The detention facility simply outdoor Moscow the place Brittney Griner, the American basketball big name, has been held is a former orphanage rebuilt a decade in the past to accommodate ladies jailed sooner than trial and, one after the other, ladies serving their jail sentences.

Its artificially lit, grey painted halls and grim tall partitions befit its bureaucratic identify: Correctional Colony No. 1, or IK-1.

1000’s of Russian ladies have handed thru it, together with no less than one different well known foreigner: Naama Issachar, the Israeli-American arrested in April 2019 when the Russian police mentioned that they had discovered a 3rd of an oz of marijuana in her baggage as she used to be connecting at a Moscow airport.

Ms. Issachar used to be sentenced to seven and a part years in jail on drug ownership and smuggling fees sooner than President Vladimir V. Putin pardoned her, 10 months after she used to be first arrested, as she turned into a political pawn within the complicated dating between Russia and Israel.

In prison, Ms. Issachar instructed her mom: “The clouds in Moscow are lovely.”

It used to be all she may see of the outdoor global.

Now it’s Ms. Griner, additionally hung on drug fees, who’s a pawn — American officers name her a hostage of the Kremlin — however the geopolitics at stake, amid the conflict in Ukraine and Mr. Putin’s showdown with the West, are way more fraught.

In a phone interview from Israel, Ms. Issachar’s mom, Yaffa Issachar, mentioned that her daughter had cried when she heard about Ms. Griner’s case, telling her: “I do know what she’s going thru now.”

The mum mentioned that Ms. Issachar have been handled somewhat smartly by way of her cellmates, however that she feared that Ms. Griner, as a homosexual girl, might be handled worse as a result of Russia’s conservative attitudes and restrictive rules surrounding homosexuality.

Yaffa Issachar mentioned her daughter have been moved thru 3 Russian detention amenities, together with 3 months in the only the place Ms. Griner is predicted to stick in the course of the period of her trial, which began on Friday. It’s within the village of Novoye Grishino, a 50-mile pressure from central Moscow.

The Russian government have now not disclosed Ms. Griner’s whereabouts. The New York Occasions used to be in a position to spot the jail from {a photograph} revealed on-line by way of a customer, and the site used to be showed by way of an individual acquainted with the case. Ms. Griner has been held within the pretrial detention heart of the power, which additionally features a higher penal colony for ladies serving out their sentences, with its personal stitching manufacturing unit and Russian Orthodox church.

Video pictures of the jail to be had on-line displays tall, grey partitions, previous jail bars and a rusty monument to Lenin within the courtyard. Ms. Issachar, who used to be allowed to talk over with her daughter two times a month, additionally recalls the Lenin monument — together with the din of barking jail canine that, she mentioned, had been being educated within the backyard.

For Ms. Griner, each day within the facility appears to be like just about the similar, mentioned Yekaterina Kalugina, a journalist and member of a public jail tracking workforce who has visited Ms. Griner within the jail.

The inmates get up, have breakfast of their mobile — generally some fundamental meals — after which opt for a stroll within the jail’s courtyard, which is roofed by way of a internet. The remainder of the day is stuffed with studying books — Ms. Griner has been studying Dostoyevsky in translation, as an example — and staring at tv, despite the fact that all the channels are in Russian, Ms. Kalugina mentioned.

The mobile has a separate non-public washroom, she mentioned, one thing of a novelty for Russian prisons. Inmates can order meals on-line and use a fridge within the mobile for groceries. They’re allowed to take a bath simplest two times per week.

Ms. Issachar mentioned it could take so long as 4 hours to finish the forms to go into the jail, with all the meals she used to be bringing in painstakingly inspected — all the way down to the tea baggage, which needed to be lower open, their contents emptied right into a plastic bag.

She may see her daughter simplest thru glass, and communicate to her simplest thru a phone. She mentioned that her daughter have been allowed weekly visits by way of a rabbi, who would go letters between them; underneath jail laws, the rabbi used to be allowed to be in the similar room because the inmate.

The isolation for her daughter used to be serious, Ms. Ishaffar mentioned. “Mommy, the autumn began,” she recalled her daughter telling her at one level. “I see the leaves coming down.”

Ms. Ishaffar prompt that Ms. Griner’s circle of relatives discover a priest who may talk over with her.

“There may be any person staring at them,” she mentioned, “however no less than it’s a human she will be able to communicate to.”

Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.