"There was one disgusting old screw: he had been a guard in an adult prison all his life, and after studying child psychology had asked for a transfer to a juvenile institution. He wielded a lot of power in our prison. Although he was only a warder, he rivalled the director, because he had links with people who organized a new activity which had arrived from abroad along with democracy, as a form of free life. These people made paedophile films and forced the boys to prostitute themselves, having sex with foreigners, people who arrived from Europe and the USA, people who had pots of money and hence, in the new democratic system, immense power. Many boys were picked up at a particular time of day from the cells and came back the next day with bags full of food and all kinds of stuff, such as glossy magazines, colouring pencils and other things which nobody in jail could dream of possessing. Their cellmates were forbidden to touch them or mistreat them; they were untouchable, nobody dared to raise a finger against them, because everyone knew those boys were the old warder’s whores. They called him ‘Crocodile Zhena’, after a character in a Soviet cartoon. The whores they called by women’s names. Their bunk was usually down at the end, near the door, and they stayed there all the time."