BBC News has posted a short clip showing the outside of Penal Colony 14, where Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, one of the two Pussy Riot members currently imprisoned, is being held.
Noting that the camp was once part of Stalin's gulag system, the BBC's Daniel Sandford reports that the colony operates an open dormitory system, whereby murderers and other serious violent criminals are held in the same rooms as prisoners convicted of much lesser crimes.
The clip also includes short segments of interviews with Tolokonnikova's husband; Pyotr Verzilov, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, the Pussy Riot member who was freed last month after her sentence was suspended. You can check out the video here.
In related news, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose regime the women were imprisoned for protesting against, has been quoted in The Independent as follows:
Whether the sentence was too much or too little is not for me to judge. That is a matter for the court. If they had not broken the law, they would now be at home, doing the housework, or back at their jobs.
Putting aside the housework remark for a moment, cases heard by judges in Russia have a conviction rate of about 99%, so for Putin's assertion to be correct, Russia would have to enjoy a judicial system of near perfect quality. Given what we know about how the Pussy Riot trial was conducted, Putin's position would be farcical, were it's ramifications not so serious.