After a nearly 10-month ordeal in the whirlwind of the Russian prison system, Alsu Kurmasheva’s rediscovery of life as a free woman looks like this: clean drinking water; a comfortable bed; long walks in the Texas countryside, free from prison guard supervision. And avocados.
“It wasn't avocado I was craving in prison. Of course, it tastes amazing, because we are in Texas, but you know, it was my first clean water in a glass. I've been dreaming of a first glass of water, my first clean long shower in a hotel, my first sleep in a decent bed,” Kurmasheva told RFE/RL in an interview on August 5.
“This morning, I had my first walk by myself without surveillance, without supervision, without anyone taking me anywhere,” she said, speaking by video from Texas, where she was recuperating after being released as part of the largest prisoner swap between Russia and the West since the Cold War.
Still, her reacquaintance with freedom was a work in progress, said Kurmasheva, a dual Russian-American citizen who works as an editor for RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service.
“Actually, I didn't expect this would be so hard. In prison, I felt strong. I thought I was doing OK, but I clearly need some time to cope with everything, what is happening and what has happened, most importantly,” she said.
Detained by authorities in June 2023 as she was visiting relatives in the central Russian city of Kazan, Kurmasheva was initially charged with not declaring her U.S. passport. She was released but barred from leaving the country.
That October, however, she was arrested, jailed, and charged with being an undeclared "foreign agent" -- under a draconian law targeting journalists, civil society activists, and others. She was later hit with an additional charge: distributing what the government claims is false information about the Russian military, a charge stemming from her work editing a book about Russians opposed to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. RFE/RL, as well as the U.S. government, called the charges absurd.
Held in prison, waiting for some indication about what was going to happen, Kurmasheva said it was hard to keep up hope, given the lack of information or news.
“It was a long winter without any information, with nothing in my [investigation]. A cold winter and spring came and nothing was happening. And then suddenly my trials were rushed, and this was the indication that something might be going on,” she said.
'Nobody Will Bring Back That Year For Me'
On July 19, after a secret, closed-door trial, Kurmasheva was convicted by a Tatarstan court and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison. That same day, another American reporter, Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal, who had been arrested in Yekaterinburg in March 2023, was convicted of espionage in a similarly rushed, secretive trial.
The Wall Street Journal and the U.S. government derided Gershkovich’s prosecution as a sham as well.
“I learned that Evan's trial [took place] on the same day, and somehow I was thinking that that might be a sign. Then it was silence for some time again, and then I was taken from the prison in Kazan to a very difficult, different destination,” she said. “When they took me, by this prison train, they told me they were taking me in an opposite destination from Moscow. Again, there was hope, but I was ready for anything.”
Instead, she was indeed taken to Moscow, a destination she didn’t learn until the final day of a three-day journey.
“And there was hope again. And then in Moscow, I was put in prison again, and nobody told me how long I would stay there,” she said. “I always believed [in an] exchange. I always knew that we were working on that, step by step, small, cautious steps, but that was my only hope. Otherwise, the imprisonment for 6 1/2 years for a journalist, for a woman, is an absurd verdict.
“My hope helped me get through this,” she said.
The prisoner exchange that came to fruition on August 1 included 24 people in all -- including Kurmasheva and Gerskovich -- in a complex, seven-nation deal that officials said was the result of months of painstaking negotiations.
The other U.S. citizen released was former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, along with Russian political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, a dual Russian-British citizen who is also a U.S. legal resident. Also freed from Russian prisons were 10 Russian citizens who were seen widely as political prisoners, as well as a German citizen freed by Belarus.
In return, eight people were released from U.S. custody and that of other Western nations. That number included a Russian intelligence agent who was convicted in Germany of gunning down an ex-Chechen military commander in Berlin in 2019, and a husband-and-wife arrested in Slovenia as “sleeper agent” spies. They were sent back to Moscow, along with two young children who did not know their parents were spies.
Kurmasheva said she was still reveling in the elation of reuniting with her two daughters and her husband, Pavel Butorin, who manages RFE/RL’s Russian-language TV network, Current Time.
Asked about her other emotions, she said: “It's definitely not anger I feel right now. I'm not angry. I don't hate anyone.
“I feel sorry. I feel compassion that people had to do the jobs they did; those judges, investigators, officers, guards,” she said.
“I have to catch up with the world right now. I have to rewatch so many videos my family made for me when I was away. I have to get to know new music, news, stories, books, movies, you name it, everything," she said. "Yes, that time was stolen from me and nobody will bring back that year for me and my family. We will catch up. That made me stronger. That made our family stronger. And yes, no anger for sure. I don't hate anyone.”
