Prague – iRozhlas, November 11, 2024
For long months, I followed her fate. How she traveled to Russia to care for her sick mother, how she was arrested, and how her detention kept being extended. And then, one day, the news came of a major prisoner exchange. Her name was on the list – journalist Alsu Kurmasheva (RFE/RL). She could finally go home and hug her husband and daughters. And now, she sits here in front of me. Alsu Kurmasheva is today’s special guest on Vinohradská 12.
How are you feeling?
I feel safe, that’s the most important thing for me. And I’m free, which is pretty much exactly what I feel. I’m free to wake up in the morning when I want to or rather need to. I’m free to go out with anyone, anytime and come back, close my door myself, open my door myself. And that really is very important, it makes sense. We usually don’t think about it too much, but it’s very important to me.
How was your homecoming? How was that first meeting with your loved ones, with your family?
I always imagined that moment in detail. I dreamt about it several times. I imagined that I would walk off the plane, my husband would hand me a white suitcase out of which I would take clean white clothes. Then he would take my hand, we would walk off together and we would never look back, never turn back, and then there would be my children waiting for me. The reality was very similar. The first time I dreamt it, it was winter, and winter in Russia, especially this last winter, was brutal, it was minus thirty. Our cell heaters didn’t work for several days. I thought I was hallucinating, because that winter, the word “exchange” or possible exchange wasn’t yet being used and I couldn’t imagine getting to freedom, because the future was still quite sad for me. So the winter was very dark for me. But I had that dream several times and it kept me going, gave me hope. It was a happy moment.
So when you dreamt it, it gave you energy, it gave you something to live for and then it actually happened. Was the reality the way you dreamt it?
It was beautiful, it was just as I imagined and even more. I had absolutely no idea, of course, of what was going on in the world, in the free world, to help set me free. And now it’s been three months that I’ve been free, I’m home and I still don’t know all the details. That’s why it’s very important for me to meet all the people who worked for my liberation and to learn even more details about what happened. And it’s very interesting.
You said things weren’t looking very promising in the winter. That the prospects for your release, for your exchange, were not good. When did you first become aware of the plan, that it might happen?
In the spring, late March. Communication with the investigators changed a bit. They indicated to me that there might be an exchange. I knew that there were still prominent people, Americans, ahead of me, such as Evan Gershkovich, the journalist, and Paul Whelan. And I knew that they had been in custody for a long time and would probably have priority. There was only very little hope of an exchange. So we waited and the investigators hinted at it, they said I would have to go through the trial first.
And they started treating you a little differently, you say?
A little better.
The investigation was essentially over, they didn’t have any more questions for me. I was in custody and I was waiting for something and nobody could tell me exactly what and when it was going to happen.
What did D-Day look like? When it actually happened, you woke up in the morning and…?
I was in Lefortovo in Moscow. They brought me there on Monday. Every person who is transferred from one detention facility to another in Russia has the right to a shower and a phone call to either a lawyer or family. I requested that, but they said not till Friday. So I asked what was going to happen on Friday. Someone from the prison service told me that even they didn’t know what was going to happen, but definitely something good, so I would be able to call on Friday. It happened on Thursday, the 1st of August, so I was looking forward to Friday.
I saved the last hundred pages of my book to read on Thursday. That was just part of my life in prison. I always had to have some plan that I could control. That was very important to me, so I saved those 100 pages.
