Not so far away places
Renato Borrayo Serrano & Yulia Vishnevets / Germany, Georgia & Guatemala
Using 400 hours footage from the chest camcorder of human rights activist Anya Karetnikova documenting four-year work inside Russian prisons,
This immersive VR places participants in Karetnikova’s shoes, confronting them with the banality of evil, resistance in a totalitarian environment, and the moral dilemmas of challenging the system from within
“Not so far away places” is a Russian euphemism for prison. Based on over 400 hours of chest camcorder footage by human rights activist Anya Karetnikova, documenting her four-year work inside Russian prisons, this VR immersive experience places participants in Karetnikova’s shoes. It confronts them with questions about the banality of evil, resistance in a totalitarian environment, and the moral dilemmas of challenging the system from within. Through Karetnikova’s perspective, the participant navigates the authoritarian Russian penitentiary world, questioning its criminal logic.
SIZO – investigative isolator – is the Russian prison for accused and defendants under investigation until trial. SIZOs have the harshest conditions for prisoners who have not yet been found guilty. One day in a pre-trial detention center is equivalent to one and a half days in a colony. Those who have been through Russian prisons describe SIZO as the most difficult stage – overcrowded cells, cold, dampness, lack of visits, violence, and violation of basic human rights fall on a person who has just entered prison from normal life.
In these centers, prisoners often face torture as investigators try to extract confessions, with investigations lasting months or years. Anna Karetnikova, a lawyer and board member of Memorial, entered this world as a prison officer to defend prisoners’ rights, collect information on violations, and humanize the system. In 2016, she took a job at the Federal Penitentiary Service as a lead analyst. “I was an agent of a human rights organization in the system of state violence,” Karetnikova says. For six years, she visited the prison daily. She helped dozens of people and made small but significant changes – improving food in Moscow’s pre-trial detention centers, providing medical care to thousands, and adding good books to prison libraries. When the war began, the system’s shift to totalitarianism accelerated. She fled to France to avoid imminent imprisonment, taking with her the video recorders she was obliged to wear, containing conversations with prisoners, prison authorities, and evidence of human rights violations.
These documented situations form the basis of this participatory experience, where participants make decisions in Karetnikova’s role and face the consequences. It serves as a manual for resistance to totalitarianism, an exercise in empathy for those trapped in such regimes, and a cautionary tale on the consequences of unlimited power.
