Basketball star Brittney Griner writes about her stay in a Russian cell in a book: “I saw a lot of things I didn’t want to see”

In the margins of a Sudoku book and a Bible. American basketball star Brittney Griner wrote down as many as she could, not to forget what happened to her during her captivity in a Russian penal colony. More than a year after her release, Griner shares those hardships in a book: Coming home. The American previously indicated that she considered suicide during her captivity, but now she also explains what drove her to do so.

A basketball player of stature, in the literal and figurative sense. She is a multiple Olympic champion, played in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and is about 2 meters and 6 centimeters tall. Griner has been described as a true leader, and not just on the basketball court. In her own country, she is a figurehead of the Black Lives Matter movement and stands up for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. The American star player was once a teammate of Belgian Cat Emma Meesseman at Ekaterinburg.

On February 15, 2022, the American star player flew to Moscow. Between the American basketball seasons, she would play for a Russian team. However, she didn’t get that far. Griner was arrested at Moscow airport for being in possession of cannabis oil, which was said to help her with the “immense” physical pain she endures every day. Although she had a medical prescription, the basketball star had to remain in Russian prison until October 20, 2031 for ‘drug trafficking’. Before she knew it, Brittney Griner became a political pawn. A controversial prisoner exchange with Russian arms dealer Viktor Boet, who armed al-Qaeda and the Taliban, among others, ensured her earlier release, about nine months after her arrest.

Griner was held in IK-2, a penal colony in the Russian republic of Mordovia where opposition leader Alexei Navalny was also held. For months she had to make do with indigestible food and a bed that was too small. “In the morning we were given thick porridge. Actually it’s not porridge, it’s more like cement because it’s really thick and hard. For dinner we were given a small piece of fish with only bones in it,” Griner writes in her book.

Twenty in one cell

She shared a cell with twenty other women, a bathroom with fifty other women. “The bathroom was hell. There was no hot water in IK-2. If you chose to shower – and most didn’t – you heated water in an electric kettle and poured it into your bucket,” she describes in Coming home. “I saw a lot of things I didn’t want to see, and the room stank, just like most women.”

As a lesbian woman and LGBTQ+ activist, she felt vulnerable in the hands of the Russian government. During psychiatric evaluations, she was asked questions about her “sick thoughts,” she writes in her book. Racist and sexist comments from prison staff were also no exception.

Mentally and physically exhausted

The American quickly deteriorated mentally and physically. The morning exercise was a mandatory exercise for every prisoner, even during snowstorms. “When I inhaled, it felt like my breath was frozen in my lungs. My hands were always ice cold, my head always cold,” we read. Clothes had to be washed by hand and dried on clothes lines in the cold outside air, where they kept freezing. Socks and underwear were always wet and cold. Griner’s dreads even grew moldy, so she decided to shave off her locks.

On top of that, there was also work to be done in the penal colony. Griner sewed and cut Russian military uniforms for ten to fifteen hours every day. Again in appalling conditions: “There was no ventilation and little heat. No bathroom breaks. We knew we had to empty our bladders during our 20-minute lunch break.”

The prisoners were closely monitored. They had to meet quotas or be reprimanded. “A girl in my neighborhood sewed so fast that she sewed her fingers together, causing her to bleed on the garment and slowing down production. Her leader ripped the material out of her hand, threw it on the ground and yelled at her to pick it up and move on,” Griner said. “We earned a few rubles an hour, about 25 cents. It was basically slave labor.”

Free, but first thank Putin

Despite everything, Griner remained standing. “I always thought I could get through almost anything. In a slave camp in Russia in the dead of winter, I discovered how strong I really was,” she writes. After 287 days of captivity, the long-awaited news came for the American and her family. She was finally allowed to go home. But there was one more assignment waiting for her. Before her release, the basketball star was forced to write a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, thanking him and asking for forgiveness.

Next week, Griner will start a new season with her team Phoenix Mercury. Although she has already thought about quitting, today she is physically “back to her old self,” she says The New York Times. She would also gradually feel better mentally. The basketball star would prefer to travel abroad as little as possible, but for the Olympic Games in Paris this summer, she would like to make an exception.