German Moyzhes still loves Russia

 

German Moyzhes has become a question of perspective. Is he a spy? For Russia yes, for the West no. Is he a political activist? Yes. Has he come to terms with the state power? He had to. Who knows how that fits together. Only one thing is certain: world politics has crept into Moyzhes’ life. Whether he wanted that or not.

At the end of May, the German-Russian dual citizen was arrested by the Russian secret service, he was interrogated, imprisoned and released two months later in August as part of the largest prisoner exchange since the end of the Cold War. What happened in between is unclear. Moyzhes does not want to comment on this.

Nevertheless, Moyzhes decided to go public with his story. It is the story of a love for a country that has cast him out and that is now so far out of his reach that it hurts. What does Moyzhes want? A new Russia.

“I want a democratic Russia that turns to Europe,” he says. This requires a strong civil society that transforms the country from within. He wanted to strengthen this in Russia. Now he has to watch from afar.

A city, a friend, a bottle of vodka

Moyzhes was born in St. Petersburg when the city was still called Leningrad. He grew up with his mother and grandmother, and in 1995 the family moved to Germany thanks to an emigration program for Jewish Soviet citizens. Moyzhes was ten at the time, poverty in Russia was great, and the future in the West seemed promising. And it was true. Moyzhes graduated from high school, studied law, and received a German passport. But his home never let him go.

When Moyzhes talks about his best childhood memories, he talks about a holiday camp in Russia. Campfire, the first alcohol, spending the night in the tent with the girls. The moon shone brightly over his Russia at that time. After the family emigrated, Moyzhes went back again and again, often alone, two days on the bus, summer holidays at his aunt’s dacha. When he grew up, he became self-employed and from then on helped people emigrate to and from Russia. He moved back to St. Petersburg, the city of his longing.

Moyzhes is 39 years old and St. Petersburg is now behind a hard border for him. Traveling back to Russia would be too dangerous for him. Therefore a new beginning in Cologne. But how do you start a new life that you don’t want? Moyzhes visits friends in England, Israel and Switzerland. To calmly understand what happened to him. His Swiss friend encouraged him to tell his story, the friend organized lectures at a high school and several universities in Switzerland, and he invited people to his home for an interview.

There is a bottle of Finnish vodka on the dining table; Russian vodka is no longer available because of Western sanctions. 1953 is on the label. “It is an important year for Russia; Stalin died in 1953,” says Moyzhes. Then he raises his glass to clink glasses: “Otherwise I have no strength to speak.” He laughs. At some point, between two glasses, he says: “The war destroyed so much. It’s tearing me apart.” At the end of the evening the bottle will be almost empty.

Moyzhes wants to change perspective

He can only guess why Moyzhes went to prison in May. He campaigned for more bicycle paths in St. Petersburg and organized music evenings in his apartment in which banned artists were also allowed to perform. But that wasn’t the point, he says. Moyzhes is a member of the opposition Yabloko party, well connected internationally and went in and out of embassies. The authorities accused him of treason. “They later agreed with me that I was definitely not James Bond,” says Moyzhes. He adds: “They really said that.”

Shortly after the arrest, the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” reported speculation that Moyzhes could have been imprisoned for a prisoner exchange. Embassy contacts, German passport, Jewish faith, in the logic of the prison business, that’s worth a lot.

The fact is: On August 1, two months after his arrest, Moyzhes was exchanged with fifteen other political prisoners for eight Russian prisoners, including the “Tiergarten murderer” Vadim Krasikov. If you want to do the math, Moyzhes is worth twice as much as a Russian. The individual becomes a bargaining chip in this unworthy system.

Moyzhes wants to change perspective. “I met people in this system who were humane,” he says. During the weekly interrogations they offered him coffee and whiskey and treated him with respect. He was in Lefortovo Prison, one of the “most comfortable” prisons in Russia, as he says.

But Moyzhes has also experienced the brutality of the system. Some “traces” remained even after the prisoner exchange. If you ask what that means, he falls silent: “It was unforgettable, let’s say.” Moyzhes plays with his hands. The brutality only happened at the beginning. A few minutes later he will say: “Many investigators in the West would do the same thing if they were allowed to.” Moyzhes avoids eye contact during conversation and then looks around the room as if he is looking for something.

Moyzhes’ story is full of blanks. He avoids questions and cannot find answers to others. Why is he defending Russia’s prison system, which he has experienced with all its violence? Moyzhes can’t explain it.

 

He confessed to what he was accused of in the interrogation room. Resistance is futile in front of Russian state officials. “If you are against them, you risk being completely isolated. If you cooperate, they are friendly and you have constant contact with your relatives.” Moyzhes cooperated. And this is what he says about his imprisonment: “It could have been much worse.” It’s a sentence that he repeats several times throughout the conversation.

Moyzhes doesn’t want to be a victim. He says he’s not afraid. But what should Moyzhes say? The Russian state has built a system in which citizens only know powerlessness. Part of Moyzhes’ family and close friends live in Russia. “Too much talk could harm those who are still there,” he says. Moyzhes speaks carefully. It’s all he can do.

“The current politics of the West divides people in West and East,” says Moyzhes. It turns people into enemies. In war the fronts are clear, Moyzhes criticizes this apparent clarity.

Many sanctions against Russia are not targeted, border closures for example. Or the instruction that Russians are not allowed to hold foreign credit cards or accounts with more than 100,000 euros. The sanctions apply to supporters of the regime, to its opponents, to everyone. This fits into Putin’s war propaganda that the West is acting anti-Russian and that it is seeking its well-being in Russia’s unhappiness.

A historical analogy is now making a name for itself in Russia, says Moyzhes: People used to have to fight to be allowed to leave Russia, but now the West hardly lets anyone in. There it is again, the Russian impotence. As a feeling, it sits deep within people.

Moyzhes may be right in his criticism, but he leaves out the perspective of the West. He relied on understanding for years, but the regime in Moscow still became stronger, then came the war of aggression against Ukraine. Moyzhes says: “I don’t know how it’s supposed to work, but we should focus more on friendship.”

The dacha is his longing place

He takes a last sip of vodka, then quotes Heinrich Heine: “When I think about Russia at night, I lose sleep.” Moyzhes says “Russia” instead of “Germany”. Heine’s vision of a democratic Germany would only be fulfilled after his death.

Moyzhes believes that Russia can change once it acknowledges its European roots. “I am a European Russian,” says Moyzhes. He also says: “I miss my dacha.” Drink, eat, discuss in a little house in the countryside. Where only the trees listen to you. The dacha is perhaps the most Russian place in Russia. Moyzhes wants to go back there.