Under the nickname ‘Papasweeds’, artist Pavel Skazkin sells designs on NFT that portray his experience within the Russian prison system.
The increasing trend and speculation around non-fungible tokens (NFTs) may offer new ways to support worthy causes. This week, a slightly more dramatic story took place. An inmate in Russia told CoinDesk how he is leveraging the digital art craze to support his family and fellow inmates from prison.
Pavel Skazkin, a 31-year-old Russian inmate, is now creating surreal digital art to sell in NFT format. He got inspired by life in prison, and he also takes advantage of his artistic creation to make catharsis of his own experience within the Russian prison system.
The father of three children, Skazkin, is allocating a percentage of the sales to support his family and another amount to help other inmates in situations similar to his own. In a phone interview, Skazkin told CoinDesk that he has pledged to donate a third of the proceeds from his NFT sales to Russia Behind Bars, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping inmates and their families.
“Hall of Shame” is the title of the NFT work. The digital piece is a hand-drawn illustration that portrays Skazkin’s sentencing experience before the Russian court, as detailed by himself on the Foundation platform. At the time of publishing, the work got priced at 0.99 ETH, about USD 4,700.
The Story of Papasweeds
The inmate sells his works on the NFT market under the nickname Papasweeds, consisting of a play on words that collects his criminal charges and personal history.
According to Skazkin himself, a Russian court sentenced him to six years in prison for the crime of drug trafficking after being captured by local authorities carrying a package of marijuana and ecstasy. The prosecutor had initially asked for a 10-year sentence.
At that time, the 27-year-old Russian citizen got transferred to a prison near Bryansk, which is a place that prohibits communications and electronic devices. That prison is also well-known for being one of the cruelest correctional facilities in Russia, where cases of torture of its prisoners have been registered, according to local media.
Doing Catharsis through NFT
Fortunately, three years after serving half his sentence in that correctional facility, Skazkin managed to win a lighter sentence even without having a lawyer defending him.
Following the court’s verdict, the Russian got transferred to a less strict prison where he could work in a nearby city and use Internet-connected devices. He then finally managed to enter the world of NFTs.
Due to his experience with the dark web environment, Skazkin was already familiar with the concept of cryptocurrencies when he arrived in jail. He had bought his first bitcoins in 2017; However, the notion of NFTs was new, and there was little to zero news about the crypto space in print newspapers and on television when he was in the previous prison.
By: Jenson Nuñez
