17th June 2026
Between 7th and 17th June 2026 my husband was away attending a historians’ conference in Pskov. Attenders were present from countries including Canada, Chile, Ireland, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland and the UK. The conference concerned foreign countries’ attitudes towards Russia; my husband’s paper was on representations of Russia in English literature from Shakespeare to the present. Given the recent use of UK legislation to temporarily detain returners from Russia and elsewhere to the UK, this is my experience of the hours before his return.
The worst night was the one before the last, was when it was Aurora, tinily and perfectly asleep in the space usually occupied by Alex, who gave me the ballast that allowed me to sleep.
The eve of return was better, but during it, for the first time, it occurred to me that Turkey, being in NATO, might follow American instructions and abduct my husband at the airport and beat him up in prison.
Around 02.30 UK time the Life 360 app, which was to dominate my next ten hours, woke me with a ding-dong and an ‘Alex has landed’.
There was his photo, in colour, in Istanbul. It had previously been black and white in Pskov, having for most of the week been black and white in Istanbul. He had apparently never passed through Moscow, either outbound or returning. At least, I had never noticed it.
Rejoice.
The cheerfulness of the ding-dong itself seemed to make abduction unlikely, and he was now out of Russia, where I had only been able to contact him by email and Zoom. He was a step closer to home.
He called me, and an awoken Vera – that night’s ballast-giver – gave him some sweet words of perfectly-enunciated English down the phone. Our sign-off was vague on his part. He was focusing on what he needed to do next.
The day started under cloud. A bad sign? Somehow I felt not. I felt that the weather would get better.
The flight to Heathrow was 07.50-09.50 UK time. I knew that my fears pertaining to the UK were far more serious than my Istanbul hallucination – the most serious that I had had during all of Alex’s times abroad in recent years, because of the experiences of Richard Medhurst, and Craig Murray, and George Galloway, and Richard Sakwa. And because a Russian frigate had allegedly done something near England precisely during Alex’s visit. And because Tommy Robinson – poor Russia – had been detained at Heathrow on the way back from Moscow via Istanbul. And because Alex had been staying all of 300m from the border with NATO in Estonia. He had given a few interviews to local news stations (turning down requests from the big ones). And he had gone out for an evening in Moscow with his oldest friend Pasha – the man at whose party we had first met, back when he was working for Citibank in London – whose boss, at the country’s second biggest natural gas company, is currently under UK sanctions. The UK sometimes also sends police to search the home.
I was due at a conference in college all day that day, Wednesday 17th June. I wasn’t presenting, but needed to be there, making it an ideal day on which I was at work but had some bandwidth for other matters. As needed.
Who would be at home, though, if the police came? I suggested to our nanny that she might like to keep the girls out all day, so that daddy could get home and have a sleep before seeing them once refreshed. I checked when our cleaner was coming. 13.00. She, therefore, might be the one to tell me if they came during the detention, which would be immediately after the 09.50 landing.
Should I, then, alarm the house? Double-lock the door? They replace doors if they break them, but this door was particularly treasured. Would we be able to find a replica? What about the dogs? Would they, sensing aggression, be aggressive? Would they be shot with tranquiliser darts? Or worse? The devices are apparently kept for a week, so I would have to lend Alex my personal laptop whilst working on my work one. He would have to do without a phone or tablet.
I set off for the conference at such a time that I would be above ground and with reception by 09.50. Alex had said that he would call me when he landed. My old phone, which hadn’t charged properly overnight, was low on battery. I plugged it into my computer.
09.50. No ding-dong. 10.00 the opening keynote started. The Luddites. AI. York. Executions. Have become a byword. Alex black and white in Istanbul. We patronise them. Change. Istanbul. Ding-dong! So what we as universities have to do is. Because too often we are satisfied with limp impact challenges and
10.28 Ring doorbell notification. I fumbled to see if it was the police. The app wasn’t working. Refresh. Panic. Up the path toddled Aurora.
Then Alex called. I unplugged my phone and ducked out of the room. Alex was off the plane. Often it’s in the tunnel that attaches to the plane. But Alex call me when you are through passport control. It could be there.
A long wait. Lots of lecture. I needed the loo. Weeing, Alex called again. He was through passport control, and going towards baggage reclaim.
I stayed on the app. He hadn’t yet come out of arrivals. Why was he near the Heathrow Hilton? During the Greek dictatorship the Athens Hilton had been dubbed the CIA HQ. Perhaps they were holding him there. Why was it taking him so long to get on a train?
In the later stages of the lecture he was moving fast. Up to 90 miles an hour, fairly straight, East. Then slower. Then the icon was a car. Was it a police car? Do roads go that straight? Were they taking him to Paddington Green Police Station (does it still exist?) where people released from Guantanamo Bay used to be held? A car doesn’t go at 90 miles an hour. Then Paddington Station. For a long time.
Why was he there for so long?
Maybe he was on the Tube and not updating.
Our station.
But he was tired. He might get mugged on the walk home. He said that he couldn’t find his keys and had probably left them in Pskov. What if no one was at home?
Ring. I looked to see if someone would answer.
It wasn’t clear.
Ten minutes later he was still at home.
He was at home.
Experiential education was exactly what I was interested in and something to which I gave my full and joyous attention.
* * *
That evening I asked him how likely he had thought it that he would be detained. At the beginning of his trip, he said, he thought it likely. By the time he set off home, having spoken to various British people in Russia, and learned from them about the relevant criteria, he thought the opposite.
He said he thought that the conference had been located so close to the border with NATO precisely because the security is tighter there, and surveillance and internet restriction are routine. The dacha complex was surrounded by several layers of guards with machine guns, who required all bus passengers to show their passports and documents every time they passed though to attend the days’ events in nearby Pskov.
His luggage had been searched in a way which was clearly intended to make it clear that it had been searched. Within the dacha complex Alex’s dacha was isolated from the rest, at the furthest end of the resort from the central facilities, suggesting that, of all the foreign guests attending the conference, he was of the greatest surveillance interest.
He thinks it likely that his keys were not forgotten but taken, since the set included an electronic fob that operates our house alarm.
They would also certainly have identified Pasha.
And they – and possibly also the West – would have been monitoring our emails and our Zoom calls, during one of which I was in the bath.
Ah well. All’s well that.
I am grateful.
