‘Prisoners killed each other’s kittens. So now they’re forbidden inside’: Vladimir Karamazov’s best photograph

Belene prison, in northern Bulgaria on the border with Romania, is the most heavily guarded facility of its type in my country. It is on an island, so escape is near impossible, and has the largest number of people serving life sentences for murder in any Bulgarian prison.

This image describes a sad, terrible story. There are a lot of stray cats on the island, as well as pigeons and mosquitoes. The prisoners used to adopt stray kittens and keep them as pets. When I started my project, For the Grace of God, at the prison, many prisoners had pet cats. But in a prison, this can become a problem – prisoners kill each other’s pets as punishment or for revenge. So now it’s forbidden. It’s even the same with flowers – some think of the flowers as friends, they nurture and grow them in the sun, but then other prisoners destroy them. Anything a prisoner can create a relationship with can be destroyed. Part of their punishment is to be alone, without any family, or any attachments to anything.

It’s another world with a different set of rules, another language, and even money is different – cigarettes are currency. There are a lot of rules. I spent a lot of time in Belene, living like the prisoners, spending all day with them, listening to their stories. I am a well-known television and theatre actor here in my country. I’ve hosted the Bulgarian edition of Survivor for five seasons; I host the Bulgarian version of The Traitors. I have a lot of work, but I don’t like the people in my industry, and my work as an actor is boring for me now. I started this project out of curiosity about life inside: people in my country have no idea how prisoners live. It was difficult to get permission as I wanted to access to the prison for a year and to be allowed to shoot everywhere and anywhere with no limitations.

Talking to the prisoners, I discovered that everything begins in their childhood: 99% grew up in a family without love, money, or with abuse; something was broken. This is a problem in society, not only for these people. Most people just want prisoners dead; they would prefer funding to go to old people or children. When I presented this work at the National Gallery in Sofia, people were crying – it was the first time they saw prisoners as people like us. They saw human beings. We are all the same, but some people don’t have the opportunity for a good life.

At the beginning, I was scared of the prisoners who were sentenced without parole. I thought these people had nothing to lose and could kill me as a joke. I said to the director to please alert me if any of them were in my vicinity. One day he introduced Milchu, and told me to spend the day with him. I asked Milchu to please tell me if we came across any of the prisoners without parole. He laughed and asked me how I expected them to look? I said I don’t know – in chains? But I begged him to warn me. The next day I asked him the same thing. Eventually he told me: “I’m one of them. I have a 26-year life sentence without parole.” My mind was blown – I didn’t expect that this man I had spent two days with was a killer. I couldn’t sleep that night.

The first three months were very difficult, I had a lot of nightmares. There are a lot of terrible stories, but I didn’t want to explain the stories in my photographs. I wanted to think about how a criminal life begins, to ask questions, not judge. “Can you be friends with a killer?” I was asked once. The hard truth is yes. Today I am good friends with three prisoners sentenced without parole.

My life has changed a lot in the last two years because of this experience. Forgiveness is a simple word, but it’s very hard. Milchu has three children, and when he killed someone, he also destroyed his whole family, his world. I met one of his daughters who told me that for 15 years after her father’s crime she hated him every day for destroying their life. Then one day she understood that hating this man her whole life was terrible for her, so she decided to forgive him.

I related this story to Milchu – he started to cry. He said it was the most important moment of his life. He never knew his daughter had forgiven him. He said he would die happy.

For the Grace of God is published by Gost books (£60)

Vladimir Karamazov’s CV

Born: Bulgaria, 1979

High point: My greatest achievement is that I had the courage, after 20 successful years as an actor – playing major roles in film, theatre and television – to turn to photography and start from scratch. To leave one life and set out to pursue another – for me more interesting – where I confront the truth of our lives. As an actor I am an interpreter, recreating reality. As a photographer I am a creator who captures and preserves reality. Within six years I managed to pass through many levels of photography, I won many awards, held major exhibitions and have created the projects that excite me. Through my projects I try to open a door for society to places they do not want to look, do not know what is there, and are afraid of. When they peek through my open door, they see that it is not so frightening there, that people like us live there, too.

Top tip: I constantly urge people to think a little more. When we hear something bad about someone, we are immediately inclined to condemn them. But we do not know their story, we do not know why they committed a certain act, yet we judge. If we give ourselves time and get to know that person, we will learn the reason why they are the way they are. This happened to me with people convicted of murder. The act itself is horrifying. But when you learn the whole story of that person, when you understand that they grew up without family, without love, in terrible squalor and hunger, you understand why they are that way.