Paper abstract:

The results of the persecution in 1937-1938 were deplorable, the situation of prisoners in prisons was really difficult. The interrogation was brutal, no mercy. The number of prisoners grew every day, the places of detention were overcrowded.

For example, the Frunzensky pre-trial detention center was designed for only 250 prisoners, but it contained more than 1,000 people, i.e. 4 times more than expected. The arrested and prisoners were located even on the aisles, and they were only forced to sit, since there were simply no places for a lying position.

Despite the fact that there was a bathhouse, the detainees had the opportunity to wash themselves once every 10 days, or even more, and their clothes were not disinfected at all. The pre-trial detention center could not provide the prisoners with elementary hot water, and speaking of food, one can literally say that they were starving. During the years of mass repressions, prisons in the Kyrgyz Republic were overcrowded and did not have any conditions for keeping prisoners.

In the regions of Kyrgyzstan, the situation of prisoners was even more difficult. Prisoners who did not work per day received 250 gr., and those who worked received 500 gr. of bread. The prisoners' lunch consisted of one soup, without any fats, sometimes they boiled the bones left over from the sausage production of the SIZO. Of course, such food could not satisfy their hunger in any way; the prisoners barely survived.

In archival materials, the situation in the Frunzensky SIZO of that time is described in the following way: they can only sit. Due to such tightness, there is heavy stale air in the cells, despite even in most cells the window frames do not have glass.

The total number of prisoners as of September 29 is 1,005 people, out of investigative and 786 people convicted through the NKJ and the GPU, the premises are designed for a maximum of 250 people. The occupancy of the isolation ward was so great that a number of office premises had to be converted into cells. Prisoners with beds and various knots of their own belongings are located on the floor, where it is so crowded that it is difficult to walk among the sleeping ones. In the unsanitary cells, bed bugs filled the cells, there was no ventilation and, as a result of the congestion of the premises, there was unbearably heavy air in them. The sick and the healthy sat together, they were not isolated from the healthy.”

Therefore, sharp dissatisfaction is expressed by the prisoners, and one of them, sending a letter to his relatives (Belovodsky district), writes:

“Arbitrariness reigns in prisons, for sending natural needs, prisoners are released only once every three days, packages in most cases do not reach their destination, so we have to starve here.”

In order to obtain the necessary testimony from those under investigation, they were massively subjected to bullying, beatings and torture. The use of measures of physical influence during the investigation, investigative alleged enemies and spies were interrogated sanctioned, with the permission of the highest party and state bodies of the Soviet Union. With such torture and bullying by the NKVD, many of the detainees could not stand it, they died. Thus, according to the statistical data of the Book of Victims of Political Repressions in Kyrgyzstan from 1920-1953. 591 arrested people died in prison.