In March 2023, a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, Evan Gershkovich met with a union boss connected with a Russian tank factory. As the journalist sat with his source in an empty restaurant in an industrial city 900 miles east of Moscow, a squad of masked agents charged in, blindfolded Evan, and dragged him into an unmarked van. The agents were from the FSB, Putin’s powerful security service, and the successor to the Soviet-era KGB. After his world suddenly shrunk to a tiny, cement-walled cell, Evan continued reporting. For the next sixteen months, he documented a life in Russia that few Westerners will ever experience: its sprawling prison system, with its own vocabulary and customs—and surprising pockets of humanity.
Deeply reported, enthralling ... One of a handful of recent books whose ultimate subject is nostalgia for a country overtaken by authoritarianism ... Many will never return, their sense of alienation from Russia only deepening with time, along with their nostalgia. Gershkovich won’t be welcome back anytime soon either.
The story of this arrest and sham trial, but also an account of his impressive reporting efforts in the years before his detention ... This memoir is immensely readable, with Gershkovich’s personality, humour and journalistic instinct shining throughout it ... Gripping, courageous and important.
A bleak picture, but not entirely ... At the poignant heart of this book is the author’s bond with his cellmates (who, for their safety, he presents as a composite figure, Seryoga). Though he initially feared Seryoga was an informant, they became improbably close and mutually supportive, playing backgammon and watching movies on their cell TV ... So this tale of punishment without a crime turns into an offbeat love story.
