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What do people who find themselves behind bars feel? I don’t know why, but I tried to get rid of the feeling that I was a prisoner. I must admit that in the first days after my release, when I woke up in the morning, lying on the bed and looking at the ceiling, I tried to realise that I was not in a cell. That is, that I have a comfortable bed, a large space, I am alone and can do whatever I want. This is really a great joy for a person who has been deprived of this for a long time.
When I was released and saw a lot of people, the most difficult thing was the pace of life, because it is completely different behind bars. We used to call it Groundhog Day, when it’s always the same, every day, for months and years. Very rarely does anything break this flow of time. I still don’t keep up with many events, including reading the news, but eventually I will learn to separate the important from the things that can do without me.
Emotionally, I already feel put back together. But I can’t let go of the realisation that a lot of my friends and acquaintances are, unfortunately, still there. This is the hand that holds me, drawing my attention there, to the past. At least once or several times a day, I realise that I can drink coffee here, talk to friends, move around the city, feel joy, especially when I hug my children and wife. And I immediately remember that someone else is still deprived of this opportunity. 4 September is not an easy date for me, because on this day, three years ago, I was taken away.
And on 3 September, it was the anniversary of the day when Aziz and Asan Akhtemov were taken away. It is very sad that they are still there. Ukraine, when releasing me, had to release them and several other Crimean political prisoners – unfortunately, it failed. However, I have a promise from the President of Ukraine that we will free not only them, but all of them. Our successes in the Kursk region allow us to return to the demand for an exchange of all for all. I don’t think Putin will agree to this, but we can state this and demand it.
Our position was a stone under Russia’s rolling stone – and they could not overcome it
Crimean Tatars, along with other citizens of Ukraine, immediately publicly opposed the occupation. These are the events of 26 February and 8 March (the 2014 protests – Ed.), when women came out, which was no accident. Women stood in the front, and men were there to support them. Why was it organised in this way? Crimea was filling up with military personnel, and we decided that 8 March should be safer. In order not to provoke the situation, men hardly ever attended these events, but stayed nearby.
Women participated in all these events on an equal footing with men, fighting for the integrity of our country, for common values, for their families and their husbands. Their voice was very powerful. Some women, unfortunately, are in prison, including my close friend Ira Danilovich, with whom we often met near the courts and organised events. It was so hard for me when I was already behind bars and heard that she had been detained. Lenia Umerova (she returned to Ukraine as part of the exchange on 13 September – Ed.) was detained later – I don’t know this girl, but I am proud of her courage.
There was a short period when the Russian occupation authorities allegedly wanted to resolve the issue amicably. A whole delegation from Kazan was sent to us – to the Crimean Tatars, to the Mejlis – as if they were a kindred people who were supposed to persuade us not to resist. I remember a situation when we met with Tatarstan’s President Minnikhanov at the ATR TV channel, in the office of its owner Lenur Islamov, and we talked, had tea and coffee, and he left. And then Lenur Islamov – and he was a Russian citizen, had a business, lived in Moscow, had some experience of understanding Russia – turned to me and said: ‘I’m shocked.’ I asked him why. He replied: ‘You know, people like the president of Tatarstan are demigods. Just talking to them is a fairy tale, something impossible. And here he is, in Simferopol, in an ordinary office on a regional TV channel, talking to us, mere mortals.’
Long ago, before all this, Lenur said: ‘Nariman, Russia is a huge country, they will not pay attention to the Crimean Tatars – if they want, they will just crush us and move on.’ And I pointed out that it is the Crimean Tatars, as an indigenous people, who have, so to speak, a ‘state act’ for Crimea. We and the whole world recognise this – the right to live or to determine the fate of this land, which is the right of the indigenous people. He did not believe me at the time, but further developments proved me right.
Russia could have really just skated by, ignoring us, and that would have been it. But it didn’t. Our position, our denial of the occupation, our support, together with other Ukrainian citizens who were and are in Crimea, for the integrity of Ukraine, were a small stone under this roller – and they could not overcome it. That is why the repressions began. Officially, they started on 3 May 2014, when Mustafa Dzhemilev was not allowed to enter Crimea at the border. A lot of people, I was there too, came out to meet him. Cars with so-called self-defence units arrived, and we passed through two lines of angry people with drills, chains, metal pipes. It was quite an unpleasant feeling.
There were already the first abductions, the first arrests. Oleg Sentsov was detained, Reshat Ametov was killed. Timur Shaimardanov was abducted. His friend was looking for him, and he was also abducted. And it went on and on. The first high-profile trials began in January 2015. The guys from Sevastopol were detained in a terrorism case. Akhtem Chiygoz was arrested. The machine of repression in Crimea was in full swing. Later we found out that the head of the FSB in Crimea was a man named Palagin, who had already developed this scheme in Bashkiria and other regions. These accusations of terrorism, when anyone could be accused of terrible crimes and imprisoned on false suspicion, were used to isolate a person and frighten society.
Refat Chubarov was banned from returning, and later several of my colleagues were deprived of this opportunity. There was the case of Sinaver Kadyrov, who was grabbed at the administrative border when he was leaving Crimea for Kherson region and taken to court. He was banned from returning to Crimea for allegedly violating migration laws by staying in Crimea for a longer period than allowed (90 days). The cynicism of this decision is that Russia has automatically declared all Crimean residents to be citizens of the Russian Federation without asking for our permission. In fact, or in law, according to their decision, he was a Russian citizen, although he did not take their passport. At the same time, whenever they want, he is considered a citizen of Ukraine. There were a lot of guys in detention who did not take Russian passports, from Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk regions, but Russia does not want to let them go: they say you are Russian citizens. And when the international community and Ukraine call for the release of people, they say that they are their citizens.
In prison, they are summoned for interviews and persuaded to take their passports. After I was released, I met Olena Tsygipa, and her husband Serhiy, a journalist, is also behind bars. They don’t just summon people for interviews, they create very harsh conditions for them: they send them to a punishment cell, deprive them of things they are entitled to because they refuse to take Russian citizenship. This hypocritical policy is everywhere, and I can give you many examples.
I don’t understand: if there is an injection or a pill to make a person tell everything, why torture them?
The attitude towards detainees in Crimean SIZOs is different. There are a lot of guys who went through brutal torture. In particular, Asan Akhtemov told about it both in court and to me personally, Aziz Akhtemov, Eldar Odamanov, Shevket Useinov – in my case, only four people spoke about torture directly at the trial. Many people have been tortured not only in the basements of the FSB, but already in the detention centre. I was not affected by this – I’m not sure why, but I’ll try to explain. A certain publicity of my personality and the fierce defence and attention to me and my case, thanks to many people, obviously saved me. But you still need to understand: whatever the reaction from the outside, there is a situation inside the prison. Not every employee there knows who you are, not everyone reads the news and is interested in the political situation.
So, the person’s own behaviour is also very important. I managed to go this way without major conflicts. This doesn’t mean that I agreed with all the demands, but I understood certain boundaries. We were also wise to leave the tougher demands to my defence team. Leviza, my wife, and my lawyers, Nikolay Polozov and Emine Avamileva, took it upon themselves to put pressure on the administration of the detention centre to protect my rights. I always had the backlash inside me to say that I didn’t know anything, it was all them – although, of course, I knew everything, we discussed every step.
Of course, some guys can’t stand it. They do not have such interaction with the parties, such lawyers and relatives who would work closely and actively together. That’s why I’m grateful to both my lawyers and my wife – they are an example of how to act in such a situation. People react differently to my experience. In the Minusinsk prison, there was a good guy from Skadovsk, Yura, who was accused of attempting to kill collaborators there. He is a real partisan: there are no empty accusations like mine, a man who really fought for his country. Once he was summoned to the prison administration, and in response to their accusations, he told them everything he thought about them. He was locked in a punishment cell for three days. Then I asked him why he had to take such a risk. His health is more important, he needs to endure, to go a long distance. He had 21 years in prison, I had 17 years. And Yura said: ‘But I told them everything I wanted to.’ That is, the man received psychological satisfaction.
Of course, this is punishable. As well as for the fact that prisoners demand the opportunity to pray, for example, and are not allowed to, for being outraged by the violation of other rights. For example, Asan was taken to a room where there was no video surveillance (and it is almost everywhere), beaten with truncheons and a stun gun. One guy with whom we were in both the first and second detention centres was taken to Rostov after the investigation was over. He later complained to his wife that his tracksuit had specific holes in it. It was from a taser. A taser has two forks that are applied to a person, and his entire suit was burnt through.
The way people were treated who were detained after the full-scale invasion began is a complete horror. In Simferopol SIZO No. 1, there is a separate women’s ward, it is called a ‘monastery’. The entire third floor of this building was vacated, the windows were welded with iron sheets, and several holes were made to allow air to enter the cell. And they pushed six or seven people into the cells instead of four, as the room was designed for. There was extremely cruel treatment. I know this because around May 2023, our guy Mykhailo Chupil, an ATO soldier, scout, and marine, who was accused of preparing a terrorist attack at the Meganom shopping centre in Simferopol, was put in my cell for a week or a week and a half. He was telling horrible things.
Mykhailo was held alone for several months. No parcels or shopping in the store, only what is brought to you and that’s it. In the mornings, when he was checked, he was visited not by ordinary detention centre staff, but by some military men. One of them beat him, the other opened the window to ventilate. Then, at about two o’clock, they came in again, one of them beat him – not very hard, but in a mocking way, either with a stun gun or a baton; the other closed the window and left. Mykhailo was not even able to cut his nails. He says he used to cut them on a metal grate.
According to him, going to the shower was a separate horror. The cell door opens and the command sounds: run to the shower. There are two lines along the corridor, the prisoner runs, and it’s a lottery as to who will get what, or not. You run into the shower, he says, and immediately an officer with a dog growl wildly right next to you, and you have a few minutes to at least wash yourself. According to the rules, every prisoner has at least 15 minutes to shower, but they didn’t give it to me. There were many such stories.
Other prisoners whose windows overlooked the administrative building of SIZO No. 1 told us that they saw with their own eyes how people were beaten right in their offices and heard their screams. This is only in the SIZO. What happens in the basements of the FSB is another story altogether. It includes electric shocks, and, according to testimonies, some pills or injections, after which you tell everything, they want to hear. I don’t understand: if there is such a means, an injection or a pill, to make a person tell everything, why beat and torture? And they continue to do it.
When you find yourself in difficult conditions, you are terribly pressured by the realisation that this is an unfair situation. And people want justice. It is extremely difficult to endure being imprisoned for no reason. And it is important what people are around you at that time, what you talk about, whether you talk at all, whether you have a connection. I was lucky with the people I met there. There were very positive people from the criminal world who supported me in a human way, even though they were criminals, had done something in the past and were serving their sentences. In this respect, injustice also often prevails. For example, a person does not deserve a heavy punishment, he or she has stumbled, and now they are traditionally brought to justice.
If people believe, there are no clashes between them
My first neighbour, Sergey Lyulin from Yalta, is a Jehovah’s Witness. Peaceful people are persecuted simply because they profess a different faith. They are not accused of specific actions, but of membership in a banned organisation, because there is a decision of a court in Russia that banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Let’s say the organisation was banned, but the religion is not banned. But even here, an expert explains in court: no, no one has banned religion, but if people gather and pray together, this is participation in a banned organisation. And nothing could be done.
I was in the same cell with Serhiy for a year and a half. Then, when I was transferred to the second pre-trial detention centre, I was in a cell with Petro Zhiltsov, also from Yalta, who was involved in the same case as Sergei. Then I spent one day with another Jehovah’s Witness, Vladimir Maladyka, and then with his ‘accomplice’, Yevgeny Zhukov, for almost six months, in another cell. As a believer, I do not consider this a coincidence, I interpret it as a certain signal. I was surprisingly comfortable with them, there were no conflicts between us. I’m a deeply religious person, they are too, and if people believe, there are no clashes between them. There is a great respect for each other.
During those months, I had the opportunity to read the Bible from cover to cover for the first time. It is very difficult, by the way, to get a Quran or a Bible into a cell. There are no legal obstacles, unlike the obstacles of the heads of the administration of the institution. I somehow managed to get my Quran. It was covered in various stamps: ‘Permitted’, “Allowed”, “Reviewed” and so on.
For some reason, it was extremely difficult with the Bible. Until the family went to the head of the detention centre, they were not allowed to – and Yevhen Zhukov from Sevastopol is not just a believer, he is an elder, a man who leads others. He knows a lot by heart. We had a long conversation about religion in general. I often read him the Qur’an, specifically about the relationship between Christians and Muslims, and Yevhen was shocked because he did not know that there were such things in the Qur’an. We agreed that when we were released, he would give me a good translation of the Bible, in a normal modern language, and I would give him a translation of the Qur’an.
I guess God supported me by being next door to such good people who did not demand anything, offered help, and we calmly shared responsibilities in the cell, we felt very comfortable. I know from other people’s experience that the situation in other cells was much worse. There are inadequate individuals there who swear and behave badly. It’s very difficult for a person who is not used to such an environment to withstand. The criminal world has its own rules and behaviour: something is considered right, although from a human point of view it is not quite right, or even unacceptable. So, in this respect, I had surprisingly comfortable conditions and cool neighbours. Almost all the way through, there were no outright bad guys.
In prison, you come across books that are about totalitarianism
I read a lot in prison. There was no TV in my cell, it was a deliberate ban. I appealed to my lawyer, and my lawyer appealed to the head of the institution. I also appealed to the thugs. Everyone said: ‘Nariman, given who you are, you are forbidden.’ So, books saved me, I love to read, although before, unfortunately, I had little time for it. And here you are – read to your heart’s content. I came across many interesting things.
I especially remember one case. In the next cell was another political prisoner who, unfortunately, died in a Russian prison, Konstantin Shiring. I have never seen this man in person, only photos after his release. We talked a lot, and once we received a concession from the detention centre staff – we could pass each other either a treat or a book. And he said, ‘I’ll give you a book, be sure to read it. Not only did I read it, but I wrote an essay based on it, which, thanks to my friends in Crimea, was published in a small edition and handed out. I used the conclusions of this author for the situation in Crimea. After my release, I found out that this is a super-popular book by the famous Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl about his experience in a concentration camp.
It is interesting that in prison I got books about totalitarianism and authoritarianism. I read George Orwell and Ayn Rand. There were no Ukrainian books, only one. There was a series called Friendship of Peoples, which published works by different peoples of the USSR, but translated into Russian. And so, I came across a biographical novel about Taras Shevchenko, just about the period when he was imprisoned in Orenburg in exile. This text resonated with me very much.
The last book that I really wanted to read in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, but didn’t have time, was The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. How do such books get into prison? Prisoners either buy them (they can buy them through the librarian) or they get them sent to them, and then they don’t want to take them with them because it’s hard, so they leave them in the library. I should note that it is not easy to get such literature, as there is a whole queue to see who will be next to read it. These are rare copies of modern publications. There is plenty of Soviet literature, but it can be interesting. I read translations of Serbian, Croatian, Romanian, Hungarian, Brazilian, and Spanish authors.
The main thing I took with me was in my head and heart
In general, I never keep things like souvenirs. I brought back from prison a Quran, all the letters and photographs I received. An interesting thing is a tag with my photo, the only photo taken directly in prison. Every prisoner is required to wear a tag with his or her name, surname, patronymic and photo on the shirt they are issued. I remember the tactile pleasure of putting on my civilian clothes again and throwing away the robe after my release. I gave it back immediately, like many other things, because prison is an experience I don’t want to carry with me anymore. But I tore off the tag and took it with me as a memento. This single photo was taken on 20 November 2023, when I arrived in Minusinsk prison. I gave it to a German museum, as well as a small diary with dates and what was happening to me at different times.
There are some things that are very precious to me, they are in Crimea. Asan loves to work with his hands. His wife posted a photo of him holding a Crimean Tatar kamcha, which he had made himself. In the first months in prison, he made me a rosary out of bread (prisoners often use bread as a material). They are somewhere in Crimea – I don’t know if they will wait for me.
The main thing I took with me is in my head and heart. Thoughts and memories, the experience I have gained over the years.
Their task is to humiliate us – and they humiliate themselves
Changing circumstances in prison is very uncomfortable. When you get to a cell, you get used to it somehow and then you feel relatively normal (of course, this is not normal from the point of view of a free person).
The worst place I was in was Simferopol Detention Centre No. 2, the FSB detention centre, as it is called. Mostly people are held there for politically motivated cases or those who are abducted in the newly occupied territories (Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, etc.). There is a separate floor No. 3, where I have never been, with different guards, military. The worst humiliation and beatings take place there.
Back in quarantine, when we arrived, we were in the same cell with two other political prisoners – Rustem Gugurik from the Genichesk district of Kherson region, accused of participating in Noman Chelebidzhikhan’s battalion, and Petro Zhiltsov, a Jehovah’s Witness. Among other humiliations, they forced everyone to learn and sing the Russian anthem. When I was first brought into the cell, they immediately poked my head into a piece of paper. To calm myself down – there was nothing else in the cell – I started reading and memorised it. I don’t know if I’ll remember it now, but that was the first time they demanded it: ‘Come on, tell us the Russian anthem,’ I said a few lines, and they let me go. For them, the main thing is that you obeyed. But for Peter, it was a huge problem. He said: ‘I am a believer, and I cannot glorify anyone but God, I cannot glorify the state.’ He tried to explain this to them and got kicked. Even after a few months, they still demanded not just to recite the hymn, but to sing with the whole cell.
When they take you out, you stand with your head against the wall and your heel pointed at them. It was funny to me that we were standing in this position, and they were looking at our arses and hearing their anthem. They are humiliating themselves and their country, and they don’t realise it. Their task is to humiliate us, but they are humiliating themselves.
God always helps
The stage is an extremely difficult test for any person. You are always moving around, carrying your suitcases, a few days here, a few days there, circumstances and people are constantly changing. In one place it’s more or less good, in another it’s bad, in the third it seems to be normal. I warned Leviz: get ready, you won’t know where I am and what’s wrong with me. But God always helps. I was convinced of this, especially during the period of transfer.
On 2 October, we left Simferopol and in the evening, we were already in the Krasnodar detention centre.
The situation there is not good, the living conditions are just terrible, but in general they do not bother us, which is good. We had a brief opportunity to contact our families, and Leviza told us that I was going to Minusinsk, Asan to Vladimir and Aziz to Yeniseisk. In general, Aziz and I were heading in the same direction, but then for some reason Asan and I were taken to another place, and we spent three weeks in the Krasnodar Territory, while Aziz was already being transferred. I later followed his trail.
On the way, I ended up in a detention centre in Chelyabinsk. I fell ill on the way, I was in a very bad state. I found myself in a cold, damp cell. There were two guys there – one Uzbek and the other from Moscow. To my surprise, when I shook hands, the Uzbek asked, ‘What’s your name?’ I told him my name was Nariman. And he smiled so much: ‘Aziz was here a few days ago, he left a letter for you.’ And he pulls out a note from some nook where Aziz says that he felt that my path would lie here: ‘It’s okay, I was here right then and there, congratulations, hang in there, brother.’
A few days later, I ended up in a detention centre in Krasnoyarsk. Everything seemed fine on the outside, but then I found out that in the Krasnoyarsk Territory this is the most horrible place – an educational institution where people who have committed crimes are brought from other places. And so, I find myself in a cell in this detention centre, and when I say my name, people smile again and say that Aziz left here a few days ago.
There was another story. Krasnodar. Of course, everyone asks each other who is going where. We told them, and everyone grabbed their heads: ‘Guys, hold on, you wouldn’t want that to happen to anyone. And these are people who have been in prison for years. In fact, the situation is interesting: no one has been there, but everyone has heard about this place. There is a mythology about terrible torture – it is real, but all this is overgrown with additional stories. We even had guys who are called ‘wardens’ in this detention centre come to us to say hello and just support us: we can’t help you, keep your spirits up, and so on. Imagine our state of mind.
And it so happened that I got help again on the way. Somewhere in the middle of my journey, on the train, I met another prisoner – we got to know each other, a man from Dagestan. He said: ‘I was there recently, calm down. It’s quite strict, but there’s nothing extremely scary at the moment. If you behave in a certain way, it will pass.’ So when I arrived at this prison, I was more or less calm.
Later, I found out that the situation in Minusinsk prison was extremely terrible. But at the time of my stay, the situation was more or less normal.
You work just to keep from going mad
Why did I agree to go to work in prison? At that time, there were five of us Crimean political prisoners, and that’s how we could see each other and communicate. There are no barracks, like in a colony, where 50-100 people are in one room, but separate cells. You know that your fellow countrymen are somewhere here, but there is no way to cross paths. When I went to work, I saw Seyran Murtaza and Bekir Murtazaev. Bilal Adilov did not work: we were in neighbouring cells for a short period and had the opportunity to communicate by voice, very briefly (it was allowed in the evening). Shortly before my release, Osman Arifmemetov, also a well-known political prisoner and civilian journalist, came to visit me there. I was able to see him twice.
So, it was justified that I went to work. I was assigned sewing, and I like to work with my hands. Sitting in a cell is a huge psychological challenge, I’ve had enough of it. While the investigation and trial are going on, you still go out, talk to your lawyer, your wife, somehow diversify your life. And here there is only a camera. You only get out for an hour for a walk or twice a week they take you out to wash. There are no dates, because who is going to come to you 6,000 kilometres away? My wife insisted on having a lawyer come to me, but I told her not to spend money on it. We corresponded with her, and we also had the opportunity to call once a month to talk for 15 minutes. So many thoughts, and when you pick up the phone, you don’t know what to talk about.
So you work just to keep from going crazy. Time passes faster, you have communication. For me, as a person who is interested in the fate of others, collects certain information, it was interesting to just contact different people. I even talked to the prisoners who went to SvO: I asked them why, what they wanted. Apparently, this is a professional deformation.
When you go to work, the administration’s attitude towards you softens, because you seem to be meeting them halfway. In general, according to Russian law, everyone has to work, but in this institution, they didn’t require it. Although they told me that there are places where if you refuse to work, you face punishment in the punishment cell and other horrors.
We were furious at the slightest success of our military
The outbreak of war was not unexpected news for me. When I was a young journalist working for the Avdet newspaper, I wrote articles about Russia using Crimea against Ukraine. So, I generally assumed that this would happen. However, when the occupation began, I had a terrible feeling that your assumption was coming true right now.
I learnt about the full-scale invasion the following way. My wife was supposed to go to Kyiv with my younger daughter for a doctor’s consultation in February 2022. But before that, Leviza came to me and said she was afraid to go because, according to the US, Russia was about to attack Ukraine. We decided to wait with the doctor. That’s how I found out that an invasion was being prepared. And then – I will never forget this – a вay or two after it started, my wife came into the small office where we were meeting, sat down, started talking and cried. It was very hard to look at her: I had no idea what she was talking about, I hadn’t seen the photos from Bucha, etc. It was only a few days later that the Russian news started talking about the beginning of the invasion and giving some explanations. We were shocked. It was incredibly hard.
Leviza brought me information, news and even printouts from Ukrainian telegram channels. I would memorise what I could, come to the cell and tell her – in particular, the General Staff’s reports, how many enemies and vehicles were destroyed. There were a lot of our Ukrainian political prisoners there, especially at the end of my stay in SIZO No. 1, and I had the opportunity to communicate by voice, even shout, which was forbidden in SIZO No. 2. So, I was a kind of newsreader.
The political prisoners were very much inspired by the resistance of Ukraine and the Armed Forces. We were crazy about the slightest success of our military, incredibly happy. Arsen Ibragimov from Kherson sat with me for some time. When he heard the news, he jumped up and shouted: ‘Glory to Ukraine!’. And although we were warned by normal inspectors to be quiet, we were still writing, he shouted again. We didn’t hide much. They could record all our conversations (which they did) and open new cases against us.
By the way, this is a regular practice in Russian prisons. I have met such people – for example, a young Tajik man in a detention centre in Krasnoyarsk who was arrested for allegedly financing terrorism. The situation: an acquaintance asks him for a thousand rubles, a hundred rubles, five hundred rubles, allegedly for medicine or help, the reason is not important. And he, as a believer, gives it: ‘It’s okay to help someone else. Maybe they don’t even know each other personally, and they raise money for something on social media, as is the case in Ukraine now. And then the FSB comes and says: ‘That person is a terrorist, you financed terrorism.’ What is five hundred rubles? And most importantly, he had no intention, no motive. And then, already in prison, another prisoner was brutally beaten in his presence. He wasn’t even touched, but psychologically, the massacre of another person was enough for him and the realisation that this could happen to him. And he signs a confession to another, similar crime.
There is a path to be travelled, to be accepted as it is
I was flying for three hours. The man who accompanied me – these were some other people, I understand, from the intelligence service, extremely unpleasant people – said something offensive, and I answered him, I could not help myself. I was no longer wearing metal handcuffs, but plastic ones: he tightened them so much that everything was blocked. I must have held on for 25 minutes – I was stupid, I should have asked them to loosen them right away, but they didn’t. Eventually, I turned to their senior officer, felt him come over and release me. They said a lot of things again, but I was already silent.
Later, it was an incredible thing to hear our own people addressing us in Ukrainian: ‘Good afternoon, calm down’. And we stood with our heads down because we were ordered to stand like that. ‘Raise your eyes, look around calmly, we will take you away now.’ That’s when I exhaled. The people who were there said that I looked very tired, but then I felt as if I had been nourished with something.
Right there on the border, my friend, the Minister of Defence Rustem Umerov and Andriy Yermak called me. They were on a business trip, but they were the first to congratulate me on my release. And then we were surrounded by care and love. I didn’t know the military could do that. It was very nice. They carried our things, despite my objections.
They told us that they had actually been waiting for us for several days, since Monday, but it was Friday. We were supposed to be released on Monday. So, the military ate all the goodies they brought us, otherwise they would have spoiled. But they found an orange somewhere, peeled it, and shared it among us. It was very nice.
I remember meeting a political prisoner, Yaroslav Zhuk from Melitopol, who was kidnapped and tortured extremely severely. For some time, there was no information about him. I met him twice, the first time in a police car, when we were travelling from court. He was sitting so depressed. We met, I knew about him before, because his wife brought me news. Yaroslav told me that he was being held in the second pre-trial detention centre, what terrible conditions there were, he told me everything. I thought: how can I support this man? I reached into my bag and found an apple. I gave it to him, and he looked at it as if he hadn’t seen an apple in half his life.
The story of the orange reminded me of this. Then I heard Yaroslav again – I didn’t see him, but I heard him. He was in much better condition. There were moments that were memorable.
I am extremely lucky to have such a wife and children
My family is a miracle. My wife Leviza also wanted peace, and sometimes she wanted to hide from it all. But the situation demanded that she acted the way she did. Unfortunately, our children grew up earlier. My eldest daughter wrote about the sadness and anger she felt when, instead of going out with her peers, she was forced to stay at home, looking after the younger ones, because her mother was in court or in a detention centre.
Leviza did a very important job: she communicated with journalists and human rights activists, brought me news, worked with lawyers, because lawyers in Crimea are overworked and do not have time to visit any client all the time. This is done by relatives, but not everyone has this opportunity. Leviza and I became a channel of communication for many political prisoners. We passed letters, information, connected them with officials in Kyiv, with human rights activists, because we already had our own experience.
The story of how my wife found out about my release is somewhat comical. Leviza wrote me a letter to the prison – she usually wrote either on Friday or Thursday evening, using the FSIN letter service. In this service, you can see whether the letter has already reached me or not. And so on Friday, she opens the service, looks, and there is a big red letter saying: ‘The addressee has left’.
My wife raises the alarm, finally finds a lawyer in Minusinsk who has an acquaintance in prison, who calls and asks about me. They confirm that I have been released, I was transferred to the Krasnoyarsk detention centre. Leviza goes there, but it’s already evening, no news. Then Mustafa Dzhemilev calls her and asks how she is doing. According to his wife, she poured out all her emotions on him, and he listened without interrupting her, and then said: ‘Levisa, I think that tonight Refat Chubarov and I are going to meet Nariman. Don’t tell anyone about this, I was forbidden to, but I couldn’t resist telling you so that you could be prepared.’
Of course, on the one hand, Leviza was excited, but on the other hand, she was worried: would it happen or not? The several hours of waiting were not easy for her. The wife stayed in Crimea all this time, which was very difficult, because there was a risk for her as well. She published everything she received from me, and in the occupied Crimea, especially during the full-scale invasion, any publication could earn at least an administrative fine, or several days in jail, or even a criminal case. Leviza woke up thinking, ‘Will they come or won’t they come?’ For any family involved in the protection of their loved ones, this is a huge risk.
Then, when I arrived in Zhuliany, Refat Chubarov called Leviza. There is a video of us talking: I saw her, and she saw me. Shortly before that, we had a date in Minusinsk, but that, of course, was under completely different circumstances.
We understood that the family had to move here, as I was going to be involved in public activities rather than working somewhere cosy. We thought we had at least a week to get ready and say goodbye, but my friends said: ‘Come on, move quickly’. The move went smoothly, but I realise that my family was just let go. Until they landed in Istanbul, I couldn’t find a place to sleep, and only late in the evening, when Leviza called to say they were being met, did I finally fall asleep.
Not everyone knows the language of resistance under occupation, but it is everywhere
The situation in Crimea is much worse now than when I was free. There are many people who have been holding out, but they are slowly giving up. There are many who are holding on against all odds, waiting. There are a lot of people who want to return, freedom, justice without any conditions or demands. I can’t say exactly how many, but I think it’s a lot.
I can vouch for their resilience. The language of resistance in the occupation is not known by everyone, but people who are immersed in this topic will be heard everywhere. For example, a music video was released not so long ago: a man plays a piano with the words: ‘Ukraine’. This is a signal from Crimea. And recently it was 1 September: kids were going to school and relatives sent us a photo of them holding two bouquets – guess what colours. This is resistance that is inside but manifests itself outside.
I have also met real heroes. How does our intelligence know so much about Crimea? Who is doing certain things there – not political or informational, but with a military tinge? Unfortunately, they are detained and sentenced to very long terms. But there are new heroes, whose names the state probably does not know yet. I think they will come to light later and will certainly leave their mark on the history of our country, as well as the resistance in general.
The text of the interview was published with the consent of Mr Nariman Dzhelyal, and we express our sincere deep respect to this strong man and true patriot of Ukraine.
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