"Returning from prison is like flying in from the International Space Station and leaving kindergarten at the same time," says Evan Gershkovich. His life behind bars was subject to strict rules - all actions depended on the guards' instructions. After his release, he had to learn to make independent decisions again. He could hardly sleep in the first week of freedom, and he would have panic attacks among people. At one point, the journalist even felt the desire to return to prison - where everything was familiar.
The correspondent of the American “Wall Street Journal" tells about his experiences in the book “This Damned Beautiful Country”, recently published in German.
From Moscow to Yekaterinburg
Evan Gershkovich was born in 1991 in New Jersey to a family of emigrants from the Soviet Union. At the age of 25, in 2017, he went to Moscow, worked there as a journalist, and in 2022 became a correspondent for the “Wall Street Journal”.
After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the work of foreign correspondents became much more dangerous - many left the country after the introduction of new repressive laws with restrictions on the dissemination of information about the Russian army. But Gershkovich decided to stay. “At first, I thought it was not as dangerous for me as for Russian journalists. Secondly, it was the most important story of my career - the largest invasion of Europe since World War II. I felt that I had to go there if I had the opportunity. There was also the professional excitement that every journalist probably experiences when an event of this magnitude takes place."
Gershkovich writes about the Russian defense industry, the Wagner Group, the situation in the army, travels to Pskov, where the 76th Airborne Assault Brigade, which is associated with the crimes in Bucha, is based. On March 29, 2023, during a journalistic trip to Yekaterinburg, he was detained by FSB agents. They put a sack over his head, put him in a car and demanded that he admit who he was working for. He constantly replied that he was a journalist from the “Wall Street Journal”, which is why he was beaten.
He was eventually charged with espionage. Gershkovich and his editorial office rejected the charges, but a Russian court sentenced the journalist to 16 years in prison.
Life in Lefortovo
“At the very first meeting with the FSB officers, the subject of the prisoner exchange was discussed. They told me: “You better admit your guilt, otherwise they won't include you on the exchange list”. It became completely clear to me that they were using me for a specific purpose. They organized the detention, lured me into a trap so that they could then use me for an exchange,” says Gershkovich. Because of this, he said, he was kept in acceptable conditions, and was not subjected to torture or abuse.
Gershkovich first ended up in the Moscow prison "Lefortovo": "There is an extremely complex system of rules there. Literally everything is regulated - how to enter the cell, how to maintain it, what rags to use for cleaning, how to go to the toilet, how to do this or that". In prison, Gershkovich read the memoirs of Gulag inmates and tried to follow their advice: to maintain discipline, do physical exercises, exercise his brain, read, write down interesting quotes. That's when his idea to write a book appeared.
What does prison mean for Russian society
According to Gershkovich, being in prison allowed him to see Russian society from an unexpected side. He believes that those who actively support Putin and the war are a minority, just as a minority is against them, and the political views of most people are difficult to define. The journalist met a young man in prison who was sentenced to more than ten years for an anti-war inscription on a government building. "In this situation, it is not surprising that many prefer not to talk about politics at all," Gershkovich says.
Another surprise for him was the FSB employees. Before his arrest, the Russian special service seemed to Gershkovich like a monolithic structure, but in prison he saw that its employees approach their work differently. Some are convinced that belonging to the FSB gives them an exclusive right to everything. Others recognize the cruelty of the system, but shift the responsibility to legislators. The investigator in the Gershkovich case, as the journalist says, sincerely believed that he was investigating an American spy.
The recruitment of prisoners for the front
Behind the bars, Gershkovich also contacted people recruited for the war in Ukraine. One of them, accused of murder and threatened with 15 years in prison, explained why he wanted to go to the front: if he died, his wife and young child would receive a huge sum. Another prisoner, convicted of theft, had been at war for six months and wanted to return to the front again - he had never felt such a rush of adrenaline anywhere else - neither from women, nor from cars, nor from drugs.
The journalist says that the hardest thing was listening to such confessions from political prisoners. One of them considered going to war, just to avoid spending 15 agonizing years in prison. In the end, however, he refused to sign the contract.
Russia - it's not just Putin and the FSB
On August 1, 2024, Evan Gershkovich was released after a large-scale prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries. In the summer of 2026, he returned to work at the "Wall Street Journal", but he tries to avoid topics related to Russia.
Despite what he experienced, Gershkovich says that his attitude towards Russia has not changed. He told DW that even before moving to Moscow in 2017, he had no illusions about the Russian regime. But for him, Russia is not only Putin and the FSB, but also his family, friends and the people with whom he spent important years of his life.
“With my book, I didn't want to show Russia and its people only as villains, but to try to understand them. I had the opportunity to communicate with FSB employees and other prisoners. I tried to understand their point of view, as a reporter should."
Source: www.dw.com