In this paper, I explore how the arrival of large number of transnational Muslim prisoners are shaping the traditional hierarchies and power relations in Russian penal institutions. I argue that the large-scale migratory processes have transformed Russian penal institutions into a legally plural environment, where it is possible to glean the patterns of the coexistence and clash between various formal rules and informal sub- cultures: colony regime, thieves' law, ethnic solidarity norms, and Sharia law. In doing so, I will critique the widely held view in official discourses and popular culture that the formation of co-communities of prisoners from the Central Aisa are ‘breeding grounds’ for Islamic terrorists. The paper is based on two periods of ethnographic fieldwork in the Ferghana Valley of Uzbekistan in January-September 2020, which includes 29 ethnographic interviews with Uzbek ex-prisoners who served sentences in different Russian penal institutions, as well as observations and informal interviews in villages and mahallas (local communities) from whence the majority of interviewed ex-prisoners originate.
