WorldViews: A sober Snowden deems life in Russia ‘great’

MOSCOW Edward Snowden would like everyone especially his critics to know that he is happy with life in Russia. Happy, and also sober.

They talk about Russia like its the worst place on earth. Russia's great, the former NSA contractor told journalist James Bamford during an interview in Moscow for the PBS program "NOVA," which released a transcript of the conversation Thursday.

During the interview, Snowden focused on a speech that former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden had given in which he predicted that Snowden would depressed and drunk.

It was funny because he was talking about how I was everybody in Russia is miserable. Russia is a terrible place, Snowden recalled, hat-tipping Washington Post reporter Barton Gellmans coverage of the September 2013 speech. And Im going to end up miserable and Im going to be a drunk and Im never going to do anything.

Haydens exact prediction during that speech was that Snowden would end up like most of the rest of the defectors who went to the old Soviet Union: isolated, bored, lonely, depressed and most of them ended up alcoholics.

But even after two Russian winters, vodkas siren song apparently has no sway over Snowden.

I dont drink. Ive never been drunk in my life, Snowden said.

Snowden has been living in Moscow for more than a year, ever since the Russian government gave him asylum after the U.S. government revoked his passport, leaving him strandedatMoscows Sheremetyevo airport.

Snowden became the subject of an international manhunt after he revealed himself as the source of highly publicized leaks detailing previously unknown U.S. surveillance programs that led to articles in The Washington Post and the British newspaper the Guardian. He is wanted in the United States on theft and espionage charges.

Snowden, who is about six months into his three-year asylum term, has apparently been settling into life in Russia rather well. His exact whereabouts havent been publicized, but his girlfriend moved to Russia to be with him in July, according to the recent documentary Citizenfour."

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WorldViews: A sober Snowden deems life in Russia ‘great’