Adventurer Charlie Walker Was Detained in a Russian Jail for 1 Month

But I was smooth to carry on, so I carried on about another four weeks. You know, got up onto the tundra, visited some reindeer herders, you know, got some very remote settlements and spent the final sort of ten days hiking on the frozen Arctic Ocean, you know, camping out, you know, under some of the most incredible starscapes and northern lights and everything. It was beautiful, a really good time. I arrived in Tixi, this port town at the end, which used to have, I think, like 15,000 people, now has about 5,000 people. It's another one of these. The Russians have a phrase for this, chitonye, like a dying town, a town more dead than alive. And on arrival in Tixi, someone who I'd met on the road weeks earlier, who I got in touch with on arrival, he said, you know, get in touch, we'll catch up. He told me that the FSB, the KGB, wanted to talk to me. And I thought, right, well, just take the bull by the horns. I'll just go to their building. And I'll say, hey, you want to talk to me? I'm here. And they were a bit taken aback by that. And they said, can you come back at this time tomorrow? So I did. And they said, it felt like an interrogation, but eventually turned out it was just this standard procedure. They asked me these questions, who I was, the name of my family members, the history of my family, did any of my ancestors ever, were they ever in the British forces? Do I have any political beliefs? Was I in the army? Just all these kind of standard suspicious questions. And it went on about two, three hours. And when we were finally done, the guy said, okay, well, that's it. You're free to go. And I was like, oh, great. He said, make sure you visit the museum. There's a mammoth skeleton. You know, have a good time. Good luck to you. I went back to where I was staying. And I was recording. So I took with me a little zoom, like a little dictaphone, you know, a lot of people use them for podcasts, I think. And for another podcast with a friend that'll surface in a month or so, I've been recording my experiences in my invoice along the way of the cold, the people I met, the odd conversation with other people. But naturally with what was going on and people telling me of their opinions about Ukraine, in my own little recordings in my tent at night, sometimes I get a little sort of political, I guess. And after that encounter with the, in Ustikwega, when they came to my door, these policemen the first time, sorry, four weeks back, I know we're jumping around. When they came to my door, I was recording on my dictaphone. And I went to answer the door and just slipped it in my pocket. And they said, right, come to the police station now. And so I went, but it was still recording. So I had a live mic throughout this whole pre police process. And the first thing they did in the police station was take my phone, turn it off. So I wasn't recording. And so little did they know there was this hot mic in my pocket. So after that was done, I got back to where I was staying, I kind of in my own words, several had happened, took the little micro SD card out, and then unscrewed a plug adapter, you know, from like a British plug to a Russian plug, unscrewed that wrap the SD card up in a little scrap of white paper, slotted it in there, screwed it back up, it's like, you know, I don't want to lose this. It's not really a huge problem, but best just to hide it have it safe. Up in Tixi, I sort of recorded my final thoughts again, and I had this little SD card, it was just on the table. And another one, I was worried, you know, my journal that my diary that I've been writing each day, I was worried that that might get taken, you know, because slowly, with the villages I pass through towards the end, you know, it was made very clear that the authorities were waiting for me in Tixi. I thought, well, you know, that might get seized. Not the end of the world if it does, if I with my GoPro, take a picture of every single page, and I can hide that little SD card in the same plug socket. But when the knock came on my door in Tixi, I'd been asleep, I'd actually fallen asleep reading Kafka, the trial, this guy getting arrested and not knowing what it's all about. They came to the door and everything was just kind of out. And they said, it was the police again, they said, can you come to the station for registration? And I said again, well, this is, you know, a little ominous, but registration, fine. I'd already, you know, the day before spoken to the FSB, I knew everything was fine. And in the station, it quickly became clear, well, after about an hour of just this long asking lots of questions, I said, well, can I go now? And they said, no, no, you can't go. And that's when I understood I'm under arrest. And this is maybe a little bit more serious. And once again, they, well, they said, who have you spoken to? Who have you met in Tixi? And I said, well, I met this guy who I'd met on the road who it's a small town. So I didn't want to lie to them. I thought best just to say who I'd met. So I met this guy. And I've met this other bloke. And they didn't know who either of these people were. And they were asking questions about who they were. And without leaving the room, without making a call, without doing any texting, me having just explained to them who these people were, and they didn't know who they were, they quickly said, right, well, both those people are providing witness to say that you have been conducting journalism and asking questions about Ukraine. So, you know, they sort of essentially got me to provide them with false witnesses. And this process went on for hours, they got an English teacher to translate for us. And as the hours passed, the English teacher became more and more fed up. She was meant to be, I think someone with a disease in the town, there was a bake sale to raise money for him. And she was meant to be cooking cakes, cupcakes with her daughter that evening. And you know, I'd ruined this because it was already, you know, they took me at about 430. Anyway, at 930, after a lot of waiting around, they finally said, right, you're going to court now. I thought, well, it's 930. How's that going to work? And they took me to another building, an old Soviet looking apartment blocks that building. But on the third floor, there was a courtroom. And in the courtroom, they got this judge who just seemed pissed off, you know, he'd been dragged out of his home at 930 at night to deal with some thing. And the teacher was so pissed off by this point that she wasn't really translating in full anymore. So you know, the judge would speak a whole, you know, paragraph, and she would give me a half sentence in translation. And so the trial unfolded. I had been supposedly, you know, conducting journalism again, they had these witnesses who said I said this, that and the other. And they also said most worryingly, that I've been photographing restricted military sites or sensitive military sites. And the judge found me guilty. And he said, you'll pay a fine again, not much like 70 bucks, something like that. And you are banned from Russia for five years, and you have to leave, you'll be deported. And I thought, right, you know, it's not the end of the world. You know, it looks like Russia is not particularly a place to go back to for five years, fine. And so at that point, as far as I was aware, I would be I would fly back to Yakutsk, get my own flight back to England via some other third country, and then fly home done. And I was taken back to my sort of apartment I'd rented in this town. And probably 20 minutes later, there was a knock at the door. And it was the police again, they said, Oh, actually, you have to be in the cell tonight, pack everything you have up. And we're going now. And so with them in front of me, I had to pack everything up. Among the stuff that was all kind of laid out was one of these little SD cards with the second half of all the recordings from this zoom on it. And all I could do was I had a head torch next to it on the table, because they were watching me pack, you know, head torches are that little sort of hinge so it can sort of angle down on your forehead. I bent the hinge down, put the SD card in that bit and just snapped it shut and put a rubber band around the whole thing. But that just felt really precarious. You know, that's not well hidden. And that's the last time I was you know, just before that point was the last time I was unattended with all my stuff for weeks to come as it turned out. I packed everything up, we were taken to the cell, fingerprinting, I was eventually about 130 put into this little cell. And you know, I was thankfully tired enough, I got some sleep, woke up in the morning. And from that point onwards, I was accompanied or escorted by bailiffs technically, although they said we're we're Russia's US Marshals, they're quite keen to sort of compare themselves to US Marshals. And I had already changed my flight that I had booked a week away to the following day to get me back to the Capitol. And so I was deported on what sent down to Yakutsk on the flight that I'd booked but with a man as an escort. And at this point, I still thought like I'm just I'm free when I get to Yakutsk, I'll go home. On arrival in Yakutsk, there was another bailiff waiting for me. And he said, right, well, you have to now go and stay in this this kind of hotel for foreigners until you fly home. And I thought, well, that's not it's not ideal. But again, it's not the end of the world. And then on the drive in this minibus to the detention center, it turned out, yeah, it was a detention center for foreigners, and it was just a prison. And, you know, my shoelaces were taken away, my belt was taken off, all my goods were locked up in a locker. And, you know, after being processed and checked in the door slam or the cell door slam shut behind me. And then there I am. And I don't know how long for you know, that that's, you know, one of the sort of bleakest moments where I just I didn't know what exactly is going to happen after I still I suppose was thinking a few days and I'll probably be out. And they were sort of saying maybe 10 days you got to wait for the paperwork to come down from the coast or whatever. But after a few days, you know, time had come and gone. I was in this cell. I mean, you're in the cell around the clock, 24 hours a day, not allowed outside foods handed through a little hatch in the cell, I shared it with two other men. And after a few days, they said, right, you know, you should be getting a lawyer. And I was allowed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 15 minutes of access to my phone. So back home via these frantic hurried phone calls, my my uncle and my girlfriend were kind of, you know, arranging trying to help out. And so we arranged for a lawyer to come in and he said, right, well, we'll appeal the decision. But that appeal wasn't heard for two weeks. And that appeal was dismissed out of hand, I was taken to the court. And this is after two weeks, you know, by this point, I was, you know, I was not a happy guy. It was almost comical going to the court for the appeal, you know, I was so desperate to get outside, I hadn't been outdoors for two weeks. And they said, right, you're going to the court. And I knew that meant I'd get to be outdoors for a few minutes, you know, as I walked from the door into the minibus and in from the minibus into the court at the other end. But they they gave they put me in cuffs. And then they with another pair of handcuffs cuffed me to one of the guards who had a taser and there was another guard on the other side with a taser. And they wouldn't let me have my shoelaces or my belt back. And I'd lost quite a little weight during this trek. So my trousers are falling down, my hiking shoes had these massive sort of, you know, tongues lolling out the front. And walking down the courthouse corridors, I was doing this kind of weird, you know, John Wayne wide-kneed shuffle to try and stop my trousers from falling down. Meanwhile, my hands are pinned to this guy to my right. But the judge looked at the papers for, you know, like two minutes and said, Yeah, no, it's your crimes are too serious. There's a political element. And you know, you're you're going back into the detention center. And this was probably the time when I felt most low. About a week earlier, I had suddenly, unexpectedly been dragged on to in front of a TV camera and interviewed. And that was a bit concerning. That felt like, you know, being tried by the court of public opinion. They had eventually the news bit aired, I think the day before my appeal. But they had gone up to Tixie and they got witness statements from one bloke who I never even met saying, Yeah, you know, he was talking about Ukraine and he's photographing these military sites. Again, no photos were ever provided that backed up that story. And all the while, you know, those those first two weeks, all of my belongings are in their possession. And the police have come and searched. They made me turn on the phone, my phone, unlock it for them. I had a GPS device, which really freaks them out. My GoPro to them looked like a spy camera. But when they first laid out all my belongings, some policeman, you know, I was taken cuffed out myself to be, you know, to turn everything on for him and sort of on the table laid out in this neat little row was all my items. And among them was this plug socket and that head torch with the hidden little SD card in it. And although technically, those things weren't really incriminating the fact that they've been hidden didn't look good. And I probably should have said earlier, back in March, two months earlier, they had introduced a new law with a maximum sentence of up to 15 years for journalists providing sort of spreading fake news about the military, i.e. anyone really speaking the truth about the military after the invasion, after the invasion. And you know, these recordings had lots of me talking about the invasion, the atrocities in butcher and all sorts. And my whole diary, which up to this point, I'd kept hidden because when I was checked into the cell, while they were going through all my stuff, I just slipped in my trousers. Because I thought this diary doesn't look good. I slipped in my trousers, which again, freaked me out a little bit. Are they going to frisk me? Are they not? I got it into the cell. And then I just hid it in plain sight among my belongings. And it was all the stuff in the locker that the police went and looked through. So there's just a lot of things going on. I'm constantly on edge that I'm just about to become, you know, a political bargaining chip. Did they find the SD cards? No, thankfully. This is actually the first time I've spoken about those SD cards. And you know, those would have qualified me for at least, you know, you're a journalist, if not espionage. And the guards in the prison who were, I think they were probably nice, normal guys, but they treated they were wankers to us. I mean, they kept on saying to me, Are you a spy? And don't fight my country. You know, they were they would also on their phones, look up phrases in English, and then kind of chant them back at me that you are a spy Walker. And so it was, it was a, it's a scary time. And after the appeal was rejected, I then thought, well, you know, this could be this could be a really long time, you know, I could be here for months. And the longer I'm here, the more chance there is that either they'll find some of these these SD cards, or my diary, or that they will, you know, some ambitious cop, some ambitious policeman or bureaucrat will decide to pick up my case again, to retry me under the criminal offense. I mean, given they've made up most of their evidence anyway, it's no stretch to think that they could pin on me the fake news journalist thing and put me away for 15 years. I mean, I didn't know that I didn't even know offer at the time. But since getting out, I've learned about I'm gonna get her name wrong. But Brittany Grinner, the basketball player, who I mean, we don't really even know where she is, I think, I think a bit of news came out about her the other day. But I mean, she's clearly being in my opinion, I mean, it's totally outrageous. But she I think is being held, you know, as a prisoner swap fodder, you know, that they will use her when convenient.