Inside prison life for WSJ’s Gershkovich

Matthew Campbell of The Sunday Times in London looks at Russia prison life for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

Campbell writes, “As a high-profile American inmate, Gershkovich may be spared some of the worst conditions. He celebrated New Year’s Eve with a few mandarins he managed to buy in a prison shop. When he turned up in court for one of his hearings months ago, the guards allowed him to chat for a minute through the bars of his cage with his parents, Ella and Mikhail, who met while working as computer programmers in New York. Friends and supporters are able to send him packages of food and clothes.

“Books, in particular, are a solace. Besides the classics, Gershkovich also is reading about past inmates, devouring a memoir by Evgenia Ginzburg, who spent 18 years in a prison camp under Stalin after her pre-trial stint in Lefortovo.

“Gershkovich and Maria Borzunova, a Russian journalist friend, agreed to co-ordinate their reading so that they could discuss the books in their weekly letters — he is allowed no visits except from his lawyers.”

Read more here.