Finding Joy In Small Things: How Alsu Kurmasheva's Prison Letters Kept Hope Alive

"Today I'm crying for the first time since...I don't even know where to begin," Alsu Kurmasheva wrote in her first letter from captivity.

It was October 2023 and just a few days after she had been taken into pretrial detention in Kazan, the regional capital of her native Tatarstan.

It was a care package that made her weep. "Everything touched me," she wrote about the things she had received: the brush and the coffee with the halva (sesame-seed-and-honey paste). "I wasn't expecting any letters or packages.... And when everything arrived unexpectedly, I couldn't [stop the tears]."

Kurmasheva, a 47-year-old mother of two and a journalist for RFE/RL, spent 288 days in Russian detention before her release on August 1, as part of one of the largest prisoner swaps involving the United States and Russia since the end of the Cold War.

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During her time in prison, Kurmasheva chronicled her experiences in letters to friends and relatives, provided by the journalist’s family to RFE/RL's Idel.Realities. Her letters from prison show a woman attempting to come to terms with her new life behind bars. But they also show a woman who remained grateful, despite the harsh conditions, and who was still able to find beauty and joy in the smallest things.

Gentle Humor

In the early days of her detention, Kurmasheva spent her time reading, writing, and practicing yoga. With gentle humor, she described her attempts to stay active even with the restrictions of prison. "Today we were taken out for a walk to a four-by-six-meter area,” she wrote. “We ran 40 laps to get at least close to a 1,000-meter run. Then there was stretching and squats. The caretaker was very surprised. Apparently, this happens rarely."

After her October 2023 arrest, Kurmasheva was first charged with failing to register as a "foreign agent" under a punitive Russian law that targets journalists, civil society activists, and others.

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As the weeks turned into months, and as the outside temperatures dropped below freezing, Kurmasheva wrote about the harsh realities of prison life: the overcrowded cells, where new inmates could arrive in the middle of the night; the constant battle against the bitter cold.

"I'm OK more or less. At least everyone has their own bed and the amount of people [in the cell] is as it should be," Kurmasheva wrote. "I am glad that I managed to sleep a little longer today, something better."

'Do It Now'

Sometimes there was a particular urgency about her letters, a sense that when you had lost so much, your only choice was to focus on the present, the here and now. "Everything you do is the most necessary and important thing right now," Kurmasheva wrote to her family. "Whether you drink coffee or make a hole in the wall with a hammer drill to attach a wardrobe, do it now."

By December 2023, Kurmasheva was facing more charges of distributing "fake" news about Russia's armed forces. Those charges stemmed from a book, Saying No To War. 40 Stories Of Russians Who Oppose The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine, which was published in November 2022 by RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service.

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Separated from her family over the holidays, it was hard for Kurmasheva to always keep her spirits up. "I can't even believe that it will already be two months [in prison]," she wrote in December 2023. "Every minute remains a scar on me and on you."

In January, Kazan's coldest month, her letters show flashes of indignation. "No one will give me back the three months of my life that I spent in the wrong place," she wrote. "I am responsible for my family. For my young children, for my elderly mother." It was her mother's ailing health that had prompted Kurmasheva's decision to return to Russia in May 2023.

'I Have Changed'

After the Christmas and New Year's holidays, Kurmasheva started to notice some differences. "I have changed, you have changed, your letters have changed," she wrote to her family. "After a long break, I received dozens of letters that you wrote during the holidays. They are so open, you entrusted me with your fears, you decided not to 'forget' about everything." It was, she said, "priceless."

The winter was particularly bleak in prison. But Kurmasheva's letters -- the ones she wrote and the many more that she read -- were a lifeline, a connection to the outside world. "It's all so sweet. Somehow even unbelievable," she wrote. "They all took a month to be delivered, but they arrived." Not receiving letters, she said, was very, very hard.

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Despite the harshness of prison life and the chronic pain of being separated from her family, in her letters, Kurmasheva tried to remain hopeful.

"Where do I get my strength from?" she wondered in one letter, just as everything was "steadily becoming more unbearable." Even though she might not know the answer to that question, she did know exactly what she had to do with that strength: She had to make sure she didn't waste it.

On July 19, the Supreme Court of Tatarstan found Kurmasheva guilty of disseminating "military fakes" and sentenced her to six and a half years in prison. The trial was limited to two court sessions and was held behind closed doors.

Less than two weeks later, on August 1, Kurmasheva was released and flown to a military base outside Washington, D.C., where she was greeted by her family and U.S. President Joe Biden.

In one of the last letters before her release, Kurmasheva wrote, "My greatest wish is to leave here alive and well." And she knew that this "part of [her] life" would one day be history.