“She Will Need Cigarettes”: Brittney Griner’s $5 Million Net Worth Has No Value in Prison

The situation surrounding WNBA star Brittney Griner has been tremendously bleak. Griner is currently being relocated to a Russian penal colony after spending nine months in a detention facility in Moscow. The once rich and talented basketball player’s future has taken a turn for the worse and it seems as if things will not be getting better anytime soon.

Any and all possibilities conducted by the U.S. for Griner’s release have not worked out. Now, Griner will be serving a 9-year sentence in a Soviet Union prison. In February, Griner was taken into custody at a Moscow-area airport.

All that money will be of no use to Brittney Griner

She was caught because she had two vape cartridges in her luggage that contained trace amounts of hashish oil. Griner pleaded guilty to the charges and urged the authorities to have some mercy on her. But the Russian authorities had already made up their mind.

The penal colonies in Russia have a daunting reputation around the world. One cannot help but think of the Soviet era Gulags, which were constructed as prison camps in the 1920s when one thinks of Russian penal colonies.

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Olga Romanova is the founder of the Russia Behind Bars Foundation and works on the behalf of prisoners in those Russian penal colonies. Romanova has worked closely with Russian prisoners and knows how things function in the joint.

Despite having a net worth of $5 million, none of that money will be of any use to Brittney Griner inside the prison. In the Russian penal colonies, cigarettes are used as cash instead of dollars or rubles.

Romanova said, “She will need cigarettes just to get around,” while referring to being provided with any privilege for Griner. In Russia’s jails, inmates have historically been housed in barracks rather than cells, which are frequently overcrowded.

What is in store for Griner?

The convicts not only endure severe living circumstances but also cruel treatment, forced work, and starvation on occasion. One of the famous female prisoners in these colonies was a member of the Russian punk band, Pussy Riot named Maria Alyokhina.

Alyokhina shed some light on the living conditions in these prisons. Prisoners are not provided with hot water or medicine. And live alongside 80 women in a large room with just three toilets to share.

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Griner will presumably avoid the torture and trauma that other prisoners experience because her crime is regarded as low-level in Russia. Here’s to hoping that the WNBA star and her family get through this tough time.