By . Helen Lawson . PUBLISHED: . 06:18 EST, 7 June 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 12:26 EST, 7 June 2013 . Sowing barley seeds, planting potatoes, and toiling in the Siberian outdoors: this is the day-to-day life of prisoners in a Russian penal colony. About 250 inmates at the colony, near the city of Krasnoyarsk, work with farm machinery and animals as part of their punishment. They are serving life sentences and must undertake forced labour at high-security prison camps. Inmates at a Siberian prison camp near the city of Krasnoyarsk must sign a document every hour to confirm their presence, even while they carry out farm work . The colony's fields are worked by inmates serving life sentence, seen here sowing barley . An inmate loads barley into a seeder before sowing a field at the penal colony, which lies 25 miles north-east of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia . Forced labour sees inmates sowing crops and tending fields at the site . While they work, they are watched by guards at all time. Every hour they must sign a document to prove their presence. One prisoner in these photographs is seen staying on his horse and leaning down to sign his name, saving valuable work time. The workers do not leave the fields to take their meal break, sitting on armchairs and sofas outside to eat. The fields are owned by the regional penitentiary system that controls the camp, which is 16 miles north-east of Siberia's third-largest city. An inmate loads barley into a seeder before sowing a field . Another inmate is put to work at the wheel of a tractor to plant potatoes . An inmate works with the colony's potato crop as part of his forced labour punishment . The area endures long cold winters, with prisoners working in camps during days where average low temperatures plummet to -11C. Russia is thought to have about . 850,000 convicts in its prison system, with many sentenced to forced . labour. About 60,000 prisoners are women, held in single-sex camps. As of 2010, about 560 out of every 100,000 people in Russia were behind bars. Russia incarcerates more people than any . country in the world bar the United States and China, according to the . International Centre for Prison Studies. About 250 inmates are working in the camp under a life sentence . Russia has about 850,000 prisoners, according to 2010 figures . Inmates are kept in a system that the . country's own justice minister has described as 'monstrously archaic' and whose purpose has changed little for hundreds of years. Tsarist Russia sent prisoners to remote Siberian colonies where labour was in short supply.. The system was inherited and expanded by the Soviet Union, which worked millions of prisoners to death in the gulag. Inmates stay out in the fields at break times, eating before returning to work . The fields belong to the regional penitentiary system while some inmates also work on farms .
Pictures show prisoners working the fields at a colony near Krasnoyarsk .
Every hour they must sign a document to prove their attendance at work .
By . Helen Lawson . PUBLISHED: . 06:18 EST, 7 June 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 12:26 EST, 7 June 2013 . Sowing barley seeds, planting potatoes, and toiling in the Siberian outdoors: this is the day-to-day life of prisoners in a Russian penal colony. About 250 inmates at the colony, near the city of Krasnoyarsk, work with farm machinery and animals as part of their punishment. They are serving life sentences and must undertake forced labour at high-security prison camps. Inmates at a Siberian prison camp near the city of Krasnoyarsk must sign a document every hour to confirm their presence, even while they carry out farm work . The colony's fields are worked by inmates serving life sentence, seen here sowing barley . An inmate loads barley into a seeder before sowing a field at the penal colony, which lies 25 miles north-east of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia . Forced labour sees inmates sowing crops and tending fields at the site . While they work, they are watched by guards at all time. Every hour they must sign a document to prove their presence. One prisoner in these photographs is seen staying on his horse and leaning down to sign his name, saving valuable work time. The workers do not leave the fields to take their meal break, sitting on armchairs and sofas outside to eat. The fields are owned by the regional penitentiary system that controls the camp, which is 16 miles north-east of Siberia's third-largest city. An inmate loads barley into a seeder before sowing a field . Another inmate is put to work at the wheel of a tractor to plant potatoes . An inmate works with the colony's potato crop as part of his forced labour punishment . The area endures long cold winters, with prisoners working in camps during days where average low temperatures plummet to -11C. Russia is thought to have about . 850,000 convicts in its prison system, with many sentenced to forced . labour. About 60,000 prisoners are women, held in single-sex camps. As of 2010, about 560 out of every 100,000 people in Russia were behind bars. Russia incarcerates more people than any . country in the world bar the United States and China, according to the . International Centre for Prison Studies. About 250 inmates are working in the camp under a life sentence . Russia has about 850,000 prisoners, according to 2010 figures . Inmates are kept in a system that the . country's own justice minister has described as 'monstrously archaic' and whose purpose has changed little for hundreds of years. Tsarist Russia sent prisoners to remote Siberian colonies where labour was in short supply.. The system was inherited and expanded by the Soviet Union, which worked millions of prisoners to death in the gulag. Inmates stay out in the fields at break times, eating before returning to work . The fields belong to the regional penitentiary system while some inmates also work on farms .
colony. About 250 inmates at the colony, near the hour they must sign a document to prove their