Vladimir Kara-Murza: ‘I was convinced that I was going to die in that Siberian prison'

Kara-Murza’s prison experience thank you very much Vladimir for speaking with us it's been just over a month since you were released in the biggest prisoner exchange between the west and Russia since the Cold War how are you doing I'm still feeling completely surreal I'm still feeling as if I've been watching some kind of a movie that began in Late July when this whole Saga started it's a very good movie but it feels as if I'm still a spectator in this up until a few weeks ago I was confident that I was going to die in that siberian prison everything that happened on the 1st of August is a miracle uh there's no other way I can put it so it hasn't sunk in for you yet oh no absolutely not I'm I'm sitting here speaking with you and and still feels like I'm watching this from the outside and that I'm still sitting back in prison in Omsk I was convinced that I was going to die in that siberian prison I was convinced that I was never getting out that I would never see my family again that I would never be able to have my wife and kiss my children I would never ever walk as a free man again this is what I was convinced of just 5 weeks ago so it's going to be a while before this actually sinks in what would you say was your lowest point in prison uh Aristotle said that human beings are social animals we need human interaction human contact just as much as we need you know water to drink or oxygen to breathe and when you are totally deprived of uh any human contact any human interaction well to put it plainly it's very difficult to stay sane because after after about 2 weeks hence I understand why this rule in the UN you know it's you completely lose your concentration you stop uh understanding what's real and what's imagined you start to forget words you start to forget names uh I just sit there and stare at a wall it's really important in order not to go crazy and you spent so many months in solitary confinement what were those conditions like for you uh so in all I spent two years and three months in prison that's both in Moscow and in Omsk including that Transit on the way from Moscow to Siberia 11 months straight of those two years and three months was spent in solitary confinement in total and complete isolation uh this was all inskin Siberia as soon as I arrived there actually exactly this time last year in September of 2023 I was placed straight into solry confinement and the last time I was in solry confinement was on the morning of our release for The Exchange on the 1st of August of 2024 um I was in a small cell it's about 2x 3 m uh a small window just under the ceiling with metal bars um the bunk bed gets attached to the wall at 5:00 in the morning with a wakeup call and you cannot lie down during the day you can just either walk around the small cell in circles or you can sit down at this really uncomfortable tiny stool that sort of stick sticks out of the wall but you can't really sit on it for long and there's a small desk that sticks out of the wall as well you have no possessions uh so all my bags were out in storage all I was allowed to have in a cell with me uh were soap a toothbrush a towel one book if this was a punishment cell two books if this was a regular solid chicken firan cell um my flip-flops and a mug for water that was it nothing else for 90 minutes a day I was given pen and paper to write to read the letters to responders to prepare for court hearings to you know to make any notes that I wanted to make from from from from my book and and so on all that you have to condense in 90 minutes and that's taken away again and for another hour or an hour and a half again depending if you are in a punishment cell or in a regular solry confinement cell and I will sort of in in one after another all the time uh you get taken to a so-called walk which is basically uh you know it's a very small internal prison Courtyard which is not that much larger than a cell maybe it's 5 by 7 m still four walls uh and essentially you just walk in a circle uh and there a metal bars on top but you can see a little bit of the sky on on top there and apart from that I just sat in my cell all day there was no one to speak to there was nothing to do there was nowhere to go I was not allowed to uh call my family in the 2 years and 3 months that I've spent in prison I was once able to speak with my wife on the phone and twice to my three children uh the last time was last December just just before Christmas um it was a 15-minute call we have three kids and uh yv and my wife was standing on the other side with a stopwatch measuring to make sure that each ch doesn't get more than 5 minutes on the phone with the dad so that all the others could speak as well I mean this this is a form of torture in itself and this is this is a tradition that goes back to Soviet times in in our country one of the worst and most difficult things in prison is this constant feeling that you're just throwing away the precious time that you have in your life because you do nothing because you just sit there in that small cell staring at a wall and this is how you spend day after day week after week month after month and so it's important to to do something constructive uh I decided to learn Spanish uh and and it's it not only fills up your time not only does it occupy your mind so you just don't sit there you know buried in all your thoughts and just you know sitting there and doing nothing and staring at a wall but what's equally important every night when you go to sleep at 9:00 p.m. p.m. when it's the lights out and you know your bunk gets opened again from the wall and and it's time to go to bed if bed is the right term it gives you every evening a sense of having done something useful with your day there aren't many things you can do in these circumstances but that's one of them and so I use the rule uh that exists in the in the uh Russian prison rule book that you can order books from your local bookstores uh you know every prisoner has their own personal account where our families can send money there's a very strict limit on how much money can be spent every every month uh my limit because I was in solitary confinement as you know as a particularly dangerous criminal my limit was 6 and a half th000 rubles a month uh but there was this right to order books from local bookstores so I had a Spanish textbook and I was learning it and I was just doing it not to get crazy frankly but you know funny enough now I can actually use it and I found out that I I'm actually able to communica in it which is which is uh you know every time uh every time in your life has to be spent with some use even prison time let's get to the prisoner exchange Prisoner exchange um the days leading up to it when did you realize that there was something going on I didn't realize what it was by the way it seemed really bizarre and it began in a really bizarre way so to me this whole story uh started on Tuesday the 23rd of July when uh you know I was as usual just sitting in my solar confinement cell alone uh and suddenly two prison offices walked in my cell uh and escorted me out to a prison office uh there was a desk a chair a big portrait of Vladimir Putin on the wall and on the desk there was a sheet of paper a blank sheet of paper a pen and some sort of a pre-printed template next to it and the prent officer told me to sit down and write in my own house and what was written on the template so I sit down I look at the template and it is a request for pardon address to Vladimir Putin in which I was supposed to admit my guilt uh Express remorse for what I have done uh and asked that Mr Putin pardon me first I thought it was a joke when I saw this uh I just so I just I just laughed at the guy's face and said what is this but you know he didn't seem to be in the mood for laughing a stone serious face he said no please write and sign this I said I'm not going to write and sign this he said why not I said what do you mean why not do you know who I am even a proxis me I mean I would never sign anything like this I said why not give me an explanation I said okay if you want an explanation number one I do not consider Vladimir Putin to be a legitimate President of Russia I consider him to be a usurper a dictator and a murderer who is personally responsible for the death of Boris nof who is personally responsible for the death of Alexi Nali who is personally responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of civilians including children in Ukraine and I'm not going to admit any guilt because I'm not guilty of anything I'm not the criminal here the real criminals are those who have Unleashed this war in Ukraine not those of us who are standing up against it he really wasn't pleased with my response to prison official um so he asked me to put a la on writing that I was very happy to do I wrote it all down and I added that uh uh I very much hope to live to see the day when Vladimir Putin is put on trial for all the crimes he has committed signed it dated it and gave it to this guy so what did you think was going to happen at the time it made absolutely no sense it was just a totally bizarre incident they came out of nowhere and then on Sunday the 28th of July I was sleeping it was the middle of the night when I'm suddenly woken up by this loud noise of the doors of my cell being opened and a group of prison officers bursting into the cell and the senior came up to me and said uh you have 10 minutes to get up and get ready I said what time is it he said 3:00 a.m. it's totally dark outside in the window and at that moment I was absolutely certain that I was going to be let out and be executed but instead of the local wood the prison Convoy took me to the airport just a regular normal passenger airport in a city of hsk it's a large city a million plus people and I cannot tell you what what it felt like after 11 months straight in solitary confinement when you cannot as much as say hello to someone to suddenly be brought into the middle of a you know a busy passenger airport I was in handcuffs I was I was with a prison Convoy but outside were just normal regular people you know around me were just normal regular people families small kids cafes shops restaurants checkin desks it was you know it was something totally surreal at this point I have absolutely no idea what what's going on because you know if if they were planning to shoot me they would have just done it there what's the point of taking me to Moscow I saw that we were getting checked in for a flight to Moscow so again on a plane uh I'm in handcuffs with with a convoy around but it's again it's a normal regular passenger flight with people with families on a plane are you starting to think that maybe there are plans for my release no not at all uh what I'm starting to think is that there's going to be a new Criminal Case open against me because that is usually the reason that they take you to Moscow if you're already serving time in a remote prison and so uh the plane takes off it's a three-hour flight much quicker ride than on the other way uh when I was transferred from Moscow to Siberia this time last year in September 2023 it took me 3 weeks in Stalin carriages you know the infamous Russian prison trains went all the way way through all these Transit prisons in Panza and Samar and chabin and so on it was a 3-we journey uh the return Journey was just three hours on the plane needless to say they don't usually transport prisoners by planes in Russia so that seemed really strange in itself once we arrive in Moscow uh the local the Moscow prison Convoy um took me into a Patty wagon drove me somewhere on when you're inside these Patty wagons you don't see anything because there are no windows you just sit in a small confined space I was taken somewhere uh uh the car stopped I was told to get out and it's some kind of an internal Courtyard and I see a yellow brick building and I'm a mosite I know what Le foro looks like the legendary notorious Infamous KGB prison Le foro that has been described so much in literature from sanit into sharansky because that is the prison that once held some of the most celebrated opponents of the Soviet regime I knew it was Bal because I knew what it looked like because I'm from Moscow but nobody told me that in fact when I asked them where I was they refused to say and had this most bizarre conversation with the prison officer Captain who was sort of registering me in the prison checking me and filling out the you know the the the the form and so on I said to him um I asked him to notify my family and my lawyers that i' had been transferred to Moscow that is the law in Russia once a prisoner gets transferred to another another region another institution their family and the lawyers have to be notified and so I said please notify my family please notify my lawyers because they're going to be worried sick when I just disappear from msk and they don't know where to to look for me and this officer this Captain looks at me and he says we're not going to notify anyone of anything I said no by law you have to you have to notify my family that I have been transferred from M to Moscow and he looks at me and smiles and he says say but Vladimir Vladimir you haven't been transferred to Moscow you are still in Omsk end of quote this is what he says to me by this stage I just completely given up trying to understand what's happening here but my thoughts are that uh there's going to be a new criminal case because that's the reason people are usually brought to Le fortiva this is a central FSB prison the main internal security service prison in Russia and when they take a prisoner who already been serving time elsewhere to for normally it is to open a new Criminal case frankly I struggled to think why they would want to open a new criminal case against somebody who had already received 25 years which is essentially a life sentence is a death penalty but you know this machine of repression has its own interal Dynamic it doesn't always work by normal human logic so this is what I thought and they put me into uh a solitary confinement cell as usual but frankly fora was like a five-star hotel like a Resort after rsk uh because you know I had a bed at which I could lie and nobody cared I had all my books I had my notepads and my pens I could write all I wanted nobody cared I I know it's was going to come out something really weird but I enjoyed my time there you know after my experiences in Siberia then describe the The moment he was freed moment then when you're taken to the bus and you see the other prisoners and you know that this there's an exchange underway so 5 days I'm at Le foro absolutely nothing is happening I'm just sitting in in that cell reading history books learning Spanish and so on and then on the morning of the 1st of August uh which was a Thursday the doors into my cell are open uh and the deputy director of the leor prison and FSB liutenant Colonel walks in with other officers they bring all my bags and they tell me to take off my prison uniform and put on my civilian clothes and all I had in my bags in terms of civilian clothes I had my t-shirt in which I slept I had my long johns that I would put underneath my clothes when I would go outside in the winter cuz you know in arm in the winter it's- 40 and when you go into these Courtyards to walk you have to you know put something on not to get freezing and I had my rubber flip flops uh in which I would go to the prison shower that's all I had and this uh deputy director of the foro asked me why don't you have any normal civilian clothes and I said look man I am serving a 25e sentence in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison in Siberia why would I need civilian clothes he had nothing to respond to that he just said okay put on whatever you have so I put it on and just sort of fast forward this is how I met with German Chancellor Olaf Schulz later that day in my flip flops in your long joh in my flip flops in my long Jones and in my in my night t-shirt so I get taken downstairs I get escorted downstairs um by the prison guards with my bags and on the ground floor there's a row of men standing next to the the wall and they all have their faces covered with black B clavas and I have to say it's quite an intimidating site it's like a scene out of some kind of a Hollywood action movie they tell me to get outside into the courtyard of LA foro and I see a bus not a prison bus a normal bus looks like a tourist bus uh black tinted windows they tell me to get up into the bus and it's very dark inside there are no lights the windows are darkened and in every room row I see more Men In Black B clav caring their faces but next to each of them and these were operatives from an FSB special unit and next to each of them I saw a friend a colleague a fellow political prisoner whove all been serving time in different prisons in different regions around Russia anyway so this FSB officer without a b CL we could see his face um he came up to the front of the bus he took on a microphone you know completely something something really really bizarre and he said uh good morning I'm from the Federal Security Service you will all be now taken to the airport boarded on the plane and taken to the place of the exchange this is all he said he didn't say where he didn't say what was you know how it was going to be organized nothing and so then uh our bus left the prison there was a police uh escort we jumped all the red lights we broke all the speed limits you know broke all the road rules it was a really fast trip and I was just glued to the window all the time because you know I'm a musite I'm a fifth generation musite Moscow is my hometown I I love Moscow and I hadn't seen it for two and a half years because you know even when when I was transported in Patty wagons in Moscow from prison there are no windows you can't see anything you just sit there in that confined close space and obviously from my prison window I couldn't see anything and then I was in Siberia so I was just trying to to catch as much as I could uh just looking out that window it was a pretty short ride about an hour so you I understand when you got off the plane in Turkey I guess moments after you handed a phone tell me who's on the line the bus took us to some sort of a government terminal building there was a big reception room long tables with tea coffee sandwiches cookies uh and a man dressed in a suit with a beard walked up to us and as I know now it was Yen spner the German Chancellor's National Security adviser and he looked at us and he said welcome to freedom and just as if things couldn't get any more surreal at that moment a lady approached me holding a cell phone in her hand and she asked are you Mr caram morza I said yes I am she said that uh she was a diplomat with the American Embassy and she handed me the cell phone and she said that the president of the United States is on the line waiting to speak to you and at that moment I just gave up trying to understand what was going on here and I took the phone it was President Biden I scrambled to say something I hadn't used the word of spoken English in two and a half years I hadn't used much Russian either because I was in Soldier confinement but certainly not English and I said something to him you know thanking him for this and then he passed the phone to my wife and children who were standing with him in the oral office and I hadn't been allowed to call them in all my time in prison and when I heard their voices on the phone there are no language there are no words in any language that I know that can describe that feeling