PEOPLE Speaks Directly with Sarah Krivanek, American Woman Detained in Russia, as She Navigates Deportation
VK Sarah Krivanek
For the first time since learning of Sarah Krivanek's shocking Russian imprisonment, PEOPLE has spoken to the American woman directly.
In a brief phone call on her cellmates' mobile phone Monday, Krivanek expresses amazement that she is being contacted from abroad. "How are you able to call me? Wait, wait — oh my God! That's amazing! I haven't spoken English in so long I can't hardly remember how to do it!" she laughs.
Krivanek has just finished serving time in a Russian penal colony following a domestic abuse incident involving a Russian man in Moscow last year, in which she nicked her alleged abuser with a knife out of self-defense. He was not punished, but she was charged with "intention to inflict slight bodily harm" and "threatening to kill or do grievous bodily harm." Even after the man retracted his complaint, the charges remained.
Krivanek was called in by her prison administration 10 days ago, in preparation of her release, and told that her flight home from Moscow had been arranged and paid for by the State Penitentiary Service. They said she was due to fly out from Sheremetyevo Airport on Nov. 8.
However, a few days before she was due to leave the penal colony, she was told there was not actually a flight for her and that she would be kept in a holding cell until her deportation could be arranged. At the time she was distraught, but speaking with us, she says she's just happy now to be in contact with someone "back home."
We tell her that PEOPLE found out about her incarceration while reporting on Brittney Griner. She replies: "Is that the tall basketball player who's been captured too? I didn't know anything about her apart from what the girls in the cell told me, that she'd been caught for drugs."
Dropping in and out of Russian and English in the conversation, she goes on: "We've been victimized. It was an opportunity for [the Russians] to laugh and say, 'Ha! We've captured an American!' And then have it all over their press."
We ask Krivanek about her harsh prison sentence. "The girls were saying, 'It was just a scratch! He got three stitches and you got a year and three months!'" she says. "And in court he said it wasn't my fault, that he was attacking me and I was defending myself."
Sarah Krivanek Facebook
Until human rights activists managed to establish contact with Krivanek in September, she remained completely isolated from friends and family. Her loved ones weren't even sure if she was still alive. Her cell phone was confiscated at the time of her arrest and she was not able to make phone calls from the prison except to her lawyer and, more recently, human rights activists.
"It's been so hard to make a phone call. So hard. I was only able to trick one guard to let me use the phone when I was in the sick bay. I told him I wanted to call my lawyer to put some money into my account for the prison shop," she says. "In short, I managed to get through to the embassy and told them where I was, but the connection was really bad and [then prison guards] realized who I was calling and the connection dropped."
After speaking with the embassy on that call, Krivanek says, "I was thinking, 'Oh God, did I manage to actually tell them where I'm at?' It took me about five minutes to convince the receptionist that I was telling the truth because she just didn't believe my story that I was an American calling from a Russian jail."
At this point in PEOPLE's phone call with Krivanek, she is asked by her cellmate to return the phone. The call was then cut off.
RELATED: Jailed American Sarah Krivanek Writes from Russian Penal Colony: 'My Soul Is in Torment'
Krivanek's stay in the penal colony was hard, leaving her at times "fearing for her life" because of bullying from inmates and mistreatment from staff. It appears that these mind games included giving her false hope that a flight home had been arranged.
She waited desperately for a visit from a U.S. diplomat after her clandestine phone call, but no one came out. The State Department previously told PEOPLE that they were aware of her arrest and were "monitoring the situation closely," and that requests to visit her in prison were "consistently delayed or denied" by Russian authorities.
Ryazan Novaya Gazeta The penal colony where Sarah Krivanek was held
Krivanek has remained remarkably strong throughout her ordeal. At one point, she asked to pass a message to her good friend Anita Martinez. The message said that she's "looking forward to sitting down to a celebratory Mexican meal" with Martinez upon her return to Fresno, California.
It is presently unclear how long Krivanek will be kept in the detention cell, designed for foreign citizens awaiting deportation. She's been told that in the next two days she will attend a court hearing which will "come to a decision about her deportation." The U.S. Embassy will immediately be notified.
After Krivanek's initial domestic abuse arrest last year, she was released on bail and sought advice at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. On Dec. 15 an American diplomat escorted her to Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport to fly home. Her electronic tickets were paid for by the embassy, but she was arrested by Russian police just before boarding the plane, thwarting her escape plan.
A U.S. State Department official previously told PEOPLE that at the time they were unaware Krivanek was out on bail, or that she had signed a written statement saying she would not leave the country.
RELATED: Sarah Krivanek Was 'Desperate' to Leave Russia Before She Was Arrested, Says Family Member
Krivanek's loved ones are not in a position to pay the prohibitively high cost of a flight from Moscow to Washington, and Krivanek herself does not have the means to organize her own flight home. Martinez has launched a GoFundMe campaign to fundraise for her flights, but still holds out hope that the State Department will now step in and assist with the costs.
"Hopefully they will finally get off their a---- and go see her and do something to help her!" she tells PEOPLE.
A spokesperson for the State Department told PEOPLE Monday that they are aware of an American's release from Russian prison and "are prepared to provide all appropriate consular assistance." The spokesperson would not go into details about their plan for Krivanek, citing privacy considerations.
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