Snowden’s 1st Year in Russia: The Highlights

By Alexey Eremenko

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: June 24, 2014 (Issue # 1816)

Edward Snowden at TED2014 The Next Chapter, Session 2 Retrospect, Mar. 17-21, 2014, Vancouver Convention Center, Vancouver, Canada. Photo: James Duncan Davidson / TED

A year ago, an airplane carrying U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden landed in Russia. It has been a wild ride for him since: nonstop prize nominations, chats with presidents and marriage proposals from female spies, among other adventures. The St. Petersburg Times takes a look at some of the highlights of Snowden's first year in the land of vodka, oil and apparently freedom of information.

Stranded

All Snowden wanted to do was change planes in Moscow en route from Hong Kong to Ecuador, but then he disappeared. Journalists played the "where's Snowden?" game in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport for days on end with the enthusiasm of 5-year-olds, and a few even accompanied the empty seat supposed to hold Snowden all the way to his next transit stop, Havana.

He eventually emerged to admit that the enraged White House had canceled his passport and applied for asylum in Russia. The saga of Snowden's sojourn in the transit zone lasted for a biblical 40 days until the Kremlin granted his request. Lesson 1 for Snowden: Mother Russia does not let you go easily.

That Website Job

First on the to-do list of any immigrant even an intelligence fugitive is getting a job. Capitalizing on Russia's extreme shortage of IT experts, Snowden scored a job as a developer at an unspecified "major Russian website," according to his lawyer, but no one came out and admitted to having hired the U.S. government's pale, bespectacled public enemy No. 1.

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Snowden's 1st Year in Russia: The Highlights