The Trouble with Loving Russia: The Memoirs of Evan Gershkovich Searching for sentimentality in a lost country.

The Trouble with Loving Russia: The Memoirs of Evan Gershkovich Searching for sentimentality in a lost country.

At the end of his pre-trial detention in Moscow's notorious Leportovo prison, American journalist Evan Gershkovich developed a strange relationship with the FSB investigator he was tasked with proving was a spy.

"Most people break after four months or so, but you're still holding on - in a year," the researcher told him, and the two raised their cigarettes in a toast to "after trying to find a common denominator."

Gershkovich writes about many such moments in This Beautiful and Cursed Land: A Russian-American Story, his memoir of nearly 500 days in a Russian prison. Reading from Ukraine, these interactions raise a question that goes beyond Gershkovich's captivity: What does it mean to recognize the humanity of people who help sustain a system of brutal oppression?

Collage: The Kyiv Independent.