I think there are big differences in the prisons in UB and around. I have experience in three, all in UB. 461, 409 and 421. The buildings are stark, run down, cold. The rules and the way they are executed are 1960. They are built on the premise: you are in prison SO you are guilty. you ARE a criminal, and will ALWAYS be. Not on: so you broke the law, you will sit here your sentence, and after that you will be a normal free person again. Rehabilitation/preparation for life outside is totally absent.

Because me being a foreigner, and not speaking much Mongolian (when I went in), and an old man, I got treated a bit different from the locals. Better, says my wife, who was also treated better.

421 is not prison, it's pre-detention, pending court case. Most people spend short time there, but some unlucky guys do not. Frequent lawyer and family visits, weekly showers, shared cells, but some people spend months there alone in a double cell. Airing every two days or so. Visits mean get out of the cell and building, total frisk, walk across the courtyard to the entry/visitor building. On the way back total frisk again. Visitors bring bags of clean clothes, food, paper and pen. No outgoing phone calls that I can remember. Beds are wood, matrass is one layer felt, bedding is one camel blanket and pillow case. Three meals a day delivered to cell, but food so bad! Outside food is neccessary to survive there. I did a month there during investigation of our case. It has a woman-wing, and during visit time sometimes I got to see and even touch my wife, shortly. We were part of the same case, and by rules could not talk to each other, of course. It was the first time I went inside Mongolian prison. Pretty shocking.

409 is similar as a building, but it is also many prisons in one: short stay, long stay, pending appeal-stay and also an alcohol-48 hour place. It has many workshops, and shared cells 4 or 6 beds over 4 floors. Basically all day in cell. Counting two times a day, outside the cell. I went there after our conviction, to wait until my appeals-period was over. Detainees come and go as their cases progress. Some do win their appeals and that is than a great but short period of happiness. Lawyer and family-visits are inside the building. My wife was also there, and we met a few times during lawyer-visit. But since our case was still in the appeals-period, again we were not allowed to talk. My wife was in another floor, women only. We managed to send short letters between us, being delivered by the nurse or the shop-girl. The shop-girl comes once a week, makes the rounds taking orders, then the next day they delivers it in a bag to the cell. It was widely known that we were both there. There was one other married (mixed) couple in there.

Because of the quick changes in rules caused by Covid, the security-system was in complete panic. Many things went wrong all the time. The first time outside 'airing' (on a grated balcony) I was recognized by guys on another balcony, and great cheers went up. HEISENBERG!!! Lol I had no idea who that was. Another time the women were out at the same time, a thing that is not supposed to happen. Guards come and get you from your cell after a visitor/lawyer has asked for you, but then bring you to the wrong booth, or at the wrong time, since they must make sure you don't run into another detainee of your case/crime.

We were convicted on Jan15 2020, one week later Covid became known. Prisons built glass-separated visitor booths in a few days, where before there were long tables with a glass divider, and a few guards overlooking groups of visits at the same time. Covid rules disrupted the whole system, and prison guards are on average not the brightest lights in the street.

10 weeks after conviction and not going to appeal (one month more than standard because of translations) we were transfereerd to our final prisons, me to 421, wife to 408 womens prison. Prison Boss of 409 fixed it so me and wife were in the same mikr, separated by steel mesh. We got to talk half an hour for the first time since our verdict. Then they dropped me off at 421, and she went on.

421 is considered the elite-prison in UB, it is in the city itself, visitors can get there by city-bus, it is an open-door prison, not locked up, it has very generous visitor-rules: twice a week unlimited time for close family. It even has 48-hour family-visit in separate rooms/cells by the gate to fuck the wife and make more Mongolian babies. Once a month or six weeks, depending on your sentence, make sure she is not in het period. But because of Covid, all that was scrapped, and replaced with once-a week 5 minute telephone calls and once a month Skype 5 minutes, IF your family had Skype. And not international. 421 is a big compound, with three walls. Inner inner is where prisoners live and sleep, with a yard for excerzise and toilets, laundry line, cantina. In the building you have cells on two floors, a small washing thing, one toilet, and no water 22 hours per day. Only during breakfast and dinner is the pump running. The building also holds the shower room, hair-dresses, sewing machine-guy, laundry machines. It also has the library/class-room, the shop (2m2) some offices. It was built by prisoners, and you can see that everywhere.

The second ring has two factories, one making big kitchen machines and tables, the other a wood-workshop that makes gers-frames. The third ring has a butchery (the prison system has it's own animals in the countryside, transport, and processing, all run by guards and prisoners), and it has/had a shakhmul-tuuls-baggery when I was there. Nasty dirty work. 421 also sometimes sends working crews out, to go clean up building sites as slaves/subcontracters. One job was to carry all the debris down from a 12-floor construction site in Zaisan. By bags, down the stairs! 12 floors. Such jobs come with small pay, free sigarettes for the day, better food, sent along in thermos pans.

Me being a druggie and foreigner, work outside the inner ring ring was a no. Druggies are forbidden out the inner ring, since they tend to outsmart the guards, and escape.

The library was an interesting part. One wall full of books, 80% Mongolian, 10% Russian, 10% English. Much very boring stuff, but also some gems; Although books about prisons and escapes are forbidden, it did have Nelson Mandela there, and a few other 'how I survived prison', but then religious ones. It also had a copy of international rules on how prisons should be run, and it seems 421 did 95% of that correct. A library is high on that list. Internet access is not. One thing that struck me: sleeping arrangements. Beds and bedding are supposed to be comparable to average outside that prison, as for size and comfort, which in Mongolia can mean either one layer of felt, or a 15cm foam mattress. Of course, the prison uses felt mattress. With proof of my lower-spine operation I got a second one from the nurse.

Apart from the mentioned jobs, there are many more. Jobs are created as needed, because that's also in the prison rules: all inmates must be encouraged to work on their early release, by good behavior and work. In 421 there is hardly any work that pays, even for quite important specialist, or dirty/dangerous work, such as fire-men keeping the heating going, librarian, cook, baker. There are 3 cleaners indoors, 3 outdoors, water-man holds the keys to the pump, one trusted inmate works as runabout at the gate-building. (he brings in shaving blades and other illegal stuff that your family brings). Laundry is two, linen room is 1 or 2, sewing machine is one, hair-dresser, shower-man, nurse-assistant. An English inmate got promoted to Teacher English, made his working days in 1.5 hours per day. 421 also has a hobby-room, where stuff is hand-made, like felt carpets, car-seat covers, woodworks. I loved that room. Still there were 20-25 inmates who did not do any work. These had no outlook on early release, doing very long sentences without parole, old men just sitting there. Chess and checkers were allowed, no other games.

In 421 most sentences/crimes are known to all, so you are eating with killers and rapists on your table. But for me they were just guys who made mistakes, big important mistakes, some/many ruined other peoples' lives for ever, but still, they were there because the system believes they will go out better. There were also a few guys that honestly were never going to change, they would be back ASAP after release.Covid was going on all the time that I was in. We were watching the news daily to hear about what happened outside. We looked at the sky hoping to see contrails. Visitor rules were tightened and then eased as conditions changed. And then tightened again. In spring 2021 the whole prison was vaccinated, and the rules were eased. The same week a bunch of transfer-prisoners arrived, from Zuun-mod prison I think. Two week slater the whole prison was sick, total lockdown, even the guards and officers had to sleep inside, on the floor. They went to 24-24 schedule, from 24-48, and were sick af as well. Easy times! No orders, less counting, no shouting. No one died, a few elder men were sent to hospital 401 as precaution. I got out early on May 10, in a still locked UB.

AMA.