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Sentenced to Life on Fire Island

Igor Tabakov
In December of 2004, Igor Tabakov and staff writer Anatoly Medetsky traveled to the Vologda region for a story about a prison where 193 inmates were serving life sentences after former President Boris Yeltsin imposed on moratorium on capital punishment in 1996. On Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009, the Constitutional Court ruled that capital punishment would not resume in January 2010, effectively extending the ban on the death penalty. In light of this ruling, we've revisited Tabakov's moving photos from his visit to Prison No. OE 256/5, also known as "Pyatak."

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