Sasha Skochilenko is free after being thrown in jail for five labels

Photo: Dmitri Lovetsky Associated Press She is one of the Russian political prisoners who were exchanged for Russians imprisoned in the West.

Magdaline Boutros

Published at 0:00

• Europe

“I’m still euphorically happy!” Three weeks after being released from a Russian penal colony as part of a major prisoner swap with the West, Russian artist Alexandra (Sasha) Skochilenko, 33, says she savors new moments that bring her joy every day.

“Yesterday, I was in a forest,” she tells Le Devoir from Germany, where she has sought refuge. “A real forest! I had dreamed of it during my two and a half years in prison. I hadn’t been able to touch such pleasant things [for a long time], so I do embarrassing things like hugging trees and lying in the grass!”

In a turnaround as incredible as it was unexpected, Sasha's name was included in the list of 16 political prisoners imprisoned in Russia and Belarus — most of them well-known figures of the Russian opposition or dual nationals — who were exchanged on August 1 for 8 Russian nationals imprisoned in the West, notably for espionage and murder.

“I had the luckiest moment on Earth,” the radiant young woman says during a video interview in a park, during which she quickly lay down, once again, in the grass. A chance propelled, she believes, by the media coverage she received. “My story touched the hearts of many people. What happened is the strength of people who really want something to happen.”

Sasha was arrested in April 2022, a few weeks after the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, for replacing five price tags in a Saint Petersburg supermarket with anti-war messages. A non-violent gesture — but prohibited by the law criminalizing the dissemination of “false information” about the Russian army — which earned him a seven-year sentence in a penal colony.

Photo: Michael Probst Associated Press “Yesterday, I was in a forest,” she tells Le Devoir from Germany, where she has found refuge. “A real forest! I had dreamed of it during my two and a half years of detention.”

Appreciating the simple things

Her time in prison was hard “physically and mentally,” says the young woman who suffers from bipolar disorder, celiac disease and is part of the LGBTQ+ community, ostracized in Russia. “But on the other hand, it was the adventure of my life,” she says. “I learned to appreciate the simple things and to find joy in them.” »

Like touching blades of grass that had managed to grow, almost miraculously, in a crack in the courtyard of the prison where she was and observing a few ants there. “I learned to appreciate these little details [that I didn't see before] and to draw joy from them. Every day [in prison], I tried to find something positive in my life.”

Not for a moment, she says, did she regret committing her act of resistance against the Putin regime. The question was often asked of her in prison: was it worth the effort? ? “Fellow prisoners told me several times that I was stupid to sacrifice several years of my life to exchange five price tags, an act that will not stop the war.” But her conviction never wavered.

Succession of moments

Since she was released, journalists have been asking her the same question over and over again: When did you realize you were going to be exchanged? ? A question that leaves Sasha doubtful. “There wasn’t a specific moment,” she says. “Nothing in life happens so suddenly. It’s a process, which I still have to get used to, like walking without my hands tied behind my back.”

Nevertheless, at one point, Sasha was placed, under threat, on a bus alongside other political prisoners. “When the soldier who was with us told us that we would be exchanged, he told us to sit and enjoy the view through the bus windows,” she recalls, with amazement.

With Oleg Orlov, another political prisoner exchanged that day, Sasha then looked up outside, in a kind of intoxication. “It was as if I was seeing the sky for the first time. I saw the clouds, no longer as a banal image, but as if I was seeing them through 3D glasses. Oleg, too, had the same impression.”

Later, on the plane taking them to freedom, German Moyzhes, another inmate, distributed peanuts and dried fruit that he had managed to find to his comrades. “He even asked some soldiers to pass them to us,” she remembers, laughing.

For Sasha, her release is therefore not a single moment when everything changed—and that journalists would so much like her to talk about—but rather this succession of extremely human moments that have gradually brought her back to her freedom. “I am learning to live like a free person again.”

Reunion

On August 2, the day after the exchange, Sasha was finally reunited with her partner, Sonia Subbotina, her mother and her older sister. “Sonia told me she thought we would flood the hospital [where Sasha was being observed] with our tears of joy, but that’s not how it happened,” she says under her white straw hat. “For me, it was a warm, calm ocean of love to find myself in her arms. It was this simple, but extremely strong feeling of unconditional love.”

To put an end to her “toxic relationship” with Russia, Sasha plans to stay in Germany for good. “This country chose me and my ex, Russia, chased me away,” she sums up. She does not fear for her safety, however. “It's true that the Kremlin can have a long arm [in committing assassinations abroad], but not for someone like me. I'm just an artist.”

It is also to her art that the young woman intends to devote herself in the coming months. Sasha plans to produce a series of paintings on the prisoner exchange in which she took part and to write a book on political repression. She also plans to marry Sonia — something that was forbidden to them in Russia. As well as prevent the crash that could occur. “I know that my euphoric state will end at some point. It will take me time to understand everything that happened to me. But there are a lot of people who care about me right now and who are helping me.”