“When You’re Older, We’ll Tell You.” How the Family of a Political Prisoner Lives Without a Father
When a person is imprisoned — especially suddenly — the life of their entire family changes. Many have to go through this ordeal alone, relying only on their closest relatives or on themselves. We are deliberately withholding the name of the political prisoner whose wife spoke about how her life changed after her husband’s arrest and trial. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of such stories in modern Russia. Tatyana P. (name changed) shared what life was like before and what it became after her husband’s arrest.
An entirely ordinary family lived in a large Russian city. The parents celebrated the birth of their son. They regularly spent time outdoors together — first going on short picnics and later taking serious multi-day hiking trips. Everything changed in 2022, when Pavel (name changed) was accused of “public incitement to engage in terrorist activities” using the Internet. He was sentenced to six years in prison for a few online posts.
When Pavel was already in the penal colony, his mother was diagnosed with cancer. She fears she may never see or hug her son again. The whole family is waiting for their loved one’s release, but the penal colony is not willing to let a defiant political prisoner go so easily. He is facing another sentence — this time for “disrupting the operations of an institution responsible for isolating people from society.” Up to five more years could be added to his unserved sentence.
“I’m not ashamed that my husband is in prison,” Tatyana says. “He didn’t steal, kill, or rob anyone. He’s imprisoned, and I know why… People like him aren’t liked — those who speak the truth. That’s understandable. Who likes the truth? No one. I don’t care what people say about me. I worry about my son. I don’t want people looking down on my child. We don’t tell our son where his father is. Pavel wants to explain it to him. I tell him: ‘Let’s wait until later, he’s still little.’ I worry he might blurt something out at school. Children can be cruel. They’ll bully him.”
Instead of the now familiar and beloved family hikes or fishing trips with both parents, Pavel and Tatyana’s son has become the child of a mother who works six days a week.
“My son constantly tells me: ‘Other moms spend time with their kids, but you’re always at work!’” Tatyana explains. “Six days a week he’s with his grandmother and grandfather. Mostly his grandfather. He takes him to chess lessons and art school.”
According to Tatyana, when her son asks, “Why did we go hiking when Dad was home, but now we don’t go without him?” she answers that, without Dad, it would be scary and dangerous to spend the night in the woods alone.
Pavel and Tatyana want to have a second child, and their son keeps asking for a little brother.
“We want to have another baby. Pavel worries that I won’t be able to manage alone: ‘How will you cope by yourself?’ But the years are passing. I can’t keep waiting either.”
According to Tatyana, their son constantly misses his father: “He says everyone else has a dad, but my dad is always working. ‘Why does Dad have a job like that?’ he asks me, and I answer: ‘When you’re older, we’ll explain why.’”