In a Pussy Riot show that has toured the world and is now playing in Britain, Alyokhina relives the memories of her time as an inmate - snowy prison yards, plank-like beds, long spells in solitary confinement and punishment for minor infringements such as an unbuttoned coat or poorly attached nametag. Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, could soon be transferred to a colony in the absence of a further appeal or an agreement between Washington and Moscow to swap her for a Russian arms dealer jailed in the United States - a possibility that was floated months ago but has yet to materialise. The colony was divided between a factory area where the prisoners made garments and gloves and a 'living zone' where Alyokhina said 80 women lived in one room with just three toilets and no hot water. The quite cynical thing about this work is that prisoners usually sew police uniforms and uniforms for the Russian army, almost without salary.'

'It actually is a labour camp because by law all the prisoners should work. This looks like a strange village, like a Gulag labour camp,' she said, referring to the vast penal network established by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to isolate and crush inmates. The first thing to understand, Alyokhina said in an interview, is that a penal colony is no ordinary prison. It's a world familiar to Maria Alyokhina, a member of feminist art ensemble Pussy Riot who spent nearly two years as an inmate for her part in a 2012 punk protest in a Moscow cathedral against President Vladimir Putin.

basketball star Brittney Griner in a Russian penal colony after she lost her appeal last week against a nine-year drug sentence. LONDON, Nov 3, (Reuters) - Tedious manual work, poor hygiene and lack of access to medical care - such are the conditions awaiting U.S.

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