Impressive photographs of urban decay, including weed-infested Soviet bomb shelters and dilapidated ruins of factories across Eastern Europe, have won a British photographer’s award. Russia hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram eager to follow her journey.
But these days, photographer Svetlana Timofeyeva, 34, can’t travel much to satisfy fans of her accomplishments. Her passport was confiscated by authorities in Albania, where she spent most of the past year in a women’s prison being held for allegations that have earned her a different kind of reputation: that she is a Russian spy.
She has denied those accusations, saying that geopolitical tensions stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have made her and her compatriots suspicious in the eyes of many Europeans – even those, like she, opposed the war.
“People don’t think the Russians are victims of this government, but we are,” she said in a recent interview at a cafe in the capital Tirana. “People are watching you. Everyone looks at you suspiciously.”
Miss Timofeyeva and two other “urban explorers” — Mikhail Zorin, a Russian student, and Fedir Alpatov, a Ukrainian — was arrested last August on suspicion spy after being caught at a derelict arms factory in a remote part of Albania.
They said they went there to explore the factory and take pictures. They deny that they are spying.
But Mr. Zorin also admitted that he sprayed pepper spray on factory security after they approached him, and he later said when questioned by police that he was a Russian agent. Mr. Zorin said in an interview that admission was forced.
The three urban explorers were held for nine months until a court ordered their release on May 25, although Mr. Zorin was under house arrest. They are currently barred from leaving Albania until an indictment or charges are dropped.
That has forced them to live a strange life of limbo in Tirana, where they share a two-bedroom apartment to save money, relying on the generosity of family and friends to sustain themselves financially. .
Without the equipment that has been confiscated by the authorities, Ms. Timofeyeva says she can’t make the money she used to, making videos and taking photos for weddings and corporate events.
So she spent the day traveling around Albania with Mr. Alpatov, who declined to be interviewed for this article, in the orange Chevy Camaro he brought with him from Italy, where he lives, according to Ms. Timofeyeva. Sometimes they have guests from abroad.
The situation was most bizarre for Mr. Zorin, 24, who had studied in Prague before he embarked on a planned cycling trip to Greece, with Albania intended as a stop to meet Ms. Timofeyeva and Mr. Alpatov. Confined in his apartment, he spends most of his time chatting with friends online.
He spoke of his existence, wearing a cat t-shirt during a reporter’s recent visit to the apartment: “It’s pretty much like being a cat. “You depend on the people who bring you food.”
Mr. Zorin’s disassembled bicycle was stowed away in the apartment, and Ms. Timofeyeva pointed it wryly as proof of his innocence. (“Even Russian intelligence has more money to provide a car,” she said.)
According to Mr. Zorin, the team chose the abandoned weapons factory because it looked run down, unaware that it was a military facility.
Separated from the others after they entered the factory, Mr. Zorin said he was approached by two men and did not realize they were guards. When they grabbed him, he said, he panicked and used pepper spray – which he had brought in case of an emergency on his solo bike ride – against them.
During the police interrogation, which Mr. Zorin said lasted until the early hours of the next day, officers accused him of being a Russian spy and did not believe he was merely an urban explorer. They threatened and beat him, he said, putting pressure on the “pain point”.
Fearing something worse would happen to him, he made up a story: that the Russian intelligence agency had asked him to spy in Albania and said that his family in Russia would face face the consequences if he doesn’t follow through.
“I understand that this is silly,” Mr. Zorin said.
But in that moment, isolated and unable to contact family or friends, he believed that declaring himself a spy was the best option, he said.
Gentian Mullaj, a spokesman for the Albanian police, said the allegations were “completely untrue”, adding that police had acted “in full compliance” with standard work procedures and “fundamental rights of citizens”.
The prosecutor, Kreshnik Ajazi, said when asked by The New York Times for comment that this was the first time he had heard Mr Zorin’s statements and suggestions that anyone targeted for being Russian was ” comical”.
Mr. Ajazi said the three defendants were legally given the right to contact family members when they were arrested, which Ms. Timofeyeva objected, and had lawyers and interpreters present during the questioning. question.
He said Mr. Zorin’s statement was kept secret and that he was present during the interrogation of the three detainees on August 21, a day after their arrest. “I can assure you that there has not been any form of torture or violence,” Mr. Ajazi said. He was not present when police questioned Mr. Zorin for the first time after his arrest.
Mr Ajazi said that the guards at the factory were wearing uniforms and Mr Zorin would be “quite clear” that they were government officials. He said, without providing details, that Mr. Zorin’s statement was not the only evidence prosecutors had, and that the group had visited other military sites in Albania.
Ms. Timofeyeva said the group had visited other sites in Albania, including a former military site, but they had never encountered an incident.
Mr. Ajazi said the group’s confiscated electronic devices were still being examined. He expects the case to be “closed sooner” than August 2024, the deadline for him to file an indictment.
While spending time in Tirana, Ms. Timofeyeva is also weighing the request that Moscow made for her extradition in connection with the case of illegal entry at an underground Russian military site in 2018. Both she and Mr. Zorin have spoken out about this. they oppose President Vladimir V. Putin and his invasion of Ukraine, and she believes the extradition request may be an attempt to punish her for her outspokenness.
So far, that prospect seems unlikely. An Albanian court denied Russia’s extradition request on human rights grounds.
Mr Zorin, who is half Ukrainian, said the invasion of Ukraine was like “attacking our own brothers”. Russia has not yet requested his extradition from Albania and Mr Zorin said that even if he was freed by Albania, he would not return home for fear of having to join the army to fight in Ukraine.
Miss Timofeyeva, who left Moscow for Georgia a month after the war started in February 2022, shared the posts with her nearly 250,000 followers on Facebook. Instagramwhere she passed Lana Sator, calling Mr Putin “crazy grandpa” and calling for an end to the conflict.
She said she was separated from her husband – who was working as a photographer for the Wagner group, the private army that fought on behalf of Russia in Ukraine until it disbanded this month – because of his support fight.
While living in Moscow, Ms. Timofeyeva said she worked with Russia’s Ministry of Culture to promote local tourism, not with the country’s intelligence agencies.
She has now applied for political asylum in Albania and says she has no plans to return in the near future. “Prison in Russia is worse than in Albania,” she said.
She said she overcame the months of incarceration, reading, learning Albanian and drawing pictures of the mountains near the prison and other subjects. She said she hopes to explore Albania and see more of its attractions.
But, she asked, “Is it a spy if we take a cruise ship to a tourist island?”
Fatjona Mejdini contributed reporting from Tirana.
