- The journalist Evan Gershkovich has been in captivity in Moscow for 100 days on espionage charges.
- He’s a devoted and caring extrovert who’d been working his dream job, his friend Jeremy Berke writes.
- Gershkovich’s reporting was motivated by a love for Moscow and for the Russian people.
On a chilly morning in March, my partner rolled over in bed to say three of the most sickening words I’ve ever heard: “They got him.”
At first I thought it was some horrible joke, but it only took a few seconds for reality to sink in. I knew exactly what she was talking about after I saw the news alert.
Our worst fears were realized. There he was on CNN, the hood of his yellow jacket pulled tightly around his head, with a large gloved hand pushing the back of his neck down and into a waiting vehicle.
My friend Evan Gershkovich, many of you now know, was captured by the Russian government on March 29. He’s remained in captivity in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison — a grim old place once used by Stalin’s secret police for mass torture and executions — for 100 days today.
That’s 100 days too long.
Let me be unequivocal: Evan is innocent. He has been scapegoated for the simple crime of doing his job: reporting for the Russian public he loved so much and fearlessly sharing information for all of us back home.
We never thought the risk was real
What’s it like when one of your closest friends in the world, a guy who lights up every room he walks in, becomes the center of a brewing geopolitical storm? It’s surreal and awful, to say the least.
It’s miserable to think about now, but we joked about it happening on his visits back to New York when he’d stay on our couch. We never thought the risk was real.
Courtesy of Jeremy Berke.
It’s become all too real, though, as images of him trapped in a glass box, handcuff marks clear on his wrists — smiling and defiant despite the circumstances — trickle back to us every few weeks since his ordeal started.
You may already know the facts: Evan is a well-respected 31-year old Wall Street Journal reporter who was arrested by Russia’s FSB on sham charges. You might have even read some of the early stories about him: His parents emigrated from the Soviet Union. He was raised in New Jersey, soaking up Russian language and culture at home but living an all-American life outside of it.
He was a soccer star in high school, he graduated from Bowdoin College — where we met — and worked for the New York Times before moving to Russia to report for various outlets in 2017.
He got his dream job reporting for the Journal in January of last year.
An extrovert motivated by a broader sense of care
But here’s what you probably don’t know about him that dozens, if not hundreds, of his close friends and family do.
Like most reporters, he painstakingly documented true things that people in power in Russia didn’t like. He showed us how, in the midst of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s economy was starting to unravel. He covered the shattering effects of the war and how soldiers’ loved ones back home rushed to figure out if they were alive or dead. He profiled warlords like Yevgeny Prigozhin, who carried out Putin’s deadly mission and profited handsomely from it.
He covered brighter things, too, owing to his love of the Russian people.
Though he was accredited by Russia’s government, he was forced out of the country when the Ukraine invasion began and had been taking weeks-long reporting trips back.
Evan loved Moscow: The cafés, the restaurants, the banyas, the bar scene. On one of his trips back, he visited his old haunts to show us how life eerily, and maybe beautifully, carried on for Muscovites despite the turmoil caused by an illegal war.
Evan’s reporting was never driven by enmity or hatred for Russia. To say so would be to admit you don’t know him or what kind of person he is.
As someone who is fluent in both languages and cultures, he always felt like he could bridge the gap between the West and Russia — especially as that gap slowly, then quickly, became an insurmountable chasm. He’s motivated by a broader sense of care for the world — that if he just tries hard enough or says the right things, everyone could be his friend, too.
That’s what made him such a good journalist. Evan is one of the most extroverted people I know. He has the ability that few have to make you feel like the center of his world when you’re talking to him.
A devoted son, brother, and friend
Beyond his skill as a journalist, you should know about what he’s like as a friend.
Evan and I connected immediately when we met in college back in 2010. We ran in different-but-overlapping circles, though our sense of humor, our sensibility, was always the same.
Courtesy of Jeremy Berke.
After college, we shared a third-floor walkup in Brooklyn as we started our careers as journalists. We swapped stories about colleagues, we joked about the state of the industry we were both trying to make a mark in, we partied, we ate too-cheap and too-expensive meals, we watched sports, we rode bikes all over the city, and we shared a vibrant social life as many young people in New York do.
Evan is an absolute goofball. He loves to joke around, he loves to go out and do things, and he’ll talk your ear off about whatever until 4 in the morning if you give him the opportunity.
He’ll strike up a conversation with anybody, about anything. Evan loves his friends. He remembers the big things, like birthdays, and the little things. He’s the first to congratulate you if you just published a big story or got a promotion. He’ll never pass up an opportunity to celebrate.
Evan loves the Mets, and he loves Arsenal, and he especially loves sharing those teams with people who aren’t already under the spell. I learned this the hard way as his roommate, when he’d get out of bed at 7 a.m. on the weekends to watch Arsenal play, banging pots and pans together in the kitchen until we’d inevitably crawl out of bed to hang out with him.
The silver lining was that Evan loved cooking, and we’d be rewarded with a delicious breakfast for getting up way too early for a bunch of 26-year-olds on the weekend.
Before all this happened, we’d been planning a trip to visit Moscow. I asked him to teach me how to say, “I’m allergic to peanuts,” in Russian so I could practice before I left.
That trip will probably never happen.
Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images
Let’s bring Evan home
For everyone who is friends with Evan, for everyone in his orbit, he’s the center of their world. I miss him every day, and I know that’s incomparable to what his mother, father, and sister — who’ve handled this situation with unbelievable courage — are going through.
So here’s my ask: Let’s all think about Evan. Let’s not let this become another opaque international incident. Let’s all do our part to ensure his safe and swift return home.
If you want to help, we’ve set up a website: You can write him a letter, and it will be translated into Russian. We’ve been assured he’s getting them, and he’s writing us back. You can also help support his family with expenses throughout this process.
The world’s a better place when Evan is free to be a devoted son, brother, and friend. And even more so when he’s free to chase down stories.
If you ever have the chance to meet him, I’m sure you’d agree.
Jeremy is a student at Columbia Business School and writes Cultivated, a newsletter focused on the cannabis industry.
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