While I was going to work early in the morning with the carpenters, I did not see the laborers being birched. Normally, the punishments were carried out after secondment, after we’d been sent off to our assignments. It was rare that during the day the warden, enraged by some penal laborer's infraction, would suddenly shout: “The rods!”

In Tymovsk District, there wasn't a standing executioner, as in Aleksandrovsk Prison. In Rykovsk, his responsibilities were fulfilled by the so-called prison barracks headmen. Each ward had a headman. He supervised the order and cleanliness of the domicile, was paid for this by prisoners with portions of bread, and was, in general, a representative for their side. Given this, the people chosen to be headmen were invariably literate, healthy, and strong, and quite capable, if need be, of dealing with brother penal laborers consigned to punishment.

I sufficiently guarded myself from the terrible spectacle of execution but, living in the prison, it was impossible not to hear the groans emitted by unseen prisoners being shamelessly tortured.

A large, wide, flat bench with thick legs stood on the porch of the first barracks. This was the penal laborers’ mare. When someone had to be punished, the headmen would position it a little way from the porch and bring over an armful of one-and-a-half-arshin-long rods. They always had in supply a whole tub of fresh birch twigs thick as a finger.

Faced with four meaty goons, the prisoner usually submitted to lowering his trousers and laying himself on the mare. One pair then leaned heavily on his body, one man on his shoulders and the other on his feet, while the other pair stood on either side of the subdued victim and, with brief interruptions, separately thrashed the naked body with the rods. A guard counted off the blows before calling to the warden: “That's it!”

The punishment could be halted for many reasons. In addition to the consistency of his breathing, to which the warden attended, the behavior of the prisoner played a large role. One might, in a tearful voice, begin begging for mercy even while undoing his trousers. And all the while, slowly laying himself on the mare, not stop repeating:

“Your excellency, please!”