A derelict police station
Typically, when people find themselves in this place, they try their best to get out, but we did the opposite: we put our best effort into trying to get in.
01. Getting into the preliminary detention cell (or, like it’s called in the Russian vernacular, the monkey house) was not that easy.
After making sure that all the doors in the building were locked, we had to climb through the small window near the ceiling of the cell. You can see the window in the photo.
02. Having got into the cell, we became afraid that it was locked, which would not be so good, because climbing out seemed much more difficult and calling 911 from this kind of place would be too absurd.
Fortunately, there was a bunch of keys hanging out of the lock.
03. There building still had power, so we found a switch and turned the light on, making photography easier.
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05. On the left side of the photo with the chairs it is possible to notice a trunking wall. We’ll get back to what was behind it a bit later.
06. In the room next to the cell an old plaque is still lying around with the word “militsya” (the old name for the Russian police) written on it.
07. It feels better to be on this side of the window.
08. The keys to the rooms.
09. In order to make the light unnoticeable from the outside we have covered the windows with whatever we could find.
10. As it should be at a police station, leaflets with wanted criminals are everywhere.
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13. The reception of the police station. At first we were afraid to turn on light because it would be visible from the street.
14. The office of the criminal investigation detective.
15. It feels as if the only thing that’s changed since the Soviet era is the flag.
16. Another reason why the interior looks like this is because a few TV shows about militsya were filmed here.
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20. Thinking that everyone is probably asleep at 3 a.m. we turn on the light and quickly take a few photos.
21. The clock is still working and even showing the correct time.
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23. A metal door can be seen on the left, and actually, there are two of them, but both were locked.
The keys that were on the board did not fit in the lock. But we do not give up that easily, and after a search we found another bunch of keys.
24. We opened the door and found a whole casino…
25. Same thing behind the second door. Everything was so clogged up that it was impossible to get in.
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27. And now it’s time to take down the trunking wall and see what’s there. Like we expected, there was a bunch of confiscated slot machines. All of them used to belong to a well-known casino in Moscow.
28. Having moved aside a few of the machines we opened the cell door using the keys, and saw more slot machines.
We looked through a window above the door of the second cell, saw the same thing and decided not to open it.
29. In about half an hour we put everything back to its place and left the police station by the door, tossing the keys back inside through the small window.
And that’s how our jailbreak in reverse ends.
Images by saoirse_2011, reproduced with permission
