The Sunday Times - UK (2022-06-05)

The Sunday Times June 5, 2022 25

NEWS REVIEW

W

hen the hatch in the

cell door swung open

and I was summoned, I

wasn’t told why. I was

instructed to put my

hands through the

opening and cuffs were

tightly applied, then

the door was opened

and I was led through

two more locked doors and down some

stairs. Before I knew what was happening

a television camera with a bright light

was rolling, a microphone was thrust my

way and a presenter began asking ques-

tions: “Why did you photograph those

military sites? What do you think about

the situation in Ukraine? Why were you

conducting secret journalism? Why did

you come to Russia?”

I’d been planning my expedition to the

far east of Russia for almost a year. Yaku-

tia is the coldest inhabited place on

Earth, home to indigenous Siberians liv-

ing in some of the world’s most remote

settlements. By trekking 600 miles along

a zimnik — a seasonal ice road on frozen

rivers — pulling a sledge of supplies and

camping, I wanted to reach these com-

munities and experience the extreme

conditions they endure every winter.

As I began my journey from Heathrow

to Yakutsk, changing in Moscow, tens of

thousands of troops were being moved to

the Ukrainian border. But the world was

largely still viewing the build-up as a

bluff. I’ve travelled through dangerous

places before — cycling through Afghani-

stan, canoeing down a crocodile-infested

river in the Congo — and in my experi-

ence, things are rarely as dramatic as

they seem from the outside.

Three days after my arrival, however,

Putin launched his invasion. Thousands

were arrested at protests in Russian cities

and a new law introduced a sentence of

as much as 15 years in prison for spread-

ing “fake news” about the military, yet

life was carrying on as usual in Yakutsk.

As a tourist at the far end of Russia —

closer to Vancouver than Kyiv — I wasn’t

worried, but I followed Russian and west-

ern news coverage with rising despair.

They bore no relation to each other.

I began my trek in Batagay, above the

Arctic Circle, where billboards beseech

residents not to drink themselves into an

early grave. A record low of -67.8C was

once recorded 30 miles to the west. The

Foreign Office was already advising Brit-

ons to leave Russia, and while vague

doubts danced at the back of my mind, I

packed my sled, pulled it onto the river

and walked north into the wilderness.

My first run-in with police came after

three weeks. Two officers were waiting

for me several miles outside the all-but

abandoned industrial town of Ust-Kuiga.

One wore a frayed uniform and a pistol at

his hip. For an hour they asked questions

about my intentions in Russia and my

opinion on the situation in Ukraine, then

made me sign a document agreeing to

obey the laws of the Russian Federation.

I dragged my sled over hills to join the

Omoloy river, where the forest gave way

to tundra. I was welcomed politely by vil-

lage elders but detected a nervousness.

Ukraine was on everyone’s lips, and my

foreignness held the promise of trouble.

Cranes reared up from the skyline as I

approached the port of Tiksi, my final

destination. My hike was at an end, but

the nightmare was about to begin.

Two unsmiling policemen came to the

door of a drab Soviet-era apartment I’d

rented. They drove me to the station in an

ailing four-wheel drive “for registration”.

After a couple of hours of questions about

my purpose and intentions, I asked to

leave — and my request was denied. That

was when I realised I was under arrest.

Over the coming hours I was once

more accused of journalism, but with the

added offence of “photographing

restricted military sites”. I later discov-

ered that surface-to-air missile silos had

recently been installed nearby.

The court was hastily convened at

9.30pm on the third floor of a concrete

apartment block. A jumble of mis-

matched wooden chairs and tilting guard

rails were ranged before a lacquered

judge’s bench. The twin seals of Russia

and Yakutia hung on a wall of peeling

white paint. I was offered neither a law-

yer nor the chance to make a phone call.

This time a fine of £50 was accompa-

nied by deportation, and a five-year

ban from Russia. The judge was curt

and clinical: I would have to return to

Yakutsk and fly home. I was driven to my

apartment to pack, then back to the

police station. After a lengthy fingerprint-

ing process with old-fashioned ink roll-

ers, I was locked in a small, windowless

cell, where the light remained on all night

and I gazed glumly at my blackened

fingertips. Yet I felt relatively safe in

For 24

hours a

day I

was in a

cell with

two

security

cameras

Charlie Walker took a risk embarking on a trek through Russia’s frozen east

on the eve of the Ukraine invasion. The police soon caught up with him

Batagay

200 miles

Treks to Tiksi

3

Arrested

in Tiksi

4

Jailed in

Yakutsk

1

Yakutsk to

Batagay

Ust-Kuiga 2

Yana River

Omoloy

River

Ukraine

Tiksi should have been the final stop on Charlie Walker’s trip

My Siberian adventure

ended in Putin’s prison

NEWS REVVVVVVVVVVIIIIIIIIIIIIEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

the knowledge that I should be home in a

few days.

I was flown three hours back to Yak-

utsk, where two uniformed bailiffs were

waiting to drive me to the Centre for Tem-

porary Detention of Foreign Citizens,

where my belongings were placed in a

locker and I was marched into a cell. As

the heavy metal door clanged shut, I

couldn’t believe what was happening.

It was a prison by any other name. For

24 hours a day I was locked in a large cell

with four bunk beds and two security

cameras that recorded everything except

the small adjoining bathroom with sink,

curtain-less shower and seatless loo. I

shared the cell with a Kyrgyz man being

deported for working without a visa, and

a Ukrainian with a resounding snore who

had spent two years in a different prison

for an offence he wouldn’t disclose.

Initially I was told I would be there just

a few days before being sent home, but

those days came and went. The guards

shouted a lot and one of them frequently

called me a spy. Occasionally curiosity

would get the better of them and they

would ask me about Britain or Ukraine. I

refused to be drawn on the latter.

Every morning we were frisked and

the cell was thoroughly turned over in

search of weapons and drugs. Three

times a week I was given 15 minutes of

supervised access to my phone — just

about enough time to be updated by my

partner and family as they co-ordinated

with the Foreign Office and the British

embassy in Moscow to hasten my release.

My partner and a friend in Yakutsk

arranged for a local lawyer to appeal my

case. After a fortnight inside, I was taken

to a large, newly built courthouse in two

sets of handcuffs. The judge rejected my

appeal with barely a glance at the papers.

Moved to a cell on my own, my spirits

plummeted. I felt truly lonely for the first

time in years. The threat of a retrial and a

sentence of 15 years weighed heavily on

me. The footage of me being questioned

was broadcast on the local TV channel.

I had been behind bars for four weeks

when, all of sudden, on May 18, my

deportation finally began. I was allowed

to buy plane tickets via Moscow and

Dubai to coincide with the deportation of

three Central Asian prisoners. A two-per-

son Swat team took me through customs

and immigration in Moscow, where I was

finally given back my passport.

I thought the ordeal was at an end, but

was then directed into a side room. Six

new police officers spent an hour and a

half questioning me, searching my bags,

reading messages and emails on my

phone, scrolling through years of photos,

and trying to decipher the tiny, crabbed

writing in my diary. They seemed more

determined to prove me a spy than any of

my previous interrogators, and I started

to believe I wouldn’t be allowed to board

my Emirates flight. However, with only

minutes remaining to take-off, I was led

to the departure gate at a run.

The instant the wheels left the tarmac,

I broke down in tears for the first time —

an outpouring of relief and rage. My real

crime was being a British citizen in the

new Russia: a nation of rising paranoia

where the Soviet-era suspicion of foreign-

ers has been reborn. Yet I was lucky to

escape with only four weeks in prison.

Just one ambitious or vengeful official

and I might have been put away for years

in a post-truth system where facts and

evidence are now irrelevant.

Sit-ups can

shove off:

the new

fitness rules

We’ve finally worked out that the

age-old exercise does more harm

than good. Scarlett Wrench

debunks six more workout myths

— no pre-stretching required

adjustments, a surplus of

calories and a consistent,

challenging training

programme.

Putting on mass is even

tougher for women.

“Women don’t have as

much testosterone as men, so

it takes longer to build

muscle,” says Hendrick

Famutimi, a personal trainer

and champion powerlifter.

If getting leaner is your

goal, there’s good research to

show that strength-training

can be just as effective as

aerobic exercise for reducing

body fat. “The more muscle

mass you have, the more

efficient your body becomes

at burning fat, as your

metabolic rate increases,”

Zolkiewicz explains. At a

higher intensity, strength

sessions can also elevate your

heart rate, he says, providing

a hit of cardio too.

4

Walking doesn’t

count as real exercise

It’s a myth that cardio

is a “no pain, no gain”

endeavour. Naturally,

charging through a 5k will get

you fitter than a jaunt around

the park. But if longevity —

rather than elite endurance —

is your goal, there are plenty

of studies to back up walking’s

benefits. One paper in the

journal JAMA Internal

Medicine found that people

who clocked up 8,000 or

more steps a day had a

significantly lower risk of

heart complications than

those who did just 4,000.

Walking also strengthens your

leg muscles, as well as

supporting the muscles of the

lower back and core. The best

time for your stroll? After

meals: research shows a short

walk can help to balance your

body’s blood-sugar response.

5

You need to cut carbs

to lose body fat

The word “carbs” may

have become

synonymous with

stodge, but carbohydrates are

found in a variety of foods,

from vegetables to lentils. The

confusion arises from the idea

that, by raising blood sugar,

carb-based foods will trigger

fat-storage, says Lee Amico, a

nutrition coach who works

with athletes via his dietary

service Monday Muscle. But

modest fluctuations in blood-

sugar levels are normal and,

as long as you’re feeding your

body with the right amount of

energy to meet its demands,

there’s no cause for weight

gain. “As a benchmark, I’d

aim to get 30 per cent of your

daily calories from

carbohydrates,” Amico

suggests. “And for those

looking to get the best out of

their exercise sessions, I’d

recommend 30g-60g before

and after training.”

6

Pumping your arms

will slim them down

Perhaps one of the

most pervasive myths —

that tricep dips can

burn off the fat on the back of

your arms while crunches will

help you lose your belly — is

pseudoscientific.

“You can build muscle in

specific areas with weight

training, but you can’t spot-

reduce fat,” Famutimi says.

He likens body fat to a bowl of

water: you can lower the

overall level, but you

can’t drain it from

specific places. “The

benefit of arm-

strengthening exercises

is not to burn fat in that

spot, but to develop

muscle and change their

shape,” he says.

Scarlett Wrench is

senior editor at Men’s

Health UK

T

he sit-up is standing

down. That’s according

to a recent article in The

Atlantic magazine,

which chronicles the

demise of what was once the

world’s go-to abs exercise. No

longer a staple of the kind of

fitness tests deployed by both

army drill sergeants and

primary school PE teachers,

the sit-up is now thought to be

more trouble than it’s worth

due to the stress it places on

the lower spine. It seems our

bodies aren’t built to bend like

that — or at least not 50 times

in a row.

And who would miss it? It’s

hardly the most exciting of

movements. Nor the most

effective. “Sit-ups can be

considered an ‘isolation

exercise’,” explains the

personal trainer Artur

Zolkiewicz: they target

specific muscles rather than

strengthening your

midsection as a whole.

“There are plenty of

exercises that are superior to

sit-ups, ticking all the boxes to

make sure your core looks

good and functions well,” he

says. His favourites include

the Pallof press, the “suitcase

carry” and variations of the

plank. Other trainers suggest

the “deadbug” (lying on your

back and lifting your arms

and legs), or hollow holds.

But the supremacy of the

sit-up isn’t the only popular

fitness myth that is overdue a

rethink. Here are six more:

1

Short workouts don’t

make a difference

If quizzed on what

prevents us exercising,

most of us would cite

“lack of time”. But missing an

opportunity to work out

because you don’t have a full

hour to spare is a mistake.

Japan’s University of Tsukuba

found that a 10-minute jog is

sufficient to increase blood

flow to regions of the brain

that boost problem-solving —

handy for your lunch breaks

mid-week. A separate paper

in the Journal of Physiology

reports that as little as four

minutes of daily exercise can

improve heart function.

2

You need to stretch

before a workout

Most of us learnt to do

this in our school PE

lessons, but it’s not the

smartest way to warm up

before training. The clue is in

the name: a warm-up should

raise the temperature of the

muscles you’re about to work,

while boosting blood flow and

improving range of motion in

your joints. Which means

dynamic drills that get your

heart pumping are more

valuable than reach-and-hold

stretches.

“Studies show that static

stretching before training has

the potential to weaken

performance,” Zolkiewicz

says. “And there’s little

evidence that it will prevent

injury or mitigate muscle

soreness.” Instead, he

suggests saving it for your

post-exercise cool-down,

combined with deep

breathing exercises.

3

Weight training will

make you “bulky”

Adding visible muscle

mass involves serious

graft — many gym-goers

wish it were quite as simple

as picking up heavy objects

for a few weeks only to

wake up one

morning with

shirt-straining

biceps. In fact,

it requires

significant

dietary

water: you ca

overall l

can’t dr

specific

benefit o

strengt

is notto

spot, b

muscle

shape,

Scarle

senior

Hea

graft — many gym-goers

were quite as simple

ing up heavy objects

w weeks only to

up one

ng with

raining

. In fact,
ires
cant
y

amending them with paint.

When I attended an ARM raid

in Thaxted, Essex, the group’s

de facto leader (and former

Ukip candidate) Tony Bennett

told me he was motivated in

part by a desire to stop the

creation of a worldwide

government. This was

because God prefers that

humanity lives in “distinct

nations” — as proved by the

fate of the Tower of Babel.

Despite such objections, I

believe that the metric system

is, on the whole, a genuinely

utopian project. It is a success

of bureaucracy that has

allowed global trade and

scientific research to prosper

by providing a common

tongue. Introducing imperial

measures (if the plan proves

to be more than just a Jubilee-

week distraction) will not

hinder this work, only

inconvenience and alienate

the majority of Britons

already accustomed to metric

thinking.

It’s worth noting that the

metric system has often been

adopted by countries during

times of political upheaval.

Only when the old sureties of

life have been thrown into

disarray can changes to

anything as fundamental as

units of weight and measure

be considered. Johnson

hopes this is just such a

moment for the UK. But the

revolution is over, and metric

has already won.

Beyond Measure: The Hidden

History of Measurement, by

James Vincent, is published by

Faber (£18.99)

“unworkable” for exactly this

reason, bemoaning that the

metre’s definition “excludes,

ipso facto, every nation on

earth from a communion of

measurement”.

In the UK, these arguments

were bolstered by a heady

mixture of nativist

resentment and

pseudoscientific belief. The

metric system was decried

not only as a foreign

imposition that would

confuse and antagonise the

simple British, but an

unnatural and atheistic

invention of bloodthirsty

revolutionaries.

It might seem to odd to

suggest that units of

measurement have a spiritual

dimension, but this belief was

common in the 19th century.

In the 1860s, Scotland’s

astronomer royal, Charles

Piazzi Smyth, popularised the

theory that the inch was not

merely a unit of convenient

length and noble lineage but

a divine endowment from

God. After travelling to Egypt

to measure the dimensions of

the Great Pyramid at Giza, he

claimed the monuments were

built using a “sacred cubit”

and “pyramid inch” devised

by the Great Architect

himself. This theory was not

necessarily new — Isaac

Newton had devoted much

study to the sacred cubit —

but Smyth’s measurements

grounded the proposal in

supposedly scientific data.

Just as God had gifted Adam

with language, Smyth argued,

the Great Pyramid was

“devised likewise for the

metrology of all nations”. To

reject the inch, he said, was

to ignore providence itself.

Fast forward to today, and

while arguments against the

adoption of metric weights

and measures are not so often

based in pyramidology, they

retain a spiritual connection.

While researching my new

book on the measurement, I

got to know a group known as

Active Resistance to

Metrication, or ARM —

guerrilla fighters in Britain’s

unseen metrological war.

Their goal? To “oppose forced

metrication”. Their method?

Well, mostly attacking metric

road signs and signposts:

unscrewing them at night or

Foot fetishists

can’t win this

anti-metric

campaign

fretted that the new names

would alienate people and

that the definition of

the metre — derived

from the Paris

meridian and

fixed as one ten-

millionth of

the distance

from the

North Pole to

the Equator —

was too

localised to

France for other

nations to adopt.

Indeed, when

considering US

metrication at the

time, Thomas

Jefferson declared

the system

I

t was the judgment of the

historian Eric Hobsbawm

that “the most lasting and

universal consequence of

the French revolution is

the metric system”. And yet

in the UK seems determined

to try to hold back the

metrological tide. While

others nation have embraced

metric units as a universal

language of knowledge and

trade, here in “Global

Britain”, the government is

suggesting we return to our

local dialect by restoring

imperial units in shops. This

can never be.

Fighting the metric system

seems, at first, a little

quixotic. After all, who cares

whether you buy your fruit

and veg in pounds or kilos, so

long as the price is right? Yet

for millennia, control over

measurement has been

incredibly important for

countries, and this

connection between

metrology and sovereignty

still lingers today. Decrees

ensuring states have

consistent units of measure in

order to ensure fair trading

can be found in the world’s

oldest legal documents, from

the Babylonians’ Code of

Hammurabi to Magna Carta.

And, knowingly or not, Boris

Johnson is tapping in to this

historical lineage.

Hostility to metric weights

and measures is also nothing

new, and arguably predates

the metric system itself. Even

before the system was

finalised by the French

intellectual elite in the 1790s,

scientists and politicians

The pyramids

used a

‘sacred cubit’

The PM’s push for pounds and

ounces is the latest salvo in an

imperial war that has been raging

— pointlessly — for 200 years,

writes James Vincent

Tony Bennett

converts a

traffic sign

into yards