BERLIN (AP) — Andrei Pivovarov knows there are about 1,000 hours in 42 days.
By making mental calculations and quietly marking off the milestones of his remaining sentence, the Russian opposition politician has managed to get through more than three years in prison, most of which he spent in complete solitude.
“You have no one to talk to, so you invent a reason to celebrate,” Pivovarov told The Associated Press in an interview, noting that a scrap of a letter from his wife that he had bookmarked had also become a treasured memory for him.
Released in a historic prisoner swap between East and West Russia on August 1, Pivovarov has now been reunited with his wife, Tatyana Usmanova, and is trying to find a new life in Germany.
The 42-year-old Pivovarov was the longest-serving dissident Russia has released. He had only about a month left on his sentence when he was airlifted from a prison in northern Russia to Germany, and Usmanova had already started preparing an apartment in St. Petersburg for his return.
At first he was overwhelmed by the new reality of the world around him, which was rapidly expanding from his small cell, and he was initially depressed, knowing that he would not be able to return home for a long time.
But it’s getting easier, and “the colors are getting brighter every day,” he said.
Life in a notorious prison
Pivovarov was arrested in May 2021, nearly a year before President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and intensified his crackdown on dissent to unprecedented levels.
He was removed from a St. Petersburg-bound flight to Warsaw as the plane was taxiing down the runway. Authorities accused him of working for an “undesirable organisation”, an opposition group he led, and he was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.
Pivovarov, who was used to short detentions, said he realized soon after his arrest that this one would not be so short and reminded himself to stay focused and alert, a mentality that he said helped him endure the hardships of incarceration.
Pivovarov served his sentence in the notoriously tough Prison No. 7 in Karelia, which has also housed businessman-turned-opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Putin critic Ilya Dadin, who drew international attention in 2016 when he testified that he had been beaten and ill-treated there.
Upon his arrival in January 2023, Pivovarov was immediately isolated from other prisoners and will remain so until his release.
He described tough conditions in which authorities ensured strict adherence to every rule, even when it didn’t make sense.
His belongings — food, books, clothes, and criminal case files — were weighed to ensure they did not exceed the permitted weight of 36 kilograms (79 pounds). He was punished for minor infractions, such as having his shirt unbuttoned. Cameras in his cell monitored his movements.
“You’re given 30 minutes to brush your teeth, but it takes 10 minutes to brush your teeth and shave, so I started reading a book,” Pivovarov recalled, before a security guard showed up and reprimanded him for “reading during the time allotted for brushing your teeth.”
He also had to spend two hours each day cleaning his cell, regardless of whether it was dirty or not.
Pivovarov laughed and said he had become an expert at expanding pointless mopping into a task that pleased prison officials and “looked very natural on security cameras.”
Prison wedding
Pivovarov and Usmanova married in a short ceremony inside the prison last year.
Though it wasn’t the most romantic setting, Usmanova was able to see him, including spending a few days in an apartment-like unit at the facility, as well as longer visits.
Usmanova said that during her trial and subsequent imprisonment, various officials repeatedly told her that she “was nothing to Andrei.”
“I was banned from court and Andrei wasn’t even allowed to call me,” she recalled.
It took several weeks to complete the paperwork, and in July 2023, Usmanova appeared in a simple white dress for a short ceremony conducted by a registrar in the prison kitchen.
Usmanova said it was the first time she had been able to embrace Pivovarov since his arrest more than two years ago.
When he was returned to his cell, staff told him, “Whether you’re a groom or not, the cleaning isn’t going to end on its own,” and he resumed mopping.
Bookmarks from home
What motivated him?
I kept a cat bookmark I made from Usmanova’s letter, without the prison staff knowing. I counted the thousands of hours I had left on my sentence. I watched the news on national television, trying to decipher what was really going on outside. I read letters of support. I ran circles around the prison yard for exercise.
With the help of his lawyer, Pivovarov kept prison officials on their toes by filing complaints and threatening them about their behavior, a tactic that often worked, he said, as prisons compete with each other to incur as few reprimands as possible from the authorities.
Usmanova, a former opposition activist herself, moved to Latvia after the Ukraine war but returned to Russia periodically to send comfort gifts to Pivovarov and visit him in prison.
She carefully selected the contents of the package, taking advice from doctors and fitness experts to keep her son healthy in a place where food is scarce and natural light is scarce.
As she arranged for an apartment in St. Petersburg for her release in September, she also prepared for the possibility that things could go wrong.
“It seemed like every minute I was waiting for a call from my lawyer saying that Andrei would not be released, that another criminal case would be filed against him,” she said, noting that this is common among political activists.
Both men intended to remain in St. Petersburg, especially since Pivovarov was due to be subject to parole-like restrictions after serving his sentence.
But this exchange changed all their plans.
Finding a clear path
Like others in the exchange, Pivovarov was unaware he was part of the exchange until he was put on a bus to Moscow’s airport. He said his deportation was without his consent and it was painful to see the capital’s skyline from the bus window, knowing it would be his last chance for some time.
The grief lasted for the first few days after the exchange, he said.
“I’ve never felt like a person in my life who is homeless and doesn’t know what’s going to happen next,” he added.
Usmanova said that although she has been reunited with her husband, it has also been a stressful time. She lived in fear for three years, emigrated to Latvia and is now in Germany “not knowing what the future holds.”
But as the days pass since his release and his next steps become clearer, Pivovarov said the future is becoming less frightening.
He said he planned to resume political activity against the Kremlin to “make those who expelled me regret.”
He also wants to show that the political risk faced by the German government by carrying out the prisoner swap – handing over convicted Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov to Moscow in exchange for freed dissidents – was not in vain.
Pivovarov said he wanted to show his hosts that “the man who accepted him showed the authorities who expelled him that it would come back to haunt them later.”