Locked Up In Russia

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2:05I'm Michael O'Enjure. There was an interview we were talking about booking for the show this week, but then we discovered that our colleagues at the New Yorker radio hour had gotten there first. Rather than double up on their work, we decided we just bring you their interview. Here's the New Yorker radio hour host David Remnick. In 2023, a young reporter for the Wall Street Journal working in Moscow was arrested by Russian authorities and charged with espionage. His name is Evan Gershkovich. For Putin's regime to lock up an American journalist on charges that were obviously blatantly false was shocking. I'm a former Moscow correspondent myself. I'm on the board of the committee to protect journalists and so I watch these threats to the press very closely and this felt like a distinctly dangerous escalation of Putin's authoritarian tactics in the wake of his invasion of Ukraine. Evan Gershkovich spent 16 months in prison before his release in an exchange of prisoners.

3:09He details his experience in a new book, This Cursor Beautiful Land. We published an excerpt from the book at New Yorker.com and I spoke to Evan Gershkovich last week at a live event in New York City. Why you? There aren't an infinite number of correspondence. Why you? Is it because you were out of town? Is it because you grew up in a Russian emigrate household? Your language skills? What was it? Why you? I mean, I don't think I'll ever have the answer. And the book doesn't actually pose a complete answer. It's a bit of a question that's left open. But I think there's several reasons. One is that Putin addressed the FSB, the domestic intelligence agency, formerly the KGB at the end of 22 near the end of the first year of the full scale invasion and said, you guys have to catch spy next year. He said in more official language that you need to do a better job of catching.

4:14Because they need to crack down on traders or they needed fresh meat for a trade. So I think that they, it's partly he's telling them we need to shore up the war effort. So it's partly paranoia, but it's also fresh meat for a trade because at that point there was Paul Wheelan in Russia and American on SBNAS charges. And the Americans were trying to bring him home and the Russians were telling them he's not going home until Vladimir Krasikov and FSBSS and comes over from Germany. He had murdered a guy and brought daylight. They're sent from Russia on a mission. And the Americans were saying, well, this is crazy. We can't get the Germans to do this. So then I think, you know, and the kind of hostage diplomacy game had already been playing out for a few years. Or like they had traded Trevor Reed, a Marine, Britain Griner, basketball player. And I think they were looking at how they could stack Americans, maybe do a two for one, like the way a trade works.

5:15And so you start looking at your environment. You have this order to catch us by, you know, I think an American is the more valuable ones. But you also need to cloud a kind of somebody who's going to make a splash. And so I think you start looking at a journalist as, you know, one option. And I was up to reporting that, you know, some people might call it brave, other people might call it reckless. What do you call it? I call it a mix, I think, to be, to be, you know, I think it's important reporting the, you know, the work that we do, the work I was doing. You know, once. No, but I mean the specific thing. You were pursuing Russian military readiness and your attempt, I think, was to get material that would tell you more about the war effort, which is utterly verboten. And you met a source in Yucatodinburg and he turned out to be part of his setup, obviously. You get arrested. And I want to know, after you've been brought in, they've pummeled you and you realize

6:18you're not being tortured, which is good news. Right, right. But what did you think would happen? Did you think that this would be a couple of days? This would be a year. This would be interminable. What did you think? I thought a year and a half to three. So I mean, they, when they came in for the arrest and they announced that I'm under arrest, they say that they're with the FSB. So that's your first signal that it's not the local police, you know, they don't torture me. They don't try to get any information from me. They just present me with my charges. And so you quickly realize, oh, it's a setup, probably for a swap. And the first night I'm in prison, you know, we have, we had a TV in prison and on the state news channel, the host said, you know, this might be cynical to say, but we've replenished our exchange fund, which is the term the Russians use as the kind of like pool of people they use for a swap. And so then you start thinking, well, okay, if it's for a swap, this isn't going to, you know, these things don't happen quickly. But you were that collected that you were able to think without excessive emotion about

7:23your ups and downs. Like big ups and downs in the first week, two, three, and then, you know, lows, but in the beginning, you know, you're in a kind of state of shock. Like I remember the first, it took me, you know, six days to start keeping a diary. And for when I started putting the book together, I actually called my Russian lawyers and started going over some of the first memories. And they remembered me saying within the first week that I think this is for a swap and I think it's for Krasikov. Being the assassin in Germany, I think they've stacked American positions. But the Russians desperately wanted back. Yeah, I don't think we totally know why, but I don't think it's for as good deeds. No. What really interested me is that you end up in the iconic Moscow prison. You end up in the fort, give me in a granular way what daily life was like in the foot of a prison. But I think, you know, one thing that says that the Russian state's gotten much more calculating

8:25about how it, you know, it keeps people in prison and, you know, victory Russian as a Ukrainian journalist taking cap different from the same time. She was reporting in Russian occupied territory and she came back in a body bag. Her organs were removed so her family couldn't know what happened to her. I'm held in a completely different way. So I'm allowed to get books. I'm allowed to get letters. I can watch the, you know, the TV. So my life is more, you know, it's psychologically difficult and it's about the drudgery. So we would read in the mornings. You might get taken on your walk during the period. I could slow down on the reading. Oh, yeah, sure. What's absolutely fat when we first met, I'll never forget, I asked you what was available in the prison library. And you said, well, you know, I read Solzhen, Neetson, I read Brodsky, I read this that I couldn't believe, I couldn't wrap my head around that. The library is really, really rich. I mean, there's a, you know, I actually, I was surprised too. And then my lawyers the first time they came to visit me in prison when they were allowed

9:28to come for a visit. I brought that up. And they're like, well, a lot of really smart people have been here. It's up to them. It was obvious. It's not a question of my cue. It's a question of access. And that changed halfway through. But why are they letting you see those books in the beginning? I think a bit of Russian, this word that bring up in the book, Rosty's Dastva, which means it's a, you know, best way to translate it. And I apologize for the French, but a mess as a result of not giving, let's say, hoot. And it's, you know, the nine months in, they called the library. They took away anything written by so-called, you know, traders and showed the state in not a good light. But originally, you can have anything. What was the best book? The book memoirs. There were books by Ukrainian authors, Russian dissidents, Michelle Obama's memoir was in there. Arnold Schwarzenegger's too. Did you read that?

10:29I did not. It's pretty good. Yeah, I'm sure. So these guys around you, and you get this from the book, there's a certain, the fourth wall is broken at certain points during the course of the day. You'll let on in a sense that I know that you know that, et cetera. People made jokes with you. It wasn't, again, I'm not for a second saying this was a picnic. And the worst part of it sounds like your imagination of the suffering of your parents and friends at home. Yeah, I mean, I think when you're in that situation and you realize, okay, they're going to treat you like this kind of pristine package. You'd be treated. I had this moment when early on, the warden would come in before any time the US ambassador came to visit me. Check if everything was okay. The mattress was thicker than my cellmates. They were treating me sort of as like a higher class citizen. And you start getting those kinds of signals and then eventually, once he came to check

11:31on me before the ambassador came and I had hurt my knee exercising and I told them, like actually, I'm surprised at how well you're treating me in a way. Prisoner has checked it out. He gave me some physical therapy exercises. And of course, we care about your health. And I was like, well, the package has to be on damage or the value will go down. And he checked his shoulder and he looked around and he whispered, I didn't tell you this, but yes. So it's very bizarre, this kind of open conversation. And there was a moment actually where an FSB investigator told me that he was like, look, we gathered enough evidence against you to imprison you. Otherwise, we would poison you. And they do poison people abroad. But the argument I had with him sort of similar was that, no, because I'm useful in a very specific way. But then, yeah, you're loved ones and your family, it's always a black box. So you can write letters to them.

12:33You can explain. And he shocked me. So you were friends with Josh Yafo, who writes to the New Yorker and who at that time lived in Moscow. And I said, you know, I don't know Evan, but I'd like to write him a letter. I think that's probably impossible. Right? He said, don't know, I write all the time. And tell me about the system of letter writing to Russian prisoners. One interesting thing about the Russian state now is I think they don't really care what people have access to or what they say because they're in complete control. So the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny published his memoirs, which you published in the New Yorker from present right. And he's much more of an opponent to them, obviously. That's what's being snuck out. They're being snuck out by lawyers and so on. But the FSB knows, I think, to a degree, because you meet with your lawyer in a room and it's bugged. It's all open. And so I was getting letters in once a week or so. And then I would write letters and hand them in on Sunday nights.

13:35And you know, there's a sensor that stamped the letters, but I think they were only stamping for, you know, if there was some sort of code, how to escape. But my friends, I thought it was quite, to me, it was heartwarming and cute and comical. They were trying to not write any sort of curse words because they were worried that that would mean that the letters wouldn't come through. So we were all kind of guessing at what was possible and not possible. I'm speaking with Evan Gershkowitz, more in a moment. This is our glass. On this American life, one thing we like is a good mystery. Sometimes about really big things, things here in the news. But most times, the little mysteries are the best. What I've lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know. I've never seen this happen. I've got skirts. I've got shorts. This is true. This is true. Mysteries of every size, each week, this American life, wherever you get your podcasts.

14:41What was the hardest part? We've talked to, and I don't mean to be dismissive word in any way, diminishing of this experience because there must have been periods that were immensely hard. It seems to me if I read the book properly, possibly the lowest low was involved, Alexei Navallani, who of course was a dissident in the modern sense and certainly a martyr in any sense, and who died was, I think, more accurately killed in a polar camp. Tell me about what you were thinking vis-à-vis Navallani's fate, how it affected you, and how his death affected you. Yes. In the beginning, assuming it's for a swap, assuming the US government is going to be frantically trying to free me because it's a big global uproar and they made statements

15:47early on that they were going to try to free me. My lawyers could come to the prison and bring the interns at the law firm, or translating the Western press into Russian, so I could read it. Then there was news that actually a deal started coming together with myself and Paul Wielin going to the US, Crossicos. You were well informed throughout all the special nations. Through you, your lawyers, principally. Through my lawyers, yeah, yeah, but also just through the news. What was the reaction in the prison? I'm only with my cellmate. That's the only person I actually interact with, other than prison guards. They completely isolate you from everybody else. My reaction, my cellmate, because we had been talking about a possible swap, was one of four. I later berated myself for not thinking of Navalny first. I knew the guy, the guy you've joked together with. He's a reporter's new him well. Yeah, he's incredibly brave and one of a generation person who would sacrifice himself

16:52for a cause like that. The next four days go by and complete Hayes. To spare? Yeah, I think not really not thinking much at all, just sort of like you lay on your cot and you don't do anything. You mentioned your cellmate. One of the most spectacular aspects of this book is the depiction of the relationship between you and your cellmate. Now, you do give yourself the liberty. What you inform the reader where you take a few cellmates and kind of make a composite of them into one, but I think one person that particularly dominates. Tell me about him and your relationship. He admitted to violating the law. He had a legal weapons factory and maybe workshop, however we want to put it. And with selling weapons legally. So the way we got along was that he was really funny. And we had a cultural touch point. So I grew up in a home that was a kind of like facsimile of the Soviet Union and the way

17:56we watched Soviet comedies and cartoons. And then I lived in Russia for five years and caught up to pop culture. What did you learn from him? You know, one of the most important things I think you have to learn in a Russian prison. How do you step into a cell is really important. I stepped into his cell. I reached out my hand for a handshake to introduce myself. And he said to me a Russian phrase that he said, what's the trouble? And I didn't understand what that meant. And then he explained, you know, I want you to tell me what your crime is. And the reasoning is that you can't shake the hand, let's say a pedophile. So I said, and this is where I thought he was immediately showed a great sense of humor. And pop culture awareness was, you know, I explained to him, he said, you know, espionage. And so he freaks out, he was like, you're a spy? No, no, no, no, no, I'm not a, you know, I'm a foreign correspondent. They set me up. It's for a swap. And he starts laughing and he goes, it's just like in Shawshank Redemption.

18:57Everyone's, everyone here is innocent. So, yeah, you know, he's funny. After you got out, you would think from watching the scene at the airport, Andrews Air Force Base, there was a real happiness relief there. And you're an exhaustion. But there's other things happening inside of you that took time. Tell me about that. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, you're carried in the beginning on this sort of adrenaline. And yet pure joy, you're suddenly reunited with these people you've been missing and you've been worried about you and fighting for you. And but, you know, I couldn't sleep at the beginning. You know, the prison, you know, the kind of prison experience I was in was really isolating. And I felt like coming down from the International Space Station in a way. Suddenly, you know, there's all these faces and sights and sounds and you're... People want things from you. People want things from you, but you've also been in kind of kindergarten.

19:58You've been institutionalized. You've lost your agency. You don't know how to say, yes, you things. You just have to say yes to things and you can't say no. And so that, you're relearning how to be an adult again and you're absolutely overwhelmed. And one of the stranger feelings I had was the sort of pull to go back. Much Russia, but to prison specifically because it's what you know. What does that mean? The desire to go back to prison. It's a desire to have that kind of structure and being able to have conversations with people who understand you so far. Weirdly enough. It happened in 16 months, which is a... Yes. It's not a short period of time, but it's not 20 years. And it happened to a person who was a political prisoner who was, you know, had a good job, financial support, a newsroom, to go back to a family. And you know, you can only imagine what might happen to somebody who didn't have all that support. That quickly went away because I got a therapist. So I got a... But I turn out, you know, I started with a PTSD therapist and I kind of graduated that in

20:59six months. How long did it take to feel like your feet were on the ground? Oh, awesome. Maybe like eight months, seven months. Yeah. I feel good, normal, maybe about the same amount of time as I was in. So it's almost a full term until you feel like yourself? Yep. I've, you know, I've been asked if I have Stockholm syndrome in, you know, since. And you know, I don't know. I'm not a psychologist, but I don't think I do. And I think part of it is because of this connection to the place. You know, people get wrongfully accused of murder in the US and then they spend 20 years in prison and then they're released and they're angry at the judicial system and whoever, but they're not, you know, they haven't renounced the United States. And I definitely don't support the Russian state, but I have sadness about what's happening to and what it's doing to an anger about what it's doing to his neighbors.

22:00Evan, would you go back? He'd have to be long gone. But I would. Yeah, you'd have to be long gone and you'd have to see what the government is like. And. But I don't think he's going to be succeeded by. Yeah. Right. The city of coming of Andriy Sarkarov for Alexey Navalny. Kind of, I mean, depends when it happens, right? I don't think so either. I guess I'm hopefully we can all hold up hope that it could happen again one day. There could be this moment. Yeah. But no, I don't see it coming any time soon either. And so you missed it. Uh, less and less. I did it at the beginning. Yeah. I mean, jail in Moscow. Yeah, Moscow. Yeah. It was the place. It was a good, good distinction because I did. There was a moment. Yeah. I mean, it was the play. You know, I've got there when I was 25. I made some of the, yeah, closest friends and people I'd ever, all ever make in life. And it was a interesting and fun place to live. And I think Russia is much more complicated than just, you know, trying to expand its borders or keep, you know, the autocracy going.

23:04Whereas lovely people that live there and wish this wouldn't be happening. And, you know, I grew up on this kind of food and this kind of culture. And so it's close to me. And, you know, one day I would hope to be able to go back. But I don't, I just, yeah, I agree. I don't think that's happening any time soon. Evan Gershkowitz, thank you very much. Thanks, everybody. I spoke with Evan Gershkowitz at Temple Emanuel Striker Centers in New York City. He writes about his imprisonment in Russia in a new book, This Cursed Beautiful Land. And it continues to report for the Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening to the Midweek podcast. Don't forget to tune into the big show this Friday. We'll be talking about the concept of polarization and why so many pundits have gotten it wrong. In the meantime, you should follow us on Instagram and TikTok. And, you know, we have a lot of research on the media. We have a subreddit too. I'll see you on Friday. I'm Mike Alloinger.