Nadezhda Shtovba did not wear a white dress to her wedding. There were no bridesmaids or groomsmen. She and her husband, Yegor, did not exchange wedding bands either — rings are banned in Butyrka prison.
That is where Yegor Shtovba has spent the past 15 months in pretrial detention. In September 2022, he had read a love poem written for Nadezhda at a public gathering, his first time sharing his work in front of a crowd. He was detained that night as police raided the event, and he was eventually charged with "public calls for activities directed against state security.” Police accused him of cheering an anti-war poem read by another poet, an act that he denies.
His marriage to Nadezhda, in a short ceremony last month in a prison in downtown Moscow, was the first time the couple had any physical contact since his arrest.