Veteran Russian human rights defender Oleg Orlov said he hasn’t adjusted to freedom yet after being released last week from a Russian jail in the largest prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries since the Cold War ended.
Orlov, one of Russia’s most experienced and respected human rights activists, told RFE/RL that he’s done interview after interview since his release on August 1 and arrival in Germany and has had no time for reflection.
“I haven't felt like anywhere yet. Neither in emigration completely, nor in freedom,” he said. “I have spent all day talking, talking, talking, [but] of course just walking down the street is happiness.”
Orlov was one of 16 people released in the historic exchange that also saw eight Russians returned to their homeland. He spoke with RFE/RL from Berlin, where he is now living in exile and getting used to a life that is completely different from anything he thought it would be.
SEE ALSO: Who Are The 24 Prisoners Who Were Swapped In U.S.-Russia Deal?When he imagined his freedom, it was always somewhere in Russia, where he pictured himself visiting a lake or another favorite place in nature, picking mushrooms, or lying down at his dacha and looking at the sky.
“That was my idea of freedom,” he said, still imaging that he will someday go to the lakes of Karelia, a region in northwestern Russia, where he will sit and watch the sunset.
He said that he and fellow inmate Aleksei Malerevsky, whom he identified as a political prisoner, had several conversations in the prison cell they shared about the prospect of a prisoner exchange. They knew about calls for a prisoner swap but were dubious it would ever happen.
“Yes, that's why, of course, no one really believed in the exchange,” said Orlov, who was convicted in February of repeatedly discrediting the Russian military and sentenced to 30 months in prison, a ruling that was upheld in July.
He recounted his refusal to sign a petition requesting a pardon from Russian President Vladimir Putin that was presented to him shortly before his release, saying this was “internally traumatic” for him because he believed that by refusing to sign he closed the door definitively on ever being released.
SEE ALSO: 'They Remain In Torturous Conditions': The Prisoners Left Behind In Russia After Historic ExchangeHe explained that when the prison official asked if he was sure he wouldn’t sign the pardon request, he said he was, and he believed this meant he would have to serve out his entire sentence.
Asked what he missed while in prison, he said there was a “great lack of movement” and it was colorless except for gray and brown. He added that the food could be “so tasteless, monotonous, and sometimes, apparently, prepared with bad oil, that it caused an upset stomach.”
He said he had good relations with fellow inmates and considered that lucky. They were “very different people,” but he was able to find a common language with them and it was always possible to talk about something or play board games.
While cruel and rude treatment occurred often, this was not deliberate cruelty aimed at the prisoners, he said. It was a traditional “practiced cruelty dictated by the system itself.”
The system is not aimed at humane treatment, much less correction, he said. It is a correctional system, but “there is no correction there.”