Ray McGovern recites Alexander Pushkin's poem "Uznik" (The Captive)

A beautiful moment occurred during Ray McGovern's closing of his interview with Suzie Dawson, at the second #Unity4J online vigil in July 2018, when he surprised the audience with his fluent Russian by reciting a poem by Alexander Pushkin, written in Tsarist Russia in 1822, while incarcerated in Kishinev, the capital city of Moldova.

Uznik — The Captive

A captive, alone in a dungeon I dwell,
Entombed in the stillness and murk of a cell.
Outside, in the courtyard, in wild, frenzied play,
My comrade, an eagle, has punced on his prey.
Then, leaving it, at me he looks as if he
In thought and in purpose at one were with me.
He looks at me so, and he utters a cry.
"'Tis time," he is saying, "from here let us fly!
"We're both wed to freedom, so let us away
To where lonely storm clouds courageously stray,
Where turbulent seas rush to merge with the sky,
Where only the winds dare to venture and I!.."

Translated by I. Zheleznova