Anovsk Prison

Anovsk Prison

Correctional Officer on watch at the prison
Location	Yaroslav Duchy, Velikoslavia
Status	Open
Security class	Supermax
Capacity	2,560
Population	1,203 (as of 2020)
Opened	July 14, 1992
Managed by	Imperial Adjudicate
City	70 miles east of Anovsk
State	Yaroslav Duchy

Anovsk Prison (ановск тюрьма) is a Supermax prison located in the X Duchy, Velikoslavia. It is considered the highest security facility in the country and is above the arctic circle, located several hundred miles north of the city of Velsk. It is in the most desolate part of the nation, with temperatures dropping to -55 celcius in the winter months. There is one railway in and out of the facility, which all supply shipments come through, with no roadways leading to the facility. The nearest inhabited area is the village of Anovsk, which is 50 miles southwest. As a result, no one has ever survived escaping from the prison during the winter months and it is barely guarded, except during the summer months when additional seasonal guards are brought in.

Location

The facility is located in some of the harshest climate on the planet with winter temperatures dropping as low as -55 F. The village of Anovsk, located fifty miles south, is the closest major settlement to the prison. This makes accessing it virtually impossible during the long winter months except via railway. There is one major railway into the facility that branches off of the Arctic Northern Line and is closed to all but approved trains. Anovsk Prison is also constructed facing the sea, making escape to the north impossible due to near year round icy conditions.

Facilities

Station 1124C

Anovsk Prison consists of three facilities within one base; Station 1124C, the Outer Five, and Inner Lockdown. Station 1124C, nicknamed Final Destination Station by many, is the train terminal for the facility where prisoners, supplies, and staff arrive and leave. It is outside of all security barriers and is the only part of the facility where personnel who have not passed security clearances are permitted. Per security regulations, supplies are unloaded and stored at the station, only being transferred inside once the train departs. Other than a basic selection of repair parts and an on staff maintenance technician with a living quarters, Station 1124C is bereft of anything an inmate could use in the event of an escape.

Outer Five

The Outer Five denotes the five structures that make up the staff facilities at the prison. There is a medical building that serves both inmates and staff, a barracks, a logistics center, a recreation building, and a command and control building. The outer buildings are surrounded by several medium security electrified fences with a single entry point that have multiple entry gates in line, which cannot be opened at the same time except during an emergency override with the warden's passcode. The rearmost gate must be fully secured for the front gate to open, and vise versa. Towers are set up at various points around the fence in the event a watch is considered necessary, but are typically only used during the summer months. The medical facility serves both inmates and staff and is equipped to perform most medical operations. A doctor and a three nurses are on staff year round, with rotating three month schedules. The barracks and logistics centers both serve as quarters for staff, supply storage, and the logistics center serves as the storage facility for the facility's supplies and an armory for weapons. The staff kitchen is located within the barracks.

Recreation and relaxation is provided in the recreation building, which has amenities such as a hot tub, sauna, movie theater, access to satellite internet, and other options to keep the staff entertained. The prison's primary command and control facility is located in the command and control building. The warden's quarters are located here and the prison is able to be fully locked down from this point. Access to the system's security cameras, intercom, and other security measures are located here. The ability to unlock the armory is also exclusive to the warden and can only be unlocked remotely from command and control, which happens every shift change.

Inner Lockdown

Inner Lockdown is the codename for the four cellblocks that have space for 500 inmates with 125 cells in each block. The blocks are laid out in a circle and connected to a five story tower that contains indoor exercise space, cafeteria facilities, and three interrogation rooms. All inmate accessible areas are on the ground floor and serve as a central assembly area for each cellblock. The cafeteria facility allows staff to cook and provide meals for inmates from behind think acrylic barriers that were installed to replace the older bars in 2010 that separated the staff from the inmates. There are three entrances; the main entrance for moving inmates, a secondary entrance for staff to access the second floor from the outside, and an emergency entrance for accessing the upper level catwalks that ring the prisoner area.

Though the tower itself is five stories in height, there are only two actual floors, the ground floor and the fifth floor. Everything between the interrogation rooms and the ground floor is simply a series of cat walks that allow guards to access the fifth floor from the outside and also provides a vantage point to watch inmates during meals and exercise. During all periods inmates are not within their cells, several armed guards equipped with lethal and non-lethal weapons are stationed on the catwalks above, where they can react to violence between inmates from a distance, using ranged non-lethal options to incapacitate inmates in the event of a fight breaking out. There is no way to access the ground floor from the catwalks and guards are required to enter through the primary entrance if they need to access the ground floor.

Diagram of a cell at Anovsk prison.

Each cell at Anovsk contains all of the necessities for a prisoner to live. A shower, toilet, stool, and bed are provided for each cell. Each cell has a steel door that must be remotely unlocked from command and control and a second gate that is comprised of bars, which allow access to the inmate without allowing the inmate access to prison staff. Usage of showers is limited to seven minutes per day and showers in occupied cells run automatically from 0800 to 0807 each day and are temperature limited to 68 F. Water and power can be shut off individually to each cell from the command and control center. Windows can also be blacked out, effectively turning every cell into a solitary confinement cell in the event an inmate behaves poorly.

Weather Proofing

Due to the extreme weather conditions of the region, Anovsk Prison uses a district heating system, which heats most of the interior of the prison to differing average temperatures depending on the area. When the facility was constructed in 1984, it was built in an ideal location to utilize geothermal energy to provide steady and consistent heating by pumping heated, pressurized water through insulated pipes. The system is able to keep the facility at an average temperature of 60 degrees fahrenheit throughout the cell blocks on even the coldest days. There are no external controls or regulations on the heating system other than master control valves on each cellblock that allow the flow of water to be reduced or increased, which were upgraded to electronic control in 2010. Prior to that, the system within the cellblocks was not monitored, which lead to regularly fluctuating temperatures. The external facilities have fully adjustable systems per room, which allow prison staff to set a comfortable temperature.

In order to withstand the elements, each structure has an outer layer made up of a one foot thick concrete wall. This provides a barrier that keeps the interior of the cellblocks cooler cooler during the day and warmer during the night. In 2010, a thick layer of insulation capped by drywall was added to all the staff quarters over the concrete in order to improve conditions for those living and working at the prison. These Entryways are protected with heavy steel doors, which are an original feature and can be pressure sealed in order to prevent warm air from escaping. Cellblock doors were built to keep prisoners in, and are weather proofed simply as a side effect of being secure and providing methods for crowd control.

Security

Security Systems

Anovsk has received multiple security system upgrades since it was built in 1985, with the most recent being in 2020 with the installation of higher resolution cell cameras. There are multiple layers of security that prevent access to different sections of the facility.

Front Entrance

The front entrance of Anovsk is a single fence that is twenty feet high. There are two entry gates directly in line with one another, which must be opened in sequence. The electronic locking mechanism on each gate requires a signal from the locking mechanism on the other gate in order to be permitted to function. Details logs are kept on everyone who enters and leaves by staff in the command and control center. Though the electronic mechanisms can only be normally triggered by the command and control center, the warden and the highest ranking military office on the facility both have a special magnetic key which can override the mechanisms. In an emergency, the warden can remotely override the locks and open both entry gates.

Inner Lockdown Entrance

The Inner Lockdown area is surrounded by a twenty feet high concrete wall and four layers of chainlink fencing that separate the outer staff facilities from the cellblocks. In normal prison operations, only the outermost fence and the entry gate at the wall are locked by the same style electronic lock as the front gates. During a lockdown, all four layers of fencing have a gate that can be closed and locked remotely in the event of a riot. In a riot, electrification can be engaged on each layer as well. Each gate is watched by multiple cameras and logs are kept of those who enter and leave. The Inner Lockdown entrances are not designed to accommodate full sized vehicles and the facility keeps a number of UTVs with trailers on site to quickly transport supplies and men to and from the facility.