“Cobles”: How They Appeared in the Women’s Zones of the USSR
In women’s prisons and camps, life and human relationships are completely different from those in men’s correctional institutions. In the cells of the pre-trial detention center, everything is run by the elders – prisoners appointed by the administration.
In the zones, active lesbians have the greatest influence. And it’s no secret that in women’s colonies, it is representatives of non-traditional sexual orientation who most often arrange brawls.
A woman who has taken on the role of a man is called a male in the zone. She formally plays the role of the husband. As in the wild, in the camp for women, the family remains in the foreground, so in the prisons the prisoners mostly live in families, both figuratively and literally.
Active camp lesbians always take men’s names, cut their hair short, and try to speak in a bass voice. They even look like men: their gait changes, their facial features become coarser.
The male takes on the role of protector and provider (for example, she has to get or buy some food), and the duties of the housewife are performed by a passive lesbian, who cooks and sets the table. The latter are often tattooed in prisons with the image of either a mermaid in a crown, holding a violin and a bow in her hands and splashing on the waves, or rescuing a girl drowning in a stormy sea. Such unions usually last for the entire period of imprisonment, and the separation of the couple is not welcome. This connection is conditioned not only by sexual demands, but also by the desire, for example, to have moral protection. There is no courtship in such couples. Everything is restrained and dry. By the way, no one rapes anyone – everything happens by mutual consent.
Paradoxically, the coolest, bloodiest showdowns, sometimes with a fatal outcome, take place in women’s colonies in the post-Soviet space and mainly because of the jealousy of cobls. In men’s prisons, violence usually comes from the guards, while in women’s prisons, violence is more likely to come from fellow inmates, with the tacit consent of the prison administration. Fights break out, as a rule, over trifles, and they are much tougher than those of men – nails, teeth and other attributes of female beauty are used. Women, apparently, are so much carried away by sorting things out among themselves that they find themselves completely ununited in the face of a common misfortune.
Many experts believe that the origins of camp unions lie in colonies for juvenile delinquents, where girls also often form couples on the principle of “husband-wife”.