Sentenced to Life on Fire Island

Two men walking on the prison grounds at Prison No. OE 256/5, or Pyatak, as it is known, located about 400 kilometers of Moscow in the Vologda region.

A view of the grounds of the prison, which is located on Ognenny Ostrov, or Fire Island, in the Novozero Lake. The prison was a monastery founded by an Orthodox priest who claimed to have seen "a column of fire" hit the island, but the Bolsheviks turned the place into a prison in 1917.

A guard patting down an inmate before he returns to his cell from his daily walk.

An inmate dressed in prison-issued stripes, looking out of his cell window as a cat looks on.

Inmate Vladimir Nikitin pictured in December 2004; his neck tattoo reads, "Cut here."

Inmates being served soup for lunch.

Two inmates taking their daily one-hour walk in separate, 2-by-2 meter metal enclosures that are attached to the building.

The plaque on the cell door of Vasily Dmitryevich Neverov, who was sentenced to death on April 11, 1991, for the murder of his mother and father. His sentence was commuted to life in prison on October 29, 1993.

The view of a cell corner where inmates bathe and go to the toilet.

A box for inmates' requests seen attached to the prison wall. Inmates at Pyatak claim that they are treated better than at other prisons in Russia, where beatings and humiliations at the hands of guards are commonplace.