animal here. But staying human is harder.
That’s why we try – both with each other and with the administration – to stay human,” Tischenko to Russia Today.
— Two days before he was sentenced to four life terms for killing his parents and younger brothers, an honor student from an upscale Baltimore suburb joked about escaping from prison in a jailhouse phone call to a friend. Browning took a different tone at his sentencing hearing Friday, sobbing and telling relatives, “I’m so sorry.” Baltimore County Circuit Judge Thomas J. Bollinger sentenced Browning to serve two of the life terms consecutively, meaning he could be eligible for parole in 23 years with good behavior. The contrasting images presented by prosecutors and attorneys — a jovial jailhouse phone call and a tearful courtroom apology — strike at the heart of a question that remained unanswered even after Browning pleaded guilty in October to four counts of murder. Was the former Boy Scout a callous murderer who plotted the killing hoping to collect a hefty inheritance or, as defense attorneys say, an abused teen who acted out in the most tragic way possible? In court Friday, Browning was too overcome by emotion to read a statement of apology to his relatives, so his attorney read it instead. It said, in part, “I so badly want to take away your pain.” But prosecutors played a phone call of a conversation Wednesday between Browning and a friend named Stephanie.
“I hate justice,” Browning said. “You need to break in here and break me out.”. He asked if she heard about a convicted killer who recently escaped from a Maryland prison and told her that would be him sometime next year. “These are hardly the words of someone wracked with guilt and remorse,” said assistant state’s attorney Leo Ryan Jr.
“These are the words of a dangerous killer.” Prosecutors also showed clips from Browning’s videotaped interview with police the day after he killed his parents, John and Tamara, and his brothers, 14-year-old Gregory and 11-year-old Benjamin, then went to a friend’s house to play video games. The high school sophomore showed little emotion and confidently predicted that a jury would believe his story that burglars were responsible for the killings. Ryan pegged money as the motive for the slayings, saying abuse would not explain why Browning also killed his brothers.
Browning ultimately confessed in the same interview. Asked why he killed his brothers, he said, “I thought if no one was there to say anything that my story would go, because I was the only one.” Browning’s relatives — including his grandparents, aunts and uncles — stood behind him. Several wrote letters asking Bollinger to show leniency and backing up claims that Browning was abused by his parents.
“I have no doubt that Nick was mentally and physically abused for most of his life and that Tammy chose to become an enabler during the last few years of her life,” wrote Harold Waggoner, Browning’s maternal grandfather. In the statement read by his attorney, Browning said, “My home life had become much more toxic to myself than I ever thought possible.” Browning’s relatives declined comment after the hearing. Prosecutors bristled at the way the defense portrayed Browning’s parents, who were respected in the community. “They can’t stick up for themselves,” assistant state’s attorney S. Ann Brobst said after the sentencing. “Everyone has been murdered except the one person who stands to gain by making the claims that were made in court today.” Defense attorneys had asked Bollinger to allow Browning to serve all of his life terms at the same time, meaning he would be eligible for parole earlier. Prosecutors asked for the consecutive life sentences, ensuring it will be at least 23 years before Browning can have his first parole hearing.
Even then, parole for an offender serving a life sentence in Maryland must be approved by the governor, and that hasn’t happened since 1994. Bollinger recommend that Browning be committed to the Patuxent Institution, a maximum-security psychiatric facility with a program for youthful offenders. He suggested that he was not entirely swayed by any of the explanations of Browning’s motive. “The question of whether his actions were just diabolically evil,” Bollinger said, “is up to almighty God.” Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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